Charles Bannerman

I remember when I was very young going into McGruther and Marshall's there in Station Square with my mother when she went to pay the coal account - back in the days when you used to get handrwitten bills and go to the company's premises to settle them in cash. What I didn't remember was that MacRae and Dick had a taxi office in the corner there.

Here's hoping Clach don't meet their Waterloo!

That black and white skyscraper shot scares the hell out of me every time I see it! I don't know if it's genuine or the subject of some kind of 1930s photoshopping. Good one of the Kessock Bridge as well.

I concur...was thinking Magic Roundabout might be a fun one to use. Disagree totally because Dougal might think it was in his honour On the OP... the principal business of a professional football club is to perform on the park and the principal purpose of its communications department should relate directly to that. In my view, nonsense about players' beards and so on is totally irrelevant. I do wonder if the OP is a wind up and perhaps the quote from it which epitomises its downright silliness is - Any rubbish is better than no post. On the other hand this was presumably the principal thinking of the orifginal poster when he started the thread.

Aye... the box of sweeties Black Magic if you could afford them! And when the lights went down......

Indeed the floodlights did go as well. I don't know what is there nowadays.

IBM... come on! The size of a 1959 Mini engine is well beyond me! The athletics photo is probably of a 100 yard handicap race at the Northern Meeting Games at some point between the early 1920s and 1938 when the meeting went defunct, never to return. The guy second from the right who looks like the winner actually looks a bit like Eric Liddell but he never, to my knowledge, ever ran in Inverness and in any case the NMG was a professional meeting and Liddell was an amateur. On the right margin the guy in the kilt is a judge who would probably be from the ranks of the local toffs who ran the meeting.

Just a week after Thistle played their last game (v Keith) at Kingsmills in May 1994 the enclosure was dismantled and put on a lorry to Wick where it was re-erected at Harmsworth Park as part of Wick Academy's upgrading when they replaced Thistle, Caley and Ross County in the Highland League which reduced from 18 clubs to 16. A few weeks after that, dissident Thistle fan Martin Ross (18) engaged Inverness solicitor Ken MacLeod (a lot older than 18!) and an interdict was obtained preventing the sale of Kingsmills. This was successfully challenged in March 1995 and finally lifted after an appeal against that verdict failed in July 1995. The land, which Thistle only realised less than two years previously belonged to them and not to the Church of Scotland, was sold for £486,000 and was used as IBM states. Kingsmills was Caley Thistle's original choice for a home ground since Telford Street was worth a lot more and, despite the Caley rebel campaign, was available for sale, eventually going for £1M. It was Kingsmills which was originally surveyed by the SFL during the election procedure but it was fundamentally unsuitable for Third Division football so Plan B was to use Telford St and for Kingsmills to sit idle until the legal issues were resolved. The fire in the stand, thought to be the reult of kids playing there, broke out on a Sunday afternoon late in July 1995.

Culduthel Hospital I do believe. The bit in the foreground was demolished to make way for housing sone years aho but the main house is still there. It was, I believe, an isolation hospital and was on the (then) edge of town at the time.

I was there that Sunday afternoon in July 1995, standing watching out on Kingsmills Road. Kenny MacPherson also got a shot of the fire which is in Against All Odds. By the time of the fire Martin Ross's interdict preventing the disposal of Kingsmills had been successfully challenged in court and the place was well on its way towards beong sold - eventually for £486,000. Look at the state of the pitch 14 months after Jags' last game was played there. Can I just make out the thistle still up there on top of the flgapole??

A bit flash weren't you? You must have been trying to impress. Most people could only afford the back stalls!

My guess would be the Eastgate Hotel but Charles might know beter, he is older than me It's the Eastgate Chipper. A favourite lunching place for Kaddie Rats.

Allanfearn?

Looks pretty fresh for the La Scala!!

That looks like the North side of Bridge Street in 1959 or later (because there is a Mini in the shot - eat your heart out IBM ) with McManus's bike shop in the centre. The edge of the Gelluns is, I think, to be seem on the right hand margin. In between is the Record Rendezvous before it moved to what replaced the Northern meeting Rooms in Church St.

You're going back a bit! I think I have a vague early memory of 5 bob and when I worked in the Millerton filling station at Torvean in 1969 it ranges from 6/3d for 91 octane through to 6/7d for 99 octane on the mixer pump and 6/8d for 101 on a separate pump. The Americans were so dismayed that these "high" prices that they would inevitably tell you to "fill it up with regular" - in other words the least expensive 91 octane, irrespective of what their hire car really needed.

I believe so....not from personal experience, but from conversations in the house. One bus was designated "Dalneigh" and the other "Limetree" if my memory of those conversations is correct. I would hope not "from personal experience" since I'm talking about an era (60s and late 50s) before you were born Donald! I had forgotten about the Limetree Ave bus and am now wondering if this in fact was as third service?

As the caption says, that's the famous, all conquering Clach side of 1947. There are old Merkinchers who still go dewy eyed on mention of this side. I believe some of them were sold on and the proceeds were used either to buy or to upgrade Grant St Park.

Yes, definitely Eastgate looking towards High St. The big giveaway for me is the chip shop on the right. I think the photo may have been taken not far from where there was that big fire a year or so ago.

Since there is no sign of fleas jumping about down below, I'm going to hazard a guess that this is the balcony in the Playhouse rather than the La Scala!

Correct me if I'm wrong, but were there two buses to and from Dalneigh - St Valery Ave and Laurel Ave with their routes designed to serve the respective ends of "The Scheme"? Also, were their town centre termini at different places or at least at different points on Academy St, where this photo was taken?

Ach well Jock, since one of my missions in life has been to wind up Nats, can I stick another red, white and blue star into my Palace of Westminster Brownie Points Book?

It was a silver saloon NJS 829 K which looked rather more elegant than it really was!

Not Herb Charles, he was in the 8th. Recognise big Sammy Black, two in front of Jackie Sutherland, (Tichy Black's brother) who played centre half for Jags. Danny Craig, ex fire service, officer in middle far right. Gordy Leddingham, two in from the right, two or three from the top. I knew that Bill MacDonald was the 8th Coy but didn't realise Herb MacDonald was as well. I still have a feeling that the older man in that photo may have been Herb somebody, if not MacDonald. Can anyone remind me?

I think the lane is between the Highlander Hostel (formerly the Ho Ho and before that, I think the rather posh Highland Club) and that very pongy Lush place. So that does make Lush a successor of Mayors and Symingtons (which I had thought was a pawnbrokers) a successor of Hipps.