District News

takes place on Monday evenings from 8pm to 10pm in St Meddan’s Church Hall, Church Street, Troon. For more details please contact Band Secretary on 01292- 319535 or email troonblackrock@ yahoo. co. uk. St Meddan’s Church are running a babies and toddlers’ playgroup in the church hall on Monday, Wednesday and Friday mornings from 9.3011.15am. Donation charge is £ 1.50 per family. Burns Club The new session of the Burns Club got off to an excellent start with a talk by Tom Barclay on the First World War and its impact on Ayrshire. He explained how the onset of war came as something of a surprise. But it was not long until the seriousness of the conflict began to dawn as the fighting continued into 1915 and casualties mounted. Using many excerpts from local newspapers and photographs from several sources, he described many significant events involving men and women from the county. These included an ultimately abortive attempt to use Loch Doon as a training facility for aircraft and pilot training. The talk was well received by the audience, demonstrated by the questions asked on its conclusion. The reader for the evening was vicepresident Roger Livingstone who delivered a poem by Hugh Waters, The Common Ned’s Prayer, which used the same metre, humour and exposure of hypocrisy as Burns’ Holy Willie’s Prayer. The evening was a promising start to new president Kenny Easton’s year. The next meeting will be on Wednesday 26 October when Willie Dick will speak on Cornell Estates and Burns. Meetings are held in the Bowling Club at 7.30pm and gentleman guests are welcome.