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A damp squib or a real bit of nitro?

by Geoffrey Graham 25 August

Can anyone please tell me where Jimmy's father: Auld Jock worked? I believe that he worked in the chemical industry. He lived at Town End in Dalry so he would have worked locally.

The distinguishing feature of his job was that when he had been there for a number of years he was given a small solid gold star. At regular intervals after that a diamond was added to each of the points so that on retiring he had a rather nice momento of his working days in the shape of a five pointed gold star with a diamond on each point and he could pin this on his lapel or tie.

I know people who have worked for I.C.I. and they have not been given anything like this.

Could he have worked for Nobel at Irvine?

Why is 'Ardeer' at the back of my mind? I looked at a road atlas and it listed no such place but then it is not a very detailed atlas. Am I imagining a place or does it really exist  other than in my scouse of a mind that is trying to rake up something that I know for a fact I have not chewed over since 1949.


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26 August | 11:29:47

Billy Long says

Ardeer is near Stevenston and is down next to the sea in a south - easterly direction towards Irvine. Chemical works Roche were also based in Dalry making multi vitamins mainly vitamin C, now trading as DSM.

28 August | 11:17:13

Geoffrey Graham says

Many thanks for confirming that there is such a place as Ardeer. Once you had stated that it was a real place and not just a figment of my imagination I tried Multimap.

Anybody want a useles old road atlas ?

It is worth putting 'Ardeer' into multimap and then going to 'Satellite' and zooming in. All the bunkers in the sand dunes are visible and it is quite an amazing sight.

The explosives factory that ran from Gretna to Eastriggs is worth looking at too but it has largely been tidied up and is not as interesting as Ardeer.

Why is Eastriggs West of Rigg? Where is Westriggs? There used to be a good pub at Eastriggs called the Graham Arms and I often stopped there for lunch because it is just over half way between my house and Galloway.

30 August | 4:12:31

Billy Long says

If you want to know more about Ardeer or ICI, I suggest you contact either the North Ayrshire Libraries Department in Ardrossan or contact The Ardrossan & Saltcoats Herald (www.ardrossanherald.com) or go into s1stevenston.com by clicking the link on the bottom of this very page. You could access North Ayrshire Council through the web too.

Ardeer is really the peninsula south of Stevenston beside the sea, not a part of Irvine but stretches down towards Irvine. Alfred Noble built a explosives factory there. It is now closed and now an industrial estate. Quite a lot of the land is quite marshy and boggy. I hope that may give you some help.

I holiday at Southerness down beside the Solway at a caravan park and was there last week and we took the old Annan road (Solway Coastal Trail) passing Eastriggs. The explosive factory there is called Devils Porridge and it is a museum and probably has it's own website too giving visitors information. It was mentioned in the BBC programme "Coast".It was built for the First World War and the towns of Eastriggs & Gretna were built to accamodate the workers who worked in the explosive factories there. A narrow guage railway runs along that way. It was also a top secret site due to the nature of it's business.

 

30 August | 4:17:18

Billy Long says

Ardeer Beach has a giant portait of Robert Burns painted on concrete barriers there and believe it or not is a naturist's beach where nudists go too! Not a place to take kids or the dogs for a walk!

7 September | 3:34:06

Geoffrey Graham says

My sister in law went to Sandringham and after visiting the cafe went to the nearby beach where the Queen walks the dogs. After walking nearly a mile she noticed that there was nobody on the beach but she continued going in the same direction and then saw quite a cluster of people on the sands but they were all in the nude - this was her first encounter with a nudist beach - no, the Queen wasn't one of them!

You mentioned Southerness, I have stayed there and it is a very nice place but I like it a bit quieter than that. John Paul wasn't in when I last went but it was a few years ago.

8 September | 12:52:49

Billy Long says

Not the sort of places I go to are nudist beaches, I didn't think we have the climate for that kind of thing. Then neither is Stevenston or Ardeer whatever you cl it seems appropiate for having one.

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