WE ARE setting off really early this morning in the Range Rover so as

to reach Bogside, on the outskirts of Irvine, in Ayrshire, in time for

the first race of the Eglinton point-to-point. I am determined to make

the effort since I have not been for a couple of years, and I really do

need to catch up on what is happening with all my Ayrshire chums.

Apart from the occasional breathtaking blast of gossip through the

grapevine of loyal Jamie Hunter Blair, the Laird of Blairquhan, or the

Hon. Bobby Corbett MFH, the late Lord Rowallan's sporty second son, I

have been totally in the dark about goings on in the south-west. And, of

course, I never believe anything I hear second-hand.

But the certain one thing about a point-to-point is that all the hunt

lot will be in evidence -- Melvin Quarm who lives at Annick Lodge,

Torranyard; Marion Galbraith, a sister-in-law of Lord Strathclyde, and

whose great-great grandfather, James Pagan, was editor of The Glasgow

Herald from 1856 to 1870, and Cecilia McEwen from Bardrochat, all joint

masters. Cecilia, married to Alexander McEwen, one-time folk-singer with

his late brother Rory, is a daughter of HSH the late Franz, 2nd Prince

Weikersheim, and is known locally as ''The Empress of Austria''.

My favourite of this group, however, has to be Keith Tulloch, Eglinton

hunt secretary and treasurer. In more ways than one does he live up to

his nickname of ''The Little Treasure''.

I do hope we have an opportunity to have a natter with Colonel Sir

Bryce Knox, former MFH and ex-Lord Lieutenant of the county. I used to

see a lot of his children James and Lucy before they settled in

the South, and it must be 15

years since I last visited Martnaham, their lovely lochside home. The

problem is that Bryce and Camperdown are both rather obsessed with the

history of Robert Burns, so I rarely manage to get a word in edgeways.

Another regular is Captain Robert Cuninghame who owns Caprington

Castle, by Kilmarnock, where his family have lived since 1423. What I

think is such fun is that the house is furnished with lances from the

Eglinton Tournament of 1839, that three-day mediaeval extravaganza

organised by the 13th Earl of Eglinton in front of Eglinton Castle, his

home, now a spectacular ruin, and in which so many of one's great-great

grandparents took part.

I wonder if Sir Charles Fergusson from Kilkerran will turn up? I have

never met the Hon. Lady Fergusson, although I quite often run into her

brother, the Hon. Ranald Noel-Paton, and we used to come across her

sister Fiona at lots of parties in the sixties.

In those days they had Culter House in Lanarkshire, but Camperdown

tells me that Grandpa Camperdown and the late Victor Ferrier became

friends in India when the old boy was stationed in Simla and Ferrier was

ADC to the Governor of Bombay. I must get somebody to introduce us.

Point-to-points do provide such a wonderful opportunity for getting

out into the fresh air, and, although it is years since I have competed

myself, I do take a keen interest in the up-and-coming riders. Susan

Bradburne, over at Letham, in Fife, one of Scotland's top trainers,

somehow manages to keep me up-to-date, especially since Johnny, her

land-agent husband, apart from surviving the Grand National, is such a

regular on the circuit. In fact, I shall be most surprised if he is not

racing today.

Since it is quite a while since we have been in contact, and since I

doubt they will be at the races, Camperdown and I just might find time

to look in on the Marquis and Marchioness of Ailsa at Cassilis. Culzean

Castle was once their family stronghold, but the 5th Marquis made it

over to the National Trust for Scotland, and David and Mary Ailsa moved

into the smaller

and much more manageable Cassilis in 1956.

Nowadays I only seem to hear about them when I take my nephew out for

the day from Loretto School in Musselburgh and meet Lady Elizabeth,

their pretty daughter, who is married to the Rev. Norman Drummond,

Loretto's headmaster.

It really is such a shame that the Eglinton lot haven't organised a

hunt ball in recent years. I heard that there was a Maybole Ball for the

young things at Christmas (Fiona, my daughter, turned down her

invitation for one of her Aberdeenshire rave-ups -- some fund-raising

thing to do with acid rain, she said), but apart from the Western

Meeting held in September, there seems to be almost nothing going on in

Ayrshire nowadays.

There was a time when one was never anywhere else -- all those whoopee

times with the late Bobby and Rachel McIntyre at Sorn Castle, not to

mention those parties held

by the Cochrane-Patricks at

Hunterston.

I shall have to have a word with either the Hon. Johnny Corbett, Lord

Rowallan's son, or Kate Anderson, the jolly wife of the wonderfully

entertaining Ollie, who works at Blairquhan and who is such a dynamo at

organising things.