Fairlie’s Great War project is carrying on apace although they are still trying to trace information about soldiers from the village.

Fairlie Community Association was awarded a Heritage Lottery Fund grant of £9700 in January to research the names on the Fairlie Roll of Honour in the Village Hall (including those on the War Memorial) - the project will run from February, 1914 to July, 1915 and will culminate in a booklet, website and exhibition.

Elaine Campbell of the Fairlie Community Association revealed: “In addition to the 126 names on the Roll of Honour, we’ve discovered another 30 people with a Fairlie connection who served (from those commemorated in the Church, or from Largs News snippets, or have been given to us by family members).

“We have group of volunteers who currently meet weekly to do online research (birth, death, service information, etc.), although it’s difficult to find military records for some as around 60% of service records were destroyed during a bombing raid in WW2.

“However, so far we’ve managed to find some information about most of the men, although around 25 still remain a bit of a mystery! Interestingly, around 10 of the men emigrated to Canada either just before or just after the war - which seems quite a high proportion for a wee village like Fairlie!” The mystery men are: from Fairlie Village Hall Roll of Honour Thomas Blakely (Royal Scots Fusiliers) James Brown (Highland Light Infantry) John Fraser (Royal Army Service Corps) Lieut. Alexander Fyfe (Royal Scots) Frank Graham (Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve) John Hunter (Royal Scots) John Maclachlan (Royal Garrison Artillery) James McCall (South African Heavy Artillery) George John Miller (Highland Light Infantry) John Miller (Royal Engineers) William Miller (Royal Scots Fusiliers) William Miller (Queen’s Own Cameron Highlanders) Capt. Thomas Sloane (Royal Naval Reserve) Daniel Stalker (Royal Engineers) Capt. Wood (Royal Naval Reserve) From Ardrossan & Saltcoats Herald Roll of Honour, December 1914 John Black (Royal Scots Fusiliers) James Cooper (Cameron Highlanders) Robert Gardner (regiment unknown) Charles Grant (Royal Scots Fusiliers) George Livesley (Scots Greys) T. Maclachlan (Royal Scots Fusiliers) John Moan (Royal Scots Fusiliers) John Nelson (regiment unknown) and Thomas Young (Royal Scots Fusiliers) Elaine added: “We’ve been contacted by a few family members, who’ve provided us with great information, letters, photographs, etc., and we’re very grateful to them - we’d love to hear from anyone who is descended from the men on the plaque, and they can contact us on 07948 048908 or fairliecommass@gmail.com” 25 “There are three categories - those we can’t find any information about, those we can identify but can’t find a connection to Fairlie, and those (e.g. the Millers and Daniel Stalker) where there are two or three in the village with the same name and we haven’t yet identified which one is “ours”.

The pictures show John Campbell and Andrew Royston Rodger, who both died during the war; and John (Ian) McLachlan and James Smith survived.

The Primary 6 class of Fairlie Primary are also involved in the project, and they are researching the 16 men named on the War Memorial.

The next phase will be to visit North Ayrshire Heritage Centre to search through the Largs and Millport Weekly News archives to find snippets that were printed about any of the Fairlie men.