I remember two of the news agencies mentioned, with crystal clarity: Ward's (of Eastgate) and Bowes (on Young Street).
They were (for a number of years) owned by my grandfather, F Gordon Harper, who was - at one time - a Baillie on the Inverness town council. As, indeed, was his older son, Frank Harper who famously won the MC in 1956 for bravery during the Mau Mau Campaign in Kenya.
My mother was Gordon Harper's daughter, and we lived in Surrey in the south of England, due to my father's job. But every year, we came north to Inverness to see our grandparents - Gordon & Ina - who lived in a house called 'Maybank' at no. 20 Island Bank Road.
When my grandfather died in April 1965, my grandmother Ina sold Ward's, but kept Bowes, which went from strength to strength under her stewardship, doing far better than it had even when my grandfather was alive, surprising us all. I guess we'd somewhat underestimated my silver-haired gran!
As I got older, my uncle, Frank, would take me out on early-morning newspaper delivery runs whilst I was up on holiday in Inverness. This involved getting up at something like 4:00 am to get washed, dressed and breakfasted before going to the warehouse to pick up the newspapers. Then, it was off to Bowes for twenty minutes of frantic sorting and bundling, before the papers were loaded into the back of the Bowes small grey mini-van, and we departed on the first of two delivery routes, which saw newspapers on the customers' doorsteps in time for breakfast.
Delivery consisted of Frank slowing down to a walking pace, handing me the newspapers for a particular house, and grinning mischievously, as he would warn me about the particularly aggressive dog which guarded this particular customer's house ... I spent a lot of the delivery routes at high adrenaline levels. For the record, not a single dog ever attacked or even menaced me - indeed, I never so much as saw even one dog in all the deliveries I ever made. ?
From the time from when I was age of 16 to when I was 20, we didn't see much of Inverness, due to my father securing post-retirement jobs first in Africa, and then in the newly-independent Bangladesh. But we returned to the UK in 1976, and selling the house in England, and moving to Inverness - to a house on Island Bank Road, just 200 yards down the street from my grandmother who still lived in Maybank.
By this stage, Frank had moved down to Livingston, but I would now spend university holidays helping out in Bowes, behind the counter. But after graduation, I moved to California, and in 1979, my grandmother sold Bowes (and Maybank), and moved in with my parents, before she passed away in January 1980.
I visited Inverness for a week again in 1982, but it wasn't the same for me anymore, and a year later, my parents sold their house on Island Bank Road and moved to Australia.
I was back in Scotland in 1988, but never again visited Inverness until 1998, when I brought my wife to the UK to see the some of places where I'd grown up, which had been particularly important to me.
In 2005, I brought my daughter to Inverness, but Bowes was no longer there. I never did learn what happened to Bowes: did it fail? Was it again bought out, this time for its location and then turned into the Mexican bar & restaurant ('Mambo' ... ?) which (I think) now occupies the same premises?
Although Inverness has changed, all places do and it still appears to thrive.
I miss the old Inverness, nonetheless. But then, we all miss our childhoods.