I may well be the only UK citizen who had “Visit Kilmarnock” on their Bucket List (No.156, just after Glyndebourne).
“Good luck” said Duncan, as he dropped me at the station to fend for myself.
Perhaps he thought the dogs were real. New Look is much scarier.
Killie might be the largest town I hadn’t stopped in, merely scraping the sides on the way from Ayr to Glasgow in 1995.
And this is a town whose club won the League the year I was born.
By 0.04 of a goal. Goal average certainly improved Scottish maths in the ’60s.
Apart from that triumph, and the loss of Johnnie Walker to Leven, I could tell you little about Killie bar its annual couple of GBG entries.
But top Burns interpreter Eddi Reader certainly remembers the place fondly.
Would I warm to the place more than Eddi ?
Well, don’t go when it’s raining. That’s my advice.
Some pleasing street art, for folk who like that.
And aren’t Scottish churches lovely ?
The Spoons had just dropped out of the Guide. It’s bound to come back in, I thought. and popped in waving my 50p voucher.
But the queues were daft, and it was the shabbiest Timbo emporium I’ve been in (apart from Glasgow’s Crystal Palace) , so I headed straight for the tick.
One of those pretend Spoons, or Stonegate as they’re legally known, the First Edition was only marginally less scruffy.
I made a schoolboy error, going with a touch of nostalgia for the Arran Red Sparrow rather than the Doom Bar. Who on earth buys the most expensive beer ?
Clearly the first/only one pulled that day, it was undrinkable sludge (NBSS 1). No, you take it back.
20 minutes before the train out of Killie to admire the riverside,
take in the solitude of the High Street,
and briefly contemplate a real Tennents at the most famous pub in town.
Hope Fanny is in the GBG by the time BRAPA gets here.
retiredmartin 
I took a football team to Kilmarnock two years ago in April and (a) it was freezing (b) they wanted to beat the English team very badly (c) it made Coalville look salubrious (d) it breeds tough people (e) I liked it!
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LAF,
Kilmarnock was freezing in April two years ago and Dundee wasn’t much warmer in April this year.
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I can sense a pattern emerging! 😄
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Always glad to encounter a fellow Eddi Reader fan. Though in truth I mostly only know her 1998 album Angels & Electricity. What a great voice, what a great songwriter.
Now, about this matter of you and Duncan and Simon actually helping one another acquire needed ticks. It’s really getting in the way of the “backstabbing competitors” narrative I’ve been trying to construct for you all, and I must insist you start undermining each other’s efforts immediately!
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If you think dumping somebody off in Kilmarnock is some sort of sign of friendship then you need to have a visit and realise differently….
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Yes, I think Mark C may have an answer to his request for ticker hostility there!
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Pretty much where I got into Eddi, too. The Burns record and, particularly, Peacetime are wonderful records, partly down to the songwriting of her partner John Douglas.
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I don’t see Duncan and Si as competitors, and of course Duncan has already won the whole thing. But I confess to a touch of jealousy when I see him racking up pubs if I’m stuck at home.😉
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Yes Si, there’s this wonderful preemptive called Legendz you simply have to visit……
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I am fairly sure there has never been a sleeper train from Kilmarnock, certainly not in Eddi Reader’s lifetime.
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