Kevin McKenna: Why would anyone not want to live in Cumnock?

Mr Spiers’ report read like a despatch from a war-zone with red and yellow cards being scattered hither and thon and a baying crowd looking for blood and guts.

A Cumnock player, having received an early red card, could be seen watching the rest of the game from an upstairs window of the clubhouse clutching a pint of lager and smoking a cigarette.

In the world of the old Ayrshire Juniors, red cards only got administered with the last rites. 

Today at Townhead Park, scene of that barbarous encounter from 30 years ago, the modern Cumnock are facing Drumchapel in a South of Scotland cup tie and I feel compelled to pay homage.  

Fans take in the Cumnock Juniors vs Talbot derby (Image: NQ) In the first few minutes the ball seemed to be collecting air miles as it was hoofed to all corners of the ground. And then it settled down and a more thoughtful and sophisticated game emerged which Cumnock would win after a penalty shoot-out.  

On one of the terracings, small knots of older supporters are gathered. Jock Stein liked to call them “men wi’ a trade”.

I meet Andrew Cameron, who has been watching Cumnock FC for 66 years. I compliment the club for the immaculate condition of its artificial pitch, which is a class above the cabbage patches favoured by much grander clubs like Kilmarnock and Livingston.  

“It’s paid off handsomely,” says Mr Cameron. “It’s used by local kids and youths almost every night of the week and is treated with a substance that allows it to be used by local rugby clubs. Cumnock FC, like all the other Ayrshire Junior clubs, are often one of the key drivers of social cohesion and community involvement and Cumnock are one of the best. What brings you down here, anyway.” 

I tell him about a survey that says Cumnock is the cheapest place in the UK to buy a house. We’re both aware of its silent implication: that houses are cheap here because it’s, you know … a bit run-down: a place whose best years lie forever in the past.

But Cumnock is not like that and never has been. It’s a town steeped in important social, cultural and architectural history.

Few other places across the UK have encountered as many profound economic and industrial challenges as Cumnock and its stalwart civic neighbours. Few other places though, have fought back as fiercely. 

“Cumnock is a proud town,” says Andrew Cameron, “and the way the people here have responded when the pits closed has been heart-warming. If you walk around this place you’ll see it for yourself. There’s a sense of optimism here: a real community spirit. People rely on each other and it shows.”

Cumnock town centre (Image: NQ) And so I embark on a walking tour around Cumnock centre and up into Keir Hardie Hill, home to what one local residents describes as “a wee bit rough”.

But it’s okay, although here and there you can see trampolines in the front garden, rather than the back. Others might cite such a phenomenon as evidence of decrepitude. I think it imparts buoyant optimism.  

Few other town centres in west central Scotland possess civic architecture as grand and handsome as Cumnock’s. It was pedestrianised in 1974 and curls around Glaisnock Street with the 160-year-old Old Cumnock Church of Scotland as its centrepiece.

Across the square is an oft-overlooked example of small-town Scotland’s cultural treasury: the local museum. Cumnock’s is the 133-year-old Baird Institute, housing one of the world’s most important collections of Mauchline Ware and Cumnock Pottery.

The social and industrial history of the Cumnock and Doon Valley is laid out here: archives, photographs, books, maps and newspapers.

Its pride and joy is a room dedicated to James Keir Hardie, founder of the Labour Party who spent the last 34 years of his life in Cumnock. It’s a living, breathing museum thrumming with contemporary art exhibitions and workshops. 

In the town centre, two estate agent windows feature a tapestry of homes that would cost tens of thousands more, were they to feature in Glasgow’s feted west end (though I’d much rather live here rather than that bland and anaemic sandstone wilderness).

Stewart Birrell, owner of the local sports shop, Donsport, is also proud of the way in which Cumnock has responded to the closure of the coalmines in the 1980s, an economic and social apocalypse that might have choked it.

Back then, the Barony and the Killoch pits jointly employed around 15,000 miners, descended mainly from families whose labours had built the economic prosperity of Scotland.

Stewart Birrell, (Image: NQ) They were virtually owned by the coal-mining conglomerates who could evict them when they were no longer of any use and compelled them to buy food and supplies exclusively from company-owned shops. 

This was when James Keir Hardie rose from the ranks to organise them, leading a 10-week strike that caused severe hardship, but led to the formation of the mighty Ayrshire Miners Union in 1886 and the Scottish Miners Federation.

This town was almost entirely dependent on the pits and Scotland’s prosperity flowed from it. When Margaret Thatcher laid waste to this industry a century later, the political elites whose power and influence came from these places refused to lift a finger to help them in the years that followed. 

Mr Birrell says few other communities could have responded in the way Cumnock has. “You won’t see many empty shops in here,” he says, “although Covid has changed people’s shopping habits.

There’s loads happening here. I supply the school uniforms and so you hear the enthusiasm of families who have moved here, including from England. 

“One dad recently told me how he’d had to draw a line in his son’s week-long list of activities. Monday night is the Boys Brigade; Tuesday night is the swimming and on Wednesday night he had football training.

Thursday was for the rugby and then the lad said he wanted to attend badminton on Fridays. ‘Your mum and I are fed up running you here there and everywhere’, his dad had told him.” 

READ MORE:

• Five things about Cumnock — the UK's 'most affordable town'
• Cumnock revealed to be 'most affordable' to buy a home in the UK

More blows followed. Falmers Jeans, another major employer in the area were bought by Matalan who took all the production to the Middle East. Cumnock knitwear who supplied Marks & Spencer went down with the closure of Edinburgh Woollen Mill. But the community refuses to be beaten. 

Mr Birrell tells me of the success of Emergency One, a firm based in the town who have become the UK’s leading manufacture of fire and rescue vehicles.

Earlier this month the company, which employs 120 skilled workers and trains 30 apprentices, won the contract to become the primary supplier for the next generation of Type 3 fire appliances for Fire and Emergency across New Zealand.

Like other towns in Scotland’s south east and south west, Cumnock would benefit from better transport links. “We need more trains down here,” said Mr Birrell, “but they currently terminate at Kilmarnock.

"It’s about having a vision. The town itself is very vibrant and the key is about how much you, as a resident, are willing to be involved in the community.”

At the Coffee Pot, round the corner and up the street, manager Lorna Gregg echoes Stewart Birrell’s proud advocacy. “I was born and bred in Cumnock,” she said. My husband is from Northern Ireland and I lived in Belfast for a few years but we wanted to bring the weans up here. Everyone knows everybody here and we all try to help each other.” 

She remembers life on the Keir Hardie Hill where there was a Christmas Club “to ensure no one goes without and a buses would take us all every summer to Girvan for day-trips. It was a fantastic community despite some of the challenges.” 

And then she slips in to tour-guide mode to give us a virtual mind-journey around Cumnock. “You need to go to the Keir Hardie room at the museum. Then there’s the community garden. They’re dead easy to get to; I’ll give you the directions.” 

And now she’s the proud mum telling me about her children. One her daughters is picking up medals for dancing. Another is great at the guitar. And then this: “I’ve managed to get the first one away to Dundee University.” 

There’s something else here that doesn’t need words. She’s proud and relieved to have successfully completed one of her life’s primary tasks. And in her pride there’s the pride of a community which has met all the challenges and overcome them.