Obituary: Agnes Davison; she and her husband did much to help Dumbartonians during and after the war

My mother Agnes Davison was inevitably but affectionately known in Dumbarton as “Kit’s wife”. She was the “woman behind the man”, the man being my father, Kit Davison, whose multi-goods shops – known as Davison’s Emporium – were something of an institution in the town from the post-war years on.

Agnes Stewart Rodger was born in “the Vale of Leven” on 4 June, 1918, in Victoria Street, Alexandria, a block below the famous Gallone’s ice-cream parlour – “the best ice-cream in the world”.

After meeting, she and my dad did their “winchin’” on walks over Carman from the Vale to Cardross (where they would settle, a few yards from the golf club, many years later on retirement).

Like everyone of their generation, the war defined the lives of my mum and dad. While he was a fireman, he dug out countless victims of the Clydebank Blitz, an experience which changed him forever but strengthened his Christian faith.

Huddling “up the close” at their home on Meadowbank Street, Dumbarton (where I was born just after the war), they were also not far from the Luftwaffe bombs and parachute mines which hit the castle and, particularly, Clyde Street and Leven Street.

My mum often recalled seeing my dad trek off up the Long Crags to set fire to the hills, to fool the Luftwaffe and distract them away from the shipyards. It worked; the Crags got pounded, the shipyards largely survived and my parents were very proud of that.

During that time, like all her contemporaries, my mum supported the war effort by helping build Sunderland bombers for the RAF at the Blackburn factory on Castle Road. Leaving work, she often saw the flashes of bombs across the river, in Port Glasgow and Greenock.

She and Kit also supported those brave foreigners who had fought alongside our boys during the war.

Our later home, a house called Burnawn on Stirling Road, was rarely without non-paying lodgers – mostly Polish pilots who had flown with the RAF or Polish soldiers who had liberated Monte Cassino. They could not go home because their country had been taken over by the Soviets, and my parents were among the many Britons who never forgot their sacrifice.

One of my mum’s tragicomic memories was of watching my dad arrest one of his best friends, Charlie Casci, owner of Dumbarton’s finest café and ice-cream shop.

Charlie was as Dumbartonian as my dad was but he had been born in Italy, and Italy was on the German side. So Kit escorted “the enemy alien” Charlie – the two of them reportedly laughing their heads off – to house arrest off the Bonhill Road, where Joe spent the rest of the war.

Needless to say, my mum and dad were among the countless people who brought Charlie food and special treats throughout that time. Apparently, he had put quite a bit of weight on by the time the war ended and he re-opened the café on Church Street.

After the war, Kit saw a business opportunity. Dumbarton was a town full of war widows trying to get hold of goods they had lacked during the war – “China” (tea sets etc), toys, pots and pans. While he drove to and from Glasgow in his Wolseley (registration BSD 31), often with his infant son (me), to buy from retailers, Agnes ran the shop, using a big maroon ledger known as the Provident book.

There was little money around and this was a credit system to ease the problems of those war widows and others.

The problem was: Kit Davison was a big softie. As a child hanging out in the shop, I recall hearing so often: “Awe, Kit, could I pay ye next week?” “Aye, hen, nae bother.”

According to my mum, my dad never got money for half the stuff he sold. He was not cut out to be a millionaire. Their first shop was at 30 Church Street, a stone’s throw from Dumbarton Central Station. Then they moved to a bigger, swankier shop at 5 Castle Street, a prime location since Denny’s shipyard was still throbbing and Ballantine’s distillery was also opposite.

Agnes became a top saleswoman of (reconditioned, because they were cheaper) overalls or “bib ’n’ brace.” My only sister Nan (now Nan Lindsay) would later join them in the business, which later moved to Glasgow Road in the Newton, east Dumbarton, until my parents retired.

Having spent most of their lives as stalwarts of Dumbarton Baptist Church, they retired to the village of Cardross, on a hill where they could look over to a peaceful Greenock and Port Glasgow. Both in failing health in the late 1990s, they entered Balvaird Nursing Home in Helensburgh, where my father passed away in 2001.

They were lifelong singers – my dad was a tenor – from church choirs to local concerts and, latterly, to entertain their fellow “guests” and nurses in Helensburgh. How Great Thou Art was perhaps their favourite hymn and I’ve seen them reduce audiences to tears.

In early April, my mother had a downturn and was rushed to the Royal Alexandra Hospital in Paisley. It was a Saturday night and she had the misfortune to be bypassed by young stabbing victims and others. She was left in a corridor for five hours, all the while her hand being held by a young carer, Emma, who had gone with her in the ambulance from Helensburgh.

This is not a complaint against the RAH, which subsequently did a fine job in treating her.

After an improvement, she was moved to the Vale of Leven hospital, a stone’s throw from her birthplace, then back to Balvaird nursing home and her “own” room. She passed away there on 18 April, in the same house in which her husband had died ten years earlier.

Phil Davison