One of life's coincidences

The Viator • Published 5 Aug 2009 14:00

LIFE is full of coincidences. I recently carried a picture of former Port Glasgow High School teacher Nan Maxwell standing in front of a restored 1980 ex-Western SMT and Clydeside Leyland Leopard single decker which had Port Glasgow on its destination board.

The bus is owned by Kenny Barclay who was brought up in Kilmacolm but now lives in Irvine.

By coincidence Kenny's mother Elizabeth, whose maiden name was McBay, was also a school teacher. She worked in a number of local primary schools then became a head teacher at Springfield Primary in Greenock before moving to teach in the Erskine area.

Elizabeth was brought up in Octavia Street and Brown Street in Port Glasgow.

Kenny has been interested in buses for many years and travelled to and from Gryffe High School in Houston on the Leyland Leopard he now owns.

He has three restored buses. The Leopard and another former Western SMT and Clydeside vehicle - a 1980 Leyland Fleetline double decker - are kept at the Glasgow Vintage Vehicle Trust and his 1987 former Eastern Scottish Volvo Citybus double decker is based at the Scottish Vintage Bus Museum at Lathalmond, near Dunfermline, where Nan Maxwell was pictured with the 'Port Glasgow' bus during an open day.

Kenny was a restaurant manager for 10 years and then retrained as a train driver six years ago.

He now enjoys working passenger trains around Glasgow and Ayrshire, having previously driven freight trains for EWS.

In closing, I referred to coincidences in my introduction.

Here's another one. The Nan Maxwell mentioned in this story is the wife of the Arthur Maxwell in today's old Junior Chamber picture.

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This article appeared in Greenock Telegraph 04 Aug 09

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