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Levengrove Park in Dumbarton is flooded. Picture by Michael Moffat

Liv Dawn is at Room 2

Loch Lomondside resident Liv Dawn tells us: “I’m playing a gig next Thursday (4th November) at Room 2 in Glasgow!! You can get tickets here https://room2.ticketspice.com/23promotionsroom2live7v2

There will be my awesome keys player Calum Macleod Music and I alongside 3 other great acts playing, please come along!”

Music to their ears

Pupils from Bonhill Primary received their brass instruments from the West Dunbartonshire Council Instrumental Music Service. The children from primary 6 and 7 are part of a large intake of new pupils who will be given orchestral instruments and start tuition over the coming weeks. Democrat reader Carol Williams Young said: “The instrumental music service is a brilliant project, I know loads of children over the years that have gone on to pursue a career in music because they were introduced to the pleasure of learning to play an instrument, be part of an orchestra and exposed to a vast array of classical, modern and contemporary music through this service . The SNP administration alomost put a halt to music in schools during the austerity period when grass cutting and other public services were slashed when Nicola Sturgeon said there was no need to do that in West Dunbartonshire.

Booster jags on dark evenings Strictly for the birds

Do you have an appointment to receive your COVID-19 or flu vaccination this Sunday? Remember the clocks went back an hour.

Please aim to arrive no more than 10-15 mins before your appointment time to avoid unnecessary queues and dress for the wintry weather #GetVaccinated.

I had my booster and my flu jag last night around 7pm. All in all it took me and hour and I thought that was reasonable.

However, it was interesting to listen to some of the conversations in the queue of around 50 people at the Alexandria Leisure Centre in the Main Street.

A few elderly people there for their booster expressed dismay in the way that only Vale folk can that their appointment was not in Dumbarton but in Alexandria at a time when it was dark, cold and wet. And that there was no transport provided and few buses running. That the Renton Road between Dumbarton and Alexandria was closed in both directions, which meant a long de-tour. That the after-dark imposition was made despite the recent widespread surge in concern about women being attacked. And that those who took taxis had to pick up the tab which they couldn’t afford from their pension money.

“It’s just as well we didn’t have to go to Port Glasgow as was first suggested,” said one elderly lady. ” And anyway I wouldn’t have wanted to miss Strictly. I have still had to record it though. I definitely wouldn’t have gone there at this time of night.”

The out-of-touch Health Board, on which West Dunbartonshire is represented by the SNP Council administration leader, Cllr Jonathan McColl, and the SNP government led by Nicola Sturgeon and Humza Yousaf, have been boasting about how well the vaccine distibution programme has gone. I fear the truth of the matter is far from that. One woman in the Alexandria Centre summed it up in a word. “It’s a shambles and it’s been that way all day.”

Editor

Don’t be put off by the “shambles” – go out and get your booster jab.

Down Memory Lane and Up Castlehill

May be an image of 30 people and people smiling

I can name most in this Dalreoch PS school photo maybe somebody can name the rest. Top Gavin Greer, Stuart tallach, George Kerr me ?? Alistair Forrester Sid lounges. Next Jeannette Jamieson ?? Morag Thomson Elizabeth Oldham ?? ?? ?? Sheena Hart. Next Hugh Kinsella Ian McIver James Johnson Ronnie Lindsay Alex Lennox Peter Stewart next Sandra George ?? Sandra Henderson Sheena Martin Yolanda Palka Sheena or Sheila McCombie Patricia Staines ?? ?? Mrs Thompson?? — in Dumbarton.