Cameron Bell, who spotted this eatery in Ayr, wonders if it’s rather hot and dry inside
Maggie way WE recently mentioned that the achievements of British prime ministers are often celebrated at a great distance from their native shores. Gordon Casely was once cycling in New Zealand when he came across a Thatcher Street in the nation’s capital of Wellington. Our reader adds: “The bad news was that Thatcher Street bore a sign which read: No Exit.” (Which rather neatly sums up British life the 1980s…)
Questionable name A Diary tale about confusing names reminds retired MP Sir Brian Donohoe of the time the politician Geoffrey Howe campaigned in Irvine during a General Election, and introduced himself to an elderly lady.
November 23, 2020. IT was no surprise that Fred Walker should make his name as a naval architect, marine historian, author and lecturer. In his youth he spent much of his time in the Kelvingrove Art Gallery, peering through glass cases at the collection of Clyde-built ships. He pored over archives in the Mitchell Library, and he walked the city’s docks with his friend, James Macaulay. The Clyde was then busy with shipping: dredgers, tugs, passenger steamers, and cargo and pleasure vessels such as the King Edward and Queen Mary. Much of what Fred saw, learnt, and read would find its way into The Song of the Clyde, A History of Clyde Shipbuilding, (1984), a valedictory memoir of 36 shipyards; within a few years most of them were to vanish.