At 91 years of age Leo McClymont is one of Gatehouse of Fleet’s most senior citizens.
Born and bred in the town, like many Gallovidians before him Leo left home as a young man to work away for a number of years.
He first trained as a builder with local firm GH Ferguson and, aged 21, he demolished and rebuilt the family home in Catherine Street.
By his mid-20s Leo fancied seeing a bit more of the world and in 1953 he attended college in Galashiels to study building and surveying.
He left Gatehouse to gain further qualifications at college in England and landed a surveying job with the Ministry of Works on various projects in the Middle East.
By the mid-60s Leo was back in Scotland for a career change and, after graduating from Jordanhill College, he taught at Dumfries then Kirkcudbright Academy until he retired.
Leo has accumulated a lifetime of memories from over nine decades of ups and downs, joys and sorrows.
But among the most vivid are those from the war years.
Leo said: “I was born in Gatehouse in December, 1928 and was ten years of age when war was declared in September 1939.
“I remember the arrival of the Glasgow evacuees with their little cases and gas masks.
“They looked tired and bewildered as they were collected by the families who would look after them.
“They were all very young as the school leaving age was 14 at that time.”
The influx of city children meant a make-do-and-mend approach to education in the town.
“There were no proper PT facilities because of the enlarged classes,” said Leo.
“We had a visiting PT teacher who took us in the Rutherford Hall and sometimes the Town Hall.
“The Cally Hotel was turned into a school for older pupils, mainly from Hillhead High School.
“Some of the young evacuees at Gatehouse had older brothers and sisters at the Cally School which had wooden classrooms on the front lawn.
“There were often family connections with pupils in both schools.”
Living in the early years of the war meant practice air raid warnings were frequent occurences, even in Gatehouse.
“We were led well clear of the school building and crawled with our gas masks on under the roadside hedge,” Leo recalled.
“We had to lie there until the teacher blew his whistle for the all clear.
“In times of high alert heavy linked wire trestles were placed across the Fleet Bridge, leaving a narrow side way for local use.
“Older men who were fit formed the Home Guard and senior Boy Scouts were used as messengers during Home Guard exercises.”
“There were very few cars on the road,” Leo added.
“Horses and carts replaced tractors which were very basic and unreliable and used precious petrol and diesel.”
Some of the toughest troops in the army had their base in the town.
“The Royal Marine Commandos were stationed in Gatehouse,” said Leo.“They were billeted in private houses with families who had suitable accommodation.
“Their guard room was the small building between the Murray Arms and the Masonic Arms. Ann Street was their parade ground and had assault courses over the river and in the trees.
“They attended the local dances and held concerts. Some of them were very good singers.
“Occasionally they went to the Highlands for further training at Achnacarry in Cameron country.
“There is a monument there to them beside the Great Glen at Spean Bridge.”
Captured Italian servicemen did not take too unkindly to life in Galloway, Leo recalled.
“Italian prisoners of war came from a camp near Twynholm,” he said. “They worked for the Forestry Commission in the woods and came in a truck with a British driver.
“It was supposed he had a rifle but he read the paper and slept all day. The prisoners would have to wake him up to get back to their camp.”
For some detainees their time in Scotland was to become permanent.
“Some prisoners married local girls and the rest went back to Italy,” said Leo. “So ended their war.”
Some 13 years before the war began another conflict led to bloodshed: the 1926 General Strike.
The bitter dispute took place two years before Leo was born but he still remembers being told about it.
“A group of miners – they would have been from Ayrshire – travelled through to Gatehouse to give a street concert in Catherine Street,” he said.
“They were dressed up as Kentucky Minstrels and passed around a collecting tin for pennies to feed their families.”
In his youth Leo was a founder member of the town’s I’ll Mak Siccar Band, which struck its first notes just as war ended in 1945.
The quaint name alludes to one of the most notorious episodes in Scottish history when Robert the Bruce stabbed royal rival John “The Red” Comyn at the high altar in Greyfriars Church in Dumfries.
Bruce was uncertain if he had killed the Comyn outright so his aide-de-camp Roger de Kirkpatrick rushed back in shouting: “I’ll mak siccar”, meaning “I’ll make sure”.
The brass band was given its name by James Ramage Kirkpatrick of Gatehouse who claimed direct descent from Roger and wished to pay musical tribute to his ancestor’s fateful words and their role in the incident upon which turned the destiny of a nation.
James set up a trust fund in his will for the formation of the brass band in the town, which Leo joined aged 16.
“I believe I am the last surviving member of that band,” Leo said. “I played various instruments but mainly the cornet and euphonium.
“I played with them until very recently. Now I just enjoy my wee daily walks round the town.”
