Turbayne's

James Terris Turbayne was born in 1876 in Kelty.  His father Thomas had been a licensed grocer there. After learning the trade, James set up in his own grocer shop in Cowdenbeath, before moving to Lundin Links with his own family around 1920. He is recorded as applying for a new grocer's license in Lundin Links in April 1920.  In fact, James owned the entire building shown in the photograph below, comprising two shops and the house above them, named St Helen.  The Turbaynes had five children and at least a couple of them also went into the grocery trade.  Notably, eldest daughter Jeannie took on the smaller shop next to the main grocer's, running this for many years as a sweet shop. She is fondly remembered for rewarding children who sang her a song with a sweetie and for her magical Christmas window display (an illuminated Santa's sleigh, filled with sweets, pulled by reindeer with nodding heads). Jeannie died in 1974 at the age of 72.

James Turbayne had been widowed in 1946 but seems to have continued the main grocer's shop until his death in 1954 at the age of 77. In October 1954, Robert Leishman was granted a license for the grocer's, as tenant under the ownership of Mrs Agnes Croll.  The shop seems to have been known as 'Leishman's' into the 1970s but at some point a member of the Croll family began to run the business and I certainly remember it in the 1980s as 'Croll's'.  Of course, the small shop adjacent was converted into the Doctor's Surgery at some point along the way.  Today, the transformation of the main grocer's shop into a residential dwelling is complete.