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Explore! Our articles cover anything and everything to do with West Lothian, West Edinburgh and Falkirk.

A selection of what goes into print is published here.

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“Because you would do this for me”

How Dynamite came to Scotland

Feb 7, 2020
6 min

How Dynamite came to Scotland

The Nobel Prizes are announced annually; world-famous coveted prizes for those who confer “the greatest benefit on mankind” in sciences, literature, economics and peace. They are named after Alfred Nobel, the Swedish chemist who, horrified that his armaments and explosives empire would earn him the epitaph “Merchant of Death,” left his fortune for the furtherance of world peace and progress. But what does this Swedish and indeed global story have to do with this area? Alfred

The Irn-Bru Fleet

Dec 10, 2019
5 min

The Irn-Bru Fleet

January 1937 – a huge Clydesdale horse lies stricken on the frosty ground of the Cow Wynd in Falkirk, having slipped on the ice. His massive bulk makes it impossible for anyone to lift him, although many locals have gathered - so many in fact that the police are involved to keep the traffic flowing. Someone has bought a mattress to try and make the horse more comfortable throughout the rescue operation, and people are offering him buns. But alas by the end of the day, in fron

Falkirk Nappy Library

Oct 10, 2019
3 min

Falkirk Nappy Library

“We are all cloth-bum parents, and we run the nappy library to help other parents and carers understand and use cloth nappies and other re-useable items.” In Scotland alone 440,000 disposable nappies go to landfill each day*. One nappy takes about 450 years to decompose. I visited Denise, one of the members who runs the Falkirk Nappy Library, to find out more about what they offer local parents and, is using reuseable nappies as time-consuming and smelly as it sounds? “The Fa

Pure passion for food equality

Oct 10, 2019
3 min

Pure passion for food equality

The Sustainable Thinking Scotland Foodbank Farm It all started when a couple of guys working for a large supermarket were involved in delivering the supermarket’s donations to the food banks in and around Falkirk. “The donations are all very well, and the food banks rely on them, but we noticed the quality could be variable and often it was not the very freshest produce being donated,” explains Steve McQueen, one of the co-founders of Sustainable Thinking Scotland, which is n

Dunmore: "If you like piña coladas, and getting caught in the rain.”

Aug 12, 2019
3 min

Dunmore: "If you like piña coladas, and getting caught in the rain.”

Well, it’s not quite piña colada, but it is a pineapple and you may well get caught in the rain. This month we visited what is described as “the most bizarre building in Scotland” - the Dunmore Pineapple near Airth - to check out the garden and walks nearby. Within Dunmore Park are gardens maintained by the National Trust for Scotland, the remains of what was Dunmore House (not accessible) ... and an extraordinary stone pineapple. The “Dunmore Pineapple” is clearly signed fro

“No-one knows the river like its anglers.”

May 15, 2019
4 min

“No-one knows the river like its anglers.”

“I remember a time when sometimes the river ran red, sometimes it ran blue,” says George Mackintosh, talking to me about the River Avon over coffee in the cafe at Muiravonside Country Park last month. He’s not referring to a gruesome period of history; he’s remembering when the paper mills along the Avon discharged their waste into the river. “The colour depended on the dyes they were using.” Waste from mills as well as mining activities ended up in the river, which over time