My query about Dennis Connor set my old mind thinking about other folk I went to Hilden school with.
The Spence family who lived in the annexe to the big barn where dances were held is one family which comes to mind.
I can remember four children ( 2 boys, 3 girls), but there may have been more, There is photograph of Harry in the photo section. Does the Hilden memory bank have any thoughts?

OOPS!!!
Should read(2 boys, 2 girls)

Lowroader
Joe Keenan, Jim McArdle, Sean Hughes, Bobby Richenson, Billy Freeman, Jim Shields,David Browdey and Jim Kennedy all from Hilden must have been around your age. I must say I do not recollect the family Spence you mentioned or where they lived.I faintly remember the dances in the loft as we were sometimes allowed to peep in.
donald

Hi Donald did you ever belong to the club in the EMB ran by Andy Broady it was affiliated with the Federation of Boys Clubs and a lot of the senior members were very generous with there time Kingsberry, Kirkwood, I think Mc Crea come to mind and there was more but alas the memory recently has a habit of letting me down ,I remember one year in particular we went to Newcastle for a week scaled Sleiv Donard swam in the coldest pool I was ever in there in Newcastle we were under canvas at the bottom of the mountain , and marched every morning and evening down to the Strand Restaurant for Breakfast and in the evening for Dinner, any time I visit Newcastle when passing the Strand I always think of that enjoyable period of sheer innocence in the company of a great Club members ,Regards Ted

Hello Ted,
Donald is probably a bit young to have been in the Club when Andy Brodie was in charge but he was certainly in it in later years.
You are spot on with your names. I can add a few more.
Johnny and Bobby McCabe who ran the club for some time after Andy gave it up.
Noel Stevenson,Norman May,Maurice Connor and there were many more.
In later years the club stayed in an old shed up by the railway station and ate in the Golf Hotel on the corner where there is now a chemist's shop.
I remember well the walks up Slieve Donard and still consider Newcastle as my favourite holiday spot.
BTW there is a photograph in the "Clubs" section of a group of members waitig to go into the Strand.

Donald,
I cannot believe that the “Memory Man” does not remember the Spence family.They lived in what we would now call an annexe to the loft you refer to.One of the sisters was called Betty.
I remember very clearly Jim McArdle & Bobby Richardson very well.Sean Hughes I knew well also although he was older than me. Billy Freeman was, again, older than me but I knew him. I do not remember Jim Shields or Joe Keenan. David Brodie (Andy’s son) was a lot older and although I knew him from the Boy’s club I would have to say he was an acquaintance. Jim Kennedy was much younger than me.
LR

Hello Low Roader 3 times I have attempted to answer your input and it is now beyond a joke regarding Spam sorry I will try later today Regards Ted

Lowroader / Ted
I remember Andy Browdy making us practice " When Johnny comes marching home again", to sing as a choir for Colonel Smith, Sir Milne´s son-in-law who attended the annual summer and Xmas performances. We were invited each year to their residence in Newcastle. We went with a hired bus and were given a bag of buns and a small lemonade to appease the hunger pangs. When we arrived Mrs Smith showed us around the estate and then we were served tea and sandwiches in the barn. An adventure then.
Lowroader, you forgot two instructors, Malachy Lavery, Ann and Pat´s brother and a very hard taskmaster , Ronnie Stevenson.
Malachy always had a row of fountain pens in his top pocket and I could not resist the temptation and stole one. Something I will never forgive myself for.
donald

Lowroader
Sean Hughes once wrote here on the forum, he was then a Professor at the University of Philadelphia. I will never forget one Saturday morning in Hilden over 60 years ago, I was standing at the corner and he came to visit his family in Mill Street and we spoke to each other. I asked him his age and he said he was 14. I remember thinking that was very old.
donald

Hi Lowroader, I remember the Spence family who lived in the barn.
John was in my class in school,Tom owns a bakery on the Longstone
and one on the Moss Rd. Lambeg. I still go to Lisburn at Christmas
to buy one of his Christmas puddings ( yum yum ). Betty married and
lives in Tandragee. I think Harry lives about the Maze somewhere.
Do you remember their baby brother drowning in Mrs Gorden's swimming
pool. She had it drained after that sad event in case if happened to
any of the rest of us. Jean Spence died many years ago, she was older
than Betty. That's all I can remember about the Spence just now, I'm
sure there is lots more in this head of mine I just can't find it at
the minuite. Pam

Don't know why my last posting is spaced out that way. But sure I'm spaced out myself. Pam

Pamela,
Thank heavens you replied. I was beginning to think I was imagining things when Memory Man Donald could not remember them.
Yes, I do remember the pool incident because we used to climb over Billy Long's wall and go to the pool and we thought at first it was drained to stop us. (Full of our own importance!!!).
I do not remember John but do remember all the others.

I remember the pool but was never there. There were always horses in the field surrounding it.A boy named Harry Flynn used to go and groom and feed them. I seem to remember he later emigrated to Australia and became a groom or a jockey.
donald

Harry Flynn born the night of the night of the blitz !!!!!!!!

Pamela,
It really is a small world.
I met Harry's niece(Muriel's daughter)a few weeks ago. She lives a short distance from me, but did not like to "bother me" (her words).
I told her that her uncle Eddie had been at my wedding over fifty years ago and she was amazed.

Pamela
Speaking about the blitz, I remember hearing that in Hilden mill there was a look-out post on the roof of the "old mill" which was manned day and night by employees, my uncle Bobby and Davy Edgar being in the team. Also a patrol of locals to ensure that the windows were covered and no light escaped to lead the bombers to the mill.It was rumored that the "guttie slipper man " was active then.
Funny how such words found their way into the English language, "blitz" and "Kindergarten " but to mention two.
When our mother died in 1949 and we moved from "the locks" with our few sticks of furniture their was a remnant from WW11 in our back bedroom, an infant´s gas cradle. It was designed that in the event of a gas attack the parents would put the child inside, zip it up and pump filtered air into it manually. My father told me that our mother was always afraid that if something happened to the parents there would be no one to operate the hand pump and the child would suffocate.
donald

That could have been his father, I think the Joe Keenan was related to our member Ted
donald

Joe was my first cousin alas now deceased also his wife died shortly after ,they lived in Dundalk Regards Ted

Barney the one your speaking of was an uncle of the one Donald is referring to he was always refered to as young Joe he was an architect I think he drew up the plans for the Hibs Ted

I remember an eddie Flynn was he a connection of harry he went to Australia as well

did the Maurice connor come from victory st if so he would have been my cousin

I thought Marice lived in what was then Hilden Avenue(now Delacherois Avenue), but I could be wrong.

Marice should, of course, read Maurice.

I must correct my post where Seán Hughes is a Professor in Philadelphia , it should be in Pittsburgh.
donald

I now have a real chance to test your Hilden memories folk.
Do you remember Hunter Fisher and his sudden disappearance?
BTW, there was nothing sinisiter in it.

Didn´t he live beside Mark Miller in the row of houses beside the "wee park"? If ma memory serves me correctly he moved to England to attend a private school managed by a religious group.
donald

You got a wee bit right.
He did in fact live in the red row close by the wee park.
His father must have been something senior in the mill as those houses were, I believe , reserved for that type of person.
His father died when Hunter was in his early teens and Hunter disappeared.
When we saw him next he told us that he was a boarder at the Masonic school in Dublin. I believe had a sister who may have gone to a similar school in England.
I'll give you 4 out of ten for that.
I still cannot believe you do not remember the Spence family!

Lowroader
Those houses were owned by Glenmore Bleaching Company. At one end lived a person called McCabe who managed the Technical dept there. At the other end lived the wages clerk Mark Miller, it was commonly known he went in the 9.oo am bus each Friday to Lisburn town centre and lifted the weeks wages for the staff in cash which he packed in a briefcase and returned to Hilden at almost the same time each week in a taxi.Unthinkable today.

Other subjects concerning Hilden we discussed here in 2006 was Sir Milne Barbour´s father walking from Derryaghy to his "work" in Hilden mill daily and Sir Ivan Ewart who owned Linen mills in Belfast often travelling from his residence at Derryvolgie House, Hilden (Vera,is that spelt correctly?) in the train from Hilden Halt to his "work" in Belfast (1st Class naturally).He wore an eye-patch, possibly due to a war injury.
donald