Another extract from the Galloway News,

dated 18th February 1970

Curling reminiscences:- The following is an extract from a speech delivered by Dr Trotter at a ‘curler’ dinner at Dalry:- “My earliest reminiscences of seeing a bonspiel was on the Boatweel, down there at the Mote, when the four brothers from Waterside, with the Kells men, won a keenly contested victory from the famed curlers of Carsphairn, and that is sixty years ago.  The last of these four brothers was the late, lamented, Mr McMillan, Marscaig.  

When a schoolboy, I was often on the ice at Lochgiel, where some curious old channel stanes were lying about.  Two of the had the initials LK (Lord Kenmure) cut on them, which my youthful friends, the young Gordons, said had belonged to their great-grandfather, a former Lord Kenmure.  Mr McMeekan says that one of the stones was called “The Goose”, but the favourite one was a long-shaped, water-worn one, called “The Jook”.  I have seen one similar to it at Balmaclellan Manse, in the collection of stone relics of that eminent divine and enthusiastic curler, Rev George Murray.  The last bonspiel I saw was on the mill dam at Achie, where I went with Captain Adam Gordon, late Lord Kenmure, who played fro a short time, and then came forward to Nathan Bane, the bottle-holder, when we had a glass”.

In years gone by, skating and curling on Moss-Ruddock were enjoyed by many people. 1928 was a particularly bad year for frost and the loch was frozen over and bearable for over six weeks.  Curling was being played day and night.  When it became dark, the man who had been in charge of building Allangibbon Bridge, brought up gas lamps and fitted them up at the side of the loch.  Would that be the first floodlighting of a sporting event?