Charles Bannerman

Can I just take this opportunity to say thanks to IHE in particular and to other contributors as well for making this current half dozen Old Inverness topics so worthwhile. The amount of nostalgia has been tremendous.

I do believe that is a young Roshie Fraser (if such an entity ever existed ) captaining Thistle and I do indeed believe that Roshie captained the Jags round about that time. Strangely enough the second photo looks more like Telford Street than Kingsmills (although it obviously must be Kingsmills) because I can see no sign of the old enclosure. Cynics of the former blue and white persuasion may, on the other hand, suggest that it must be Kingsmills because Telford Street would never have experienced that absence of advertising hoardings!

Stock car racing at the Longman That brings back one or two memories. More or less right on the current Caledonian Stadium site wasn't it? Does anyone know what that multiplicity of buildings are in the Lomgman airfield shot? They don't look like the kind of arrangement you might expect for a military establishment so I'm wondering if they might be some post-war creation - either industrial or emergency housing because there's something in the back of my mind which says that the airfield may have been used for that purpose immediately after the war.

Charles you are right on this one! I didn't even bother to read it. Although I liked Oddquine's posts during the referendum So, actually, did I although you will understand that I didn't exactly agree with what she said. I did read most of them, though.

I just wish photo #63 was of a larger scale! Even when you enlarge it, there are a lot of details you can't quite see clearly. For a short time, I debated over whether the road on the left was the A9 from the bottom of Drumossie Brae or whether it was Leys or Essich and decided that it was the A9. That being the case, you can then make out a lot of features - and also the absence of others which makes this also quite an old photo. For instance the old brick Raigmore Hospital (where some of us would have been born) is not there so that makes it pre-War. Also, if you look very closely at the old Royal Academy field, just right of and above centre, the pavilion, which dates from the mid 1930s, is not there either. Left of, and above centre you can see Kingsmills Park with, at that time, little more than a shed (no need to comment IHE!). Round about it are the beginnings of MacEwen Drive, as in the earlier photo, which again perhaps suggests early/mid 1930s. Far right, half way up, you can see the Cameron Barracks and above centre is the prominent feature of the old "gasometer" tower which was just behind the far end of Academy Street. The line of trees across the centre is, I think, Old Perth Road. I think some of these photos may be from a set taken at the same time, perhaps on the same flight. Interestingly the dates I am guessing from the presence and absence of landmarks (early/mid 1930s) also happen to correspond with the setting up of air services in the Highlands by Captain Edward Fresson whose statue can be seen in the terminal building at Inverness Airport. Perhaps there is a connection. Photo #64 is also from the same era but, unlike #56, does not yet have Maxwell Drive or Lindsay Avenue on it, but does have Park Road and Smith Avenue so #64 is obviously a bit older than #56. Behind Smith Avenue in #64 is an area called Victoria Park which was a public park whose uses had included shinty matches. The circular structure is the surround for the bandstand which can just be seen in its centre. The Dalneigh Crescent houses look similarly developed to the earlier photo but there seem to be more houses on the upper reaches of Bruce Gardens in #56. In #64, the aeroplane wing is preventing us from seeing the area where the High School (opened 1936) now is, but since the IHS is not in #56, it won't be in #64 either. Victoria Park has also disappeared by the time of #56. Is there maybe a couple of years between #56 and #64, given the difference in development?

I could far more readily commend the current "Old Sneck" threads which are producing some brilliant stuff - to a fair extent thanks to IHE's ability to source some great photos!

It's not the Craig Dunain locked ward transferred to an island annex is it?

Try - Oddquine(exclamation mark) And maybe I should just add that although, on the basis of sampling about 1% of it, I probably agree with much of what Mr Carter says, it would appear to originate from the height of the Neverendum campaign and is hence probably best not revisited. When fresh issues like the falling oil price and the Smith Commission delivering its Heads of Agreement three days early emerge, then fair enough. But I really don't see the need to revisit issues which were done to death as long ago as when Derek Bateman was on the BBC. PS - my wordcounter is saying something knocking on 9000. Beat that OQ!

I met him this morning. He's still going strong, there's still that hint of a combover - and you will be pleased to learn that he was wearing a "Yes - Still" badge. Sorry Mantis - I realised I'd made a typo I needed to edit.

Jeezis Laurence! This guy is even longer winded than Oddquine!

hasnt changed much either Is this in inverness? Try a neighbouring Premiership home.

Very true! The photo which IHE has produced is quite a well known one. It shows the Rector D.J. MacDonald taking "prayers" (aka assembly) in the 50s. The teachers, of whom I can recorgnise one or two, are sat round the walls. (Anybody of a certain age able to spot Hairy Hugh?) Brian Denoon, ex Head of English at the High School, has a smashing anecdote about one of the First Year boys who in this photo can be seen standing to either side of the Rector. Apparently one boy simply fainted and was scraped up off the floor by the Janitor and removed from the Rectorial presence so the proceedings could continue. In these days assembly was held in what later because the library, after the big extension, including a new hall, was added in the early 60s.

There was far too much of that in these days.

I'd probably go with Snecknoy's suggestion for the previous one and the one immediately above is the rail bridge over the canal at Clachnaharry.

By the time I got to the Academy, Boosey had retired but was back doing supply work. It was well known that the poor guy just had no control over classes and those of malevolent intent could run riot with impunity. He arrived in the school in the early 1940s after his predecessor as Head of Music dropped dead and, given the amount of stress he must have been under, I'm surprised he didn't meet the same fate. Why on earth he came back to do supply, I'll never know but here he was, still with his famous bike, smoking his pipe and with the briefcase slung round the bar. For the benefit of the uninitiated, he wasn't called Boosey for any reason related to drink - the link was the music publishers Boosey and Hawkes and his real name weas Lawrence Rodgers.

I think that by the second half of the 60s when I was there it was beginning to change but that snobbishness was still a pretty recent memory. There was also a bit of a perception that the "gentlemen" played in the rugby teams while the "oiks" played football. As Dougie says, it was good to "get it right up them" and on at least two occasions in the 60s, Dalneigh kids took two of the top three places in class 2A and on one of these, all three of the top spots in English. What have I just said.... Dalneigh kids expert at the Unglash longwudge

Indeed, a Merkincher no less, couldn't have been many like her, spent a lot of her life in Africa. In an earlier era (pre50s/60s) the many outstanding performances of Merkinchers apparently created an unwelcome challenge to the institutionalised snobbery which was a feature of the Royal Academy of old. Merkinchers were treated like second class citizens in a place where the Crown was regarded as trhe only part of Inverness worth a damn (suggests this Dalneigh boy!).

Mr Bain takes brilliant photos!!

He may well have been. Were you Amanda Anythingelse when you were at school by any chance? That's a terrible chat up line Charles........You have scared her off Naw, it's just that I think that this may be a particular person who was three years ahead of me in school but I don't like to put that name into the public domain in case I am wrong.

I believe this is the area between Drummond Road (on the left) and Culduthel Road (on the right), looking from the South (ie in the general direction of the town). Towards the top of the photo you can see where Culduthel Rd bends about 45 degrees to the left near the top of Hilton Avenue and then joins Drummond Rd at the crossroads after Drummond Road goes down the dip. The two linking thoroughfares will possibly be Burn and Lodge Roads. This is clearly a fairly old photo as well since there are several current features, such as much of the left side of Culduthel Road, which are not there yet.

As early as that! In that case, taxis were one HELL of an expensive back in the early 1900s. The price quoted is a bob a mile (1s/5p) so a typical 3 mile journey would cost 3 bob (15p). Taking the "early 1900s" base year as 1905, the RPI has risen something of the order of a factor of 108 as at 2014. Multiplying 15p by 108 and you get a pretty whacking £16.20. On the other hand a 3 mile journey nowadays at Inverness's current standard Tarriff 1 will cost £6.00, so in relative terms a taxi was almost 3 times as expensive in 1905 as it is now. (Not that taxis are what you could call cheap! On that subject, I seem to remember the taxi drivers relatively recently lobbying for and getting a fare increase because fuel costs had increased. Does that now mean that there will be a reduction in the fares?)

Might the fact that you spent a night in it also mean that you have a Football Banning Order from a nearby ground?

Was that the year you transformed from just one into more than one?

Where does IHE get these? Wonderful stuff. I'm just wondering what the date roughly might be and whether these are horse drawn or motorised conveyances? There's maybe a hint that it's not recent and not ancient either since the figure of two bob an hour is quoted which instinctively seems to eliminate the extremes of time. I in addition note that the "taxi rank" seems to be in the High Street and I'm not sure whether this was its location before or after it was on Bank street at the back of the Caley Hotel. Also the term "Lunatic Asylum", a fairly old title for The Craig, is used One interesting Inverness taxi anecdote relates to a Mrs Playne-Smith of Drummond Park (which later became a Royal Academy Hostel). Every Christmas in days gone by Mrs Playne-Smith used to treat the town's cabbies to a Festive dram and they would queue up in their conveyances at her front door to get it. It's an intriguing contrast with modern day dring drive purges.

In which case, is that you on the left wearing the sh!ite ctachers?