Talk:West Kilbride

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Contents 1 West Kilbride revamp 2 Archiving and Photos 3 WK 4 Revamp moved 5 Premature 6 Hear, hear! 7 Apologies 8 We're on today's Main Page!

[edit] West Kilbride revamp

I have started some work on revamping the page at a sandbox on my user space. All experimental and work-in-progress at the moment and it will not effect the original article for the time being, but here's what I am in the process of doing:

• Stripping the article down to its bare essentials and then building it up again
• Removing some of the different headings and subheadings and attempting to make the article look more like, well, an article rather than a list.
• Removing most photographs in anticipation of new ones (when I get around to taking some!)
• Removing 'fluff' information: i.e. the fact that the town has some take-aways and the infamous hairdressers comment!
• Dewikifing a lot of random words, and removing a lot of the unneeded boldness in places.
• Writing a mostly new history section with information specific to West Kilbride itself rather than everywhere around the town/village.

I'm also attempting to reference everything where possible (without going overboard), and removing some of the "tour guide" stuff about picturesque walkways and the like. One problematic section which has appeared since the above discussion from May is the bit about the scarecrow festival. Aside from the fact that it should now all be past tense, there is far too much information there, the stuff about balloon races and prizegivings is something that should be in the Ardrossan & Saltcoats Herald's WK news section and not Wikipedia! A couple of lines about the fact that the scarecrow festival takes place and why should be more than enough in my opinion. A paragraph with a photograph would be nice, but it would have to be a more general history of the festival than a programme of events I would think.

Thoughts anyone? --Dreamer84 21:17, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Yes, lots of thoughts. Haven't got time to go through them all in detail now, but here are a few:

• There are lots of spelling and grammar errors in your present version. No point in trying to list them all yet (sorry!)
• The general idea is good. I like getting rid of the flowery, tourist-brochure language. There are too many headings and sub-headings in the current version, but I think you may be going too far in the other direction; for example, I much prefer the present version of the transport section. It is more useful, and reads better, if the different modes of transport are separated out.
• Should be quite easy to deal with the refs for notable residents. Simson, Orr, Benedetti, Taylor all have their own articles where their connection with WK is documented (Simson is effectively documented by the monument). Gossman can be cited to the Golf Club book (which is how I found the correct spelling), but you can probably find something on the Scottish RFU site (I was unsuccessful when I first tried, as I was using the incorrect original spelling). Walker also has his own article, but I couldn't see any WK connection there. I grew up with Roy Howat (he was a couple of classes below me), his mother was friends with both my mother and step-mother, and my father had a near-concert quality grand piano he would let Roy use when he was in WK. I guess Howat and Walker would both qualify under "common knowledge" (no need to cite stuff that's common knowledge), though obviously it's preferable if we can find citations (but I have no knowledge of Walker; his TV show is not the sort of thing I watch). McCulloch gets lots of mention in the golf club book, and I'm sure she's on the Scottish Golf site (three-time champion, I think). Never heard of Al Lorraine. Helen Keller I would dearly love to see some evidence of her visit/stay. Avril says the local councillor, Elizabeth MacLardy, may have some photos of her at Sunnyside, a house in Meadowfoot Road. Whyte I know nothing of.
• I recently acquired a copy of the reprint of the Rev John Lamb's book. There is more than enough there to write a good, well-sourced history section (also making use of online sources). On reading the book, it became clear to me that a geography section is necessary too. Incidentally, if you have, or know of, any free-copyright maps of WK that we could use, that would be very helpful.
• The Lamb book also provides an excellent source to cite the Hunterston brooch, the cup-and ring stone and the Roman remains, and to place them in context.
• I've been too busy on other articles to devote much time to WK recently. I'm about half-way through expanding John Boyd Orr at the moment, plus several other unfinished articles. Above all, I feel I a desperate burden of responsibility to do something about the insidious dishonesty pervading the Israel-Palestine articles on Wikipedia, but trying to do anything about it is an incredibly stressful experience. I suppose I come here and to the other articles I mentioned as a relief from the stress and horror I feel at the I-P articles (and the way good, honest editors are being bullied, harassed and intimidated), but I do feel very guilty at not really doing enough to ensure that WP presents an honest account of I-P. As far as I am concerned, the bullying and intimidation have worked, and the bullies know that it works, to my shame, and to the shame of Wikipedia. (Sorry about the mini-rant.)
• The last para is just a long-winded way of saying I don't have the time available that I would like to devote to the WK article, but I will try and do what I can. If I'd had the Rev Lamb book 6 months ago, I'd probably have written quite a good history section by now, and re-organised the article accordingly.
  --NSH001 00:05, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the thoughts NSH, will read them over properly in the morning. Only things I'll say just now is that the sandbox page was done quickly and is very rough which is why there are plenty of errors. Things that are missing from the article aren't necessary gone completely, just not in the current version. Transport section will have its sub headings reinstated too, but I did remove the 'Air' bit completely as since WK doesn't have an airport I don't see the need to be honest, maybe its just me though! --Dreamer84 00:56, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

Would have to perhaps dispute the idea that we don't have to cite sources to something that is allegedly common knowledge. I certainly didn't know that Howat was from West Kilbride until I read it on this page. People visiting this page from all over the country and world may not even know who the man is so I don't think we should take for granted that anything on the page is common knowledge. I think the Keller 'fact' could come out until we get a source. Just because there's an alledged picture of her in the town doesn't mean she lived there! Walker I know stayed in the town, I ran into him at Seamill beach early one Sunday morning a few years back, but the chances of getting a source are unlikely. Certainly I doubt many members of the public outside the local area would know Roy Walker lived in West Kilbride, so again not exactly common knowledge!

Agree on the rest of your points though. --Dreamer84 18:58, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Archiving and Photos

Firstly I have archived all but the most recent discussion onto another page. Hope nobody minds, the page was a little long with all the lengthy discussion going on!

Secondly, and more importantly, I finally had the chance this evening to go out and take a few photos in the West Kilbride area. Unfortunately the time of day wasn't in my favour, and the sun's position over Arran prevented a lot of good shots from Law Hill. I did get a reasonable photo from Portencross though, which I have put on the article, replacing the Seamill beach photo. I've also replaced the Simson memorial geograph photo with a higher-res dedicated Wikipedia photo, and there's a couple of other photos that I've added to the sandbox version of the page I've been working on. That's all I managed to get for the moment, apart from photo of Portencross Castle which didn't turn out well, again due to the sun. --Dreamer84 00:15, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] WK

Dear Dreamer, Like NSH, I haven't time to write much just now because I am immersed in my own work (real life?) at present. However, I think that, overall, the article on WK reads pretty well. Take a look at the articles on other comparable towns and villages. No contest! NSH, in particular, has done much sterling work. Thank you, Neil! Of course, there are no grounds for complacency. We can always do better still!

I added a piece about the Scarecrow Festival because it is one of the ways in which West Kilbride is reinventing itself. Apparently, scarecrow festivals are quite common in England. But this is the first one in Scotland. It started in 2005 and has gradually gained momentum, becoming a popular annual event with a high profile locally. As you might guess, the appeal is primarily to children and young families. It's a well-supported local activity and I think it deserves a write-up here. (I shall update and prune what I have written asap.) WK's efforts in the "Scotland in Bloom" competition each year are another visible way in which the town fosters civic pride and community spirit.

Much more important, though, is the "Craft Town Scotland" initiative which has hardly been written about here. And generous sponsorship from the Moffat Trust is helping WK renovate the derelict shops and houses in Main Street, creating artists' workshops and studios. We need to say something about this also.

Regarding Notable Residents, Major Whyte (of "whiskyisms" fame) lived for many years in a house called Underhill on the outskirts of WK. Small in stature, he was nevertheless a high-profile "character" in the Scotch Whisky industry. I remember him well. He died about 20 years ago, I think. Mr Walker lived for a few years with someone in Seamill, very near the beach. He and his partner have now split up and he has moved away. I don't know the story of Keller's time in West Kilbride. (Was it days? Weeks? Months?) I want to find out, for the sake of this article - and I fully intend to do so. It's a fascinating story, I'm sure. Even if Keller's visit to WK was comparatively short, I still think we should include it here because she was a very extraordinary, world-famous person!

I don't know who Al Lorraine is. Is he or she notable? I couldn't say. (Perhaps not.)

I'm glad someone is doing something about the photographs. Much needed! Well done!

Signing off for now,Avril.rennie 03:19, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Revamp moved

I feel the page I've been working on at my sandbox is now viewable, so I've updated the main article with my current changes. Any grammar, spelling etc please feel free to change. It's definately still a work in progress, but I feel it now resembles a true Wiki article now.

Regarding the 'famous residents', I've changed this to 'notable residents', and removed a couple of names such as Roy Walker, as he stayed in Seamill (got to leave something for the Seamill page!). Some other stuff such as a cancer care shop in the town has been removed, not really notable as pretty much every town has at least one!

The churches section has been reduced to a sentence, but this could probably be built up again with the right sources cited.

Also, I have removed the trivia section, since they are discouraged on Wikipedia, but I have attempted to blend the information into the article (most of it is in the 'Present day West Kilbride' section. The external links section has been cut down, since a lot of the links are just a few lines above in the references section. I also removed the 'See also' section as Seamill and Portencross are linked several times in the main body of the article.

Would love to hear comments, good and bad. --Dreamer84 20:54, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Premature

I have reverted the revamp changes back to the previous version. Main reasons:

• There are just far too many problems in the new version to cope with in one go
• There are too many spelling and grammar errors
• More seriously, it lacks coherence. The history section is going to be crucial, but the present attempt is just a random grab-bag of facts. A history section should tell a story, and it should be an interesting one, that flows in a logical order.

I suggest the best approach is likely to be to deal with the new sections one-by-one, starting with the least problematical. I'd suggest beginning with the historical buildings section (the pics there are very welcome), clean that up for spelling, style and grammar (but leaving the churches in for now), then move on to the next section (I suggest Amenities, not too bad, tho' it also has its problems). I have no objection to the new Residents section (except it should be titled Notable residents)(and maybe it could be expanded with more details about some of them).

The new version is just too poor to be acceptable. Sorry! But I'm sure if we take it bit-by-bit we can arrive at a top-quality article. Obviously we will need to discuss things as we go.

BTW, what happened to our poor wee railway station? Has someone put it in prison? All the photo shows is a fence and a roof! Strange way to start a restaurant business by putting a fence around it! I'd have thought a pic from the fron would be best, but if there's a fence in the way then maybe a platform-side pic would be better.

Hope you don't mind, I do appreciate the work you've been doing, but I do think the approach I've suggested is better.
--NSH001 02:28, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

All points duly noted. :)

When I have done some more work tonight (eg spelling) I will move over the buildings section, the residents and the first paragraph of the history, as I believe it makes for a better introduction than what we have currently. If there are still spelling/grammar errors then please either point them out to me specifically or fix them, after all that's what Wikipedia is all about! And plus I've gone over things so many times that the words start to blur anyway.

Regarding the station's fence, they have an outdoor sitting area and I assume its to give the restaurant users privacy from station patrons, their cars, and the various teenagers that hang about outside in the evenings. A front view of the building would look much the same, only with cars! I did take a platform picture, I may swap them over. An alternative may be a view from the start of Law Brae, I'll see what its like next time I'm there. --Dreamer84 11:30, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

Sounds a good approach, look forward to seeing it.

--NSH001 18:12, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Hear, hear!

I must say, I agree with NSH. The attempted re-vamp by Dreamer was not an improvement. Let's stick to the course we have been on. What we have been doing has been coherent and structured. Let's not throw that away. (No cause for complacency, of course, as I said earlier.)

I think our overall problem is that we have more than enough material to write a short book about West Kilbride. How is that to be condensed into an "article"? This is where someone's sound editorial judgment is necessary. From what I have seen, NSH is a safer pair of hands than Dreamer. So, please keep up the good work, Neil. Edit on!

The point about Mr Walker is very minor. Seamill does come under the wider "umbrella" of West Kilbride, as do Portencross and Hunterston. In time, Mr Walker's connection with Seamill will be forgotten. So, he should get deleted some time. But not yet, I suggest.

Regarding "famous" vis-a-vis "notable" residents, we have to leave a bit of leeway here. In today's society, it seems, some people can become "celebrities" without being at all notable. By contrast, others do vitally important work, of lasting benefit to society, without much public recognition. An OBE, if they are lucky. Nowadays, Lord Boyd Orr and Robert Simson are hardly household names (perhaps not even in West Kilbride!) but they are highy important and well deserve their inclusion here. Notable rather than famous, perhaps.

I admit I may have been stretching things when I included Celtic FC in the "Famous (or notable) residents" section. They have stayed rather than resided at the Seamill Hydro (and trained on the beach), on many occasions. Consequently, Seamill has come to be identified with Celtic to such an extent that I felt it should be included here.

Apparently, Robert Burns stayed overnight at Seamill Cottage on at least one occasion and carved his name on the glass of the bedroom window. (No bed-post? No guestbook?) Unfortunately, I don't know enough about Seamill's connection with Burns to include it here. He didn't reside here officially, but he did leave his mark!

Regarding West Kilbride's notable buildings, I feel the article is greatly lacking in a detailed architectural appreciation of WK. It would be a great mistake to reduce our description of the churches to one-liners because the churches are some of WK's most prominent buildings. They are visual landmarks, cultural centres and vital to the spirtitual life of the community. Kirktonhall (birthplace of Robert Simson) does deserve to be written up in its own right, as does the village hall. Kirktonhall, until very recently, was used as the Registrar's Office for WK. The Old Smiddy (smithy) is still to be seen and the former weavers' cottages still line much of Ritchie Street and Main Street. Further afield, there are notable houses, such as Carlung, and handsome farmhouses, such as Millstonford, and others. What a wealth of material! Where do we stop?

Personally, I look forward to reading the volume in the Buildings of Scotland series (the "McPevsners") in which WK and surrounding area will be documented by a team of professional architectural historians. That will make our job much easier! (No need to reinvent the wheel!)

Vanished West Kilbride is a topic we could think about. Gone are at least two mills, the Roxy Picture House, and the old Police Station is currently being converted into flats. The Primary School that NSH and I fondly remember was burned down by vandals and a modern, open-plan Primary School has taken its place. (Sic transit ... !)

Neil, I have the answer to your question about the Railway Station by James Miller (architect). I had a latte coffee there this morning! WK Railway Station has been saved from near-dereliction and re-opened as a very swanky Italian restaurant called "Chu-Chus". (Geddit?) The James Miller building has been consolidated structurally, with due regard for its architectural character, and the interior has been transfomed into the sort of place you expect to see in the most fashionable areas of Glasgow. Wow! The fence you thought looked like a prison protects an al fresco seating area (for smokers?). Apparently, people are coming from far and wide to eat there. (Well, there is regular public transport, right to the door! And ample parking.)

I think "Chu-Chus" is a tremendous step forward. It's high time West Kilbride was famous for more than UFOs, baskets, candles, scarecrows, wind-farms ... and a certain Mr Walker.

Best regards to all contributors! Avril.rennie 12:55, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

Well I'm very sorry I bothered, I'll leave the article in yours and Neil's capable hands. Happy editing. --Dreamer84 17:16, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

Avril, I think you may have misunderstood my message to Dreamer. I think the work he's been doing is definitely a step in the right direction, and I'm sure we can produce a very good article by working together along the lines I suggested. I'll reply to your other points later (or maybe not) once I've had time to think about them.

Dreamer - I hope you won't be discouraged by Avril's message.

--NSH001 18:22, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

I appreciate that Neil, I just didn't like the tone of the above post, felt like "screw Dreamer, please carry on reverting his work Neil". And I'd hardly call the entire current page "structured" by any means. Avril, I've spent literally hours taking photographs and scouring books for sources to back up every claim that's been written in the article (some are impossible I might add), and I was mainly looking for useful comments and constructive criticism, which I was getting until the above 'comment' this afternoon. I did say the article was still incomplete. If you feel that something has been omitted, then add it in (with the proper sources as needed), rather than come here and tell me about how it should be there. The amount of information posted on this talk page could easily create a brilliant article, yet half of it is nowhere to be found on the actual article.

Also, If we are going to include all aspects of Seamill, Portencross and Hunterston here, then we may as well set up redirects from all those links to this page. Perhaps the most difficult thing when working on this article is finding where to draw the line between information about West Kilbride, and the West Kilbride area, especially with the ambiguity over what exactly West Kilbride is these days!

I will update the castles/churches section tonight, lets see how it goes. --Dreamer84 21:53, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

Okay so as I said, I have updated the "Places of interest" with a new "Historical buildings" section. Aside from the odd flowery word or unnecessary sentence here and there, I have not deleted any information from the existing article, merely expanded on it. I took out the Portencross Castle photo, as the castles area was looking a little busy with photographs, and the photo can easily be seen by clicking the article link. I found the fact that William Wallace apparently stayed at the original Crosbie Castle interesting, it wasn't something I was aware until I read the Lamb book recently. I was also disappointed to find the current Crosbie Castle (or rather 'Crosbie Towers') in the state it is now in.

I have also altered the History section slightly. The lead paragraph has been expanded, and other sections have been referenced. Of course, a greater overhall is badly needed, but this is a small stopgap in the meantime.

Finally, I have added the odd {{fact}} tag here and there where sources are need (again this is incomplete).

Here's a slight dilemma: buildings like the community centre and the village hall, should they be listed under "Historical buildings", or "Amenities"?

That's all the changes, I think. Please feel free to correct any mistakes. --Dreamer84 22:26, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Apologies

Thanks to Dreamer for his latest contributions. Unfortunately real-life commitments mean I won't be able to devote much time to Wikipedia or this article for the next few days, possibly up to a week. Apologies for the temporary delay to the restructuring work. But (obviously) OK for anyone to do useful small changes such as spelling/grammar corrections, or adding citations.
--NSH001 14:46, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] We're on today's Main Page!

(sort of ...)

Clyde Muirshiel Regional Park gets a mention in the "Did you know" section, with a link to West Kilbride appearing on the front page.
--NSH001 19:53, 11 September 2007 (UTC)