From our June 26th edition

25 YEARS AGO

(June 22nd, 1990)

A DECISION is expected soon on the possible release of cash to develop the port of Lochinver.

Much will depend on the European community coming up with some aid to help fund the £3.5 million project to extend the berthing area and improve landing facilities as was done recently at Kinlochbervie.

Colonel Allan Gilmour, Lord Lieutenant of Sutherland, has been made a Knight Commander of the Royal Victorian Order in last week’s Queen’s Birthday Honours list.

Also featured in the list is Miss Bessie Mackay, a shepherd’s daughter born at Loch Loyal side, who was awarded a British Empire Medal for her services to the community. She has been in charge of the Cala Sona sheltered housing unit at Melness since it was built in 1975.

STRATHY Post Office has received a reprieve, but now Dalhalvaig is likely to have its opening hours cut.

After the resignation of Strathy’s sub-post mistress, Post Office Counters Ltd decided to convert it to a community office, opening just six hours a week. But, following pressure from Sutherland District Council, Post Office Counters Ltd have now agreed to extend this to 12 hours.

At this week’s policy and resources committee meeting, Melvich councillor Mr Harry Bremner was told that another sub-office in his ward at Dalhalvaig, Strathhalladale, is to be downgraded too. This has arisen because of the resignation of the sub-postmistress there.

A BOAT belonging to Rispond Fish Farm was involved in a rescue by the Durness coastguard station on Tuesday.

The fishing vessel, Pamelakay, a 32ft creel boat, with two people on board, radioed for help after the vessel broke down with gearbox failure, two miles north of Loch Eriboll.

It was towed to Rispond harbour safely by an Oban boat, the Vixen, fishing in the area, assisted by another boat, Emulate, from Rispond.

TV comedian Jim Davidson was besieged by autograph hunters when he arrived in Lochinver skippering his boat in the Round the Top of Scotland race in aid of RNLI last week.

50 YEARS AGO

(June 25th, 1965)

MISS Marjorie Bosomworth, teacher at Hamilton Academy, has been appointed warden of the girls’ hostel being built at Golspie.

The hostel is to be known as the Mackay House Hostel, after the convener of Sutherland, Mr John H. Mackay, who was a former chairman of the education committee and a committee member for 31 years.

Work on the new hostel should be completed by the middle of August and it will be able to house about 50 girls. A recently appointed teacher to Golspie High School is to live in the hostel. The matron has still to be appointed.

THE famous locomotive Dunrobin, which was built in 1994 for the fourth Duke of Sutherland and was well known on the Inverness-Golspie line, is now on show, along with its famous coach, at what is called the Imperial Pageantry Centre, Victoria, British Columbia.

The Dunrobin left its engine shed at Golspie for a railway museum in the south about 14 years ago and it was recently advertised for sale. Its new owner, Mr Harold Foster, a Victoria businessman, initiated the purchase with a transatlantic telephone call. Then he had the two-piece train shipped from England.

The transaction got great publicity in the Canadian papers and there were photographs of the Dunrobin being landed by crane at the dockside and being transported through the streets of Victoria on a lowboy truck. One side of the building where it is housed had to be removed temporarily to get the engine and car inside.

WESTMINSTER Estates are making full use of the Grumman Goose amphibious aircraft they brought over from Canada.

Recently piloted by Captain Michael Dench, ex Fleet Air Arm, it landed on the waters of Loch More to pick up Mr G. K. Ridley, the estate’s top executive, his wife, son and son’s fiancée. They were bound for Chester and London. That same morning, the plane had been in Northern Ireland and London. It had taken off from Loch Erne with Lord Robert Grosvenor, the Duke of Westminster’s brother, on board. Last Friday the plane was due to take Lady Mary Grosvenor to her Sutherland home at Kylestrome.

75 YEARS AGO

(June 27th, 1940)

EVERY post office in the British Isles has received instructions to take immediate steps to delete all names, maps and charge sheets from telephone boxes. Any sign, no matter how small, which might give information to the enemy will disappear. Charge sheets and maps in the telephone directories are being torn out.

A RECENT appeal to school children to help in the collection of sphagnum moss has met with a most gratifying response from pupils in Clyne H.G. School. Under the supervision of their teachers, a large number of the older pupils have been engaged daily collecting large quantities with the result that over 20 bags are now deposited in Sutherland Wool Mills where, under the expert supervision of mill employees, it is being prepared for despatch to the reception depot.

AERONAUTICAL experts advise people not to be too frightened by reports about Germany using “screaming bombs”, or what have also been described as “whistling terrors”.

It is pointed out that these whistling bombs represent no new creation and we ourselves used them 20 years ago.

All bombs make a certain scream or whistle and there is no evidence that Germany has produced anything of a more terrifying character.

As a matter of fact, the noise might well serve as an earlier warning to people and they are advised not to get panicky but to take the noise as a warning that a bomb is falling and to fling themselves flat on the ground.

CAPTAIN R. E. Sawyer, divisional food officer for the North of Scotland, is now prepared to consider applications from farmers for extra sugar, meat and other rationed food for agricultural workers at haymaking, sheep-shearing, harvest or threshing. This can only be granted where it has been the custom for the farmer or his wife to provide drinks and/or food to workers in the fields.

100 YEARS AGO

(June 24th, 1915)

AN influential committee presided over by the Archbishop of York, and including among its members the Duchess of Bedford, has definitely reported that the rumours as to the probability of an alarming increase in the number of illegitimate births as the result of the billeting of troops have been proved beyond doubt to have no foundation in fact.

Special inquiries were made in 62 towns and districts through agencies possessed of special local knowledge and by a skilled lady investigator. In no case has any confirmation been obtained of the rumours which have been circulated.

ON Thursday of last week the Duke and Duchess of Sutherland, Millicent, Duchess of Sutherland, Lady Rosemary and Lord Alistair Leveson-Gower visited Scourie and occupied a suite of rooms in the Stafford Arms Hotel.

On Friday the distinguished party made a trip to Handa, the charms of which are at this season of the year indescribably enhanced by the myriads of sea birds nestling on the ledges of its gigantic cliffs. Before leaving on Saturday for Dunrobin, their Graces’ and party gave expression to the great pleasure their stay at Scourie had given them.

ONE of the Golspie Territorials continues to send home letters taken from Germans as souvenirs from the battlefield. One day a big Prussian – the tallest of the contingent in that quarter – was swaggering about with more impudence than usual when a Cameron Highlander came into conflict with him and promptly ended his career with one blow from the butt end of the rifle. Among the articles found on the dead Prussian was the letter forwarded to Golspie.

WHEN B Company 1/5th Seaforths was ordered abroad from Bedford some six weeks ago, the people of Dornoch and district got up a fund to provide comforts of various kinds for the men.

One box was sent to them to Bedford as a parting gift, another was sent to them to the Front later and a third was sent last week.

---

Do you want to respond to this article? If so, click here to submit your thoughts and they may be published in print.

---