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From: "Hugh McCallum" <hewmac@xx.com.au>
To: <threetowners@topica.com>
Sent: Tuesday, September 05, 2000
Subject: [3T] Ardeer Factory Explosion 1913 |
Hugh McCallum wrote on 25 January 2000
In the mid-1950s us young lads often worked for the local farmers at
tattie harvesting. One year my brother Bobby and I were working for a
farmer who had his farm on the back road between Ardrossan and West
Kilbride. He also had a potato field within the centre of Bogside
Racetrack.
One day Bobby and I collected about three stone of lead covered copper
wire which seemed to be scattered at random in the Bogside potato field.
The fence nearby I was told was the ICI explosives factory boundary.
Would this be right?
Charlie Smyth that well kent scrap metal buyer in Stevenston (at the top
of Schoolwell Street?) was visited. A thought just occurred - lead
poisoned potatoes!
Hugh McCallum
Seeing the following in the Ardrossan
& Saltcoats Herald about that massive explosion in 1913 at Ardeer
Factory makes me wonder if that's how the copper wire I mentioned above
got into Bogside racetrack. Was there lead coated copper wire in those
days? Bye the way the farmer was named YOUNG.
From the Ardrossan and Saltcoats Herald
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The terrible explosion on Monday
forenoon occurred at a point about 1 1/2 miles from the offices and
a full half mile to the north of the company's wharf on the river
Garnock, in the portion of the works
near Bogside Racecourse and
facing straight across the course to the grand stand. Taking place
as it did in the forenoon, a large number of people saw the column
of smoke and flame rising from the explosion, and the impression
which the majority of them, especially those in the Harbour
district, received was that the seat of the disturbance was in the
immediate vicinity of the wharf, while many who had not such a clear
view of the works thought that one of vessels loading explosives at
the wharf had blown up. |
Hugh McCallum
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