Bute Connections exhibition August 1 to 9 2009

Bute Museum

Bute Connections, which opens to the public on Saturday, August 1, 2009, tells the stories of almost 30 notable people from the fields of literature, science, engineering, politics, medicine and more, and reveals how and why they are linked to Bute.

Some of the names are fairly well known on Bute and further afield – George Bennie, for example, of Bennie Railplane fame, and Henry Robertson ‘Birdie’ Bowers, who accompanied Captain Scott on his ill-fated expedition to the South Pole in 1913.

But there are others featured in the exhibition whose Bute links may not be so widely known, including George Robert Stephenson, nephew of the famous railway pioneer George Stephenson; James Dobbie, whose business grew into what we know today as the Dobbie’s Garden Centre chain; and Garfield Todd (or Reginald Stephen Garfield Todd, to give him his full name), the reformist Prime Minister of Southern Rhodesia for much of the 1950s.

The exhibition, which runs until Sunday, August 9, 2009, has been put together by three members of the museum’s team of volunteers.

The exhibition runs during the museum’s normal summer opening hours, from 10.30 am to 4.3 0pm Monday to Saturday and 2.30 pm to 4.30pm on Sunday, normal museum entry charges apply: £2 for adults, £1.50 concession and £1 for children.

Unfortunately, the museum seems to have all but abandoned its own web site now, but there is an extended article on the exhibition in The Buteman:

Museum exhibit reveals Bute connections

One million tourists missing from Scotland

Back in October 2008, I wrote Tourism bubble might be bursting. Oddly enough, it began:

Back in November of 2007 the Scottish Parliament’s economy, energy and tourism committee launched an inquiry into tourism, intended to find out if the target of increasing tourism revenues by 50 per cent by 2015 is realistic. In its written response to the inquiry, the Edinburgh Chamber of Commerce claimed the target was set as a result of political ambition rather than a factual analysis. Since then, similar views have been expressed by those in the business.

This was written before the recession was talked up into a reality, but if a 50% increase was questionable before, then it might now be downright irresponsible to continue to promote it.

Having a look around the recent news on tourism related items doesn’t bode well for the future – in fact, it might be time to restate that “50 per cent rise by 2015″ call, and base it on whatever new low might appear, since it will be easier for the spin doctors to claim the 50 per cent rise in future if levels return to what passes for “normal, but the starting point is lower.

The first notable headline (July 24, 2009) was  Tourist numbers fall by a million, where we read that Scotland’s tourist numbers fell by 1 million in 2008. VistScotland reported that 14.6 million tourist trips were taken last year, and visitor number fell by 8%. Tourist spending fell by 4%, down £156 million, of which £113 million was attributed to business tourism, with business spending down by 14%. The Scottish Government responded by saying: “VisitScotland is still actively marketing Scotland as a top destination for business once the downturn begins to ease. In the meantime, there has been an increase in visitors from Europe because of favourable exchange rates and more focused marketing”, observing that Scotland was not immune from the downturn, and that Scotland was performing better than the rest of the UK.

However, back in April, we noted an item Tourism ‘bullish’ amid recession which began:

Scotland’s tourism boss has said the industry remains “confident and bullish” despite a drop of around 30% in corporate tourism business. VisitScotland chief executive, Philip Riddle said, conversely the recession was also prompting more people from the UK to holiday in Scotland. But he added the proportion of overseas visitors has fallen by up to 10%. Mr Riddle said the decline had hit Scotland’s cities hardest, but rural areas have been faring better

Mr Riddle said business tourism had suffered a “significant decline” of about 30%, but that an improvement was anticipated by the end of 2009.

Mr Riddle confirmed the strength of the euro and relative weakness of the pound was attracting more European visitors – particularly from France, Germany, Spain and Italy – and keeping more British holidaymakers in the UK. “We have tremendous competitivity due to the exchange rate – it’s never been better value to be in Scotland than it is just now.” But he noted a “reluctance” for recession travel among Americans, traditionally Scotland’s biggest overseas market.

Mr Riddle was speaking on the occasion of the VisitScotland Expo trade fair in Glasgow, where over 250 tourism firms had been exhibiting to buyers from across the world. While he would clearly not say anything negative at such an event, it doesn’t take the greatest business brain in the world to work out the implications of a drop in your major source of revenue, even if accompanied by rises in lesser source.

There was more negative news on July 16,  Agency seeks resort compensation, which relates to the Aviemore Highland Resort (AHR). This is a fairly long-running story that has ended with the tourist development going into administration, the implication being – again – that tourism isn’t booming or ramping up to that desired 50 per cent increase in 2015. Highlands and Islands Enterprise (HIE) had shares worth £2.4 million with the consortium that formerly owned the resort, bought up from the administrators after the it was placed in administration last month, by Macdonald Hotels and Resorts Ltd, which was running the hotel on the site. The group already had a stake in AHR, along with Lloyds TSB and building firm Tulloch. HIE, which receives funding from the Scottish Government, had also given more than £5m in grants to the holiday complex.

And finally, on July 19, with the Edinburgh Festivals just about begin, a gloomy warning that although this appears to be a bumper year for bookings, the impact of this year’s  recession is not going to be seen until next year’s booking are made: Festivals fear future funds squeeze. One area of significant concern lies in festivals which rely on public money, where much of their funding comes from local authority and government budgets, which are likely to be squeezed in coming years. Add to that the problem of attracting sponsorship, which is difficult to justify in businesses which are having to lay off staff.

While I do like having aims and objective, I don’t like targets, and I like unrealistic targets even less – they don’t provide motivation, and can be counter-productive, but they sound good for the folk that propose them, ride on the back of their promises, but don;t actually have to deliver them.

Time for a note in the diary, with the aim of remembering to review this situation in a year or so, with the objective producing a following-up report.

Tourism numbers were down by 8% last year The number of tourists visiting Scotland last year dropped by more than a million, new figures show. Spending was also down, with a big drop in business tourism, according to the figures for 2008, compiled by tourist body VisitScotland. The number of tourists visiting Scotland dropped by 8%, with 14.6 million trips taken last year. Spending by tourists was down £156m, a fall of 4%. A drop in business tourism accounted for £113m of that fall. Business spending was down 14%. The Scottish Government said that tourism was not immune from the downturn and Scotland was performing better than the rest of the UK. A spokesperson said: “VisitScotland is still actively marketing Scotland as a top destination for business once the downturn begins to ease. “In the meantime, there has been an increase in visitors from Europe because of favourable exchange rates and more focused marketing.” The drop in tourism numbers is not unexpected. The figures cover the period of a sharp slowdown in economic growth with the UK entering recession in the middle of last year. A recent survey showed a return of optimism in the tourism industry during the second quarter of this year. Bookmark with: Delicious Digg reddit Facebook StumbleUpon What are these? // E-mail this to a friend Printable version

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Oldest UK television found – a 1936 Marconiphone

Philips projection television c. 1960

Way back in October 2008, we noted: Oldest television sought in Baird contest which referred to the launch of a competition by Ian Logie Baird,  curator of television at the National Media Museum in Bradford, and grandson of John Logie Baird, from Helensburgh, and something of a pioneer in the early days of television.

The winner was announced recently, and has been identified as a 1936 Marconiphone, thought to have been made in the months when Britain’s first “high-definition” television service began. The set belongs to Jeffrey Borinsky, an electrical engineer and collector of antique television and radio sets, who bought the set from another collector 10 years ago, and is still working on restoring it to its original state. The 12-inch (30 cm) screen screen is mounted inside a wooden cabinet, and the image from the cathode ray tube (CRT), which is mounted vertically inside the cabinet, is reflected onto a mirror. The set has few control, just a volume control and vertical hold adjustment, but notably has means of changing the channel – when it was manufactured, there was only one channel and broadcaster, the BBC.

Sadly, the former provider of television pictures at Apollo Towers was nowhere near the eventual winner, dating from 1960 or so, which is just as well, as it ended up in pieces – with the cabinet being used as wood for other projects, and the electronics being pressed into service elsewhere too, after the highly stressed CRT projection tube failed. The electrostatic deflection system was stripped out, and is still stored away as a thing of interest to be brought out and admired on dull days. The high quality glass bead projector screen survived, and is still used for slide projection, while the big speaker ended up in a bass-reflex cabinet, still stored away if needed.

Had the CRT not failed, it probably wouldn’t have lasted much longer anyway. The high voltage needed to deflect the electron beam within the CRT, and produce sufficient brightness to allow the small screen – it was only about 3-inches in diameter – to throw a black & white image almost 5 feet wide, meant that many components were working under considerable electrical stress. Before the CRT went dark, the projection unit was emitting some fairly strange smells, and when it was dismantled, many of the capacitors were found to be on their last legs, physically coming apart and weeping. It was almost a surprise that it was working at all. TV repair engineers didn’t like it at all, as the chassis was live, and it was all too easy to brush close to something hot – which produced a lively and rapid response.

The oldest thing I think is still working here is a Smiths electric clock c. 1950, driven by that most reliable of devices, a synchronous electric motor. Provided the mains frequency stays at 50 Hz, this clock stays at the right time all the time, barring power cuts – which we still get occasionally. The only time it gets touched is during that twice yearly celebration of mass insanity, the moving of the clocks, as British Summer Time comes… and goes.

Everything else of the same age or older has either been lost to breakage, died, or worn out and died.

If you have something that might qualify, add a comment and let us know.

You never know, there could be a thrifty Scottish owner somewhere out there, with something tucked away that could beat that winning 1936 Marconiphone,

Little Cumbrae seems to be sold at last

Little Cumbrae House © Eddie Dowds

Surprisingly yet to be mentioned in this blog, way back in 2005 the small island of the Little Cumbrae (probably known better locally as the Wee Cumbrae) was placed on the market, with an asking price of around £2.5 million. The offer first appeared online on a site called Private Islands Onlines, which contained a fairly detailed description of the island, its history, and its current disposition. The url of the offer has changed since that first appearance, and may change again, or even be removed altogether (assuming the reported sale is completed), but can be still be tracked down: Little Cumbrae Island, Scotland, Europe, and is worth looking up as it makes for an interesting and informative read.

Little Cumbrae lies to the north of Arran (and is next to the Great Cumbrae – better know locally as the Isle of Cumbrae, or just the Cumbrae), and the boat trip from Largs takes about 10 minutes, but helicopters and hovercraft can be somewhat quicker.

Digging around for some information relating to the sale, it seems that three rival bids were turned down back in 2006.

The Evening Times reported the story, boosting the asking price up to £3 million, and claiming a £1 million saving for Glasgow care home magnate (their description, not mine) Sam Poddar and his wife Sunita, reported to have paid a “bargain price” of just £2 million for the island, which covers 684 acres, and they report contains a nine-bedroom Victorian mansion, four cottages and a 250-year-old lighthouse.

I don’t know how many bedrooms Little Cumbrae house has, but only two cottages were advertised in the original sale, and there are two lighthouses on the island, one dating from 1757, and its replacement from 1793.

I found a second ad (and it might vanish too of course, now that the sale has been made) from Humbert Leisure, with the following details:

• Island of some 277 hectares (684 acres) in the Firth of Clyde
• Large 12 bedroom mansion house, boathouse and jetty, 2 cottages
• 13th century keep, lighthouse complex with 3 vacant houses
• Potential for uses including lodge development, marina and hotel/restaurant – stp
• Idyllic, secluded location with dramatic views

For Sale Freehold/Feuhold

Joint sole selling agents Knight Frank, Edinburgh.

Download the detailed sales brochure as a pdf file (while it’s still available) – it contains numerous details and photographs

Guide price £2.5 million

Still looks more like the original offering than the Evening Times’ thoughts (so we’ll go with the 684 acres stories).

Humberts Leisure director Peter Smith said: “There are not many opportunities to buy a Scottish island and there has been a great deal of interest. Even taking potential purchasers for viewings was challenging, especially crossing the Clyde in adverse weather conditions.  The solitude and uniqueness of Little Cumbrae definitely appealed to the purchaser.”

John Coleman, Knight Frank said: “A Scottish Island is the ultimate trophy property. Islands which are as accessible and habitable as Little Cumbrae, while retaining their privacy, are particularly rare and as a result attract interest from the wealthy overseas market even in difficult times like these.”

The new owners have said that they have no plans to develop the the island commercially, and intended to look into ways of safely opening it for public access, having acquired it from Worcester developer Steve Worrallo, owner since 2002,  and who had planned to turn it into a millionaire’s playground.

And, one more gem. According to one agent,: “An island in the Firth of Clyde has been sold on the open market for the first time in 40 years.”

John Coleman, Knight Frank adds: ‘A Scottish Island is the ultimate trophy property. Islands which are as accessible and habitable as Little Cumbrae, while retaining their privacy, are particularly rare and as a result attract interest from the wealthy overseas market even in difficult times like these.’

Little Cumbrae’s guide price: £2.5m

Little Cumbrae sits just off the Ayrshire coast and is nearly two miles long by just under a mile wide.  Its location within the Gulf Stream means there is a wide range of plant species and its rocky cliffs and undisturbed uplands are home to more than 50 species of birds.  The Victorian mansion, Little Cumbrae House, has spectacular views of the Firth of Clyde and the Ayrshire coast and has gardens planned by Gertrude Jekyll, who designed more than 400 gardens in the UK, Europe and America and collaborated with architect Sir Edwin Lutyens.* Country properties for sale

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Cars of the Stars come to former Argyll factory

Argyll factory frontage

Although the Argyll Factory in Alexandria – a huge facility which was constructed in 1905 to build the Argyll motor car, and then cost a total of £500,000 to build – was closed some years ago, and much of the site razed, the impressive sandstone frontage of the works survives, and was listed in 1971, and went on to become Loch Lomond Factory Outlets, a shopping centre which opened in 1997, where factories opened a number of discount stores selling direct to the public, together with a few more recognised names from the high street.

The car company went into liquidation around 1914, and the factory was later taken over to manufacture torpedoes from 1936 onwards. During the 1960s, the factory took part in a top-secret Cold War project, Project Chevaline. Its work centred on increasing the survivability of nuclear warheads fitted to Polaris ballistic missiles. Completion of work on this final project in 1969 also marked the final the closure of the factory.

Within the lower floor of the building, there was once a small car museum, the Motoring Heritage Centre, but this disappeared some time after 2007, and is yet to return despite a message on its own web site that it was only moving to an alternative location within the facility.

2009 has seen the return of cars to the former Argyll Works, as the space is used to house the overflow from the Cars of the Stars museum based in Keswick. Many famous and well-known cars which have become famous from their appearance in films and on television are housed in the museum, and a trip to Alexandria is certainly a lot more convenient than the haul down to Keswick, in Cumbria. While the trip is relatively straightforward, the museum is easy to find, and Keswick town centre is a nice place to visit too, with some decent food on offer, the round trip does still take some hours, time which could be better spent exploring the museum, and Alexandria is much quicker to reach, and more convenient.

Having visited, albeit some years ago now, the collection is worth the effort of the visit, and the cars are presented in set pieces that place them in the context of their original appearance on either the large or small screen.

I hope it becomes a permanent feature, and does not also vanish after a few years in residence.

Update

Needless to say, my hopes that this would not evaporate did not last for long.

In mid-2011, the attraction closed, with a message on the museum web site stating “…check the website for details of the relocation of the vehicles to a new location shortly…“

As of December 2011, the museum web site was redirecting visitors to the website of the Dezer Collection Museum and Pavillion in North Miami, Florida. But no further information was immediately evident.

Scottish pioneers of flight honoured

Every now and then you get the equivalent of a poke in the eye with a sharp stick to remind you that you can still be surprised.

One such event occurred when I saw the news that Brothers Frank and Harold Barnwell, from the village of Balfron in Stirlingshire, were to be honoured by the unveiling of a special plaque installed at Balfron’s public library. The two were pioneering aviators in the same vein as the more well known Wright brothers, and the plaque will also mark the 100th anniversary of the first powered flight to take place in Scotland, which they achieved in 1909 at Causewayhead, below the Wallace Monument, six years after the Wright brothers made history with their first controlled powered flight in North Carolina.

The Barnwell aircraft was powered by a Humber car engine, and Harold Barnwell piloted it during that first flight, covering a distance of 260 feet at a height of 13 feet (80 m at 4 m). Like many before them, the brothers’ aircraft began as little more than gliders with motorbike engines attached, but by 1911, they had developed a proper monoplane which became the first Scottish aircraft to fly for more than one mile. The early aviators were able to pursue their interest thanks to the funding provided by their business, the Grampian Motor and Engineering Company.

Their success meant that they were able to follow careers in aviation and Frank became chief draughtsman at Bristol, responsible for aircraft such as the Barnwell Bullet, the Bristol F.2 Fighter, and the Bristol Blenheim Harold went on to join Vickers, where he became chief test pilot. But, their passion was also their demise, and after moving to England, both eventually died in flying accidents, separated by 20 years. Frank was killed in 1938, when a bump appeared to induce a stall during take off, causing the small aircraft he had designed himself, to crash onto the road near Bristol airport. Harold lost his life in 1917, flying the first Vickers F.B.26 Vampire, in a crash at Joyce Green, when he attempted a spin with insufficient altitude for recovery.

In memory of the two aviators and their achievements, Culture Minister Mike Russell presented the Royal Aeronautical Society Heritage Award at Balfron, where the pair had lived until 1910, and tested their experimental aircraft in the grounds of the family home, Elcho House.

April 2010 could see first fines by the Information Commissioner’s Office

One of the things I make no apology for going on about is privacy and data protection – I object to anyone collecting information about me in general (other than anything I freely choose to place in the public domain), and the millions of personal details that the various government bodies have left lying around in public, or just simply lost, means I have no need to make any case for highlighting data protection deficiencies.

You can combine the two in the private sector, as businesses seek to collect data about us all, amass them in corporate databases, and then sell the information to one another without any reference to those to whom the data refers. If they make a mistake, you’ll never know about it, or have any way to correct it. You can kiss your credit rating goodbye, or forget any jobs that involve, for example, children, if someone hits the wrong key somewhere.

Until now, there has been no way to issue fine to data controllers in charge of such information.

The Data Protection Act 1998 should act to help reduce such instances, but under the Data Protection Act (DPA) the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), responsible for enforcing the Act, cannot issue fines for breaches of the eight data protection principles at the heart of the law. From next April that will change and it will be able to issue fines for knowing or reckless breaches of the Act’s principles.

The introduction date is still to be officially confirmed though, and could be changed, and further work is still to be done with regard to the level of fines that can be issued.

The fines can be levied by the ICO when one of the eight principles have been seriously breached, but only if the ICO is convinced that the breach was deliberate or that the data controller knew, or ought to have known, of the contravention risk, and that the contravention would be likely to cause substantial damage or substantial distress and that the controller failed to take action to stop it.

Presumably the government will be treated as a special case, otherwise we will all be penniless as our taxes rise in order to pay the fines for the millions of records it will fail to protect in future, given its past and current performance in this area.

The data protection principles

Part I The principles

1 Personal data shall be processed fairly and lawfully and, in particular, shall not be processed unless—

(a) at least one of the conditions in Schedule 2 is met, and

(b) in the case of sensitive personal data, at least one of the conditions in Schedule 3 is also met.

2 Personal data shall be obtained only for one or more specified and lawful purposes, and shall not be further processed in any manner incompatible with that purpose or those purposes.

3 Personal data shall be adequate, relevant and not excessive in relation to the purpose or purposes for which they are processed.

4 Personal data shall be accurate and, where necessary, kept up to date.

5 Personal data processed for any purpose or purposes shall not be kept for longer than is necessary for that purpose or those purposes.

6 Personal data shall be processed in accordance with the rights of data subjects under this Act.

7 Appropriate technical and organisational measures shall be taken against unauthorised or unlawful processing of personal data and against accidental loss or destruction of, or damage to, personal data.

8 Personal data shall not be transferred to a country or territory outside the European Economic Area unless that country or territory ensures an adequate level of protection for the rights and freedoms of data subjects in relation to the processing of personal data.

Postcode data is free so long as you can afford it

Provided you are rich, you can use postcode geolocation data freely. Having access to this sort of geolocation data means that rather than having to determine the latitude and longitude of a site, a programmer can simply enter its postcode, and a line of code will return the latitude and longitude within the code, allowing applications such as maps to make further use of the coordinates.

In the US, zip codes do a similar job, but you don’t have to worry about going to jail or paying for the privilege if you want to use them, or resorting to subterfuge.

In this country, the government and the Royal Mail think that rather than make the data freely available, and stimulating applications, it’s better to see it as a captive revenue stream. Royal Mail, which owns the copyright to the Postcode Address File (PAF), generates millions of pounds of revenue from its monopoly of this data. In 2006 it generated a profit of £1.58 million from revenues of £18.36 million, of which £14.9 million was from PAF resellers.

If you are interested in this subject, you can find a number of projects set up around the web in an attempt to make postcode data freely available, some more successful than others, some of dubious legality – they probably have copies of the Royal Mail’s PAF file – while others are far from complete or workable, as they depend on volunteers submitting their own data of postcode locations, as read from their own GPS receivers.

There’s a new web site currently available – and it may not be available if those on high have it shut down – named after Ernest Marples who, as Postmaster General, introduced the postcode in 1959. ernestmarples.com provides a latitude and longitude pair for any of the 1.7 million full postcodes. Since a single postcode can cover 100 delivery points, with the average being 15, this is not a precision fix.

The site also offers the option of using the coordinates programmatically, by making a command line call.

It’s hard not to agree with the sentiments expressed in the article that “the loss to Royal Mail is zero – since those developers using a free long/lat service would never pay for one themselves“. This site would certainly never be able to pay, or pay, for using the official service.

Read more in Web developers working to make postcode data freely available.

See also Free our data.

It’s probably worth adding the warning suggestion offered in the ernestmarples.com web site:

Important: Given the inherent unreliability of using a service like this, it’s probably sensible to let us know you’re using it so we can hang on to your email and let you know if anything important happens. Hopefully the Royal Mail will be nice, and license us to use the postcode database. Then you’ll be able to rely on us and this service will become a seamless and transparent part of the web’s infrastructure, like it ought to be.

Elfin Safety used to ban Bute hospital tea parties

Yet another example of an over-zealous Jobsworth using Health & Safety claims to justify spoiling someone else’s fun, and reminds us of our earlier story regarding the Inverclyde Royal Hospital tea bar to be axed. Again, I think my money would be safe if I took bets that the real Health & Safety Executive would say “Nothing to do with us” if they were asked.

This time it’s an NHS hotel services manager who was visiting the Victoria Hospital Annexe on the Isle of Bute, and caught members of the Friend of the Annexe while their setting up their annual strawberry tea (which has been held there for the past 12 years) – and told them it would be the last such event at the Annexe. The visiting NHS manager told the Friend that the food they were bringing on to the premises did not meet specific food handling requirements.

In a statement to the local paper, The Buteman, Jeanette Henderson (the Friends’ chairperson) said: “I understand why it’s happened, and the lady’s concerns, but I think they could have put it a better way. I have written a letter to her saying I was disappointed they hadn’t been told me personally. I’m quite willing for them to train us in food handling as that is really the issue. It was just so badly done on Wednesday.”

The group’s secretary, Robert McKirdy, told told the paper he wanted to see the order in writing before making any decisions.

An NHS spokesman said the food handling requirements were there for the good of the patients, and that they had to be very careful about what food was brought into a hospital, adding “We strongly recognise the importance local charities play in the upkeep of these hospitals, and do not wish to cause any unnecessary distress.  We would be happy to work with the Friends and staff there to solve this issue, and help them meet the requirements we are obliged to uphold.”

I’d like to have heard that the manager involved had been sent on a course to teach her some of the skills needed in dealing tactfully with other people. I can only wonder at how fast anyone wanted to get out of any hotel she ever managed. There are ways to deal with people and sensitive issues, and she does not seem to be aware of them – either that, or the Jobsworth tag is justified.

Friends of the Annexe

According to the article, the Friends have run fund raising functions over the years to support the Annexe, and have raised in excess of £30,000 in their time, and supported the redecoration of one of the halls, and funded the purchase of four new mattresses.

The hospital homes long-stay patients, people who may once have had their own homes, and the volunteers say the tea parties brightened up their day and provided the opportunity for them to see people and have a chat.

The parties allowed friends and family to bring their own cakes and biscuits to be enjoyed, and these are hardly food items that can cause problems and need particularly specialised or careful handling, such as meat and dairy products.

When other members of the committee heard of the announcement that the tea parties were banned, they were said to be furious at the news.

Enthusiasm

Past experience means I get off the road if I see the “white bunnets” of the traffic police anywhere near me – they’re just far too keen.

Dumfries & Galloway is a nice quiet place to enjoy the scenery, but it looks as if the motorways are best avoided.

I also usually suggest that drivers who stare at their SatNav, disengage their brains, and follow instructions to drive off the edge of a cliff or similar, deserve whatever they get – I didn’t think cyclists deserved the same, since they’re much more vulnerable, and likely to be killed or injured by such silly behaviour. Guess I was wrong on that count, and they don’t look where they’re going either, and get into trouble as a result.

Cyclist fined and given penalty points

Jamie Barton, 34, from Essex, was pulled over by officers after straying onto the A74(M) motorway near Gretna. He was given a £60 fine and three penalty points even though he was not driving a car. On a charity ride from Land’s End to John O’Groats, he was given the penalty within minutes of crossing into Scotland.

He explained: “I had just crossed the border. I was following a sat nav and had my head down. I didn’t realise it was taking me onto the A74(M).”

He said he had been on the motorway for just a few minutes when he pulled over.

“They spent about 30 minutes with me in the car. They seemed intent on giving me the biggest penalty,” he said.

Cyclist not fined and not given penalty points

Mr Barton questioned why he had penalty points added to his licence when he had not been driving a motor vehicle.

A spokesman for Dumfries and Galloway Constabulary said on Tuesday: “In reviewing the case it now appears that incorrect procedures were taken in the issuing of this ticket and as such this has now been cancelled.

“The matter will not be taken any further by the force.”

The force explained that Mr Barton had been removed from the motorway by its officers because of the “clear dangers that were posed by someone cycling on a busy lane of a fast motorway”.

Ch Insp Phil Stewart, operational commander for the Dumfries division said: “The force received numerous calls from concerned motorists about the cyclist on the busy motorway and our traffic patrol officers attended and removed him from the danger that he had put himself in.

“The matter is now closed and the force wishes Mr Barton a safe and successful conclusion to the remainder of his charity cycle”.

Mr Barton had been on the road for four days when he had his brush with the law. He hopes to raise £2,600 for a disabled five-year-old and a hospice she attends.

He said he had only been cycling for a few minutes when he was stopped, and was following a sat nav when he accidentally strayed onto the motorway.

Questions

Someone must be wrong here – how did the force receive “numerous” calls if Mr Barton is correct in his assertion that he had been cycling on the motorway for a “few minutes”? It’s hard enough to get one person to pick up a phone and report a crime, or grass, let alone “numerous” people.

Did the A74(M) come to a halt as “numerous” concerned motorists pulled over to make their calls, or did the police turn a blind eye to the numerous offences being committed as the concerned motorists deemed the sight so worrying that they considered their own fine and penalty points (for using a mobile phone while driving) worth it? And please, don’t say “hands free” – I watch cars pass me all day containing drivers with a mobile phone clamped to their ear, and not giving a damn as the chances of getting caught are slim.

Were the traffic police officers involved – officers we are usually told are specially selected, trained, and qualified – disciplined for their error?

If the officers were themselves guilty of following “incorrect procedures”, have the procedures now been corrected, or have the officers been subject to a period of retraining to ensure they to not make the same mistake again?

If Mr Barton is correct in noting that it took the officers 30 minutes to process him, then what was the 30 minutes spent on? How long does it take to lecture a cyclist, and write out the penalty? As he wasn’t driving a car, there was no time needed to check his licence, insurance, or documents – since he didn’t have any need of them – and it seems unlikely that he would have given a false name, and wasted their time.

I shall continue my practice of getting off the road as quickly and inconspicuously as possible when I see “white bunnets”, especially if my natural paranoia suggests they appear to be following me.