Maybole artist Gordon Cockburn is to exhibit a selection from his mining collection in the Midlothian Mining Museum, Newtongrange, during June and July.  The museum will display Gordon’s works showing miners at work and "play", their families’ environment and the actual mine workings to great effect. His forefathers have a history in mining stretching over two hundred years.

Alongside the paintings are a personal selection of mining memorabilia of a bygone era. The mining museum, formerly the Lady Victoria Colliery, is one of Scotland's most popular visitor attractions and a visit there over the summer months would not be wasted. The museum has charitable status, they are delighted to show the studies of Gordon Cockburn which is a first for them in exhibiting art work. They hope that this exhibition will widen their visitor numbers with interest nationally.

Maybole branch of the Royal British Legion Scotland celebrated its 90th birthday with a drumhead service at Culzean Castle on Sunday June 19. Members had originally planned to mark the occasion on Sunday June 26 which would have been closer to the date the branch was formed on June 28, 1921.

A few days earlier, Field Marshall Lord Haig was at Culzean on a visit to the Lord Lieutenant of Ayrshire, The Marquess of Ailsa to discuss setting up the British Legion and a public meeting was arranged in Maybole Coffee House on June 28. The branch claims this makes it the oldest branch in the United Kingdom.

The drumhead service began with Maybole Pipe Band leading the parade from the Ruined Arch to the castle’s front lawn, overlooking the Fountain Court. Following the pipe band were members of the Maybole Branch, members of Ayr Branch, Sea Cadets, Army Cadets and the ATC. Parade Marshal was Alex Davidson.

Attending the service were Lt Col George Hay, Depute Lord Lieutenant of Ayrshire; Provost Winifred Sloan; Lord David Kennedy whose great grandfather was the Marquess who met Lord Haig at Culzean in 1921; Sandra Osborne MP; Adam Ingram MSP; Chief Inspector Neil Kerr, Strathclyde Police Area Commander; Hugh Kerr, Area Commander Strathclyde Fire & Rescue; Lt Cdr David Reese RN, Executive Officer HMS “Gannett”; Janneta Rodger, Chair Maybole Women’s Branch RBLS, and other members; Councillor Brian Connolly; David Kiltie, Chair of Maybole Community Council; Bill Mullin, Ayr Sea Cadets, and Brian Wilson, ATC.

At the beginning of the service, Fr Philip Kitchen, Branch Chaplain welcomed everyone to Culzean Castle, which had played such a historic part in the creation of the branch in 1921.  Pipe band drummers were invited to carry their drums to form the altar on which Mark McEwan and Alex Gemmell laid the branch colours. Then a helicopter from HMS Gannet circled the castle and lawn in a ceremonial “fly pass”.

Afterwards the drummers collected their drums and returned to the band prior to the march past when the salute was taken by Col Hay. Everyone then adjourned to the Welltrees Inn, Maybole where a special birthday cake was cut by Provost Sloan and Col George Hay. Branch secretary Bill Wingate thanked both of them and other guests for all their assistance on such a historic occasion.

Fr Philip Kitchen, parish priest of Our Lady and St Cuthbert’s Church in Maybole, had two surprise guests staying with him recently. They were Major Robin Alexander and John Parry who are on a project called “40 Days UK” which has the aim of raising awareness and funds for Help for Heroes and Cancer Research UK. With John as backup driver, Robin is cycling round Britain and he had a special interest in the Maybole area!

Robin started his trip on 5th May, and on Thursday, 26th May they dropped in to Maybole Police Station where local officers contacted Fr Philip who agreed to provide overnight accommodation. Robin said, “I attended Mass after which Fr Philip insisted in taking John and I out for dinner. We very much enjoyed his company and generous hospitality. Returning to his presbytery and with an invitation to join him for a wee dram, it was not to be an early night. We did eventually retire and hit the sack at midnight!”

The next morning, after breakfast, they made a slight detour to visit a cairn which had been constructed by Robin’s family during a previous visit on 28th May 1982. Robin told us, “My father's investigation of family genealogy had resulted in The Cairn of Drummochreen which marks the spot where an ancestor, Andrew MacAlexander of Drummochreen, was attacked and murdered by Hew Kennedy of Girvanmains in September 1599.

Robin, his father Col Graham Alexander, mother Janet, wife Pam, children Elizabeth, Jillian and Peter, sister Jennifer, her husband Andy Collins, their children Sarah and Charles had all been here in 1982. He added, “It was quite an emotional visit but after taking a few photos it was time to return to get back on the bike. A fond farewell and it was back onto the A77 to Cairnryan and a P&O sponsored crossing to Larne NI. En-route I managed to contact and call in to meet Gordon Clark in Girvan, an ex-policemen and now running a bookshop, who had kindly assisted my father during earlier visits to Ayrshire when he had been tracing the family genealogy.”

Sponsored by Halfords and Mercedes-Benz, Robin hopes that his efforts will inspire and encourage people he will meet along the way to further extend sponsorship and support for the tremendous work undertaken by both the chosen charities. For donations, please visit the links to www.bmycharity.com/40daysuk for Help for Heroes and www.justgiving.com/40daysuk for Cancer Research UK. Fr Philip said, “The visit proved to be one of those great blessings which come your way every once in a while. The phone call about Robin from Maybole police did catch me unawares, but both Robin and John proved to be the most congenial of guests and of course the story of ancestors murdered in these parts established an interesting basis for conversation.”

Adam Ingram MSP recently met with members of Maybole Community Council and the Bypass Committee to discuss the way forward to find a cure for what he described as a “clogged artery”. He said the he wholeheartedly supported a bypass for Maybole and was delighted to read the remarks the First Minister Alex Salmond made recently when he revealed his dream to provide a bypass for Maybole.

Mr Ingram also welcomed the recent comments made by South Ayrshire Council’s Leader, Councillor McIntosh, and Ayrshire Chamber of Commerce, who have given their backing to the campaign He added, “I believe if we are to see the bypass come to fruition we must work together at a local and regional level to ensure we have a coherent and persuasive case to present to the Scottish Government.

“This must represent the interests of all the local communities who will benefit from the creation of the new bypass.” He continued, “Most importantly, we need to highlight the benefits to the Scottish economy as a whole from a significant improvement to the roads infrastructure between Scotland and Ireland. We need to push the Maybole bypass to the top of the priority list for strategic transport projects.

Given the First Minister’s determination to ensure that the Scottish Parliament and Government gains substantial borrowing powers for capital projects in the near future, we need to be ready to take full advantage of the opportunity this development will present.” Peter Mason, who chairs the Bypass Committee told us, “I thought it was a vey positive meeting and Adam came up with a few suggestions to try to raise the profile of the bypass to a new level.

“He also agreed to become an associate member of the committee and told us that he would do whatever possible to bring the need for a Maybole Bypass to the attention of the First Minister and any other government ministers he felt was appropriate.”

Carrick Academy held their fourth annual rugby prize-giving on Friday 18th June. We were delighted to have Mr and Mrs Goodwin, Gordon Thomson (Stewartry Girls Coach), Mrs Johnstone and the Rev Brian Hendrie in attendance. Over 120 pupils were also at the event.

Mr Brown welcomed everybody to the event and spoke about how much rugby is now part of school life at Carrick Academy. He stated that without everybody’s hard work we would not be one of very few schools in Scotland to receive the SRU Gold Award for Rugby Development for the third year in a row. He also talked about some of the plans for next season. Everybody then watched photo clips of the past season that Mr Reilly had put together with background music. This was highly entertaining and everybody enjoyed this part of the event.

Mr Webster also spoke about how important the rugby sides were and how impressed he was by the standard of play and personal development that he has witnessed with many of the players .  The event was once again a great success and the hospitality that was organised afterwards just rounded off what was a great event.

The primary five pupils at Gardenrose were delighted when Mr Tony Begley, a representative of Mary’s Meals, visited their class on Tuesday 21st of June. Mr Begley talked to pupils about the work of Mary’s Meals, a charity which provides school meals for some of the world’s poorest children, and to receive the funds the primary five pupils had raised.

Mr Begley showed pictures and video clips of the children in Africa queuing for free school lunches. He explained how the poorest communities are supported by Mary’s Meals feeding programme, as all the resources and food used are sourced in the local area eliminating any transportation costs. The pictures showed the mothers of the children cooking and serving the meals and Mr Begley explained that the mothers are not paid for this work, so staffing costs are kept down, allowing more of the money raised to be used to buy food.

The primary five children decided to raise funds for the Scottish based charity while comparing Malawi with Scotland, in the winter term. They were so moved by the plight of the poor children in Malawi that they not only raised funds for Mary’s Meals but also, over night, managed to pool their resources to fill shoe boxes as part of the Samaritans’ Purse Christmas Shoe Box appeal.

The primary five children were very proud of their enterprising achievements as they presented Mr Begley with the sum of £96. Mrs Ramsay, their teacher, agreed that the children had worked very hard to raise funds for the charity by making and selling gift wrapping paper and cards at the Gardenrose Christmas Fair in December, and collecting small change in saving boxes at home. The money raised will feed about sixteen Malawian children school dinners for a year.

This year’s Summer Show by St Cuthbert’s Primary School was a fantastic production of “Little Red Riding Hood”. It was full of colour, song, music and humour and the appreciative audiences at two performances enthusiastically applauded the young pupils for their talent and hard work.

A former Education Advisor, now retired commented afterwards, “As I told the head teacher, I have seen more than a few such shows and this one was right up there with the best. It was a great tribute to pupils and staff; not a missed cue, not a prompt needed and thoroughly well acted. The wolf could make a name for himself!”

Cast Narrators - Josh Malone, Dani Struthers, Blair Hannah Little Red Riding Hood Rebecca Campbell Grandma Patrick McCahill Fox Aidan McQuillan Wolf Jason Tomlinson Private Snort Brody Wright Spider Deaglán Hunter Blair Badger Dara Hunter Blair Owl Zara Cole Sniffy Jack Menzies Bat Cain Patrick Beetle Darra Murdoch Snake Darra Murdoch Lizard. Zak Tomlinson Squirrel Toni McLaughlin Sergeant Sue Jorja Macnab Private Squealer Ben McLaughlin Raven Finlay Wright Rabbit Millie Hannah Lady Bird Alex Sallens Fawn Lara Valdrighi Hedgehog Zoe Campbell A special thank you to Primary 1//2/3 for their performance of Eeny Meeny Minibeasts

Harry Campbell, Keira Flannighan, Maya Gayubas, Benedict Hunter,. Leyton Kilgour, Peter Kirkpatrick, Skye MacDonald, Abi Macleod, Quinn Struthers, Ethan Cole, Adam Collins, Ellie Orr, Kai McGregor, Christie Tomlinson, Victoria McDonald, Eilidh Welsh, Nina Boron, Greg Lawrie, P.J McQuillan, Reece Mitchell, Cole Struthers, Matthew McDonald.