vardoger

This article was quite the interesting read for me! I grew up in Ayrshire, and knew well of the ICI (Imperial Chemical Industries) plant at Ardeer. My maternal grandfathed worked there until retirement, involved in some aspect of the acid mixing and nitroglycerine production (erroneously named by others in my family as 'nitrous'). During World War 2, he was denied release to join the British Army due to being designated "essential to the war effort" as part of the chain to create high explosives. Sadly, he died when I was too young to really be interested in the intricacies of his work. Thus, I was unable to ask him questions about it. I wished others had had the interest in it I have now, so many years later.

While of no relevance to this article or these comments... my memories of my Grandfather are all of a kind, mostly self-educated man, who was denied accepting a full university scholarship - despite pleading from the local Headmaster to his own father - due to his alcoholic father requiring him to go to work and earn money to be able to sustain his 8 younger siblings. He loved his Wife and Daughter, reading Omar Khayyam, watching horse-racing, had a legendary reluctance to accept gifts from anyone lest it put them at a financial disadvantage for having thus done so, and as my Mother told me - always took 2 sandwiches to work with him for over 30 years for his nightly "lunch"; one with cheese, and one with jam.

I mention about him in such manner, as there will likely never be another time that I will find reason to immortalize him online in some small measure of remembrance. And... it made me miss him.

It's absolutely astonishing to me that there could still be people out there, even in what's termed wilderness, who have never encountered the modernities of the society we inhabit - that for an all but unknown few the world is still just what lies outside their front door.

I feel true sadness for the Lykov's, being 'discovered', then somewhat forced by the intrusion of others to be aware of their greater surroundings and soon thereafter the father and sister seeing the rest of their family felled in quick succession.