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December 2001 Update

Life in Ayr

Until very recently, Ayr had a big Cattle Market, near the School where Safeways now stands. The Market has moved a mile or so out of town, but used to be a big feature of life for pupils.

"Other memories are of walking home along Castlehill Road which ran alongside the Cattle Market which had a high brick wall. My constant fear was to meet a mob of Ayrshire cattle being walked to market. In those days farmers moved their herds on the roads. Sheep were all right but cattle with their big horns and unfriendly looks were particularly fearsome, especially to a small boy. On one occasion, a kindly woman in a house across the road allowed me to wait in her front garden until the cows went past." (David McRobbie, 1941)

"Another happening in the playground was the chasing and rounding up of loose sheep, runaways from the local market, and many times my pals and myself have 'assisted' Geordy Stevenson to deliver his flock to Craig's Holmston Farm, after school." (James Fairlie, 1935-41).

"I well remember Market Day in Ayr too. The noise and the traffic and of course the odour of the cattle." (Susanne Nixon, now McMillan, 1948-55)

Ayr had many other attractions for children, only going to the Carnegie Library, and generally enjoying yourself, is largely unchanged -

"I often visited Burns Cottage which in those days cost 6d to enter, spent hours at the docks looking at the Irish coal ships, borrowed books from the Carnegie Library, skated on the River Ayr in winter and generally enjoyed myself." (David McRobbie, 1941 and later)

© Friends of Holmston, 1999 and 2000

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