Charles Bannerman

So precisely how old were you when these buses were being attacked back in the spring of 1965? And is your great grand daughter aware of your murky past?

Apologies for that Hibs fan, but in every cloud there is a silver lining. In this case IHE at least managed to post before 8am on a Saturday morning. We can only speculate what he might have said after 8pm on a Saturday evening! I certainly remember Jimmy Smith in goals for Caley in the mid 60s and had heard that he emigrated to Canada. I am more or less certain he was playing for Caley in season 63-64 when they won the Highland League by a point from Nairn County with Elgin fifth, seven points off the lead. The following season Elgin, who scored 109 in their 30 games, had the first of back to back wins, by a point again from Nairn County with Caley third, five points off the lead. Although unthinkable to IHE and beyond his conception of horror, it is not inconceivable that Elgin beat Caley 8-2 on the last day of the season although this is a heck of a score against one of the better teams. On the other hand, Elgin very probably needed a win that day to clinch the title.

Eureka IBM! That's jogged my memory. I remember Lows on the corner of Bridge St (where I believe Sandy Grant may have worked as a butcher in a previous incarnation) and getting a particularly bad bottle of Spanish wine there which made me quite sick at a party. PS - you know something... I think the main contributors to this thread should recruit Old Caley Girl as a latter day Nora Batty and wander, misbehaving, round the streets of Inverness to the nostalgic strains of a harmonica! I don't remember a Sandy Grant but I only worked there 2 years and it was a long time ago! Come on Charles a bad wine was it not too much wine that made you sick IBM this stuff "Don Something-or-other" was real p!sh. I only started drinking Spanish wine again a couple of years ago when I went on an all-inclusive to Lanzarote and it was effectively free and in unlimited supply!

Yes the school leaving age went up from 14 to 15 with the Education (Scotland) Act of 1945 and then to 16 in around 1972. I am fairly sure that Low's had one of these old fashioned town centre shops in an earlier era. I remember spewing up pneapple outside a grocer's shop on the High Street somewhere between MacKay's Bookshop (and library) and Boots in about 1957 and think this was either Liptons or Lows.

Scarlet, it is a cool place to stay in many ways I am sure you would settle in fine as it is a city now and we have a great football team to go an support I am currently in Armagh NI at a road race. Two English runners at our BandB asked where we came from. Their immediate response tp our answer was "Ah! Inverness Caledonian Thistle!" Speaks volumes.

These were the days when teachers were desperate to avoid ROSLA classes - groups composed entirely of kids killing time until they reached the leaving date imposed by the Raising Of The School Leaving Age.

Date IBM? Early 60s? The copper on the right actually looks quite like Sgt Merton from Heartbeat!

Eureka IBM! That's jogged my memory. I remember Lows on the corner of Bridge St (where I believe Sandy Grant may have worked as a butcher in a previous incarnation) and getting a particularly bad bottle of Spanish wine there which made me quite sick at a party. PS - you know something... I think the main contributors to this thread should recruit Old Caley Girl as a latter day Nora Batty and wander, misbehaving, round the streets of Inverness to the nostalgic strains of a harmonica!

Scarlet.. going down Huntly Street from the Ness Bridge in #9, the Glenalbyn is on the corner, then there's the kilt shop which is the next white building. The next two brown sections are the Legion (the gap between them is the entrance) before you get to a new restaurant on the other side of the lane that leads to King St. I've forgotten what the fairly small white building after that was, but next along - ther large structure with the sloping roof - is the now demolished former Palace Cinema which has been replaced by a hotel. After that you have STV, Run4It and other shops/offices and then there's a long string of buildings associated with the Catholic Church before the former West Church on the corner of Greig St.

Presumably you are emphasising here the ability of photoshopping to remove the G4S vans?

I have to admit I cheated and Googlemapped this so I won't post an answer which actually somewhat surprised me!

I didn't actually know that Billy had an older brother but I was pondering the generations in the Urquhart family after I read the earlier message. If he was a pupil in 1959, that would probably place his date of birth in the mid to early 40s. In that case if he was Billy's dad Willie Urquhart's brother, he must have been a much younger brother. On the other hand Billy wasn't born until 1956 because he was 3 years behind me in school. His sister Maureen is a bit older than me - probably vintage 1949 or thereby. Looks like Billy was an afterthought!!

There must be some elment of "photoshopping", by which this technophobe doesn't mean any specific process but merely uses the word as a generic term to designate farting around in general with pics on computers.

How does that photographer get these extremely rich colurs, especially blues, into his pics?

It's a pity that Third Lanark went defunct. They should have merged with Motherwell, Albion Rovers and Airdrie to form a Lanarkshire select and called it Buckie Thistle

I didn't know you were a dricketer CMIB! When I was teaching and writing books about the Royal Academy I was a frequent visitor to the school archive and among the treasures there are all the old mags going back to the 1890s. I remember the 1959 one in particular because in my view it was one of the best that there was. Off the top of my head 1959 was a year when there were several break ins at the school with items nicked ranging from vice captain Robert Lindsay's books to a belt!

When I saw Tichy's byline as the last post I was sure he was going to quote Inverness Thistle as the best team in Britain in 1986-87 with 33 league games undefeated that season!

Restaurants may come and bingo may go... but "Tha Leejun" goes on forever. (Or at least we hope it does if it can get this money for selling half the club!)

Was it really as early as the 70s? That means it can't have occupied that site for much more than 10 years but it felt like longer than that. Did Liptons then move to the current Tesco Metro site when that was developed after Rossleigh's Garage disappeared? The photo must have been taken before the Library moved to Farraline Park but I'm not 100% sure when that was. Certainly it would have been after Eden Court opened in 197?6 because the former Farraline Park School (of which my dad was Dux in 1932) housed the Arts Centre for as long as that was the only theatre Inverness had. The only other observation I would make is that the bird crossing the road seems to have pretty fat legs (or has being allowed to say that been banned since that photo was taken?) I will claim freedom of speech on the grounds that, after all..... "Je suis Charlie"!

"Found"...down the Ferry like?

That one had me completely confused for a while since I started by thinking "Inverness". However I do believe this may be Nairn from the air at a point roughly above the now closed temporary bridge just near the harbour. Judging by the sparsity of structures, this may be a fairly old photo.

The drink is a hell of a price - although most places would be a bit of a shock after the Caley Thistle Club and the Leejun! What they charged me for a large glass of white you could have got two bottles of stuff that was just as good in Lidl. Also, because they cater for quite large dos, the food tends to be a bit prefabricated and "school dinnerish" (but costs a lot more than £2.36 for a main) although last time I was there it was rather better. I can't say that the Drumossie is my favourite place for a function. I don't care for the atmosphere and the the mediocre food, the drink and a taxi home are all very expensive.

Alastair Gardiner and Donnie Aird doing Hospital Radio, before it all morphed into MFR.

And the manager for the first nine of these eleven games was.....?

That's only one possible inaccuracy. There is also the assumption that each step is an accurate yard which I often doubt. The 10 yard rule must be one of the most poorly observed in football by referees.