Dead ends AN enthusiastic researcher arrived in Greenock, seeking information about a large Kincaid & Company engine being restored on an old ship, recalls Peter Wright from West Kilbride. Knowing the famous marine engine manufacturer had closed many moons previously, he hit upon the idea of seeking out former employees. And where better to start than a pub close to the old works? “There were no leads,” says Peter, “and the locals found the knowledgeable enthusiast tiresome.
Until one friendly tippler, bent over his hauf an’ hauf, informed the researcher that he’d find many of the lads who produced those beautiful pieces of machinery at 1 South Street. “The intrepid researcher, energised and enthused by this information, sped off in haste to the given address. Which turned out to be Greenock Cemetery.
” Milking it IN more innocent times the most popular justification for something going wrong was the line trotted out by lazy school pupils...
the dog ate my homework. Nowadays, the chattering classes have their own version of this childish excuse to explain anything bad that has ever happened. Colonialism.
Reader David Donaldson notes that the History of Science Museum in Oxford have announced they’ve received funding for a study into how colonialism affects our consumption of dairy milk. David has some thoughts about this worthy academic exercise. “I can’t decide,” he says, “whether this is an abstruse project of interest only to the crème de la crèm.
