I’m Jim Cassidy, ‘The Airdrie Rambler’.
I live in Airdrie and walk locally and further afield either solo or with Glasgow HF Outdoor Club.
I also represent the interests of anglers, walkers and cyclists on the North Lanarkshire Council Access Forum.
Descending from Sgor Gaibhre
The Airdrie Rambler 
Jim, You are full of surprises. Your walk sounds great and I’d love to support the cause as well as experience a walk in this area, but as I have ten mile feet and begin to flag around the 8/9 mile mark, your ten mile walk in THREE HOURS would be just a little too challenging for me!!! I walk at the average rate of 2.5 miles per hour so would need 4 hours, not counting refreshment stops! I am, after all, an HF Saturday Buddy!
Good Luck – I hope you get a good turnout.
Live Long and Prosper!
Mags
Hi Margaret,
Don’t worry, I’ll fix the text. Figures were just general and I’m finalising the detailed route now. It’s coming in between 9 and 10 miles, and will be done at a reasonable pace- It’s not a Sunday A walk! There is always the option to leave at Caldercruix and get a bus back to Airdrie for those who feel like it.
More details when I have them,
Cheers,
Jim
Great pages Jim. Sorry I never noticed your poster in Airdrie Library or I’d have been at Salsburgh to join you in the walk up Black Hill – and to one of my favourite places – the Lily loch. I walked up that way last year past the Ardenrigg pit bing.
Great to see someone concerned about walking routes around the Airdrie area. I usually stay ‘off piste’ as it were – preferring the soft underfoot rather than antispetic cooncil core paths. But each to their own!
best regards,
Robert Murray
Enjoyed the OMM Vilain review and have just ordered one. Going to try the WHW in 3 days, self suifficient.
Coatbridge Crawler.
Gerry.
Hi Gerry,
Just back from holiday, hope the OMM works for you. Enjoy the WHW, let me know how you get on.
Jim
Hi Jim,
I’ve been following your exploits for several months now and check in weekly to see
what you’ve been up to. Your reports are always a great read and I’m especially
interested in the local stuff. Proves you don’t need to drive 30 miles to appeciate
the outdoors and a decent walk.
I’ve become quite interested in “rights-of-way” recently so I’ve found your involvement
in protecting them very interesting – so keep up the good work with this and the
eyesore windfarm stuff too.
I’m an Airdrie man too although now live in Cumbernauld.
I used to fish up “The Rizzer” and the Lilly when I were a lad so I know this area relatively
well and plan on re-exploring it at some point. I’d also love to get over to Middle Bracco
to see the farmstead remains (bit of a sucker for ruins etc). Makes me sick when I drive
over the backroads between Plains and Greengairs and see what opencast mining has
done and what a poor job they’ve done of regenerating this land.
Anyway, keep up the good work and don’t stop fighting the good fight.
Matt
Thanks Matt. There is some good local walking here as you’ll know, and I’ve started tying lots of smaller walks together to make bigger walks, which can take a good few hours to do. It’s amazing how many people do think that going for a walk involves driving for two hours to get there! I try and start and end my walks near the train stations, that way you don’t even need a car to do them, and if you aren’t local you can still get to them.
I’ve been in touch with the Access Officers and the local MSP Alex Neil about blocked rights of way and core paths. For all that we have good paths and good walking it can be like an obstacle course at times.
Hi Jim,
Came across your “ramblings” whilst googling. I used to live at Forrestfield in the 1950’s and know the area around “Cruix” and went to Glengowan school there. The pub he “owl & the ? used to be called “the Truff” in my days. Mt father worked at Cairneyhill quarry & we lived in Forrestfield at the time. Anyway good photos which bring back memories, I travel up now and again from the Lake District to see the old haunts & for a while have been searching the history of the local area which I must admit is a bit sparse. Thanks again, drop a note if you feel free.
Hi Ken,
Glad I can bring back some good memories for you. The “Owl and Trout” is still called the Truff by those with long memories!
Cheers,
Jim
Hi Jim, [Sorry to post this here, but I could not find an email for you, so feel free to delete this msg as I’m not trying for a free plug!…]
Great blog and pics! So … could I show – with whatever credit you would like – two of your brilliant photos* at the launch of my book “The Call of the Mountains” starting next week (Oct 17th; published by Luath Press)**
I’ll be showing about 50 of my own photos. But as it “takes more than a single lifetime to climb all the Munros in sunshine”!, I’d be very grateful for your permission. The Ring of Steall was my first set of Munros, but v cloudy…
Thanks in advance for considering this, and please feel free to email me directly at max.landsberg@btinternet.com if you wish. Cheers, Max
* https://airdrierambler.files.wordpress.com/2011/09/ring-of-steall-030911-2.jpg
** http://www.thecallofthemountains.com
http://www.waterstones.com/waterstonesweb/displayDetailEvent.do?searchType=2&store=279%7CWATERSTONE'S%20PICCADILLY&sFilter=1 ; plus a few extra dates
Hi Max,
I’m more than happy for you to use the pictures, if you wish I’ll try and dig out the full resolution ones, as the ones on the site are reduced in file size to save space.
I can either add a credit on to the picture or leave it to you. Let me know what you want and I’ll get that done.
Best of luck with the book, I’m off work on the 17th, but sadly Piccadilly is a bit too far for me to travel that day…
Regards,
Jim Cassidy
Thanks Jim,
Much appreciated! No need to dig out higher res.
I can add a credit easily enough in the Powerpoint slide: just let me know what font-size : Arial 18 point?
But I’ll happily use whatever you send if you prefer.
I see you are active in Glasgow HF: let me know if you’d like me to do a (free) talk at some point. Although I guess ‘the sights and inspirations from a journey of a thousand miles across Scotland’s Mountain ranges’ may be more newsworthy to my semi-fellow Sassenachs than to your fellow walkers!
Cheers and be safe, Max
Whatever you think is suitable Max.
One of the problems with our club is that we arrange our programme so far in advance for publishing reasons, that when we get short notice requests we can’t accomodate them. Also at present we have no one within the club willing to do this side of things. We’ve had some cracking offers in the past which sadly have passed us by. I’m hopeful that this can change in the future though.
if you are going to be giving any talks in the Glasgow area please let me know and I can try to circulate it to as wide a group as possible, and I’d certainly make time to come along myself.
All the best,
Jim
Jim, sat beside you at MCofS today. Glad to meet you and all I can say is that you left at the crucial time – still the votes were FOR the proposals
Dave
Hi Dave,
Nice to have met you. Having had another engagement to attend I felt that it was time to go, as it appeared to be about to turn into a long gripe session, not about what was to be voted on. Typical of most AGMs I would imagine! I was going to vote for the proposals, I’m glad to see that they were carried all the same.
Thanks for the tip about Neil Reid’s blog, great reading on there.
All the best,
Jim
Hi Jim,
great website! I was wondering if you could give me some advice… I am trying so hard to find a way from Drumgelloch Station or somewhere around there up the hills to Stepends road…
I tried recently to go through the fields, but even that was only successful with quite a big effort… Is there ay simpler way…? I don’t mind climbing the odd fence or gate, but this seems harder than I would have thought….
Thanks a lot and have fun rambling!:-)
Jane
Hi Jane,
Unfortunately one thing we aren’t short of is fences, electric or barbed! Possibly the easiest way is to walk up to Plains and take the new road . The other way is to go down Clarkston Glen and follow the old railway line from where the viaduct was to the small copse of pine woods, then skirt round the high fence at the reservoir, before crossing a few fences to get to Stepends Road.
Let me know how you get on.
Cheers,
Jim
Remember when the Truff was not just the pub ( back then it was known by the locals as the howff) but a village consisting of two tenement blocks on the Lilly Loch side of the main road and a bungalow the pub and another tenement block on the Reservoir side, at the end of the blocks on the Loch side there was a swing park for the kids.
My grannie and grandpa lived in the block on the same side as the pub (it stood to the right of the pub as you look form the front there were four apartments which were accessed from the back of the block nearest to the reservoir my grannie and grandpa had the top floor right hand apartment and Mrs Gilmour had the top floor on the left.
Her son John finished up as an Assistant Chief Constable of West Yorkshire Police after being in charge of the fraud squad for many years.
The block had only cold running water and it was the dry toilet out the back with the midden in the field behind it.
My great Grannie and one of my great aunts lived in the block across the road with the Porter and Drummond families.
My Grannie and Grandpa moved to the Plains in the late 1950’s to a flat in Jarvie Avenue.
hiya, my name is alan mccluskey, i am making some videos of the quarry off ardriehill street i thought you might enjoy seeing or using as you see fit. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQqsMm2wKJc
Great video Alan, some nifty flying there! I like the high up shots, great views across Airdrie and beyond. I’ll share this online if you don’t mind.