THE ARRAN BANNER 20 YEARS AGO

Saturday March 6, 1999 Arran earthquake

At a few seconds before 17 minutes past midnight on Thursday March 4 an earthquake was felt on Arran which measured 4.0 on the Richter scale.

The epicentre was 4km south of the mouth of Lagg Burn. It was at a depth of 19km. It was also the largest earth tremor in this area since 1927 when 4.1 was felt and the largest in the UK since 1994 when a similar magnitude was felt at Norwich. In fact there are up to 30 earthquakes annually in the UK but only about 30 are actually felt.

While the earthquake was exciting enough, it did not turn out to be the prediction of David Icke who said, in 1991, that Arran would be destroyed by an earthquake of scale eight to nine. No structural damage was reported other than a burst water main at Low Glencloy.

Mark Padfield of Brodick, who experienced the tremor, said: ‘We had the floods in October, the hurricane at Christmas, now we’ve just had an earthquake. I wonder if we will see the year 2000!’

Young winner

The Arran Drama Festival has once again been a resounding success with many participants performing in various plays and an appreciative audience attending every evening.

The Monie Kelso Trophy is one of the most prestigious awards at the festival. At the adjudicator’s discretion, it is given each year to the best actor or actress in any adult play. The list of winners down the years is like a Who’s Who of amateur drama on Arran, but on Saturday adjudicator Ron Nicol gave this award to an 11-year-old girl.

Pamela Mason is in Primary 7 at Pirnmill School and on Friday night she acted in Pirnmill Players’ production of And Go To Innisfree. So good was her portrayal of young Anna that Mr Nicol felt it deserving of the Monie Kelso Trophy and the accolade of best actor/ actress of the festival. Quite an achievement for such a young lady, but not a surprise to the cognoscenti.

No yellow lines

Astonishingly, North Ayrshire Council has shelved the idea of putting parking restrictions in Brodick. At Wednesday’s planning meeting, a recommendation to abandon proposals for traffic regulations, which had taken years to achieve, was approved.

There were eight maintained objections and a number of ‘high profile’ objectors. Now they plan to have a public consultation, even though this had already been done. The police, in favour of yellow lines for safety reasons, would not comment.

01_B10twe03 A healthy gathering of children from Arran villages visited the Brodick Library to meet with author Margaret Ryan who wrote The Littlest Dragon.

01_B10twe01 Pamela Mason of Pirnmill Players, who, at age 11, took the best actor award at this year’s drama festival with adjudicator Ron Nicol.

01_B10twe04 Arran Mountain Rescue Team leader Alastair Hume breaks open a bottle from butcher Donald Mackay who collected £415.36 from customers for the team.

01_B10twe05 Rugby players selected to play for Ayrshire after successful trials: Andrew Young, Iain MacDonald, James Primrose and Robert Primrose.

01_B10twe02 Evelyn Broadis will oversee a skill tasting programme with Argyll Training’s Fraser McCowan and Kay Shanks. The scheme will provide a sample of work experience for Arran’s unemployed.