FROM OUR ARCHIVES

5 YEARS AGO

It is an accolade no town wants to win. But Kilmarnock has been given the dubious title of the worst place to live in Scotland. The Ayrshire town, which featured in the controversial documentary reality TV series The Scheme, features in a new book as a “post-industrial wasteland” home to drug addicts and violence. A new book, Crap Towns Returns – a sequel to the 2003 bestseller which named Cumbernauld as the secondworst place to live in the UK – described the community as

“leading the charge for our latest foray into recession”.

10 YEARS AGO

Icelandair, the international carrier flying to Scotland for more than 60 years, has suspended flights to Glasgow for four months, blaming the collapse of Iceland’s banking system for the move. The cancellation of services to the city increases the pressure on an already hard-pressed retail sector in Glasgow, spelling the end, for this year at least, of the annual Christmas pilgrimage by hundreds of Icelandic shoppers with the krona now virtually worthless within the exchange rate and disposable income at a premium against spiralling inflation.

25 YEARS AGO

Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams yesterday put his shoulder beneath the coffin of the IRA bomber who killed himself and nine innocent victims on Belfast’s Shankhill Road and effectively closed the door on his involvement in peace talks. It was a gesture which most accepted privately that Mr Adams had little choice but to go through with if he was to hold together the republican movement as a credible partner in political dialogue. It was, however, also a gesture which will have put him beyond the pale as a participant in such talks.