Maw, Bonnybridge life and women's work

The below url link gives  a very good description of Bonnybridge toll area, walking up from the Toll, past the area, just before the pend, under the Forth and Clyde Canal, where your Grannie Ellis played as a wee girl, past the Stewarts’ meal mill.
http://www.falkirklocalhistorysociety.co.uk/home/index.php?id=52

Then, through the pend,  and up Bonnyside road, to the CHATTAN Foundry, where my Dad, George Reid Ellis worked as a stove fitter. As weel as me George Forrest Ellis as a paperboy standing outside the foundry selling evening papers, 5 evenings a week [mon-fri]
Then, past the house[Rose Cottage] that my dad boarded in after coming back from Canada.  He met Mum at Rose Cottage, on Bonnyside Rd, Bonnybridge, as she was ‘hired’ as a ’nursing support’ to Mr Mitchell, the brother of the two sisters in the house.

He was the owner of Mitchell’s foundry,[ not ‘related’ to Mitchell and Russell’s Foundry].

Maw was doing domestic chores for the owners, Messrs Mitchells and their brother who owned another foundry.

Maw also worked years at a full weeks work in the plating department at the Chattan[or the Smith & Wellstood foundry-i’m not sure?] foundry, where dad worked, as a stove fitter.

They then got married and stayed in a room in the Mitchell’s house,where they met, as Dad, back from Canada, was boardng there until oor Billy was born in 1941.

However disaster struck, Dad had invited one of his elder brothers, Jim, up from Bo’ness, to celebrate the birth of their baby, Billy, our oldest sibling.
But!!!!,  accidents tend to happen when you drink too much and piss the bed. That’s why they call beer, ‘PISS’,  as that usually is the end result!
So, somehow Maw had to organize new accommodation. Hence, the shift to the ground floor tenement one bedroom flat, next to Wull Smith’s the butcher Shop.
This was in Jubillee Place, up the main street, where I [and oor wee brithir, John, was born, in 1943 and Jock was born in 1945.
It also was a haven for rats, given the mix of offal and blood from the butcher’s shop. Maw went into action and pestered the local Councillor.

So, Maw walked the 2 mile return trip to one of the Local Councillors up at Seabegs, ‘harassing' him to give her better accommodation, which he did.
Thus, oor shift to Gateside Avenue, a new housing scheme, where we had No15, the two storey houses were just started to being built.
Maw organised the use of Jimmy?? Neilson’s horse drawn milk float to  flit oor furniture-as it was!
NOW, fast forward to 1958, where I started my apprenticeship s a Metal Fabricator/Welder

NB Dad got me my job as a 5 yr apprentice Fabricator/Welder from 1958 -1963. Mum and I married in August 1963, and migrated on the 12 December, arriving in Sydney 13 Jan 1964 on the MV FAIRSKY.

Mum, was seasick, or so she thought, which is why we have Lisa!

So, all the nonsense of wimmin no being able to work, shows the hypocrisy in a very sexist and elitist male dominated world.
LUVS MA WIMMIN