Crisp manufacture in Dunoon

Today when I eat crisps my mind snaps back in an instant to the early 1950s and the hazard of eating a packet of crisps in the darkness of one of Dunoon’s cinemas. Both were in Argyll Street. The Picture House is long gone but La Scala, somewhat unbelievably, still remains, is hidden and now inaccessible in the deep recesses of a clothing shop.

The crisps, I am thinking, did not come ready salted, but with a little twist of dark blue glossy paper containing salt in the packet. Once found with a noisy rustling search in the bag, to much consternation of those seated around, the contents could be sprinkled with as much salt as you wanted. Trouble was that you could later find there had been two bags of salt and you found yourself chewing on the second one. Now, I don’t suppose you have any personal experience of that but have my assurance it is not to be recommended. The taste is not one easily forgotten. On a unique occasion, having mentally patted myself on the back as I had extracted two bags at the same time, I found myself chewing the third!

Dunoon manufactured its own crisps from two locations. Macs Crisps were produced at the Rosegarth Hotel which abutted the bigger and better known McColls hotel. I remember those crisps as being very good. Lest you think that this creates a picture of real sophistication I learned not too long ago that Fisher and Watt, the second crisp factory (pictured, now a laundrette), cooked their crisps in an entirely uncovered cast iron bath heated from underneath by gas burners. Health and Safety was obviously not to the fore. The earlier crisps I feel were more tasty than those available now- apart from the extra salt of course.

As told by John Stirling, resident of Dunoon and former manager at Dunoon Castle House Museum

More information on visiting the area can be found here.