FIFTY YEARS AGO Thursday May 9, 1974

McCorkindale’s bumper harvest

There is no doubt about it at all. The Tories have triumphed in Kintyre.

This point was hammered home when, with the light of grey dawn sweeping through the windows of the Town Hall, the returning officer, Mr W Wilson, declared that John McCorkindale had been elected as regional representative for Kintyre on the Strathclyde Council.

In a three-cornered fight with Labour and Liberal, Mr McCorkindale polled overall more than his opponents put together. At one time so slowly was the poll going that he was heard, very humanly, to wonder if he would get back in time for the milking. We reckon he just about made it.

The other parties could take very little joy from the situation. Campbeltown, somewhat to its surprise, woke up to find its two wards in the hands of the Conservatives — to wit, Tom Coulson and Provost Archie McCallum.

Miss Dorothy Grant put up a gallant fight in Kinloch and came very close to victory, but the split in the opposition not only put out George McMillan, the Argyll County Council planning convener, it also edged the Tories narrowly in on a minority vote.

The same was true in Kilkerran, where Provost Archie McCallum was visibly relieved to win a close-run thing against Neil MacCallum.

Arguably, and some Labour supporters did argue the point vehemently, it was largely SNP intervention that kept Labour out and put the Tories in.

But equally, Labour’s own disarray in the Kinloch ward did nothing to help. In South Kintyre, Col James Taylor won handsomely and there will certainly be strong pressure on him to consider being a candidate for chairmanship of the new Argyll District Council.

The stained glass window in memory of the islanders who died in the Great War.

1924: Clockwise from top left: The new parish church of Gigha has been erected on a commanding site on the rising ground beyond the post office.

The Gigha islanders who died serving in ‘The Great War’.

1924: The Rev Kenneth MacLeod, minister of Gigha.