Looking back...

So, the day after the Absent Voices pop-up show and two former sugar workers ruminate on what has gone before them.
This shows Jimmy Stewart and Jim King, sitting in the Beacon Arts Centre, sharing memories and drinking coffee.
Jimmy worked as a maintenance engineer at Walkers' Refinery in Greenock during the 1960s and 70s. His lifelong pal, Ian, did the same job.
The two men were both at the pop-up show on Friday, chatting to journalists about their experiences. It was fascinating and poignant by degrees to hear their stories, which have now been recorded for posterity.
More about this at a later date...
Jim King (seen here on the right with the fine head of white hair) is the granda of Absent Voices artist, Ryan King.
Ryan has been sitting talking to Jim a lot lately about his experiences working in the sugar industry in Greenock.
Ryan has been recording his voice for a soundtrack to the Sugar Sheds which he and fellow AV artist, Al Carlisle, are working on.
Jim, 80, was one of 14 children. He says he feels sorry for his grandson's generation because the work was there for his generation if you wanted to work. He routinely worked double-shifts because it was an option.
Clearly hard work and Jim were not strangers!
Jim is also the source of the Swanky Docker story. This is the story of a Greenock docker who received compensation for injuring his leg and would get taxis everywhere after the 'compo' kicked in. Hence the title, Swanky Docker.
He may be a composite of a lot of different men, but the Swanky Docker has now been immortalised in a song which Yvonne Lyon wrote with children from Whinhill PS in Greenock.
Yvonne, Kevin McDermott and a group of Whinhill kids performed the song at the pop-up. (See yesterday's Blip)
One onlooker said it was destined to become a modern folk classic...
He could be right.
Jimmy and Jim had a good yarn. Their voices are being heard.