by big tony » Tue Oct 31, 2006 2:59 pm
boo hoo to you if you didn't like my last posting, i'm sitting looking out my window, the sun is shining and i've just returned from a walk through the town, i met some people i haven't seen for a while and it took me an hour to go the length of the longrow as i was continually stopping to chat, poor bill in the radio station only got a wee wave as i hadn't time to stop otherwise i'd have taken two hours to get home.
my point is? i've lived here all my life, i was born in craigard, i've never thought to live anywhere else and could never move from within sight of the loch (not that i can see it from my house but you know what i mean?)
if you gave me a million pounds i'd spend a good chunk of it on a house overlooking the loch, i wouldn't retire to sunnier climes or any such thing, its the wee toon for me, always has been, always will (some family members might disagree, having left for various reasons).
the point of my point is, that i as a campbeltonian thru and thru (i've got the accent to prove it, theres very few of us left, but me? i'm pure camltun) reserve the right to take the piss out of life in the toon, i can see all the warts but i choose to overlook them because i love the town, i might hate what is happening to it but my love for campbeltown overides all the blemishes, most of them built for fyne homes!!! i might complain about certain aspects of life in the town and certain characters who inhabit it, but as one voice i can't change anything. i can't for example change the fact that most of the houses in parliament and park square are boarded up, mostly in my opinion due to neglect by the tenants(where else in the town have council tenants been given new kitchens and bathrooms, new double glazing and insulation and extensive repairs and remodelling of the general area)
like everyone else i can only grumble about these sites, used as an example, i'm sure i'm not the first that comments on theses houses and wonders if there are not hidden agendas by individuals to get better housing, nor would i be alone in muttering if these individuals were housed beside me lowering the tone of a neighbourhood (theres two areas up the top end of longrow that have been taken over by these undesirables, just read the police reports in the "C word"
thats only one aspect of the town, one i might add that has not been brought on by the closures of the factory and shipyard, these former employees have shouldered their burdon with a great dignity, but thats what decent folks do (no illegals hiding in back shops for them!!!)
the problem with the town is a whole two or three generations of ineffective representation by llocal elected officials, who have been toothless when it comes to dealing with kilmory, a plight made worse with the reorganisation of boundaries whereby the likes of helensburgh and the old favourites dunoon and oban get all the cream and the wee tonners are told to eat cake!!!! everone jokes when travelling down the road that when they hit a pothole they must have entered kintyre.
just look at the fiasco with the swimming pool, who really wanted a library in that building? who exactly decided that the people of the town didn't prefer the library as it was? who decided that the £50,000 meant for the library building should instead go to dunoon and build a flume for their pool (something that our pool didn't get) who decided that if the town wanted all weather pitches we would have to pay for them ourself (every other town in argyll has theirs!!!)
our lot always blame the independants on the council, well it seems to me that as independants they manage to do alright for their constituants.
so if i highlight the downside of the town, don't blame me, blame those that you voted for, because the town is in their care and it is them that are standing idly by and letting it happen!!!!!
