CORRECTION - The 1884 explosion at the Ardeer Explosives Factory killed 10 women, not 6 as mentioned in the video. Some of these young women were just teenagers. This link has information about the explosion, as taken from the Ardrossan and Saltcoats Herald of 9th May 1884: www.threetowners.com/ardeer-factory/1884-explosion/
Thank you. Ed. Sure enjoyed the Ardeer. Video. My husband William Is from Stevenston, and he remembers it very well , explosions at the Nobel ICI, would rattle the windows at his school(Hayocks Primary). He also remembers his dad climbing up the towers that was added on in later years to do work on them, all the busses, came from everywhere to bring and pick up the staff, who was employed there, not much remains now, . In fact not much remains of anything , . Unfortunately Councils and Governments are not interested in the past, and the History of our Towns And Villages, Shame on them. The future Generations are going to be left with no History of their towns and Villages . Ed. Thank you very much for what you do, in bringing back great memories. Congratulations and please keep doing what you do.❤
I grew up in Ayrshire in the 70,s and passed by Ardeer many times on my way to visit family on Bute.I knew it produced explosives but now having seen your clip and with google maps has now made everything slot into place. Thank you
Excellent video Ed. One of the reasons that there is no sign of the canal at the old pump house is because that area was the town cowp for a good while. It was landscaped in the late 70's or early 80's. Also @13:25, the gent sitting at the vat is mixing nitroglycerine. The flow of the ingredients was critical and had to be monitored continuously. In order to stop him nodding off, he is sitting on the infamous one-legged stool.
I'm probably watching at least one video of yours per day Eddy! Addictive stuff. I couldn't help but feel sorry for the poor residents of Ardeer Square, because unlike most of the other houses around the area, they didn't have a patch of garden to grow vegetables, etc, in. Seeing these short films always reminds me of my own ancestors, and what their lives might have been like, compared to my own. My maternal grandmother, ( who was born in 1898 ), worked in a munitions factory during WW2, whilst bringing up her four remaining children, one of them my mother of course. My grandmother had sadly lost her first four children to accidents and diseases like Scarlet Fever etc. Her husband served in the Merchant Navy. I remember her telling us that she'd come home from the factory every day with 'gunpowder under her fingernails'. I dont know if this was dangerous or not, but she reckoned it was and I took her word for it! Meanwhile, on the paternal side of my ancestry, my great grandfather was a miner, and his family lived in a row of miners cottages at Anniesland, near where Lock 27 is now. The family had recently come over from Ireland, since it was a short while after the 1850 wave of migrants. Loving your films. And your poignant and stirring music!
Thanks for this my great grandparents - Gibson lived at 13 Chemical Row. It has been difficult to find details even from the census records. They had 11 children but I don't think they were all there at the same time! By the time there were young ones some of the older ones would have been married and left home. Other side of my family Hamilton worked in the ironworks and black powder where they met.
Thoroughly enjoyed that Ed. I grew in Stevenston and remember the factory well. Almost everyone worked there. I do know my great grandfather lived in Ardeer square when he came here from Tyrone.
I worked in Ardeer in 1980, Ed, on a shutdown in the ICI Nylon Plant. Some great views from up on the old towers that used to be there. Not as far back in time as your story here, but a while ago nonetheless. Thanks again.
Great video Eddy. I enjoyed it. I love the way you put these together, telling a wonderful and sometimes sad story. The ending at the reservoir with the swans was perfect. Thanks Lynn in Naples FL. 😎
Fantastic Video Ed! I enjoyed it. Some info I didnt know about Ardeer Square. My Papa worked at ICI as an Indistrial chemist and one of my friends was an accountant and remembers a couple of accidents that happend at the factory. Some of the workers who died in accidents I discovered are also buried in Ardrossan cemetry when I go walks to visit my great grand parents grave and generations further back too. I have been trying to hunt down images of Ardrossan Harbour as my great-grandfather worked as a Marine Engineer there, I have a photo of him and his workmate, this is my current ongoing investigation! There was a Coal Yard and also the Former Shell Site, Shell site was operational from 1897 with a beautiful railway station close
Many thanks. I frequently use the website Canmore. You can search for Ardrossan Harbour in that website, and 4 pages of images will appear, mostly aerial shots. This image, for example, shows Ardrossan Harbour in 1966: canmore.org.uk/collection/676178 If you click on 'Full Screen' you can then enlarge the image either with the '+' symbol or the mouse wheel. Good luck.
My family worked at Ardeer - the ICI explosives factory and we lived for some years near it on Ardoch crescent. Everyone called the area Ardeer even though the village/hamlet had been gone for a long time. My father said it was once an island. Our neighbour got blown up on site in the early sixties, threw himself on the explosive to save the other men. Left a widow and two children. There a pub on Ardoch crescent near Misk Knows that everyone called 'the wee store', since it was, I believe, an Ardeer company store at one time - it was a convenience shop at any rate where provisions could be bought by the Ardeer factory workers. I believe I still have a photo of it taken at the turn of the century. The signs for tea and ice cream are in the window. If I could live anywhere in Stevenston it would be on Trelawney Crescent. We lived on Ardoch but I wanted an unobstructed view of the shore and Ailsa Craig.
Another great video Eddy. Really been enjoying touring round Mother Scotland virtually from across the pond in my adopted home of Tennessee. I’d love to see a video about the old shell oil refinery and shipbuilding industry in Ardrossan if you wind up back in the Three Towns. Keep up the good work. Cheers.
Fascinating history. My grandad worked at ICI Nobel division. My dad says ICI used the material from coal bings around Ayrshire to build the jetty at Stevenston to bring in Venezuelan crude oil to feed their own refinery.
Fantastic video Ed! We used to hear the samples of explosives being tested, and we lived in Kilwinning. You have to do a part 2, the nylon plant. It dominated the skyline and a tragedy occurred in 1973 when a cooling tower collapsed in a high stormy wind. I was only 2 at the time but my folks heard all about it. There was also a massive explosion from a test piece of dynamite in 78, no-one was harmed thankfully, but it rattled Kilwinning.
Absolutely fascinating Ed. I’m always amazed how things change. There is history around us everywhere and most of us are oblivious to most of it. Great video and music
Great reflection on this very large industrial area with so many hidden dangers. It was a small town even in ICI days and stood out on the coast. My older relatives worked there, I have went to do jobs there many years after and it still seems history in action. This is one place a historian could spend a lives work on and still have a many a chapter. The site is still active in areas, but I would caution anyone apart from visiting historical buildings and known local routes there are hidden dangers, its an area of sand, holes, water and unknown chemicals
A few years ago now not that long after it closed I heard there is a lot of explosives still on site. The little railway that ran through the site would carry explosives from one part to another which often had materials fall off. And it was considered safer to just leave what had fallen where it lay rather than trying to go and recover it.
@aliorr9356 interesting point, for comparison and slightly off topic. At the end of 1945 war and for many years after servicemen wanted back to normal life and had to close units down, explosives took time to dispose off, and the easiest option was to Bury them and get demobbed. I was aware that the forces EOD teams spent many years trying to deal with these, maybe they still do, I for one would not go metal detecting on old military areas, the ardeer site gives me the shivers about what could still lurk there to the unsuspecting.
Eddy, thank you for a fantastic video. My family lived in Ardeer Square, then moved to the "Tap End" when it was built, eventually relocating back down to Ardeer in MIsk Knowes. I was brought up from 1954 in Misk Knowes, and I can see from some of your maps exactly where it would eventually be built, and what would have been the surrounding area. Great work and again, thank you!!!
My dad was a dynamite doc at ICI Nobel division. I remember the road/rail crossing at Stevenson railway station had a cycle crossing separate but next to the car crossing. This fed onto the parallel cycle path all the way out to "The Factory". Presumably a bit of Swedish influence.
Excellent 👍🏼 fascinating video. After watching this for the first time the other day - I ended up a walk along the canal @ Bishopbriggs where a sign tells of a similar little community Mavis Valley - which also had the same kind of cottages. Closed around same time as this place & houses flattened.
Hi Ed, a very informative video as usual, I was in and aboot the Nobel factory a few times in my driving job. I always liked going up and doon the coast road, plenty of picturesque places tae stop for your pieces.
I worked in the nitro-cotton, acid, toluene and hydrogen areas. I remember some girls lose fingers in the det's area and the nitro cotton building blowing up. ( I saved a guy who had a pipe sticking in him). ALL in the early 70s when it was called ICI Nobel's which was moved to England, Bellingsly I think!
Good video Ed. Wee factoid. For a number of years after opening, an employee stood at the entrance of the Magnum Centre 'clicking' everyone in and out. The reason being that it was in the blast zone of the explosives loading pier across the estuary and there was a limit on occupation of the centre.
Hi Eddie, part of the canal still exists in Ardeer Quarry Park. The Portland stone taken from here was used in the facades of public buildings in Belfast and Dublin.
At 13.26 in the video you see a man working at a machine/ mixer possibly making nitro glycerine. Note the stool he is sitting on. The stools only had one leg. This was to stop the workers from falling asleep. When the plant was owned by Chemring, there were a lot of interesting photos hung on walls, which should have gone to local museums.
Excellent work Mr Burns! I wonder if they just bulldozed the houses into the reservoir to fill it in. Imagine what a nightmare the reservoir must have been for all the mothers with young children just across the road from it. Do you know what the reservoir was used for?
You're absolutely right about the reservoir. I think it was used to supply water to furnaces in the iron works. You can see how large it was in that aerial photo. In the 1937 OS map of the village, after the iron works had closed, you can see that the village rows are still there but the reservoir has gone. It must indeed have been dangerous for children living in the village.
I live near Paulilles in the South of France where a dynamite factory owned by Nobel was demolished in the sixties. The beaches nearby are still so contaminated by detritus from the factory that people have been arrested at airports because the electronic sniffers detect the residue of explosives on their clothes or backpacks after a day at the beach.
My late uncle Davie worked in the explosives factory at Ardeer during WWII. He told me there are at least 7 unmarked graves in the factory grounds. These were suspected German spies, who were shot on the spot and buried in the grounds. He also told me that there were two German engineers who had to return to Germany just before the start of the war. Much later, during a daylight air raid on Glasgow, the alarm was sounded and the explosives workers had to make their way to shelters. Davie and a colleague were in one of the furthest units and were not in a hurry to get to the shelter, as they thought it was a false alarm. As they walked to the shelter, they heard a single German bomber that they saw flying towards them. As they were out in the open, they both stopped to watch as the bomber flew low overhead. Amazingly, the bomber dipped its wings in salute, circled out over the sea, dropped a string of bombs in the water and headed off towards Glasgow. They were the only two who saw this and nobody believed them. Davie was sure that the pilot was one of the engineers who had worked there. He must have been told to bomb the explosives factory, because he knew the layout but did not have the heart to kill his former colleagues. He probably told his superiors that he missed, which he did.
I don't. It was often the case in villages created for an industry, whether coal mining or whatever, that in addition to rows of houses you could also see some facilities, like a school, a reading room and a football ground. You can still see some of these, and they are often just a rectangle of ground with goal-posts.
Saltcoats Victoria Football Club are a Scottish football club based in the town of Saltcoats, North Ayrshire. Nicknamed the Seasiders, the club were originally formed in 1889 and play at Campbell Park.
I just found your channel by accident, this was an interesting video so i have subscribed. P.S. there is just one thing i noticed all of the channels you are subbed to is public in your channels tab just a minor thing if you hadn't noticed.
![ROSÉ (로제) - number one girl [더 시즌즈-이영지의 레인보우] | KBS 241129 방송](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/A9oByH9Ci24/mqdefault.jpg)
CORRECTION - The 1884 explosion at the Ardeer Explosives Factory killed 10 women, not 6 as mentioned in the video. Some of these young women were just teenagers. This link has information about the explosion, as taken from the Ardrossan and Saltcoats Herald of 9th May 1884:
www.threetowners.com/ardeer-factory/1884-explosion/
as a family historian I thank you for this video.
"A blast while it lasted"....👀 Very punny indeed!
Really enjoy this type of local historical forensics. Great job.
Many thanks.
Thank you. Ed. Sure enjoyed the Ardeer. Video. My husband William Is from Stevenston, and he remembers it very well , explosions at the Nobel ICI, would rattle the windows at his school(Hayocks Primary). He also remembers his dad climbing up the towers that was added on in later years to do work on them, all the busses, came from everywhere to bring and pick up the staff, who was employed there, not much remains now, . In fact not much remains of anything , . Unfortunately Councils and Governments are not interested in the past, and the History of our Towns And Villages, Shame on them. The future Generations are going to be left with no History of their towns and Villages . Ed. Thank you very much for what you do, in bringing back great memories. Congratulations and please keep doing what you do.❤
Many thanks Sarah.
I grew up in Ayrshire in the 70,s and passed by Ardeer many times on my way to visit family on Bute.I knew it produced explosives but now having seen your clip and with google maps has now made everything slot into place. Thank you
Excellent video Ed. One of the reasons that there is no sign of the canal at the old pump house is because that area was the town cowp for a good while. It was landscaped in the late 70's or early 80's.
Also @13:25, the gent sitting at the vat is mixing nitroglycerine. The flow of the ingredients was critical and had to be monitored continuously. In order to stop him nodding off, he is sitting on the infamous one-legged stool.
That's interesting. I hadn't noticed the one-legged stool; didn't even know such a thing existed. Many thanks.
What a great idea, the one legged stool ! Fascinating stuff all this, I love it ❤
I'm probably watching at least one video of yours per day Eddy! Addictive stuff. I couldn't help but feel sorry for the poor residents of Ardeer Square, because unlike most of the other houses around the area, they didn't have a patch of garden to grow vegetables, etc, in. Seeing these short films always reminds me of my own ancestors, and what their lives might have been like, compared to my own. My maternal grandmother, ( who was born in 1898 ), worked in a munitions factory during WW2, whilst bringing up her four remaining children, one of them my mother of course. My grandmother had sadly lost her first four children to accidents and diseases like Scarlet Fever etc. Her husband served in the Merchant Navy. I remember her telling us that she'd come home from the factory every day with 'gunpowder under her fingernails'. I dont know if this was dangerous or not, but she reckoned it was and I took her word for it!
Meanwhile, on the paternal side of my ancestry, my great grandfather was a miner, and his family lived in a row of miners cottages at Anniesland, near where Lock 27 is now. The family had recently come over from Ireland, since it was a short while after the 1850 wave of migrants.
Loving your films. And your poignant and stirring music!
Thanks for this my great grandparents - Gibson lived at 13 Chemical Row. It has been difficult to find details even from the census records. They had 11 children but I don't think they were all there at the same time! By the time there were young ones some of the older ones would have been married and left home. Other side of my family Hamilton worked in the ironworks and black powder where they met.
Thanks Ed. It's always great to get a taste of Scotlands' forgotten history.
Cheers Bryce.
My gran worked here during the war . Fascinating. Thanks for sharing this
I still live in the memories , thank you ,brilliant view of then and now.
Many thanks.
Well done Ed. I had no idea of the history in that area. Went by there on my bike in the early '50's.
Thank you ..... Peter
Cheers Peter. I had no idea either. It was only the unusual shape of Ardeer village or Square on an old map that sparked my interest.
great vid again 😁, we're in this area a few times a year but never knew the industrial history , shame its all gone 😪
Cheers. I didn't know either until I started researching. Fascinating area.
I sure enjoy touring and learning with you Eddy. Trying to catch up on past videos as I go. Cheers from Southern Alberta.
Many thanks. All the best to everyone in Southern Alberta.
Absolutely brilliant video số much history and research i absolutely relish videos like this thank you so much indeed
Many thanks. It's an interesting area.
Thoroughly enjoyed that Ed. I grew in Stevenston and remember the factory well. Almost everyone worked there. I do know my great grandfather lived in Ardeer square when he came here from Tyrone.
I worked in Ardeer in 1980, Ed, on a shutdown in the ICI Nylon Plant. Some great views from up on the old towers that used to be there. Not as far back in time as your story here, but a while ago nonetheless. Thanks again.
Cheers John. 👍
"It must have been 'a blast' while it lasted"! Very good" I like your presentation style.
Another fantastic video Ed. Keep up the good work 🙂
Thanks 👍
Excellent video, that area is steeped in such a wealth of history, well done as usual
Cheers John. Pretty fascinating part of the country that I knew very little about.
Great video Eddy. I enjoyed it. I love the way you put these together, telling a wonderful and sometimes sad story. The ending at the reservoir with the swans was perfect. Thanks Lynn in Naples FL. 😎
Thanks Lynn.
Another great video and history lesson Ed 👍
Thanks Robert.
Great wee educational video Ed. Well done, had no idea about that part of Ayrshire, and my mum is from Saltcoats lol. Well done
Thanks 👍
it was a blast living through that time from 50s and 60s it was the best place to work and they really looked after their workers
Great Video Ed, can you get one done about the Carnbooth Anti Aircraft Gun Battery. Hidden Gem!
Many thanks. I'll check that out.
Fantastic Video Ed! I enjoyed it. Some info I didnt know about Ardeer Square. My Papa worked at ICI as an Indistrial chemist and one of my friends was an accountant and remembers a couple of accidents that happend at the factory. Some of the workers who died in accidents I discovered are also buried in Ardrossan cemetry when I go walks to visit my great grand parents grave and generations further back too. I have been trying to hunt down images of Ardrossan Harbour as my great-grandfather worked as a Marine Engineer there, I have a photo of him and his workmate, this is my current ongoing investigation! There was a Coal Yard and also the Former Shell Site, Shell site was operational from 1897 with a beautiful railway station close
Many thanks. I frequently use the website Canmore. You can search for Ardrossan Harbour in that website, and 4 pages of images will appear, mostly aerial shots. This image, for example, shows Ardrossan Harbour in 1966:
canmore.org.uk/collection/676178
If you click on 'Full Screen' you can then enlarge the image either with the '+' symbol or the mouse wheel. Good luck.
My family worked at Ardeer - the ICI explosives factory and we lived for some years near it on Ardoch crescent. Everyone called the area Ardeer even though the village/hamlet had been gone for a long time. My father said it was once an island. Our neighbour got blown up on site in the early sixties, threw himself on the explosive to save the other men. Left a widow and two children. There a pub on Ardoch crescent near Misk Knows that everyone called 'the wee store', since it was, I believe, an Ardeer company store at one time - it was a convenience shop at any rate where provisions could be bought by the Ardeer factory workers. I believe I still have a photo of it taken at the turn of the century. The signs for tea and ice cream are in the window. If I could live anywhere in Stevenston it would be on Trelawney Crescent. We lived on Ardoch but I wanted an unobstructed view of the shore and Ailsa Craig.
I currently live in the old Ardeer Square been her 25 years Thank you for this fantastic history lesson
Cheers Sharon.
Another great video Eddy. Really been enjoying touring round Mother Scotland virtually from across the pond in my adopted home of Tennessee. I’d love to see a video about the old shell oil refinery and shipbuilding industry in Ardrossan if you wind up back in the Three Towns. Keep up the good work. Cheers.
Thanks Gary. I'll check Ardrossan out.
Fascinating history. My grandad worked at ICI Nobel division. My dad says ICI used the material from coal bings around Ayrshire to build the jetty at Stevenston to bring in Venezuelan crude oil to feed their own refinery.
Fantastic video Ed! We used to hear the samples of explosives being tested, and we lived in Kilwinning. You have to do a part 2, the nylon plant. It dominated the skyline and a tragedy occurred in 1973 when a cooling tower collapsed in a high stormy wind. I was only 2 at the time but my folks heard all about it. There was also a massive explosion from a test piece of dynamite in 78, no-one was harmed thankfully, but it rattled Kilwinning.
Thanks Derek.
Absolutely fascinating Ed. I’m always amazed how things change. There is history around us everywhere and most of us are oblivious to most of it. Great video and music
Cheers Alan.
Great reflection on this very large industrial area with so many hidden dangers. It was a small town even in ICI days and stood out on the coast. My older relatives worked there, I have went to do jobs there many years after and it still seems history in action. This is one place a historian could spend a lives work on and still have a many a chapter. The site is still active in areas, but I would caution anyone apart from visiting historical buildings and known local routes there are hidden dangers, its an area of sand, holes, water and unknown chemicals
Dangerous indeed. Many thanks.
A few years ago now not that long after it closed I heard there is a lot of explosives still on site. The little railway that ran through the site would carry explosives from one part to another which often had materials fall off. And it was considered safer to just leave what had fallen where it lay rather than trying to go and recover it.
@aliorr9356 interesting point, for comparison and slightly off topic. At the end of 1945 war and for many years after servicemen wanted back to normal life and had to close units down, explosives took time to dispose off, and the easiest option was to Bury them and get demobbed. I was aware that the forces EOD teams spent many years trying to deal with these, maybe they still do, I for one would not go metal detecting on old military areas, the ardeer site gives me the shivers about what could still lurk there to the unsuspecting.
Eddy, thank you for a fantastic video. My family lived in Ardeer Square, then moved to the "Tap End" when it was built, eventually relocating back down to Ardeer in MIsk Knowes. I was brought up from 1954 in Misk Knowes, and I can see from some of your maps exactly where it would eventually be built, and what would have been the surrounding area. Great work and again, thank you!!!
Many thanks.
Good video Eddie - thanks
Great video, Ed
Thanks John.
My dad was a dynamite doc at ICI Nobel division. I remember the road/rail crossing at Stevenson railway station had a cycle crossing separate but next to the car crossing. This fed onto the parallel cycle path all the way out to "The Factory". Presumably a bit of Swedish influence.
Excellent 👍🏼 fascinating video.
After watching this for the first time the other day - I ended up a walk along the canal @ Bishopbriggs where a sign tells of a similar little community Mavis Valley - which also had the same kind of cottages. Closed around same time as this place & houses flattened.
I think I'll need to check that one out. Many thanks.
Great wee video. I have ancestry paperwork showing the marriage in 1899 of my great grandfather to a Mary McCulloch from Ardeer Square.
Cheers Tommy.
Hi Ed, a very informative video as usual, I was in and aboot the Nobel factory a few times in my driving job. I always liked going up and doon the coast road, plenty of picturesque places tae stop for your pieces.
Cheers Colin. It's a lovely area of the country, packed with history.
I worked in the nitro-cotton, acid, toluene and hydrogen areas. I remember some girls lose fingers in the det's area and the nitro cotton building blowing up. ( I saved a guy who had a pipe sticking in him). ALL in the early 70s when it was called ICI Nobel's which was moved to England, Bellingsly I think!
Excellent video, I work in ardrossan and have always been interested in the history of Ardeer. Fyi they still quietly make explosives there.
Thanks. 👍
Another interesting video Ed. Just a note of fun. No nose blowing or pies lol. Aredeer sounds like Austere by the sea. Aquaint little toon.
Good video Ed. Wee factoid. For a number of years after opening, an employee stood at the entrance of the Magnum Centre 'clicking' everyone in and out. The reason being that it was in the blast zone of the explosives loading pier across the estuary and there was a limit on occupation of the centre.
That's interesting. Thanks Cameron.
Hi Eddie, part of the canal still exists in Ardeer Quarry Park. The Portland stone taken from here was used in the facades of public buildings in Belfast and Dublin.
Many thanks for that.
At 13.26 in the video you see a man working at a machine/ mixer possibly making nitro glycerine. Note the stool he is sitting on. The stools only had one leg. This was to stop the workers from falling asleep. When the plant was owned by Chemring, there were a lot of interesting photos hung on walls, which should have gone to local museums.
Excellent work Mr Burns! I wonder if they just bulldozed the houses into the reservoir to fill it in. Imagine what a nightmare the reservoir must have been for all the mothers with young children just across the road from it. Do you know what the reservoir was used for?
You're absolutely right about the reservoir. I think it was used to supply water to furnaces in the iron works. You can see how large it was in that aerial photo. In the 1937 OS map of the village, after the iron works had closed, you can see that the village rows are still there but the reservoir has gone. It must indeed have been dangerous for children living in the village.
I live near Paulilles in the South of France where a dynamite factory owned by Nobel was demolished in the sixties. The beaches nearby are still so contaminated by detritus from the factory that people have been arrested at airports because the electronic sniffers detect the residue of explosives on their clothes or backpacks after a day at the beach.
How things change the main explosive factory now resembles something out of a post apocalyptic movie apart from the old ici building .
My late uncle Davie worked in the explosives factory at Ardeer during WWII. He told me there are at least 7 unmarked graves in the factory grounds. These were suspected German spies, who were shot on the spot and buried in the grounds. He also told me that there were two German engineers who had to return to Germany just before the start of the war. Much later, during a daylight air raid on Glasgow, the alarm was sounded and the explosives workers had to make their way to shelters. Davie and a colleague were in one of the furthest units and were not in a hurry to get to the shelter, as they thought it was a false alarm. As they walked to the shelter, they heard a single German bomber that they saw flying towards them. As they were out in the open, they both stopped to watch as the bomber flew low overhead. Amazingly, the bomber dipped its wings in salute, circled out over the sea, dropped a string of bombs in the water and headed off towards Glasgow. They were the only two who saw this and nobody believed them. Davie was sure that the pilot was one of the engineers who had worked there. He must have been told to bomb the explosives factory, because he knew the layout but did not have the heart to kill his former colleagues. He probably told his superiors that he missed, which he did.
An interesting story. Thank you.
Any idea what the football ground was? It looks substantial.
I don't. It was often the case in villages created for an industry, whether coal mining or whatever, that in addition to rows of houses you could also see some facilities, like a school, a reading room and a football ground. You can still see some of these, and they are often just a rectangle of ground with goal-posts.
Saltcoats Victoria Football Club are a Scottish football club based in the town of Saltcoats, North Ayrshire. Nicknamed the Seasiders, the club were originally formed in 1889 and play at Campbell Park.
I just found your channel by accident, this was an interesting video so i have subscribed. P.S. there is just one thing i noticed all of the channels you are subbed to is public in your channels tab just a minor thing if you hadn't noticed.
Although it is funny to see which channels we have both subscribed.
Fascinating. Sad the absolute poverty people lived in. Sadly, we are heading back this way.
My Mum worked here in the 50s.
Affy guid.
Brilliant video very informative. Add me as a subscriber
Thank you.