Jim Ritchie left Barrhead for Canada in 1957, leaving the Kirkton burn and the Levern Water behind.

However now Jim has released his own novel based on life growing up in Barrhead in the 1930s and 40s.

In the Glen of the Levern details the massive changes wrought on the landscape of Barrhead throughout the Industrial Revolution, as it transformed from rural village to industrial powerhouse.

Much of this took place before Jim’s time, however he has also given an evocative account of life in the town during World War Two.

And Jim’s recollections of returning to the town in later years to find both rivers running underground and mostly forgotten is a sad reminder of Barrhead’s now buried industrial past.

He said: “My wish and my desire to put to paper all my thoughts and boyhood experiences that centred on the Kirkton and Levern burns has been with me for some time.

“So it has been a pleasure to gather all these memories together and write about what Barrhead was like in my boyhood days of the 1930’s and 40’s.

“I left Barrhead for Canada in 1957, and have gone back to my hometown on several occasions, so I have seen the enormous changes that had taken place in the town since my departure.

“The Levern and the Kirkton still run through Barrhead, but their presence is now of a ghostly nature as their passage is mostly underground.

“But it is gratifying and pleasing to know that their waters are now unpolluted, and that there are still stretched of these streams that warrant the gentle touches of man to bring them back to their former beauty.

“I should have perhaps started my story at the Hairlaw where the Levern begins, but instead decided to end it there, as it is at the Hairlaw where nothing much has changed in 200 years.” Jim has been kind enough to allow The News to publish excerpts from his paperback novel, produced last year.