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Kirkcaldy
Day 16. 108.3 miles

We have arrived in Kirkcaldy and after virtually hiking on concrete pavements and tarmac (also invented in Scotland) we are glad to rest our tired feet on a more forgiving floor covering invented and created right here. But more about that stuff later. First we have a whole new town to virtually explore!

In real life I did a lot of walking this week at the splendid Milwaukee IrishFest, and then at the wonderful Irish Hooley in Dubuque. Also work has been hectic so I made good virtual progress but had little time for researching and writing. As a consequence we have a few towns to explore together. Please bear with me! We got there, and we’ll get there.

Where were we? Oh yes, Kirkcaldy! Back in the 16th Century Kirkcaldy was called the Lang Toun because its main street was incredibly long. Since the street was just less than a mile, this tells us more about the degree of urbanization at the time than about Kirkcaldy itself. In more recent times, as I hinted earlier, Kirkcaldy became famous for a particular type of floor covering. Enough of the flooring has been made here over a hundred years or so to cover that long road and much, much more. But we’re not at that point in our story yet.

If we get all chronological for a moment, the bit of land on which Kirkcaldy sits has been inhabited for at least 4,000 years as evidenced by one of the few standing stones we have discovered that has a name. Two, in fact. Call it Bogely or call it Dysart. Either way it would answer-if it wasn’t a lump of rock put here dor an unknown reason by unknown people.

Leaping way ahead in our virtual journey through time and judiciously ignoring a bunch of documents that show how the rights to settle the town were granted to one group then another, by the 1600’s Kirkcaldy was a thriving port that centred around trade with places as far flung as the Low Countries and Baltic region. The growing town also housed diverse industries such as nail making, salt panning and the manufacture of coarse cloth. Quite a coincidence-since cloth and nails are used to make and install the floor covering that I seem to be determined to drag in at any opportunity.

Adam Smith and consequently the science of economics were born here in Kirkcaldy on an unknown date. He was abducted by gypsies right here at an early age but quickly rescued. Later in life he attended the University of Glasgow-where he flourished- and Oxford University-which he found intellectually stifling. In fact he left Oxford before his scholarship ended because of constant shaking fits. This was probbaly evidence of a nervous breakdown. His name lives on in Kirkcaldy at the Adam Smith Theatre. I wonder If any of the plays performed here are based on his life and times-his kidnapping would make an interesting musical! And those shaking fits would certainly add a touch of drama.

In 1846 Kirkcaldy’s harbour was expanded and a wet dock installed to allow even more trade and commerce, The Lang Toun was getting langer! In fact, that mile long street grew to four miles long as Kirkcaldy gobbled up neighgouring towns. Just a year after the new harbour a well-to-do canvas manufacturer called Nairn took out a license on a patent for a floor covering called linoleum. Finally! Time to uncover the facts about the flooring material we have heard so little about so many times. Nairn developed a type of oven to ‘season’ the stuff. And with that a new industry was born, Linoleum manufacture doesn’t feature as large in Kirkcaldy today as it once did, but there is still a linoleum factory here in town.

Billy Connolly, the Scottish folk singer turned comedian, once remarked on the dwindling use of linoleum that it was because it was so much more difficult to pronounce than carpet. But he said it much more amusingly. He also claimed to have plopped right onto a linoleum floor when he was born.

We seem to have digressed again. We appear to do that a lot, you and I. But we can’t just sit here letting our minds wander. Having virtualy wandered through the Lang Toun and watched it grow to a manufacturing powerhouse we decide it’s time to embark on the short walk to Burntisland.