Dudsday

The fair's name comes from the custom of farm Labourers purchasing new clothes or duds (from the Middle English word dudde, a cloak[3]) having been paid their wages for the previous half-year.

[4] The 'Ayr Advertiser' for 21 October 1920 records of a hiring event that "There were not a great many single men engaged, a large proportion of them preferring to wait till Dudd's Day.

Both male and female agricultural servants would gather in order to bargain with prospective employers and, hopefully, secure a position for the coming year.

[7]The fact that Dudsday meant that farm labourers were guaranteed to be visiting Kilmarnock in large numbers with money in their pockets attracted pick-pockets and worse.

Such was the notoriety of the murder and sympathy for the victim that passers by took to leaving a stone at the spot to create a cairn (NS 39979 34140) that grew to a fairly considerable size.