Flashback: The top pictures from the Times in November 2003

Who can you spot in these photos?

Staff and regulars at the Coach and Horses pub raised a tidy sum for the Ayrshire Hospice in November 2003. The Irvine pub held a race night and raised the impressive sum of £670 for the hospice’s community nurses. Assistant manageress Glenda Reilly is pictured with some of the boozer’s local presenting the cheque to community nurse team leader Anne Thomson.

Super-fit pupils at Greenwood Academy brought a clutch of prizes back to school in November 2003. A group of runners took part in the Ayrshire Cross Country Championships at the Magnum Beach Park - and won the S1 boys’ team event.

The runners were Murray Colier, Sean Stirling, Alan Hill and Kenneth Hogg, who was overall first. Girl runners Leanne Galloway, Cheryl Fraser, Paula Gilchrist and Racine Carlin took gold in the team event, while second year girls Natasha Boyd, Jane Gillespie and Shona Abernethy won silver in the team event. And in the S3 event, William Morgan was the overall winner.

1st Kilwinning Boys Brigade members Scott McKnight (10), Callum Graham (12) and Gordon Mackie (11) are pictured laying a wreath at Kilwinning Cenotaph on Remembrance Sunday in 2003.

St Winning’s Primary pupils really enjoyed their Hallowe’en celebrations in 2003 – and even performed a spooky play to get everyone in the mood.

Irvine pupils buried a time capsule at the former Sanderson Avenue site. The youngsters from Loudoun Montgomery Primary were asked to gather items to bury at the site, which is being redeveloped by Irvine Housing Association and North Ayrshire Council. The boys and girls gathered together lots of important local artefacts - including old and new copies of the Irvine Times.

North Ayrshire Council’s education services committee gave the green light for the establishment of the controversial multi-million-pound Roman Catholic super-school to replace St Andrew’s Academy in Saltcoats and Kilwinning’s St Michael’s Academy (pictured) by 2007.

The decision – which was attacked by some within the Catholic Church and by parents from Kilwinning and the Garnock Valley – was made at a stormy meeting at NAC’s Cunninghame House HQ in November 2003, as councillors pushed through proposals for the privately-funded amalgamation.

The school was one of four major projects made possible by the award of £80million of funding in a public private partnership initiative by the Scottish Executive. The others would see Arran High and Stanley Primary in Ardrossan completely rebuilt and Greenwood Academy in Irvine refurbished. The new secondary, for 1,400 pupils, would be built on the St Andrew’s site, with St Michael’s being consigned to history.