IN the summer, of 1951, concerns had been expressed that people were being put off the thought of going on holiday by the increased cost of living. But, noted our sister paper, the Evening Times, “judging from arrangements made to cope with holiday traffic, British Railways don’t seem to share that point of view”. The number of relief rail services being run on the last weekend of June, linked to the start of annual holidays in several Scottish towns and cities – Edinburgh, Dumbarton, Clydebank, Greenock and Port Glasgow – was, discounting the Glasgow Fair, a record. BR (of blessed memory, perhaps) was offering a wide range of inexpensive special excursions from Glasgow: Arrochar, Crail, the Clyde coast, Gleneagles, Largo, Montrose, Morpeth, Spean Bridge and Whitley Bay among them. Evening excursions were being run to everywhere from Ayr to West Kilbride.

Rothesay was always popular with holidaymakers, with attractions including the beach at Children’s Corner and numerous well-laid out gardens. It always had lots of diverting activities for the kids, too. And sometimes holidaymakers would chance upon games like this: outdoor games of draughts played on outsize boards, with the pieces being lifted by hooks. The onlookers seemed hooked, too, if their facial expressions are anything to go by.