Irvine Times: A flashback to the top pics from August 2008

Who can you spot in these pictures?

The 2008 Marymass Festival began with the sashing of Queen elect Kerr-Ann Murdoch and her four Marys - Carly Diamond, Rachael McCallum, Beth Ingram and Megan Joyce – at Irvine’s Townhouse. 

As always, a big crowd gathered to watch the annual event and join in the fun.

The opening night also saw Danny Kerr being named as the new Carters’ Captain.

The Marymass celebrations continued at the weekend at the traditional 4th Port Parade - with some impressive fancy dress costumes on display.

Committee members, caretakers and clubs from years gone by gathered together for the much-anticipated re-union at Castlepark Community Centre.

The nostalgic knees-up was organised to celebrate 30 years in their own premises and everyone who has been involved in the centre was invited along to toast the anniversary.

Irvine’s Iona Winton chopped off her dreadlocks to raise cash for children’s charity Barnardo’s.

Iona, 53, was a volunteer at the charity’s Irvine store and had grown the dreadlocks over 20 years. The cropped locks finally stretched out to a remarkable 210ft.

These Dreghorn youngsters had a great time at Greenwood Academy’s gymnastics club during the summer holidays.

A Kilwinning author hit out against Newsnight presenter Jeremy Paxman for insulting Robert Burns in a new foreword to the Chambers dictionary.

 Andrew O’Hagan was angered by Paxman’s comment that Burns’ work was “sentimental doggerel”.

The writer told the Edinburgh International Book Festival: “The only thing that can be said about this is that - and I am not a vengeful person - Paxman likes fishing in Scottish rivers, well, he should be banned.

“Then his fishing rods can be used for something else.”