Person:Robert Carson (19)

Robert Hunter Smith Carson (1890-1977) Robert, known as Bob, the second child of William and Elizabeth, was also a bright boy and the dux of Stevenston Public School. Before leaving school he acted for a time as a pupil teacher, a system whereby due to the shortage of trained teachers, the older pupils taught the younger. He was not lucky enough, however, to go to college, possibly as his mother could not afford to send more than one child there. While a boy, Robert had an unfortunate accident with an arrow which damaged one eye, which he later lost. His first employment was as a farm labourer on the Diddup farm near Stevenston.

In 1912 he decided to improve his lot by emigrating to Australia, where his uncle Samuel Smith, his mother's brother, had done well for himself, becoming a trade union leader, a member of the New South Wales Parliament and a member of the Arbitration Court. It is believed his uncle may have promised to help him get a job. Robert travelled around Australia a great deal and had a number of jobs, including on a steamer serving islands in the Great Barrier Reef in Queensland. It seems that Robert could not settle "down under" and he returned to Scotland in 1914. During the First World War he served briefly as a gunner in the Machine Gun Corps, where he spent several weeks in the front line in Flanders before having the good fortune to be discharged from the Army, probably because of his poor eyesight. After this he moved to Paisley where he worked at Potterhill Railway Station. While there he met Helen Neilson (known as Nellie), daughter of James Neilson and Annie Briggs, who was working in service at one of the big houses in the nearby Thornly Park district. They married in Paisley in 1918. The employment situation between the wars was difficult in the west of Scotland and Robert moved from job to job a great deal, as well as experiencing periods of unemployment. Robert and Helen lived in Paisley nearly twenty years and had two sons.

Robert and Helen Carson In 1939 the family moved to Canal Street, Saltcoats, where Bob took on a general store vacated by his aunts, Elizabeth and Agnes Carson. After a fairly short time, the aunts wanted back into the shop, so Bob managed to obtain another general store in Parkend Road, Saltcoats and lived with Nellie in the room behind the shop. During the Second World War, Bob worked in the ICI explosives factory at Ardeer, formerly Nobel's, and Nellie ran the shop. Bob retired in 1952 and he and Nellie then moved to a larger flat upstairs in the same building, before obtaining tenancy of a old people's flat in Canal Street. Bob died in 1977 aged 87 and Nellie died in 1982 aged 89.