Apathy rules

I WAS at church this Sunday morning (November 8) and I have to admit this is not my usual activity on the Sabbath - unlike when I was a kid and church and Sunday School were part of my weekly programme. No way would I be allowed to miss either. Bible Class and Church Choir followed as I got older and continued until I worked away from home. How times have changed.

The kirk was Kirkoswald and I was attending in my official capacity as councillor - it was my privilege to lay the council poppy wreath at the war memorial.

What surprised me - no I will strengthen that - what shocked me was that there were so few in the congregation. Around 20 attended the service, most of whom would not see 60 again. I found that surprisingly depressing paticularly on Remembrance Sunday and when our young soldiers are being killed every week and the debate about the Afghan War is so high on the national agenda.


After the service we walked down to the war memorial which edges the busy A77 and there was something so inappropriate about cars and lorries whizzing by as we were remembering the dead of all recent wars.

But hey the church wasn`t the only barely attended event of the past week or so. Another example of public apathy was the council`s big `Conversation` in Maybole which managed to attract barey 20 local people, despite being advertised all over North Carrick - the target audience.
The aim of the Converstion was for the Chief Executive and Council Leader to advise people of the diffricult times ahead and the cuts that might have to be made. There was also a chance to ask questions and air beefs - everybody has some beef against the cooncil. But few decided to take advantage of the opportunity. More such events are being held - each ward in South Ayrshire will host one - so it will be interesting to see if they attract a bigger audience.

Then there was the night with John Cairney in Maybole Town Hall which struggled to attract an audience and the organisers of the Homecoming event had sleepless nights in case they faced the embarrassment of a half empty hall. It was a close call but eventually they managed a respectable audience - all of whom I may add enjoyed a great night`s entertainment. Cairney may be in his 80the year (he looks and sounds a good 20 years younger) he has lost none of the charm, personality and acting prowess that has seen him through a lifetime of being or speaking about, Robert Burns.

After an evening of anecdotes on his life as Burns he happily answered questions from the auidence. As I said, a wonderful night of live entertainment which I would have thought would have had House Full signs up. As one organiser asked - What do you need to do to get folk out?

French connection

I COULDN`T help but smile last week as I read of the squeals of `unfair`coming from Glasgow Airport when the Scottish government cancelled the plans for a rail link from the city centre to the airport. Now they know what it feels like. Twenty or so years ago they were happily conspiring to see the closure of Prestwick Airport and turned deaf ears to our cries of unfair practice.

Of course the success of Prestwick is a subject close to my heart (the book is The Dream that Wouldn`t Die on is still on sale from the website of the same name!) and I was interested to see how busy or otherwise it was last week as I tragelled to Beauvais, one of the routes Ryanair have left untouched (for the moment at least).

And I couldn`t help but ponder on how while making cheap travel to Europe accessible to us all Mr O`Leary is gradually taking the joy out of the journey. This was the first time I was dealing with the new luggage restrictions - carrying on my case with a weight restriction of 10kilogrammes.

The conversation in the transit lounge, I kid you not, was all about the weight of our cases, whether our cases were too big to pass inspection, and the acceptance of the sad fact we could bring few if any souvenirs home. It turned out we were lucky as two flights were leaving around the same time and the luggage police were concentrating on the hapless Frankfurt-bound passengers. I watched astonished as a woman, picked at random, had to open her case, put on a cardigan, a shawl and her husband took on another item of clothing. They were then allowed to board the plane -with the same weight of clothing though some of it now on the body instead of in the case. Madness.

Next thing Ryanair will be introducing body searches not for contraband or explosive devices but to see hoew many layers of clothes you are wearing!

On the way back I fell foul of the not enough make-up items in the plastic bag regime and watched in horror as the attendant considered whether to discard a bottle of Chanel No 5. It could have led to violence - but I was lucky and it went back into my case though a tube of moisturiser went into the bucket.

My weekend was to St Germain-en-Laye the Ayr Twin Town (a private visit I may add - no council cash involved) and a lot of the discussion there was around the future of twinning in the 21st century. This trip was more like a pensioners` outing than a vibrant exhange! In St Germain some young families have joined their association and this is what we need to attempt here or the movement will just fade away, which would be sad after 25 years. Twinning has as lot to offer. You learn so much more about your Continental neighbours living in their homes than you ever will sitting round a swimming pool, competing for deck chairs or talking in cafes.

While there we talked of youth exchanges through schools - sports tournaments, golf and rugby matches and music was also a suggested means of increasing the interest of children and through them their parents in twinning. Time will tell.

Summer of discontent

SUMMER`S over . . . well at least as far as the council is concerned. Monday sees us all back at our desks geared up for a difficult time ahead.

But that is for the future.

Clicking in I was surprised to see I hadn`t updated my blog since May! Where has the time gone?

Down this way (North Carrick that is) the main item on the summer programme was of course the Open Golf Championship - a major event that brought great publicity to the area - TV coverage you couldn`t buy and didn`t Turberry look great. But like all major events the Open brought with it its minor annoyances.

There was the plaster cracking on the ceiling of Maybole Town Hall - caused, the Community Council claimed, by the build-up of traffic. The story of course was big in headlines but in fact it was minor in real damage and I imagine the actual cause would be hard to prove. But it made a good story

A lone photographer decided to take up the cheap option and pitch his tent at Maidens Harbour causing much consternation locally. The CC got involved plus the local cops, but it turned out he had permission to be there. Even if he hadn`t, by the time all the complaints procedures had been completed the golf would have been finished and he would have been on his way anyway.

Parking of course was also a problem, with surrounding villages being turned into no-go areas. But all in all I think the event was relatively hazard-free and a great success - right up until the last nail-biting play-off.

SOON after for me it was holiday time. It`s funny how a pandemic alters your attitude to travel. We were travelling when the headlines were at their most dramatic and suddenly every fellow passenger was a potential carrier.

I actually found myself standing in the queue waiting to check in, listening for sneezes and sniffles and clutching my little bottle of lavender. For those of you who don`t know Lavender is good for warding off germs and I wouldn`t travel anywhere without it. Dabs at the nose and throat works wonders. (At least I believe it does!)

Likewise in the hotel and in restaurants, every cough was registered and we actually moved table once to get away from someone who obviously had a very bad dose of something!

However as the holiday wore on and the warm weather gave some assurance (it is supposed to spread easier in the winter months) we relaxed - also in the knowledge that the French have a very good health service! Plus it helped not reading English language newspapers every day, hyping up the threat in a slow news season.

You would think having worked a lifetime in newspapers I would be able to read behind the stories and recognise when and how they are being over-hyped.

However now it is back to auld claes and porridge as they say and a new council session beckons. At least it has started well with the news of the £2million plus from the Scottish government for the regeneration of Ayr Town Centre. That, I am delighted to say, augurs well for the Gaiety.

Two days back from holiday I had a pile of emails to deal with (you go aways but the constituents` enquiries and complaints don`t). Everyone of them was from Maidens.
I won`t go into details, but that one small village - the epitome you would think of peaceful living - promises to keep me busy for the next few weeks!

French connection

I have just spent a long weekend in St Germain-en-Laye in France.

So what, you may say.

Well St Germain is the twin town of Ayr and the French twinners are about to visit as part of the silver anniversary celebration of the signing of the twinning agreement. And as I was having lunch with some of them they were chatting excitedly about their visit to Ayr and what a lovely town it is. Good Lord, I`m thinking, when did you last visit? Twenty five years ago?

St Germain is a town of comparable size to Ayr and both are prosperous even in the current climate.

St Germain however has had a massive clean-up over the past quarter century. Old buildings have been preserved and restored; no weeds and trees growing out from the stonework; no chewing gum impressed into the streets; no litter lying around;a beautiful park, loads of flower beds which were all being re-planted while I was there, from Spring to Summer flowers; a brilliant new library next to the theatre, an Olympic size swimming pool etc etc

The town centre was buzzing, loads of litle shops; bakers, butchers, cheese shops, shoe and clothes shops, retaurants and cafes - no big name chain department stores. No `For Sale` or `To Let` boards blotting the town centre. Parking in the main, now underground - the market square a delight to walk across.(It used to be crammed with parked cars on non-market days)

And after such a visit you tend to ask - if they can do it why can`t we? I don`t have the answer but I know I am appalled at the thought of these French visitors walking down Ayr`s main shopping streets, seeing the dereliction and neglect. I am tempted to say to the twinning hosts -`steer your guests out of town!`.

But on a positive and optimistic note the new chairman of the Ayr Renaissance Board, Alan McDonald, of Dawn Construction and joint owner of Ayr Racecourse, said he was determined to see Ayr rise again when he spoke to the full council last Thursday. He said that there would be some `instant fixes` so the residents could see things were being done; he wanted to get rid of the For Sale and To Let signboards; the re-opening of Ayr Gaiety was a top priority he said as part of the Rennaissance programme.

All good positive stuff. Unfortunately it can`t all happen tomorrow - but at least we seem to be on the right road.

And by the way, as a postscript in case anyone asks in these days of questions about politicians` expenses, I was on a private visit to friends I made in St Germain when I travelled there 25 years ago to cover the signing of the twinning agreementfor the Ayr Advertiser. No cost to the council was involved even though I did meet French politicans - St Germain councillors - while I was there.

Everyone a critic

EVERYONE`S a critic these days!

That`s something you discover if you`re a councillor - and we of the South Ayrshire variety have had a particularly hard time over the past few months. I think only the MPs with their expense claims havE had it harder.

And fair enough we probably deserve some of it, but not all. But the armchair critics have had a field day, particuloarly the anonymous ones who write to the local papers handing out the criticism yet don`t have the courage of their convictions to add their name and address at the end.

And there`s the made-up letters - yes they do extist. The ones created by political opponents who add non-existent names and addresses to their billets doux. Yes it happens more than you realise.

But that said, a busy Letters Page is good for democracy and for the local press sales and in the past few weeks I have been called self-centred, arrogant, po-faced,
greedy, amonst other things.

The self-centred and arrogant were diected at me personally by an anonymous critic who berated me for voting for the closure of the Girvan pool and implyong I was also happy to vote for the Gaiety closure. The first I could take - I did vote for the Girvan pool closure fully aware that its demise more or less guaranteed that Maybole Pool would stay open. I have a duty to my constituents.

But I stongly objected to the claims re the Gaiety considering I have been at the forefront of the campaign to save the theatre from closure and not only helped organise the mass meeting in January but masterminded the press campaign through December and January. But the letter writers in the main are not interested in dealing with facts just their own interpretation of events. Why bother with the truth - it might spoil a `good` letter.

The po-faced accustion came not from a letter-writer but a journalist who should have known better - this is opinion slipping in amongst facts which is all too common these days. This journalist claimed the Licensing Board were po-faced for clamping down on dating games and poles in licensed premises. If the same reporter had bothered to find out the information we had in front of us about the date games and the vile, abusive and sexually explicit words that were being posted on the date game boards in the bars, he would not have been so quick to critisice. Likewise what was happening with these poles!

But again why let facts spoil a good story.

As it happens the Licensing Board are meeting this week to look at our policy on so-called adult entertainment in local licensed premises - to see if there is any case for easing up on our current blanket ban. Will keep you posted.

And on the Gaiety, there is a consultation meeting in the County Hall this week with all the local interested groups (invitation only)- the latest stage in the process towards saving and re-opening the theatre under a new management structure.

A dream come true

I had an exciting but terrifying experience this week - looking in a bookshop and seeing my book displayed in the front of the window- The Dream That Wouldn`t Die by Ann Galbraith.

Every journalist likes to believe they have a book in them; their own perconal dream. And admittedly I have started a few - including a children`s book which I am determined to finish one of these days. But to have actually finished one has been quite something.

And at one time I wondered if it would ever come to be.
When I retired from the Ayr Advertiser, former industrialist and entrepreneur Bill Miller asked me if I would be interested in writing a book telling the story of how Prestwick airport had been saved from closure and demolition in the late `80s early `90s.

He had been heavily involved in the takeover from BAA - days when the airport had six flights a WEEK, and they were freight re-fuelling stops - and he thought the story deserved its place in history. Plenty of books had been written about the early days, plus aircraft specialist books, but not the inside story of the saving of the airport.

Timing was good for me - and almost two years of research followed - tracing people who had worked at the airport at that time and jogging their memories.It was a time they all remembered with a great deal of pride and were easy to talk to. I travelled to West Viginia in the US to see Matthew Hudson who materminded the turnaround with the late Lord Younger. I was emailing around the world. But eventually it came together and after much blood, sweat and tears, was written, checked, double- checked - but I bet there are still many who will come forward and say `that is not how I remember it`. But I told it as a heard it.

Next of course we had to find a publisher - not the easiest job I discovered. Then in one of life`s little moments of serendipity I was holidaying last year at the home of a former colleague, Jack Wright - he was sports editor with the Ayr Advertiser in the early 1980s. He has his own publishing company in Cape May, New Jersey and I was asking his advice. He said he would do it - and we had lift off.

Now the book is in the shops, we are also selling it online - here`s the plug thedreamthatwouldntdie.co.uk. And now is probably the most trying time of all - hoping folk buy it!.

On the council front, things are winding down towards the Easter recess. It has beena turbulent term since Christmas,with closures, cuts in services, job losses,street protests, the sad sight of the Gaiety with shuttered doors (short term I sincerely hope). We can only hope lessons have been learned and things will get better.

I`VE just been looking at a short video posted on U tube which tells the sorry tale of the demise of Girvan. The closure of the swimming pool has just proved a catalyst and people are taking a look at their town and saying enough is enough. Shops, pubs, hotels are all closing down, the Beach Pavilion, gone - there is a sense of dereliction. It will be interesting to see how many people join Saturday`s protest march - for they have a lot to be unhappy about.

And sadly they are not alone. I wrote this week in the Carrick Gazette how Girvan. may have lost a pool, but there was a list as long as your arm of services that are being - or have already been - closed in Maybole. There too there are derelict buildings and shut shops.

And when you look at Ayr Town Centre, the once proud county town is a shadow of its old self. Historic buldings are tired, with weeds growing out from cracks in the stonework; Wellington Square where the Council hq stands, at first glance looks imp-ressive, but look closely and you see the weeds, the litter,the peeling paintwork - where is the pride? In the town centre there are`to let` signs everywhere on empty shops; shutters are up on the Gaiety - though I haven`t totally given up hope that a way will be found to open the theatre again. Talks are still going on with interested parties.

So where have things gone so badly wrong? Without going down the political route we did have more than 10 years when South Ayrshire Council became a job centre rather than a service provider with cash coming in going towards employing more people and not towards the services they should have been providing. However as people will point out we have had almost four years of a change of administration.

The introduction of Civic Pride initiatives was a recognition that the place was looking shabby and rundown, but flower baskets were only painting over the cracks.

I think things will begin to change now; we have new people in the County Buildings looking with fresh eyes and hopefully producing new ideas to halt the slide before if becomes an avalanche.

But when I look at the dilapidated village signs, the litter, the uncut grass, the general neglect I can`t help asking why we went to Dubai to encourage people to come here for the homecoming and the Open at Turnberry.

The golf course - and our countryside are fabulous - but we are not doing them justice. We should welcome visitors to see them but they won`t be able to close their eyes to everything else around them in South Ayrshire.

We have four an a half months to gee up our act before the influx of golf enthusiasts arrive - and I mean all of us, not just the council. Pick up the litter, touch up the paint. It`s maybe too late for the town centres for this year - but a general tidying up would go a long way to improving our image

Not the best of starts

It`s a bit late I know - but Happy New Year.

We haven`t got off to a very good start. It`s seems as if it has been one protest aftr another.

I have been heading up a campaign to save Ayr Gaiety from closure. We started a deliberate publicity pusg before Christmas, when I became aware that closure of the theatre at the end of January `for refurbishment` could in fact be closure of Ayr Gaiety, full stop. It needs a lot of money spent on it - at Health and Safety insistence (residents of Girvan will be familiar with that justification)- money that the council just doesn`t have.

But a small group of us argued that the shortage of council cash didn`t need to mean the curtain coming down for good. We decided that out there, there must be someone who would want to take over a theatre - and the council shouldn`t be running it anway - thus began our campaign which I am happy to report (fingers crossed) has attracted interested parties and talks are going ahead.

Sad thing is the same can`t be said about Girvan Swimming Pool. The decline has been going on for years (like the Gaiety) but I guess councillors just didn`t want to face up to the inevitable. Maybe they were hoping for a miracle - but Health and Safety saw it differently.

It was, of course, the way the closure was announced that particularly incensed local people. One day it was open, the next it was shut. No reassurances of future developments, though I believe talks are now going on.

It is not a good start to the year and as I write this Council leader Hugh Hunter is in Dubai along with Enterprise staff promoting South Ayrshire`s Homecoming events and its golf courses. The invite to go came from Leisurecorps, new owners of Turnberry Hotel and while they paid for the Council Leader to go (the Provost though invited was unable to attend) the council had to meet the £15,000 cost of the workers - the enterprise staff who will man the council stall at the big golf tournament.

The argument, of course, is that we will get back a lot more than £15,000 with the number of tourists we can attract to play our courses and attend the Open in July.
Let us hope so. Though the timing could have been better.

To end on a happier note, the big launch weekend for the Year of the Homecoming and Burns` 250th anniversary went with a bang - literally at Alloway where there was an amazing light and firework display depicting Tam o` Shanter`s ride. From concerts and poetry readings to exhibitions and the I Robert Burns Show in the Gaiety - not forgetting dozens of Burns Suppers including one attended by First Minister Alex Salmond - it was a superb showcase for Ayr and South Ayrshire and hopefully a taste of what is to come for the rest of the year.