Tag: north ayrshire
#Poem For Our American Cousins
Romans 8:17
In every year thats passes by, there’s friends from overseas, visiting a little town with dreams of family.
Perhaps Place castle some will say, or found in Walker Hall, perhaps a line of great descent, behind Tianna Falls.
Walking streets which long since gone, with hopes of names or face, wearily they pace around to find the slightest trace.
And when we ask about the task, the answer’s never clear, identity or Grandpa’s home or memories they hold dear.
Still there is a waiting wealth, which passed through every line, a joyful welcome and a smile to all who take the time.
And legacies of golden bowls surrendered long ago, exchanged for joy preserved in time, for future folk to know.
Heirs of joy, and stewardship still, which lasts beyond our peers, kindness, smiles remembered still throughout the passing years.
If today a search does come to wanton lonely minds, think not of watches or old clocks to search for back in time.
Instead to know their sense of joy, is shared today by all, a random act of kindness do, instead of searching halls.
For welcome, joy and happiness was theirs and ours today, there is no forgetting acts of Love which fall on minds today.
Make your mark for future lines, by random acts of good, remembered more by other folk than silver, gold or wood.
Rain at Jock’s Burn, Kibirnie
(John 5: The Pool of Bethesda)
An angel clad in white winged robes with hands upon the pool
A surge of water gushes forth, clear, transparent, cool
Children watch upon the bridge with raincoats, darkened caps
My mother calls me not to fear, the bridge’s missing slats
Like needles dropping in the stream, rain pierces to the ground
Raising thoughts in Children’ s minds with every plopping sound
And as the Angel, golf course walks, the clouds clear with his step
Revealing brighter thoughts for man with every place he treads
By Crawfurd’s castle, blue skies clear and children move away
Their raincoats filled with water still seem strange in Summer’s days
Shadows clear upon the fields and hope again appears
Within the showers, sunny glades where man has nought to fear
Long after Angels hands descend or sun upon Man’s dreams
Still the pool, it gushes forth pushing all upstream
And on the Minds of local men an Angel dares to tread
Stirring healing loving thoughts upon the dying bed.
A #poem about the mountains around the #Garnock Valley #northayrshire
Some days the mountains speak to me
defending Truth and Love
like Angels climbing Jacob´s Ladder
to and from Above
With thoughts so clear and brightly shining
fields of grass and green
stretching to horizon´s line
and farms lying in between
Other days the mountains seem
an obstacle of view
which stop me seeing o´e´r the sky
and leave me feeling blue
Tis these weeks the hardest are
when shadows mark my way
when people´s words like arrows fly
and hinder all my days
To search for good in every thought
dispels the darkest night
for through the words and tempers flared
lie Angels in disguise
To take us higher in our thought
to bless us every day
find the Love in everyone
it is the only way.
Glengarnock Steel Works: War Memorials unveiled (including Kilbirnie) November 1922.
To avoid confusion, let me explain:
- There was a Plaque for both wars inside Glengarnock Church (demolished) and details can be found here on the Imperial War Museum´s site and it resides now in the Auld Kirk of Kilbirnie along with another plaque for their own Kilbirnie parishoners.
- A memorial for WW1 was a plaque attached to a building at the steel works. I have seen it as a boy and I recall that it was on the back of one of the steel works offices. I do not know if that contained names of the second war also. The Colvilles staff magazines in the early 1920s contained a pull out glossy souvenir about those employees who died during the first world war. Details are below.
- A new Plaque was unveiled at Glengarnock Primary School for WWII only but that school has since been demolished – it may have been transferred to the replacement secondary school at Glengarnock. The outdated Imperial war museum entry is here for that one.
- A separate war memorial exists in Kilbirnie at the park gate covering both wars for people who lived in Kilbirnie. The Imperial war museum reference is here.
Details of unveilings for (2) and (4) and are below:
Here is the roll of Honour from the staff magazine about Glengarnock with the Steel works Employee names on there:
Glengarnock Memorial
Glengarnock Memorial
Glengarnock memorial
KIlbirnie Memorial
Kilbirnie Memorial
History of the County of Ayr : with a genealogical account of the families of Ayrshire
This book has a lot of detailed information about the Auld Kirk in Kilbirnie, River Garnock, Place, Fairs, as well as the history of prominent families and findings of the area,. Barclays, Crawfurds, Cunninghame, etc History of the kirk etc including names of early people serving there.
This book has also very detailed sections about Parishes: Dundonald, Dunlop, Fenwick, Galston, Girvan, Irvine, Kilbirnie, West Kilbride, Kilmarnock, Kilmaurs, Kilwinning, Kirkmichael, Kirkoswald, Largs, Loudoun, Mauchline, Maybole, Monktoun, Muirkirk, Ochiltree, Riccarton, St Quivox, Sorn, Stair, Stevenston, Stewarton, Straiton, Symington, Torbolton.
Appendix.
Poem for Arran and the Holy Isle
Oh draw near, Great Love Divine, and sooth my waiting mind.
Whiting Bay and Holy Isle, surely all are thine, within my heart appears the long forgotten saints.
Passing holy hours, like a tired monk I wait to find you in the maze of liturgies and pathways.
My naked head does burn, like earthly passions turn, to a higher calling, to vistas set eternal.
With a yearning voice so strong, I turn to what I long, to find my peace in thee.
May the mountains of the isles teach me humility of heart, to see beyond the peaks of shortcomngs to higher views of Love.
The sweeping vistas of Love, higher than the highest peak, swirling winds appear.
The joy of meeting departed ones, to commune again on the shores of thine Isles, I wait, I come.
