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Why is Laurel Avenue a dual carriageway?


Charles Bannerman

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Back to school boys ?

My old Alma Mater! (And that of one or two more on here as well I suspect.) I was in P1 there in 1958-59 when the Heidie would still have been John Mathieson before he went to head up the new Millburn Junior Secondary. Maybe I am behind the windows there of Room 3 where I spent P1 and 2 with Miss MacKenzie (later Mrs MacAskill).

The grass still looks hell of a rough in that photo. Presumably it got better as the years went by. It was on that grass (albeit before I became an "athlete" :crazy: ) that the boy who wore a lower leg caliper following polio beat me in the 80 yards :notworthy:

You could just about do a whole thread on the old days at Dalneigh School.

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missing in the space behind that is the Friars Lane Telephone Exchange which building started in 1958 and it opened in 1961. 

That now explains something I hadn't been able to work out. The original, sandstone part of the Telephone Exchange, on the corner of Friars Street, has a date 1949 on it but it is joined to the bulk of the present building which looks somewhat newer. This will be the part which was started in 1958 and opened in 1961.

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You are right Charles about the original part which was the new operator trunk control centre started in 1949 and was opened in 1952 by Provost James Grigor.  The new STD exchange on Friars Lane was opened by Provost Alan Ross in 1961 serving 3500 customers.  The original sandstone was recovered from a large house that was demolished out in the Kiltarlity area but I can't remember where.  My late father delivered a lot of hardwood timber to the site when he drove for Wm Ogilvie Haulage contractor Evanton.  The newer part down Friars Street which is connected by a walkway over the old graveyard was opened in 1980.

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You are right Charles about the original part which was the new operator trunk control centre started in 1949 and was opened in 1952 by Provost James Grigor.  The new STD exchange on Friars Lane was opened by Provost Alan Ross in 1961 serving 3500 customers.  The original sandstone was recovered from a large house that was demolished out in the Kiltarlity area but I can't remember where.  My late father delivered a lot of hardwood timber to the site when he drove for Wm Ogilvie Haulage contractor Evanton.  The newer part down Friars Street which is connected by a walkway over the old graveyard was opened in 1980.

Intriguing! I think a lot of people are learning a lot about old Inverness from this set of threads.

 

I certainly remember the change from operator service to STD in the late 50s/early 60s. When we lived in Kenneth St until 1958 it was the old "which number please" and if we didn't move straight to STD in Dalneigh we got STD (so to speak :laugh:  :laugh: ) very soon after.

 

Younger members should understand that Dalneigh wasn't a particular den of iniquity because in these days "STD" stood for "Subscriber Trunk Dialling" and not for the range of afflications which now enjoy the acronym "STI". In the days when STD merely referred to phones, the other problem was simply called "VD" (Venereal Disease). The only difficulty there was that VD also stood for Voluntary Officers' Decoration. That's why, on the Royal Academy War Memorial, there is this rather unfortunate entry which states "Col James Fraser VD" :ohmy:

Edited by Charles Bannerman
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Back to Laurel Avenue looking north from the roundabout.  There was a young guy lived in No9 away down on the right hand side in the late 70's who had a Flame Orange Mk3 Cortina 2000GT  :wink:

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Just like their brains - large open spaces

Feck all wrong with the old Tech ye Toff!

 

Caleyboy... I am greatly concerned that you should call IHE a toff! Because if so, what does that make the rest of us Kaddie Rats? :amazed:

 

Generally, Toffs - but there are one or two exceptions CB!  :happy:

Edited by caleyboy
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Just like their brains - large open spaces

Feck all wrong with the old Tech ye Toff!

 

Caleyboy... I am greatly concerned that you should call IHE a toff! Because if so, what does that make the rest of us Kaddie Rats? :amazed:

 

Generally, Toffs - but there are one or two exceptions CB!  :happy:

 

Dalneigh through and through me! On the other hand IHE was allegedly born in Stephen's Brae brought up in the biggest house in the town on the side of that hill on the way to Fort William.

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Nothing allegedly about it - Stephens Brae to The Square at Craig Dunain to Lochend to Creag Dbubh Terrace to Drumossie Avenue. And Stephens Brae has never really changed over the years. Suspect in years to come No 4 will become a major tourist attraction.

post-25-0-79180400-1422563138_thumb.jpg

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Nothing allegedly about it - Stephens Brae to The Square at Craig Dunain to Lochend to Creag Dbubh Terrace to Drumossie Avenue. And Stephens Brae has never really changed over the years. Suspect in years to come No 4 will become a major tourist attraction.

That corner site has housed so many different things over the years, with florists and hairdressers prominent among them. It's currently a very good cycle cafe.

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The prison stands out in the mille of this one with St Stephens Church to the bottom near the right and a lot of open space between Old Edinburgh Road and Argyll Street and the same between Mayfield Road and Culduthel Road. The BBC building looks like a massive house, I am sure CB will know when it was taken over!

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The prison stands out in the mille of this one with St Stephens Church to the bottom near the right and a lot of open space between Old Edinburgh Road and Argyll Street and the same between Mayfield Road and Culduthel Road. The BBC building looks like a massive house, I am sure CB will know when it was taken over!

Wow! You can see the old tin shed at the BBC! I didn't start working there until 3 years after "BBC Radio Highland" was set up in 1976 so I'm not sure how long before that they used the place as an Inverness base, but if at all, it wasn't very long.

Back in the old days the tin shed, which you can see on the right hand side of the building, was the engineering department. That was demolished in about 1990 to accommodate a new studio block and about 7 years ago further accommodation was inserted between the old house and the studio block.

I remember with envy the amount of space you can see around the house in that photo because room for car parking is now a major problem.

The old house is said to be haunted but I must say I've never seen anything.... not even whilst burning the midnight oil there during the darkest days of the merger. :sad:

 

That, by the way, is an especially good aerial photo of Inverness which must be pre-war since the Temporary Bridge isn't in place yet. A lot of these aerial photos seem to date from the 1930s.

Edited by Charles Bannerman
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Scarlet you are exactly right, it is at the bottom of the picture 1/3rd in from the right, you can only see a bit of the cross roads, using a clock face in the center of the picture it is a 5 o'clock!

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