THE ARRAN BANNER 20 YEARS AGO

Saturday August 23, 1997

Royals secret visit

During the Queen’s visit to Arran last week, it has emerged that other members of the royal family were also around, unbeknown to the press hordes. We now know that Prince Charles, his two sons Princes William and Harry, and Mrs Camila ParkerBowles spent the day on Holy Isle and joined the royal yacht after it had left Lochranza.

Other bits of information have also seeped out. It seems that, due to the ferry strike, 37 Special Branch cars were brought over to Arran prior to the strike and kept under security at Brodick Castle. And something we only noticed after the big day was over was that the people of Corrie had celebrated the visit by painting the three concrete sheep on the Sandstone Quay. While two were white and one was the black sheep of the family, now they are red, white and blue. There is no record of whether the Queen commented on them.

Walkers welcome

Remember the signs that caused all the trouble in the summer of ’93? They began: ‘Hillwalkers and visitors are welcome,’ but the message they gave was not taken as a welcome. The letters of complaint to the Banner went on and on, some of the signs were defaced and soon they were all removed.

Next week new signs will go up, prob- ably on the same cairns at access to the hills, and they will start: ‘Walkers are welcome.’ Scottish Natural Heritage, which is putting them up, hopes that the welcome will be taken at face value and create a concordat between hillwalkers and landowners, and not, as last time, a confrontation.

Connecting Arran

A Dutch cable laying vessel, The Galetea, arrived off the Arran coast at Banliken Shore on Wednesday to link Arran to the mainland. This was the second of two replacement electricity cables running from Carradale

The cables they replaced were 34 years old and the first replacement was laid four years ago. Since then new cables have been laid over the String to Brodick and this undersea cable now completes the upgrading of Arran’s electricity supply.

01_b33twe05 The winning line-up following the magnificent Brodick Ladies’ Open on Tuesday are left to right: Kate Sneddon, scratch, Jean Robertson, silver, open champion Liz Robetson, Brodick ladies’ captain Margaret Gauld and Betty Buchanan, bronze.

01_B33twe02 Mrs Karen Barbour with the new starts at Kilmony.

01_B33twe03 Southend captain Jamie Macpherson receives the Knockout Cup from Ian Small after beating Shiskine 3-1 in the cup final, the first game of football at the new Ormidale Park.

01_B33twe04 Lamlash Golf Club captain Eddie Cannon with his haul of trophies from the Lamlash Open last weekend. With a super aggregate score of 119, not only did Eddie win the Open Trophy outright but also lifted the Blenheim Cup, for the best score on Sunday,...

01_B33twe01 It’s back to school time and here we see Mrs Susan Kelly with the new starts at Corrie, Robin Blythe, Adam Stevenson and Ellis Graham.