THE first photograph in this week’s trip down West Fife’s Memory Lane shows the building that was the community centre on Touch housing estate.

Lesley Connell remembers the estate from the 1970s: “We moved to Touch in 1970 so I remember walking past the hall and going to discos there etc. We lived in a house looking out onto the footy pitch at the school. I remember the wee green van with toys and games for kids coming in the summer holidays to the school pitch. That was when vans brought things to you. Not a bad idea in a pandemic!”

Hazel Ross also remembers the area well: “I remember my dad had his works van home, Graham & Mortons, and most of the kids from Fodbank View piled in the bank as we had to go to Blacklaw until Touch Primary opened. I moved from Touch in 1984 but came back in 2001. We moved originally into Touch when the houses were first built; a lot of the families came from the prefabs on Bernard Shaw Street. I started working in Shariffs shop when I was about 13 and ending up knowing most folk.”

The second photograph is of the Glen Bridge which was completed in 1932, one of the largest reinforced concrete bridges of its kind in Scotland. The cost was £40,379 and it was opened by Provost T Gorrie.

The Dunfermline Journal reported in November 1923 on what was seen at that time as the need for such a bridge: "Dunfermline Town Council is at last bestirring itself to the urgency of finding a solution to the traffic problem. The Streets Committee are presently considering a proposal to throw a bridge across the Glen between Damside Street and Pittencrieff Street, giving a thoroughfare from the east to the west of the city without the necessity of traffic passing down the High Street. The construction of this roadway is long overdue, for the congestion on the principal streets of Dunfermline on a Saturday is almost beyond description. and the wonder is that so few accidents occur. What with bulky tramcars situating their way through the crowds and motor vehicles dodging from side to side to make headway and avoid a collision, there is conjured up in the mind a little bit of London."

In the second photograph of the Glen Bridge the road on the left, Chapel Street, is where buses now exit from the bus station. The VW Beetle exiting from Bruce Street further down would have been able to continue over the junction to Damside Street which can be seen in our final image, but that street was closed off to make way for the new Tesco store which is now situated there.

Gillian Wells notes the lights hung over the bridge: “I walk that bridge daily and truly never tire of its beautiful structure. Love the lights strung everywhere in this picture – always thought that was a modern thing.”

More photographs like these can be seen in Dunfermline Carnegie Library and Galleries when it re-opens to the public and also at facebook.com/olddunfermline.

With thanks to Frank Connelly.