Sun, sea and sand in Ayr during Fair break

Fair holidays. First a photographer would be sent to Central Station, bus depots and other transport hubs to encapture the queues of Glaswegians going off on holiday.

Then, as if we were missing them already, we would send photographers to Rothesay, Dunoon, Ayr, even Blackpool, just days later to record happy Glasgow folk splashing in the water, eating ice creams, sitting on deck-chairs or kicking a football. How could you be a photographer and not take a picture of the donkeys?

There are no donkey rides at Ayr Beach these days – probably a combination of animal welfare concerns and costs making it a thing of the past. It was not just the donkeys that suffered. Pity the poor lads here who spent their days slowly trudging along with the donkeys to a certain point then turning and going back to the beginning, time after time.

Ayr Beach is still however one of the most popular beaches in Scotland. Apart from a couple of miles of good sand and sea, there is also the town’s Low Green which is a vast expanse of grass beside the beach for those who want to kick a ball or have a picnic without sand getting

Copies of our archive photographs can be purchased by emailing photoenquiries@heraldandtimes.co.uk or via our website www.thepicturedesk.co.uk everywhere. The next standard picture at the beach was young women splashing in the water, and here we have Ann McIlhutton, Betty Skinner and Violet Forsyth in July, 1959, at Ayr. Bikinis were not yet common which explains the one-piece. And look at them kicking up the water, presumably at the photographer’s instruction in order to create some action.

And finally at Ayr in July, 1953, a young lad, Stewart Howieson from Broxburn, getting down and dirty in the sand. He is trying to build a wall of sand behind him so that he can create a small pond for his plastic boat, which looks like the Queen Elizabeth, to sail in.

Alas it looks as though he is about to learn, like King Canute, that he cannot keep the tide back.