An Angus social club with more than 75 years of history toasted the End of the Road yesterday.
The Harry Lauder song, sung at Montrose Old Age Pensioners’ meetings since the Second World War, echoed for the last time as the group parted at the Park Hotel.
Having reached a peak membership of 320 during the heyday of the mid-1980s, numbers had dwindled to just 37.
Vice-president Sandy Dolan said the end is a “sign of the times”.
“It is always sad when something comes to an end, so it will be when the OAPs closes its last chapter after 75 years,” he said.
“People’s attitudes have changed.
“The pensioners was a great institute in its day, especially during the 1939-1945 war, when a very active, ‘go-ahead’ committee under then president JR Wallace ran daffodil teas, strawberry fairs, Halloween parties and, of course, the Christmas party.”
The pensioners first met in the ILP Hall, now the Bethany Gospel Hall, although there is an early entry of them meeting in Robertson’s Hall or the Occasions Suite as it is now known on Bridge Street.
They outgrew the ILP Hall, moving to the Memorial Hall in November 1946 membership had grown to 200 people by December 1947.
Starting off as the Montrose Branch of the Scottish Old Age Pensioners Association, the OAPs came out of the association in the mid-1990s.
Mr Dolan said: “It was felt that we were paying levies and getting nothing out of it.”
Mr Dolan has looked through the club’s records to help give a sense of what members did over the past 75 years.
During the club’s existence there had only been one member who lived to 100 years old, Mrs Jane Niddrie in 1949.
She was presented with an iced cake by the group but died four weeks after her birthday.
Mr Dolan said: “I wish all members both past and present all the best for the future.”