Nostalgic Ad Port Askaig Hotel

A week has passed since I wrote about the Islay Guide Book published in the 1970s. A wee nostalgic guide with lovely old ads. The first nostalgic ad I published was from Western Ferries and last Sunday I posted the foreword written by Alastair Borthwick. This Wednesday, as promised, more Islay nostalgia from the guide book with an ad from the Port Askaig Hotel.

For a lot of people Port Askaig is the first port of call when they arrive on Islay. Port Askaig is one of Islay's main ferry ports and from the new pier ferries leave for Kennacraig, Colonsay and Oban and also the ferry to Jura uses the Port Askaig facilities. Port Askaig is also home to the RNLI lifeboat Helmut Schröder of Dunlossit II and the lifeboat station. The most eye catching building is the Port Askaig Hotel and its history goes back a long way. The present owners believe that the part of the building housing the old bar is around 500 years old. In the old days Port Askaig was on one of the drove routes and cattle was gathered here for further transport to other places in Scotland, the hotel provided welcome accommodation. In the ad you can read that the owners in the time were Mr and Mrs Spears, something that hasn't changed over the years. Continue reading......

If you take a closer look at the ad there are a couple of things particularly interesting. The first one is the fact that telephone numbers in these days were three digit and the second thing was the line at the bottom of the ad mentioning that the hotel was recommended by Ashley Courtenay. A quick search on Google learned that Ashley Courtenay recommendations still exist and her hotel guide is reprinted and updated annually since 1933.