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The Family Jim & Joyce Jim Haluch About Jim
The Family Jim & Joyce Jim Haluch About Jim
| About Jim |
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Born in the Scottish Burgh of Bathgate on 9 March 1944 to mother Betty (Wallace) and her husband Stefan Haluch of Gorlice, Poland. Stefan had come to Scotland as a member of the Polish Forces in WW11 and met his future wife when she nursed him at Bangour Hospital near Bathgate. Bathgate is famous for a number of things. Neolithic man inhabited the area and their burial ground at Cairnpapple in the Bathgate Hills attracts visitors from all over the world. Some say Bathgate was the founding place of the Stewart Dynasty of Scottish and English kings since Robert the Bruce gifted Bathgate castle (now long disappeared) to his daughter Marjorie on her marriage to Walter, The Lord high Steward of Scotland) Their son, who became king Robert, took the name Robert Stewart. King Robert’s later successor, Mary Queen of Scots, was born at nearby Linlithgow Palace. Silver was mined in the Bathgate Hills below Cairnpapple and the workings can be seen to this day. Bathgate was the birthplace of Sir James Young Simpson, the discoverer of the anaesthetic properties of chloroform and who was probably the father of modern anaesthetics. Another pioneer possibly founded the world’s oil refining industry. James (Paraffin) Young refined parat coal to form paraffin and the first lamp oils. Funnily enough this brings us back to Gorlice, Poland since it also claims the discovery of paraffin. Anyway after a happy childhood in Bathgate, lots of fun in the Boy Scouts and education at St Mary’s Secondary School, later St Mary’s Academy, left the old St Mary's in 1962 for the Inland Revenue Edinburgh. Was not cut out to be tax man, hated the job but met my wife, Joyce, from Prestonpans in 1965. We were married at St Gabriel’s Church Prestonpans on a gloriously sunny day in May with four kids coming along as you can see elsewhere on the site Work wise, I joined 'The Scotsman' newspaper as an advertising rep in 1965 eventually becoming advertising manager. Moved on with two Scotsman Colleagues and Joyce as partners in1970, to set up business in Bathgate in advertising and employment agency. Sold out 1975 went into the hotel business on the Scottish Islands for some 13 years. Moved back to West Lothian in 1988, to Livingston, to work in commercial education and then into Further Education in 1991. Since then with Edinburgh's Telford College till my retirement in 2006 in various guises ultimately as an Associate Principal and Head of Corporate Communications... Now doing a lot of travelling, community work, a bit of business consultancy and acting as marketing consultant to the leading Scots Ad Agency, TenAlps MTD. The family, four kids - Helena, married to Kevin from Leicestershire, mother of grandson rugby players, Daniel and Callum. James married to Gillian from Nottingham and dad of Benjamin and Andrew. Shelagh, married to an Arran lad, Sandy Bannatyne and resident in Sydney, Australia, and Eoin, the computer buff who though up the site with his permanent partner Mhairi Mustard. |
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| Last Updated ( Wednesday, 12 March 2008 09:37 ) |
