snorbens_caleyman

My late father was Jags' secretary for a couple of years in the late 60s - 10 years after this photo - so I knew a few of these faces. Terry McDonagh and Dils Hendry, however, I knew through the Golf Club at Culcabock. George Pyke was still around. Billy Robertson I didn't know, but I do remember him being an excellent keeper for the Clach. Murdie Urquhart - who passed away fairly recently - was still playing. My father once had to take him up to Raigmore during a midweek evening game, after he had knocked himself out by diving against the corner of the post, unsuccessfully trying to prevent a goal. Dad said that one of the A&E nurses who was attending to him came out to ask "What exactly happened? We are taking flakes of white paint out of the wound...". Donnie Godsman was, I think, just about at the end of his playing career. Do I remember him being coach or trainer after that? Jock MacD was, of course, "El Presidente", as Dad used to call him - though probably not to his face - and Roy Lytham was on the committee. Apparently Roy was the only person who could get off with taking the mickey out of Jock. I often wondered if this photo - Roy in first team shirt, Jock in reserve strip - might have provided a clue as to why.

Education never ends, Watson. It is a series of lessons with the greatest for the last.

When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth. It's Nairn.

It's taken from the bridge over the railway - but I seem to remember it as being more hump-backed than that photo suggests. Just a couple of weeks ago, when I was in Inverness, I was talking with my uncle about our old flat at the top of George Street - he moved into it when we moved out. He said that it was fascinating to stand at the window in the flat, watching traffic struggling to get safely across the bridge when it was very icy.

Thanks, Tob. I've seen that photograph before, but I've only just realised that it includes a window from our flat at the top of George Street. Between the car facing the camera (a Hillman? Humber? where's IBM when you need him?) and the Old High church steeple, the windows on the second floor of the building with its own little spire were in our living room. (No one called it a lounge back then.) I think the room also had windows directly onto both Rose Street and George Street - thus making it what would nowadays be called a "double-aspect" room. I think that the Esso garage further down Rose Street must be Robertson's Garage. We were (are!) related to the Robertsons - but of course many of the folk around George Street, Innes Street and the Shore were related to each other.

We might have been near neighbours, Tob. I reckon I was in the supermarket car park, just off the spur road between the roundabout and the multi-storey. The top of George Street, as it then was. That was 1956-1960 or 61. From then till 78, in a flat in what was formerly the Highland Orphanage on Culduthel Road.

By sheer coincidence, I have today received a copy of "Inverness Remembered Vol 4", in which that picture appears. As your filename suggests, it is indeed Glasgow Rangers, taken at Bught Lodge in 1888, on possibly their first visit to Sneck. I think that's Graeme Souness as captain - bang in the middle, wearing the cap.

Give him a holiday !!!

The windsock for the airport.

I used to live up Culduthel Road, so I do of course know it. Another thing about the house is the observatory-like dome on it. When I was in Inverness about 6 weeks ago, I noticed that the sun was glinting off the dome - I don't think I'd ever seen that before. The picture below won't win any awards - I have a cheap phone and it was into the sun - but here you are anyway!

My Mum used to work at M&Js, and said that whenever the Saint's car was being taken on the road for filming - usually in the leafy lanes around Elstree, just down the road from where I am now - they used to phone to find out where the real ST1 was, in case of confusion. One was a big black Bentley saloon, and the other was a white Volvo P1800 sports car - so there wasn't much scope for confusion! RW also used to own JS1, the first Ross & Cromarty plate, and M&Js staff were under standing instructions to decline politely whenever a certain Mr Savile used to phone up to try to buy it.

Thanks, Charles. My Dad always referred to Lamont Graham as Scoobs, never Scoobies, so it seems odd to me to see that name. Probably everyone except my Dad called him Scoobies!

Thanks, bughtmaster. It was "Herb" that I wasn't sure about, and Bill rings a bell with me. I wonder who Herb was. Sadly there's no one I can ask.

Can't see any new signings being made until everyone knows who the manager will be next season. And that's (probably) not going to happen overnight.

Indeed. Almost sounds like a cunning plan to exit with a payoff.

Three short, silent films of BB activities in days gone by. They were on a videotape which belonged to my late father, John (Jock) Smith of the 5th company, and which I have recently digitised. I hope that they will be of interest to some of you here. Inverness Battalion Camp - Carrbridge, 1950 - 11 minutes. The only person that I recognise is my father, ducking his head at 09:34-09:35 as the camera sweeps along the line of people. Inverness Battalion Camp - Carrbridge, 1953 - 6.5 minutes. 01:16 - Lamont Graham - Scoobs - walking backwards, directing the litter pickers 02:13 - line-up of officers includes Scoobs, Herb MacDonald?, George Fraser, Ian (Flash) Reid and Jimmy Robertson 06:14 - Scoobs again, watching the cricket Inverness Battalion 50th Anniversary - New Colours and Church Parade - 04 & 05 June 1960 - 5 minutes Ironically, the most recent film has the worst quality of the three. It looks like there was a parade to and display at the Northern Meeting Park, followed next day by a march past at the Town House and a service in the Methodist church on Union Street. I don't recognise anyone in it. I don't have any more films like this. I have many large boxes of still photographs which I intend to digitise over the coming months (years, probably), so if I find anything which may be of interest I'll post it here. Garry Smith

On more than one occasion I watched him weave his way into the box... and then fall flat on his face. Sorry for going off topic here.

Grey hair now, live in St Albans (Snorbens), sister is still called Judi, and my Dad died about 13 years ago. He had a long association with the 5th BB - in fact he decided it was time to resign as an officer when I reached BB age. He was also secretary of Thistle for a couple of years in the late 60s, and I played the records on match-days at Kingsmills during that time. They wouldn't let me do the announcements because my voice hadn't broken. Although my heart was with Caley, it was great for a young kid to see a football club from the inside, and to watch Thistle turn into a free-scoring goal machine - Tony Fraser, Ian Stephen, Johnny Cowie, Bobby McLean, et al. My Dad didn't get on with Jock McDonald, so he resigned after a couple of seasons, before the Jags actually won the league. Dragging this back on topic, Dad worked for the Highland Health Board, so my first golf, before I joined IGC, was round the mountainous course at the Craig. The only course where you needed crampons rather than spikes!

My late father used to talk about a supposed actual event at Grant Street Park. The stand-side lineman felt something strike his shoulder, and when he glanced down, he saw something roughly circular on the ground. He assumed it was a pie ... until it started to move off. Someone had lobbed a live tortoise at him.

Looks like it, though I have not been down there for 25 or more years. Originally, the burn meandered along the right-hand side of the 8th almost as far as the green. It crossed the 9th just in front of the tee. You didn't have to cross the burn to reach the 6th green. In the 70s, they straightened out the burn - and turned it into a raging torrent - and constructed a new 6th green so that you had to pitch across the burn to reach it. The burn then crossed the 9th at the bottom of the slope leading up to that green.

Oh dear, it's like when you used to catch me coming in late. My name is Garry Smith and I did play golf quite a bit with Laurie, including in the IRA team. I last met Laurie, and his wife Tina who was also a classmate, at the IGC Xmas Eve dinner back in December. I was in the same year as Laurie, Billy Urquhart, Dave Milroy, et al - and also one IHE, who I'm pretty sure won't remember me.

Those trees have had a chequered past! The IGC centenary booklet doesn't contain many pictures, but it does contain three of approximately the same area, around the 6th, 7th and 8th. (I acknowledge the violation of copyright – IGC please forgive me.) The first picture below, from 1912, shows the 6th green and the burn. In the distance, on the left, is Old Mill Lane and what is now the 8th tee, featured in the pictures earlier in this thread. In 1912, IGC did not own the land on the other side of the burn, hence the reference to the “original course boundary wall”. The 1920 picture below is from near the 7th green, above and to the right of the women teeing off in TBB's original picture. The trees are still there. Chronologically, the next picture is TBB's original picture of the women teeing off. I am not a fashion expert, but guess that it is from the 1930s. In that picture, the trees are gone. Now fast forward to 1983. Young trees are growing along the burn, and presumably these are now the mature trees in TBB's colour picture. I played at Culcabock mostly during my secondary school years, 1968-74. During that time, the club planted lots of trees around the course – including between the 1st and 18th, on the 3rd, 4th and 5th, and in the angle between the 6th and the 7th. At the time, they were in fenced-off plantations from which you got a free drop, but nowadays you'd just have to play out. Frankly, the course now looks terrifying compared to the one that I used to hack around!

1895 is correct but I think that may be at Culcabock. I have the centenary booklet that Inverness Golf Club produced in 1983, and here's what I have found. The club had originally started at Culcabock, but they set up the Longman course because they didn't have enough land at Culcabock. The Longman course was opened on 15th April 1893, and a clubhouse at the Longman was opened on 16th March 1895. However, "the end of this year [1895] also saw a clubhouse built and formally opened at Culcabock." The booklet contains a much poorer reproduction of the Am Baile picture above, labelled "Opening of first Clubhouse Culcabock 1895". So it looks as though by the end of 1895 they had two clubhouses, one at the Longman and one at Culcabock. The booklet later refers to "expenditure on the clubhouses at Culcabock and the Longman", so whoever wrote it definitely believed that they had two. The club later acquired more land at Culcabock, building a new clubhouse there in 1908 to replace the clubhouse which had existed for only 13 years.

Yup - that's the 8th tee, in the south-west corner of the course. The photographer was standing on Old Mill Lane. That's the clubhouse on Culcabock Road above the seated woman.

It was indeed a massive result, and a much needed three points. But everyone has been saying "Beat Killie and we are safe!". Unless I am missing something, we still need one more point to be absolutely sure. If Killie won their last four games they would have 44 - but our goal difference is much better. Unlikely, I know, but so are Leicester City... Am I missing something?