Charles Bannerman

You THINK....? Jeezismun! Ah wuz 4 It was a necessity of the Suez crisis and of course the roads were infinitely quieter than they are now. The Eastgate photo was taken ten months after Suez so I don't know if the A35 driver would still have been unaccompanied? This link suggests that the dispensation lasted for about six months. http://www.oldclassiccar.co.uk/forum/phpbb/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=3183&sid=1ecd87cc5b79ddb8e55063fbd5fa71db

IBM, you are clearly very well versed in classic autos! I do remember the A30 because in 1956/57 my uncle acquired one and was able to learn to drive without anyone in the passenger's seat because there was a delay in getting driving tests as a result of the testers administering fuel rationing after the Suez crisis of late 1956.

I take it there is no cause and effect relationship there? And yes, Scotty, I also noted with interest that IHE was born there! I was a mere four years old at the time but it doesn't look very different from when I can remember it from a few years later. As IBM says, Fraser and McColl is there on the right. You can also see the chipper next door and I always forget which of the Italians had the gift shop on the left? Was it one of the Bernardis? IBM's indication that the parked car is an A35 explains why I was debating with myself as to whether it was an A30 (which was actually tiny) or an A40. I think there were one or two shops on Eastage, mainl;y selling "eats" of some kind, run by the Italian community. I think we can just see the extreme edge of the Washington Soda Fountain on the far right. Just out of shot beyond it would have been Melville's Globe shoe shop which is now the Bank of Scotland. Do I have a recollection that I got my feet X-rayed in there to check if my proposed pair of shoes fitted? That would certainly be a no-no these days. Between 1965 and 1971 I reckon I must have traversed Eastgate approaching 2000 times going to and from the Royal Academy from Dalneigh if you add in the majority of the days when I went home for lunch.

Skinners was something of a Royal Academy institution and for decades was very popular for its bakeries, pies etc. At one time I think kids were allowed to sprint down Stephen's Brae to get a mid morning snack at interval. The photo looks as if it might be 1920s and I wonder if the Stephen's Brae sign is the same, now rather battered one that sits above what is now Girvans? The Skinner family, who also had a baker's in Kenneth St (I think?) were big players in the 5th BBs. Of my generation, but a little older were Mike Skinner and Ian Skinner who I think must have become a geography teacher because I remember him as a student teacher at the Academy in about 1966.

I don't know where the 11th hole (or any other apart from the 19th) is at Culcabock, but that outdoor curling rink is indeed right beside the golf course. As you come up Diriebught Road towards Kingsmills it's right at the end on the left, just before where Diriebught Road is now blocked off. The entrance may well be at the end of Culcabock Rd.

You know what I mean so stop fuelling any homoerotic fantasies that may be out there. There was an amazing and limitless supply of lovely hot water in an era when nobody had a shower in their house (well nobody in Dalneigh or the Ferry at any rate!) Let's also not forget that the place was called The Baths because that was one of its main original functions - to provide the facility to have a bath for people who didn't have one at home. The actual "baths" were on the left and right just before you entered the main pool hall.

Now there's a blast from the past! I think MacPhersons closed in about 1976 and the premises were then used by a new sports shop in the town, Leisuropa. (I actually still use several times a week an Inverness Harriers sports bag I bought in Leisuropa 35 years ago!) As the photo suggests, from the outside MacPherson's looks like all it catered for was those lunatic third sons of the aristocracy in sh!te catchers who had nothing better to do with their lives than blast away like morons at the local wildlife. And although they were indeed well into huntin' shootin' and fishin' you could also get various sports shoes and attire in there as well. In fact I think I got my first ever pair of new footwear called trainers there in about 1966 - Adidas Roms If I remember the two old MacPherson brothers wore those "Mr Arkwright" shopkeepers' brown coats and I believe there was a sister involved as well. However when Leisuropa replaced MacPherson's you did realise that the place had been lacking just a bit. And the only other places you could get sports gear in Inverness at the time were more or less Coutts's in Church St and, believe it or not, Duncan Chisholm the Kiltmaker in Castle St.

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" ) that the boy who wore a lower leg caliper following polio beat me in the 80 yards You could just about do a whole thread on the old days at Dalneigh School.

One standard way of deciding whether you needed chucked out (apart from misbehaviour) was to check your fingertips. If they were very wrinkled, you had been in too long and off you went. The men's hot showers were absolutely wonderful - but, like Scotty, I speak more of the old arrangement than the new - which I believe opened in 1984. The old cublcles could be a bit smelly!

I suppose if he's called Willie Short he's unlikely to need the 12 inch variety.

Same area and perhaps same era as well! Culcabock (aka Inverness) Golf Club with the old clubhouse and really not very much else around it.

This I presume is an occasion which would delight any fan of the side which won the honour the following season - Harry McFadden's Forres Mechanics beating Caley 2-0 at a somewhat advert free Mossett Park to win the 1986 Highland League title. It looked like Kevin Mann who gave away the free kick which led to the opening goal for the "chocolate and gold" side. There are also some interesting glimpses throughout - a rather younmg looking Highland League Secretary John Grant, a bearded Trevor Martin taking photos, some very short shorts and an advert for the then new league sponsors RB Farquhar.

Goodness me! But you are right. The SNP did indeed start basing their case for Separation on oil away back in the days of Martin Buchan and the infancy of colour TV. What a shame that such a longstanding "in with the bricks" way of political life should find itself so suddenly demoted to "a bonus" when its threadbare nature becomes exposed.

I'm not sure when they started calling it Craig Dunain Hospital, but I think it may have been round about 1950. I have certainly seen newspaper references in the immediate post war years to the Inverness District Asylum and before that it was known as the Lunatic Asylum. As with so many other things (like the Backward Class becoming Remedial becoming Learning Support becoming Support for Learning in schools) it was the subject of evolving political correctness. Certainly my granny always called it "The Asylum" but what tends to happen is that the perception of words changes and hence they acquire derogatory connotations. For instance the IRA Rector's Log Book in the 1950s refers quite openly to "spastics" and similarly my aunt (my uncle having been a consultant psychiatrist, including at CD for a while) would frequently talk about "defectives". "Educationally subnormal (ESN)" became "Special Needs" but that is now struggling because people frequently use "A Special" as a term of derision. And yes, how often have we older Invernessians heard the expression "You'l have me in the Craig" or similar!

Yes, it was (indeed still is) towards the bottom of Victoria Drive, on the right. Victoria Drive, like Balnacraig Road (Bumber's Lane) was eventually given a tarmac surface in the late 60s/early 70s but it was a dirt track when I started school. Bill Murray? That's a difficult one for me. On the one hand he was one of the biggest influences I had outwith my own family since he introduced me to sport in general and played a large part in introducing me to athletics in particular. In effect I was one of "Bill's Boys" and he was a very good sports coach. But on the other hand there was an extreme conservatism and an elitism about him which I came to realise and somewhat resent later. He set high standards but on the other hand is was his way or no way. He had something of an elitist obsession with the Royal Academy which was interesting because when he taught me first he lived in a council house in the next street to me - St Fergus Drive.

That's the mid 30s Royal Academy pavilion at the field at Diriebught that I was speaking about. I actually have a lot of very happy memories of that building even though my mate and I had our personal sinks to be sick into after hard athletics trainnig sessions from Bill Murray. Interesting to see the caption "The New (sic) Pavilion" which dates the photo.

Aaaah! Wallace Merger and the Rebel Nine! This, in 1986, was the latest of a series of false dawns and in this case a specific indication was made that Inverness could become involved. One of the most interested was Thistle chairman Jock McDonald. However the Rebel Nine then made peace with the SFL and the plan collapsed. When that happened, I had the task of interviewing a furious Jock who complained bitterly about being "sold down the river". The fact that the interview was done at Telford Street after a 7-0 midweek defeat for Jags by Caley didn't help Jock's temper that night!

What an amazing tansformation from building a political party since the 1970s on the slogan "It's Scotland's Oil" .... to a mere "bonus".

Or as The Bard said in Hamlet... "I knew him well......" But indeed I didn't know Ian Cumming that well so it may well be Ian in the photo. A few well kent names in that team list. Interesting to see Titchy Black in the lineup but not Lofty who by 1972 may still have been a bit young for 1st team football. Davie Milroy may well also fall into the same category.

I can make out the shadow of something but I couldn't identify it as the structure which has graced Harmsworth Park these last 20 years.

....like potential oil revenues? Oddquine, we disagree fundamentally on the issue of separation but your verbosity is hardly a major vice and I am somewhat prone to it myself. Furthermore anyone who knows what a Pyrrhic victory is and can spell it correctly has my profound respect. However I am these days transferring my CTO allegiance to the Old Inverness threads where I am actually also finding a great deal of empathy with some of my former adversaries on this thread.

As far as I recollect it is "Denoon". For a number of years Brian did some well presented monologues on the former BBC Highland called "The View From Denoon" and has subsequently written a few books on local/Great Glen subjects. His sister Deirdre (Mrs MacLennan) was also a teacher - History at Millburn and then moved up to the Royal Academy at the same time as I did when the Culduthel building opened in 1977. Deirdre unfortunately suffered a stroke-like illness about 15 years ago and retired at that point, but is still around.

You mean into the X films? You dirty little $&££^% Well, I suppose I would have to admit having seen a film about child abuse in the Palace when I was around six. It was Jimmy Edwards in Whacko

I missed the Cathedral in the photo!

I think #67 must be somewhat later into the 1930s than some of the others since the Friars Street swimming pool, opened I think in 1936, can be seen. The smoke from the power station (?) is obscuring where I might therefore be tempted to look for the High School but I am wondering if, on the extreme left, you can see the Temporary Bridge under construction? That was built at the outbreak of WW2 to relieve pressure on the old suspension bridge. That had been due for replacement but the plan was stymied by the outbreak of the war during which it managed perfectly well to carry tanks etc. It wasn't replaced until the current Ness Bridge appeared in the early 60s, whereupon the Temporary Bridge was dismantled. EDIT - on second thoughts, I'm not really able to see the very distinctive suspension bridge far left either, amid that evidence of construction, so I am wondering if this photo is rather later than I first though and may have been taken at the time of the construction of the current bridge (which we called "the New Bridge for years!) around 1959 - 61. During construction the Temporary Bridge carried all the traffic. In that event, what the smoke is coming from is unlikely still to be a power station if it ever was. I'm a bit vague on that building because the name Lord Roberts' Workshops also comes to mind. (Lord Roberts was a Victorian army commander so I am assuming that this was some kind of establishment for ex military personnel.)