ABSTRACT
At 5a.m. on 19 November 2004 the Fire Service in the Ayrshire town of Kilmarnock was called out on an emergency in the winter dark. Their caller directed them to Kay Park, a 29-acre open expanse for public benefit in the middle of the town. When they got there they found their destination was at the top of the hill in the park, at its highest point. The Burns Monument, a B-listed 80-foot tall red sandstone building, completed in 1879 to commemorate the eighteenth-century poet Robert Burns, was ablaze.
