Hogmanay In Kilmarnock

A Memory of Kilmarnock.

Sometime in December of 1953 I was posted to Preswick Airport from London Airport, being a motor cycle Constable with what was then the Ministry of Civil Aviation Constabulary, for a tour of duty of one month, the police motor cycle, a 350cc Matchless was shipped from London by train.

It had been reported that cars were mistaking the single runway for the main road to Glasgow, however during my tour I didn't come across any such incident, although it was bloody cold riding a motor cycle eight hours a day.

But the fondest memories of that time I have are first-footing on new year's eve with three pretty Scottish girls in Kilmarnock, being a tall, dark, stranger I was pushed into various homes with a piece of bread in one hand and a piece of coal in the other, giving the promise of food and warmth for the year, all new to me being an Englishman.

As I seem to recall this lasted for two or three days, One cottage visited I remember most clearly was that of a poacher, who told me how to 'tickle' trout, insisted on showing me how he loaded his shot gun cartridges with people smoking.

And finally trying to demonstrate what a good gun dog he had, that was sleeping under the table, by throwing a plucked chicken that had been hanging on the scullery door across the room over the heads of everyone, with words 'fetch', at 3 o'clock in the morning he got no reaction, the dog stayed on sleeping.