BROTHERS Alan and David Bell of The Scottish Centre for Personal Safety celebrated their 20th anniversary in the business on Saturday at the charity’s Barony St. John Centre in Ardrossan.

Charity founder, Alan Bell and his brother, David, first started providing personal safety courses, talks and workshops back in 1997 as a not-for-profit, social enterprise called “Security And Safety”.

Both had qualified as personal safety instructors through The National Federation for Personal Safety and Alan went on to qualify as a self defence instructor through The Self Defence Federation, using his previous military and Close Protection (bodyguard) training to develop specific courses for female victims of violence.

Later, David also qualified as a self defence instructor and used his bar steward (bouncer) experiences to add another touch of realism to the personal safety scenarios used on the courses.

“Security And Safety” social enterprise liaised with various Women’s Aid groups and Domestic Violence forums throughout the United Kingdom as well as Rape Crisis Scotland and Victim Support Scotland and, to enhance the not-for-profit nature of their business, Alan set about registering it as a charity.

In 2013, this was achieved and Alan also changed the name of the charity to The Scottish Centre for Personal Safety to reflect that it planned to open a physical Centre and that it covered the whole of Scotland.

In 2015, Alan moved from his home in Ardross in the Scottish Highlands to open the charity’s new premises in the former Barony St. John church hall building on Princes Street in Ardrossan.

Alan commented: “The name connection between Ardross and Ardrossan first drew me to the town and the charity needed a centre near to Glasgow and other areas where domestic violence and violent assaults are prevalent. Our idea was to find a premises where we could run our personal safety courses from and use as a base for the charity during the day and then open the hall up to the community for various other classes in the evenings. Barony St. John’s church and hall proved to be ideal.”

Last year saw the official opening of the Barony St. John Centre by world renowned martial arts expert Bill “Superfoot” Wallace on the 720th anniversary of the original William Wallace’s taking of Ardrossan Castle. The evening classes have since proved very popular within the community and the centre is now open every weekday night as well as Saturday mornings.

The Bell brothers’ 20th anniversary of offering their personal safety services was celebrated by the whole of the team at an Instructor Training Day in the Barony St. John Centre last Saturday.

Alan said: “We recently had to add up all of the people we have trained for a funding application. Amazingly, over the years we have trained almost 4,300 people, many of whom have been victims of violence. 

“Although our proudest moment was opening our Centre in Ardrossan last year, our proudest achievement was developing a personal safety course specifically for the blind and visually impaired, which we have just completed today with two blind people, David Black and Michael McAllister, passing our instructor exam day.”

David Bell added: “It doesn’t seem like 20 years ago that we started this venture but it’s satisfying to know that we’ve helped so many people over the years. ”