Ideal Homes Falling Down

Troon as stretched.

There is so much more in this picture now, than there ever was when I was little.

Sunday afternoons, or maybe on a Saturday the way back from Kilmarnock on a shopping trip, we would "go over the hill" home, rather than the road round the hill. It's a bendy road, not much room for manouvering, but as you can see, from the top of the hill such a lovely view.

The White houses you can see, almost middle of the picture, set behind the golf course, - and the red brick houses to their right, weren't there when I was little. Neither were a lot of the houses in Loans, and the school at the bottom right of the picture. Bigger buildings in the town centre, as we progressed away from our little high street supermarket, to a bigger, then a bigger, then an even bigger one. Flats for retirements instead of the gas works, more flats instead of the prefabs. Houses where I thought grass would always be, because in all honesty - I didn't think there was space for a house, let alone a whole row of houses, and a road.

I'm wondering how much more it is going to change now. Barassie Farm which was destroyed by fire last year, was finally demolished completed and all the rubble removed at the weekend. The cottage which stood at the farm track at the top of the road has gone too, and no doubt shortly the builders will arrive, ready to dig up the fields, and drop another 600 houses in.

We're getting a roundabout, to assist in the movement out of our estate - when we moved into the house, it was still a give way, and although at peak times it was difficult, you always got out. When the first 300 houses went up, in the field across the road, we got traffic lights, but now, the traffic lights won't be enough to cope with all the through way.

So much has gone too - The Shipyard building, which was a landmark for Troonites flying home to Glasgow. Lots of the woodland. Fields - have given way to almost permanent puddles. And people. So many people gone from this landscape over the last 30 years.

How can people just not be there any more?