Charitable trust winds up with one last gesture

Oct 6 2010 by Douglas Dickie, Rutherglen Reformer

CARERS groups in Rutherglen and Cambuslang have benefited from a charitable trust.

Rutherglen Carers and Cambuslang Community Carers have both been handed cheques for £14,500 from the Craig Memorial Convalescent Home Trust, which is being wound-up after 64 years.

Originally started by a group of employees at Colvilles Ltd to commemorate those who died in the Second World War, the trust has continued even after the convalescent home that they opened in 1946 closed its doors in 1993.

With many of the trustees now leaving the industry, it was decided to hand over the last of their capital, £86,000, to worthy causes.

Representatives from the carers groups were at the Clydebridge factory in Cambuslang to pick up their cash as trustees said an emotional farewell to the trust.

Tom Roy is an advisor to the trust, and he explained: “It was started as a convalescent home with the Colville workers and company contributing. It was a war memorial and it gave steelworkers somewhere to go for two weeks if they were sick or injured.

“But numbers dropped, income dropped and demand dropped so it was then decided, as was provided in its constitution, to close the home and use the money for charitable purposes.

“They have kept that going but the trustees have now started to leave the industry so it was decided to wind it up.

“These causes are based in steelworking areas and have received money from the trust over the years.”

The original Craig Memorial Convalescent Home opened in June 1946 at Skelmorlie on the Clyde Coast. It then moved to a smaller facility at Largs in 1986.

The other groups to benefit were the Friends of Dalziel Centre in Motherwell, St Andrew’s Hospice in Airdrie, MacMillan Cancer Support, the Renal Unit Foundations at Monklands Hospital and the Maranatha Centre in Motherwell.