Largs was (from the summer of 2017) the first place in the world to introduce a fully integrated system to activate pedestrian crossings using a series of
Neateboxes.
[6] This system allows visually or physically impaired persons to activate the crossing button with no actual requirement to find or push the button, and will be of great benefit to the disabled community.
[6]
I should mention that my gran used to hold a "salon" in Largs on sunday afternoons, which was when we we normally used to visit*, and her front room was full of old ladies puffing away on B&H, and they'd give me and my brother 50 p each with instructions to not spend it at the arcade, which is where we would then rush to and blow the whole lot on the slots, and then when we ran out of cash we'd play "chicken" on the nearby zebra crossing by jumping on to the stripes in the hope that the cars would stop and wouldn't reduce us to pulp, which seemed to work out because we're both still here, neither of us have broken bones ( although when "friends reunited" was a thing I did discover years after the fact that my brother was locally famous for headbutting the school staffroom window and showering the teachers with shards of glass), and when we moved "down south" my brother became a bit of a Millwall hoolie, but he still remained unscathed, and then after the jumping in front of cars fun we would head down to Nardinies, the ice cream parlour, maybe of note nowadays because the daughter of the owner ( Lisa or was it Liza? , anyway they served up really good ice cream, and I'm a bit of a connoisseur ) ended up starring in one of the Star Trek spinoffs 9 i think the number nine was involved 9... i get the impression some people here like "Limmy" and so they may be familiar with the concept of Millport being some fantastical paradise, and Largs was the portal to that ideal... many was the time we took the ferry from Largs to Millport and hired bicycles to ride around the little magical isle...
I'm still weirded out how
@luka should happen to mention an obscure Scottish seaside town that was a major feature of my childhood....
edit: when we ran out of money we would head to the Woolworths near to Largs train station and I would spend hours spacing out to the display of lava lamps and my brother might have scraped enough winnings from the amusement arcade to buy a 50 p "sounds alike" elvis album... otherwise we would return to my gran's house where i can remember one of the "aunties" telling us about how her nephew was on TV, part of a "drag" act called "Hinge and Bracket" and how none of the old ladies even raised an eyebrow about her nephew being into "cross dressing"
edit; still weirded out by
@luka associating me with Largs, spot on
* I mentioned my gran ran a "boutique" dress shop in Largs, and sometimes we'd accompany her on trips to Glasgow for her wholesale fashion purchases, which was an insight to the "rag trade"....probably explains why i've never been "into" fashion tbh