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As a child growing up in Glenrothes in the 50s and 60s my legs would be trembling with excitement going to the Links Market !!!

It was once a thriving hub of the community and people met up in the shops and caught up with each other and life in general; it's a shadow of its former self now - and most of the town centres in the country are the same... Can't help but feel a bit sad about this.

Grew up in Glenrothes in 60s and 70s - Kircaldy then was the place to be ! 5 or 6 cinemas !!

My wife is from fife although been in England almost 25 years. From lochore

Another great video shame about the weather down there i see you got up to Central Pier but its a shame you never went over to see the Daddy of youtube at his £1 burger shop . ok Chat soon enjoy the rest of your stay

08:02 H&M was the former Woolworths

What a lovely amazing video

Hey

He how are you

Thanks you making videos like this. I would come to Scotland a lot take my gran out shopping and in Glenrothes a lot . Keep good videos ❤

Thanks for that, guys - I haven't seen the harbour from the seaward side since before they built the flats alongside the main road - nor indeed had a good look over that end of sea wall since it was rebuilt...!! Now, regarding the old swimming baths: I can remember when it was being built, in the early 1970s! (It's one of the few advantages of being an historic monument you see - I'm expecting to get listed, one of these days, LOL!! The Mercat, you see, was built at least two phases. The first bit was where you walk in from the High Street, and the wee bit round the corner at the end, finishing just past Boots' back door... There was also a back entrance to BhS right in the corner; and they built a new, long and narrow bit at the back of Marks & Spencers, so that it also had a door that opened into the new Mercat Centre. The then big shop, which was the one facing you, side-on, as you approached the end of the Mercat from the High Street entrance, opened as Tesco. And, it seemed absolutely huge at that time: the food bit was downstairs, by the back (car park) entrance, where there were also new public toilets; and there was a set of stairs in the wee space opposite Boots' back door (the 'new' bit of the shop being about three times the size of the old one!). This took you down to the street level by Tesco's door - or up to the car park levels - even though there was an escalator and another set of stairs just inside Tesco's parallel to the end wall. (And, I might add, that was the first escalator Kirkcaldy High Street - great excitement, eh?!!). Now, these were the days when, not only were they still building similar developments up and down the land in the same, brutalist reinforced concrete: they also built aerial walkways between them and the adacent buildings, some of which we enclosed and others were open to the elements... And so, such a bridge was erected to connect the Mercat / High Street level with the new swimming pool - whose main entrance was at this, the back side of the building and up at a high first floor level - with the bridge then continuing along much of the length of the building, as an open walkway right along to anoter set of stairs down to ground level. The second plase came in the early 1980s and added the rest of the Mercat that we see today - with the new multi-storey car park that reaches right down to the Esplanade, new toilets at the back, plus a few more shops. The upper floor of the old Tesco's became Woolworth's - I think Tesco kept the ground floor for a little while. Around the same time, The Postings and the new, combined bus station were opened, and Littlewoods (later Debenhams and New Look) almost doubled in size. Tesco didn't move in right away, as for the first few years the supermarket was a Wm Low's - but when Tesco acquired the entire Wm Low chain; they changed all the signs to Tesco ones and left The Mercat for good. I should just share a further memory with you about the old sea wall, much of which was build in the 1930s. For much of thhe Esplanade's length, there were actually two concrete walls with a space between the inner and outer ones that was about the width of a car. I see they've covered much of what used to be a somewhat uninviting sandy beach with those big boulders now, which on the day you recorded your video at least, seemed to be doing a good job at holding the tide back. Previously, the outer sea wall - which rose to about 4 feet above the pavement level, dropped vertically down to the sand. With nothing to stop the tide coming right in when it was high, this resulted in waves hitting the wall and immediately travelling vertically upwards, and in many cases, continuing into the air, from which it was supposed to fall back into the sea - but often spalshed over into the space between the two walls... Even on calm days, this made the walk along the front quite exciting, as you had to try to dodge these big splashes that would appear every few yards without warning! On days when the sea was rough, you had little choice to walk on the town side of the second wall, next to the road; as all the waves got battered against the outer side of the outer wall at speed - and it was quite exciting to watch them rise ten or fifteen feet into the air before dropping into the space or, in extremely bad weather conditions, over the few brave souls who'd parked their cars down there, on the road side of the inner wall. The old country bus station with its' long concrete shelter, each featuring many a missing window panel, could be pretty cold and damp, too...!! It was however pretty rare for the road to be closed due to flooding, which was just as well, because it was the main A92 trunk road through Fife back then - the so-called East Fife Distributer Road still a far off dream on the planners' drawing boards!

There must be a lot of depressed Unionists on this channel who have nothing better to do than slag off Scotland and its people. Some seriously need to get help with their mental health issues.

The council just spend 1.5 million on a nursery in beverage park should have had a look.

Well done on the 300, took me years to get there. When you heard the Ambulance I did think you were going to say, It's all kicking off in Kirkcaldy... Oh, it's just an Ambulance. I was round there the other day doing a video from my car for a channel I'm thinking of setting up. or might just put on my current channel. Take care out there in the mean streets of Fife,

Hi how are you

I was about the 280th subscriber. Congrats on 300. 500 will come very soon I reckon . The novar bar used to sell 2 courses for about 12 quid. But the portions were ridiculous. I had a starter and it was the size of a main meal. When the main course came I barely touched it. It's different now.

Thank You Both for an interesting video - have you done a video on Anstruther.

When I was a kid I use to fish where your situated at the harbour and the flour mill was called Hutchinson's the end shop with wine coloured paint was called tacklemart as your walking to begin with heading to high street

Kirkcaldy is one of the places ive not had the pleasure of visiting yet but it looks really nice looks a wee bit like Eyemouth or Berwick

That exact spot you started filming at called Deas wharf, I take the kids fishing there often. It's perfect with the 4 ft fence. Works as a rod rest and stops the bairns falling in 😂

Fond memories of the green cockatoo and the picture house back in the day…..!

Wm. Low occupied 42 High Street ( now Blind Davie) and moved along to 251 High Street. Does anyone remember Fernie's ? With its wonderfull ground coffee aroma and the hams hanging.

Ahhh the home of the pish stained vests and the aroma of old man’s toilet … luvly place 😂

Woolworths, pick n mix and records are my memories on a Saturday! very busy shop 70's and 80's. Also getting into the picture house for a pound.

Possibly among the most famous people to ever visit Kirkcaldy was The Beatles, who played in the old Carlton Cinema (which was in Park Road, just off the top of St Clair Street) on 6th October 1963. The Carlton, which was destroyed by fire and then demolished a decade later, was used because it had the biggest seating capacity of all the 8 of all the former cinemas and theatres to have ever existed in Kirkcaldy.

Montagues was once a John Collier mens outfitters.

There used to be a Chinese restaurant above what used to be Johnnys arcade many moons ago. Across the road and up a bit was Mr Bojangles clothes shop. Sad to see the place as dead as it is now. Used to be a thriving high street.

I loved the video

Hi

love it very much Jason you have done well with these videos ❤🎉😊

Where the new flats are now use to be the coop if I think 😉 m right.where you went up the escalator.big store.

Unfortunately Kirkcaldy High Street is usually empty most days -the John Smith retail park has killed the town centre

It's easy to blame councils, but the real problem is the public. They've chosen to sit at home and order all their goods from Amazon and Online shops and kill off the high street (while they whinge about others). Councils can do more (to say the least) but they cannot compete with corporations syphoning money out of wee towns.

Great from Jimmy murkirk

well done Jason what,a,fantastic thing to do filming things about the ins and outs of Fife ❤😊🎉

The only thing that keeps Kirkcaldy on the map is the 'Links Market' which comes to town about Easter time for about a week. There is absolutely nothing else in Kirkcaldy.

The harbour looks very different to how it did before the built the flats alongside it. I think this is because it wasn't tidal - the way in, by the end of the pier - which until the early 1980s had railway lines running almost to the seaward end of it - was the same as now, but the inner parts were constantly kept full of water, thanks to the existence of gates between the piers (are the west and middle piers even still there?). You used to be able to walk across these when they were closed, on wee fenced paths... The railway left the main line almost immediately east of the bridge over Dunniker Road and started dropping down the gradient almost immediately before curving sharply downhill. With a ruling gradient of 1 in 40, it was the steepest part of the entire British Rail network, and needed special small locomotives to cope with the gradients - latterly Class 06 shunters, of which three existed and were to be found in either the goods sidings at Kirkcaldy (now the station car park on the north side, which also had at least one signalbox), or at Markinch, as they also served the Tullis Russell mill at Achmuty, which had the further complication of extremely limited clearances through the A92 underbridge! It crossed over the foot of The Path on a girder bridge (where just pipes on a spindly metal frame were left to cross the road at roughly the same level, after the bridge was demolished in the late 1980s,) and at one time, had three or four sidings between the dock and road, along with a whole fan of sidings behind the grain mill, accessible by reversing on the pier. I do recall seeing what must have been one of the last trains crossing that bridge - in 1983, I think, as the branch was officially closed in 1984 and the rails lifted soon afterwards. I did once manage to walk down it from Dunniker Road, but even then it was extremely hazardous because lots of stuff had been dumped in the cutting... I think I'm right in saying that the Istanbul Kebab shop (the first you see in the now somewhat truncated High Street) used to be known as the Port Brae cafe. Betty Nicol's used to be the Victoriana, which in the early 1980's was advertised as "mixed gay / straight," by some of the gay men's publications of the day. (The Penny Farthing, at the other end of the High Street, was also listed!). "The Green Cockatoo," which was a high-class restaurant above a baker's shop, was in the building opposite the old ABC cinema, just before the pavement widens and the next shops up are set back from the road a little; was invariably filled with middle-aged women, dressed in their tweedy twin-sets and pearl necklaces - from the big detached houses near Beveridge Park and such like, throughout the 1970s (all very genteel, I'd imagine). Also, all the kids of my generation and more got referred to the dentist whose entrance was in the alleyway at the side of the cinema as plooky teenagers - as ordinary dentists didn't do braces in those days. With the cinema on the right it was entered on the left and then was upstairs - probably above the High Street shops on that side of the road. The big store where the Advice Hub is now, was the Co-op. The original one got burnt down about 1974, and although they did rebuild it (partly in the most featureless concrete block imaginable, as much of the old building had to be demolished), it was never the same afterwards and it went out of business - along with countless Co-op stores elsewhere - in 1982. Nickel & Dime used to be a supermarket - I want to say Fine Fare, but I'm not certain. The Kirkcaldy Indoor Market was indeed F.W. Woolworths - closed along with most of their other main town centre stores in 1984, when it left the ownership of the Woolworth family and joined the Paternoster/Kingfisher Group, who opened a new store named Woolworths, in the then newly-opening Mercat Centre - not, incidentally, the most recent one, which was a good deal smaller...! As with BhS and one or two others on thaat side, it was possible to enter/leave the store at the back via a long straight staircase down to the Esplanade. I don't recall it ever having a Cafeteria there, which was odd, as most of their major stores did back then - and both BhS and Littlewoods did, too! If you look at the roofline, the three shops including Kokuoshi and the Post Office is relatively new: back in the early 70s this was the Odeon, and I think previously, the Gaumont and prior to that, the Rialto Cinema. It was burnt to the ground on Christmas Day, 1973. Also back in the 70s and somewhere on that side of the road before Tollbooth Street, was an Arnotts store, which I can only recall as being very narrow at the front, and very long inside, widening in places - a very odd shape! WHSmith was of course John Menzies at that time - and I can remember that store when it was new! Littlewoods had the entire block next to that - again, look at the roofline to work it out. It was only half as deep before The Postings was built, and it was extended; however it always had a Self-service Cafeteria at the back where you could buy proper cooked meals, snacks and drinks quite cheaply. Marks & Spencer's, British Home Stores and Boots were all considerably enlarged when Phase 2 of the Mercat was opened, during the 1980s. Before that, M&S and BhS had back entrances down to the Esplanade - as the entire length between the two sea walls was car parks at that time - save for the bit just left of the foot of Charlotte Steet, which was the country bus station (Only town services used a much smaller bus station where the present, combined one is)! The three or four shops looking up Whytescauseway used to be just one - and it was the Co-op grocery department, with what became a small supermarket on the ground floor, and there was a rather nice cafe upstairs that I well remember sitting in the window of with my mother once, watching the parkie issuing tickets to all the illegally parked vehicles, and arguing with all the returning drivers who'd just stopped there for five minutes... LOL! As for all the smaller shops - there were six or seven shoe shops, several tailors, ladies and mens outfitters, electrical shops, tv rental shops, Electricity and Gas showrooms (both were nationalised industries at the time, so there was only one supplier of each), fancy jewellers, quite a lot of banks and building societies, bakeries (some, but not all of which also had cafes), butchers, greengrocers, haberdashery and fancy goods, hat shops, tobacconist & confectioner shops, gift and china shops - you name it, Kirkcaldy had it - and on Saturday afternoons, "The Street" was invariably crammed with what like the whole of Fife, their mums, grannies and all: it really was as booming then as it is declining now... But then, you must remember, retail parks were unheard of - many families didn't have cars. There was no by-pass: the A92 came right down St Clair Street, past Ravenscraig Flats and the Harbour, then all the way along the 1930's built Esplanade, before turning off to follow the coast to Kinghorn, Burntisland, etc. - the main trunk road then being the now B-road via Bernard's Smithy and Dalgety Bay;and so it was very, very busy. Fife still had sixteen deep coal mines in production and emplying many thousands, Nairn's was still fully open, plus there were good quality fuirniture factories (and shops) and much else besides - and it was as difficult to imagine then how it could ever get into that state it's in now; as I'm sure it is for both of you to imagine it as I'm describing it to you!!

Another good video

Dodi from Kirkcaldy many good memories the market folk are a hardy people. If you have never gone it’s the longest street market decades old. But beware wear plenty clothes In April the wind comes right off the sea

Fife side top team 😊

❤

Need to go again 😊

A shadow of its former self Wimpy x 2 one at the Halifax and one near opposite Old Woollies 1978 the High Street is a disgrace Fife Council has a lot to answer for

Thanks again for another interesting vlog

I've not been to Leven for many years i used to go to a caravan

Nice video it’s great to see the funfair back again for 2024 ❤

Well done guys…..a few comments I’ve added….hope they help with identifying some of the buildings along the street……try the Stenlake books on old Kirkcaldy…library maybe has copies…..

Mercat was the cause of the high street demise….as the high street was a linear shoping area, bus stop led people down to the mercat…under cover shopping, this stopped people heading to the east and west end….anyone remember the Arcade ( it’s now Olympia) on the west end? Franks Army store….mr Frank a former polish Paratrooper. Took part in the airborne operation Market, Jumped into Driel September 1944.

Boots the chemist has lasted well ?

John Menzies before it was WH Smith’s