Cheerless day as icon tips his hat and prepares to stride away forever

And proof that the town still had the iconic figure's legendary fight was a second sign, cunningly manufactured in the same black typeface and recently tucked directly below, which read: "Keep Johnnie Walker Here."

But the fight, as residents yesterday learned, is over and the town, whose origins lie in the 7th century, had lost. Again.

Over the past few decades, Kilmarnock has been repeatedly knocked to the canvas by the blows of collapsing industry. Once it was a powerhouse of mass industry: there was Glenfield & Kennedy, the hydraulic engineers; Andrew Barclay & Co, locomotive builders; BMK, the carpet factory; and Massey Ferguson, which built combine harvesters – all, sadly, no more.

"The time to get 20,000 people out on to the streets was when the first of them went," said the barman of the pub next to the Johnnie Walker Diageo plant, but which does not serve Johnnie Walker. "We shouldn't have waited until now. That's it: the last big factory gone."

Down in the town centre, in the back booth of the Golden Arrow fish and chicken bar, where corned beef fritters are 40p apiece, Winifred Campbell finishes off her boiled beef and soup. Aged 93, she comes for her lunch each day – "why cook for yourself?" – and is bitterly disappointed at the closure.

"It's dreadful news, I would hate to see Diageo go," she said. "Johnnie Walker is so much a part of the town. I think it's the only whisky worth drinking, with lemonade of course. Not that I drink it now, but if I was out I'd say to the barman, 'A wee drop of whisky, and drown it'."

As a child in the 1920s, Winifred and her friends would often head to Cheapside Street, where the old bond warehouse was, and watch as the men rolled out barrels of whisky. "We went up to get the smell," she explained. "The smell was wonderful." To her generation, Johnnie Walker was a rooted part of the community and a source of great pride. "It's hard to imagine it not there."

A few booths down, Stuart Robertson, 50, chews on fish in breadcrumbs and the question of whether the SNP did enough to change Diageo's mind. "I don't know if anyone could have changed their mind. At least they tried, but when Johnnie Walker goes, there will be a jobs' desert in this town. Diageo was the last big employer here, unless you count Asda."

Outside in the pedestrian precinct, a number of people speak highly of the politicians who have tried to put together an alternative package. Deborah McCreadie, 36, still wears her "Keep Johnnie Walker in Killie" badge and attended the mass rally, though it was partly to see the band Biffy Clyro. "They didn't show – couldn't make it," she said with a smile. "We all hoped the politicians might be able to do something, but deep down we knew Diageo was never going to change its mind."

And so the matter, as the company said yesterday, is "closed". When the factory will do the same is not yet known. "They haven't told us yet," said one employee with 30 years at the firm who, although reluctant to give his name, was happy to chat as he left for the day. "There are a lot of people who feel betrayed and very angry.

"Others are cushioned as they were coming to the end of their career. But there is a wider concern about what this will do to the community. Jobs that would have been there for sons or daughters will soon be gone."

Although the Johnnie Walker label has long been proud to declare that it is produced or bottled in Kilmarnock, where in 1820 the original Johnnie Walker first brewed "Walker's Killme Whisky", a specific place of origin is no longer necessary for what has become the most widely distributed brand of blended whisky in the world. Japan, where it is a top seller, cares not a jot.

On the plant's wall, the top-hatted gentleman striding with his cane is embossed in silhouette, but will soon be fading. "Keep Johnnie Walker Here" reads the sign. Sadly, no. Mr Walker is striding out of Killie and he isn't looking back.

TIMELINE

1820: Johnnie Walker whisky begins its association with Kilmarnock.

1 July, 2009: Diageo announces 900 jobs are to be lost with closure of the Johnnie Walker bottling plant in Kilmarnock and the Port Dundas distillery in Glasgow.

8 July: Alex Salmond is accused of snubbing Diageo workers when he appears on UK television show The Daily Politics instead of meeting with the drinks company chief executive, Paul Walsh.

22 July: Diageo bosses promise to fully consider an alternative business plan being put together by a task force made up of unions, councils and local politicians and backed by the Scottish Government.

26 July: Alex Salmond takes to the streets of Kilmarnock with a megaphone vowing to save Diageo jobs.

27 July: Iain McMillan, director of CBI Scotland, says the Diageo protests could put investors off Scotland. He said: "It will be a case of, 'Woe betide you – we'll be marching on your front door.' That's the sort of thing that overseas potential investors could become concerned about."

20 August: It is revealed that a Scottish Enterprise report concludes it would cost Diageo 60 million to stay in Kilmarnock and still cost 350 jobs.

25 August: John Swinney is presented with East Ayrshire Council's alternative business case designed to retain the Kilmarnock bottling plant.

29 August: The day that Diageo unveiled 2.02 billion profits. A senior executive questions whether public money should be used to keep the plants in Kilmarnock and Diageo open. David Gosnell said: "Is it appropriate for a government to offer money to companies that are not requesting it and are very profitable?"

27-30 August: Politicians across the parties boycott Johnnie Walker golf championship at Gleneagles – apart from the SNP MSP for Central Fife, Tricia Marwick, who supports the creation of 400 Diageo jobs in Fife.

2 September: Diageo workers and union representatives come to Holyrood to protest against the job cuts.

9 September: Diageo rejects the task force's rescue plans saying they "don't deliver a business model that would be good for either Diageo or Scotland".