FEW airports can have had poems written about them.

Prestwick Airport, Ayrshire, is an exception. The late William Neill reflected warmly on it and its cultural associations in his 2001 collection, Caledonian Cramboclink, Luath Press, £8.99). A pleasantly positive perspective on a Scottish institution with current economic problems.

PRESTWICK AIRPORT

Here the world's great walked on our common ground,

though we had history before they came:

Wallace once stood upon a nearby mound

to watch the well-stocked barns of Ayr aflame.

When I was young they called it Orangefield:

Ball and McCudden used to fly from here,

flat western farmland of the fogless bield

long before radar made dark heaven clear.

Now to new fields the flying galleons sail,

tracing their glide-paths over city walls.

Where once the Sleeping Warrior marked the trail

the ghosts of queuing travellers haunt the halls.

But even here among the phantoms and the blues

Elvis touched Scotland once in GI shoes.