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Kirkcaldy is a major market and manufacturing town in the Kingdom of [[Fife]], eastern [[Scotland]]. It is known as the 'Lang Toun' in deference to its somewhat elongated morphology, strung out along a single main street, its back-side presented to the [[Firth of Forth]] with whose coast the street runs [[parallel]]. It has been a major commercial centre since the late [[medieval]] period, with a trade in [[salt]], [[coal]], and [[wool]], and, in recent centuries, [[whale oil]] and [[linoleum]]. Salt boiling and the boiling of whale blubber on the beach to extract oil must have given the town an interesting olfactory environment, so it is perhaps unfair that the linoleum industry gets the sole blame for Kirkcaldy's reputation as a malodorous town, as recorded in the poem 'The Boy on the Train' by Mary Campbell Smith, which concludes:

'''Kirkcaldy''' is a major market and manufacturing town in the Kingdom of [[Fife]], eastern [[Scotland]]. It is known as the 'Lang Toun' in deference to its somewhat elongated morphology, strung out along a single main street, its back-side presented to the [[Firth of Forth]] with whose coast the street runs [[parallel]].

 

It has been a major commercial centre since the late [[medieval]] period, with a trade in [[salt]], [[coal]], and [[wool]], and, in recent centuries, [[whale oil]] and [[linoleum]]. Salt boiling and the boiling of [[whale]] blubber on the beach to extract oil must have given the town an interesting olfactory environment, so it is perhaps unfair that the linoleum industry gets the sole blame for Kirkcaldy's reputation as a malodorous town, as recorded in the poem 'The Boy on the Train' by Mary Campbell Smith, which concludes:

''For I ken mysel' by the queer-like smell''  

''For I ken mysel' by the queer-like smell''  

== Famous Lang Touners ==

== Famous Lang Touners ==

* Adam Smith, economist and Father of Monetarism

* [[Adam Smith]], economist and Father of Monetarism

* Sir Sandford Fleming, inventor of the [[International Date Line]]

* Sir Sandford Fleming, inventor of the [[International Date Line]]

* Robert Adam, architect

* Robert Adam, architect

[[Category:Scottish Towns and Cities]]

[[Category:Scottish Towns and Cities]]