Charles Bannerman

It's well before my time - I left in 1971 and I don't recognise any of the pupils - but I would also guess early 50s. For various reasons I have been through most prefect photos in the school archive in recent years but this isn't one which I recognise. There are two pieces of evidence for early 1950s. Firstly, both D.J. MacDonald the Rector and Ethel Forbes the Lady Superintendent look relatively young which would tend to place the photo in that era. Secondly, on the far left of the photo, you can see the gate at the corner of the ground which gave access and egress to the top of Stephen's Brae. There was a corresponding one at the other corner opposite what is now Chris Crook's hairdressers (formerly Allans). You can actually see the slightly different colour of mortar where it was filled in, as was the one visible in the photo, after the War Memorial gates were installed in the centre opposite the front door in 1954, so it looks as if the photo is 1954 or earlier. In that event, the prefects in the photo would be around 80 now.

That's an absolutely brilliant photo - and quite an old one as well given the absence even of building works for the High School which was opened in 1936. Dochfour Drive seems to have been started as a road but nothing is built on it down to the end of Rangemore road at least while Bruce Gardens is complete up to just above the scrubland which eventually became the site for the Electric Flats. Dalneigh Crescent and the beginnings of Dalneigh Road are there, and I first wondered if the white houses at the top left might be Lilac Grove? However the shape looks wrong so I am now wondering if they may be Dunain Road or one of its parallels? Certainly it would seem that "Old" Dalneigh is just beginning whereas "New" Dalneigh - which is a post-war creation - is some years off yet.

Again we get an insight into these people's insatiable need to feel aggrieved and to attempt to spread this sense of grievance into the community at large. Presumably once they provoke incidents like this, they then send the information to the Reverend Whinge Over Skintland to put up on his website - whereupon anti-Scottish bias on the part of the English automatically becomes an Indisputable Nationalist Fact. It was therefore quite predictable that Oddquine would attempt to portray the situation regarding Scottish notes as some kind of deliberate post-Referendum conspiracy. What she fails to recognise, though, is that, unlike themselves, not everyone allows their every thought and deed to be governed by the notion of Separation. I mean, does Oddquine really believe that those responsible for maintaining a workable international financial regime give one brass Swinney, Eck or Bawbee about what a nucleus of greeting Jocks who can't accept that they lost on September 18th might think? Quite frankly these grievance purveyors are nothing more than a national embarrassment who almost make you feel ashamed to be Scottish. Given their unrelenting campaign to portray an entire nation as a bunch of whingeing, discontented and Anglophobic Jocks, is there any surprise that, in the minds of people in England and elsewhere, the reputation of Scots and Scotland has taken a hammering of late? Is it any surprise that wind-up merchants like Kate Hopkins are grabbing this self-created national caricature and, with phrases like "sweaty Jocks", are mobilising a lot of English people against the Scots? The SNP and their satellites have done huge damage to the international credibility of the Scots and a huge disservice to the Scotland whose interests they claim to promote by portraying a lot of very decent people as part of some bitter and twisted awkward squad.

Careful DD... you are in danger of challenging the insatiable desire of the Nats to attempt to exploit a grievance against whatever the current euphemism is for "the English". (Or now that the Referendum is over, maybe they feel they don't even need such euphemisms any more.) Give them another Holyrood majority in 2016 and making such a challenge might well become a criminal offence I just wonder what the reaction of a worker in a Loch Ness tourist spot might be if offered a Euro note issued by the Bank of Lower Saxe-Coburg or similar.

Scarlet... I've never seen the point in BofS and RBS (and like you, I'm old enough to remember the British Linen Bank as well) issuing their own notes. Bank notes are functional and a means of allowing cash to circulate. Hence the simpler the system the better so it would be much less hassle for only the UK central bank to do this. This would also save us those ongoing moans about Scottish notes not being "recognised", although it would also, of course, deprive the SNP of a potential source of greivance. You don't see the likes of Texas and California issuing their own dollars and I am assuming that Manitoba and Quebec don't do likewise up in your neck of the woods, nor - pre Euro - did Bavaria and Prussia do their own Deutschmarks. It would be unnecessary duplication.

An interesting gripe off the back of Salmond's "Plan A" which was to have made Scotland a monetary client state by seceding from the UK but still using the its pound. The gripe this time appears to be that you can no longer exchange notes issued by two basket case corporations which had to be bailed out by the British Government some years ago - a move of which a Scottish government would have been financially incapable. But hey.... we mustn't pass up any attempt to sow resentment and division, must we? Quite frankly it would be far simpler if we used a single type of note right across the UK issued by the UK's national bank and lender of last resort rather than faff about with BoS and RBS issues as well.

Indeed there has. Although there has also been a significant inflation factor since 1994, tickets during the first season were £4, and £2 for concessions. Season tickets were £50 and £25 but this was still significantly more expensive than the £20/£10 for Caley in the Highland League the previous season. Anecdotally, I do recollect that the £4 etc was regarded as quite expensive at the time by a few fans, but not especially strongly so. I do believe that prices went up again fairly soon after that. The average attendance was 1275 for the first, Baltacha season, including a couple of derbies and an initial novelty factor which quite soon evaporated. The second season, still at Telford St, yielded 1579 as the "Pele factor" kicked in. Still in Division 3, the first half of the third season, which included several early Caledonian Stadium gates in the 2300 - 4500 range, averaged 2300. Then the second half of that Championship season gave 2676. To summarise the later years, again anecdotally, I have a memory of attendances typically approaching 2000 in Division 1 and rising to an average of over 4000 in the SPL before the decline of recent years which has taken this down to what will be an average of about 3700 for the season to date. However crowds of around 2000 at ticket prices which, around the turn of the millennium, would have been around £12 - £15 (??) are not going to generate a lot of cash and this would have contributed to the debt of over £2 million which came close to putting ICT into administration before the Trust bailout of 2000-01.

Sneckboy.... it's not far off it. There were even 4931 at Telford St on 23.1.96. and then 5017 at Victoria Park on 12.2.97 followed by 5525 at the Caledonian Stadium on 17.3.97., which remained a Third Division record until Rangers were relegated. I do believe that, in the Premiership/SPL, some derby crowds did rise to over 6000. But of late, yesterday's 4887 and in particular the 3745 in Inverness in October are well below attendances registered at Highland Derbies during ICT's last two seasons in the Third Division.

The Dons sold their entire allocation and contributed over £60,000 to our coffers. Personally, since we were a long way from selling out, I have no difficulty with a few relatively well behaved Aberdeen fans contributing a few more quid I think that must have been the same guy as was sitting just in front of us - older grey haired fellow?. I thought that the vigour of his celebration was potentially provocative within home seating and should have attracted the intervention of stewards. Inevitably, though, away fans will find their way into home areas. I am told that Aberdeen sold out their full allocation of 3052 tickets. With a total crowd of 6614 this means that there were in addition 3562 home fans. This is also significantly up on the norm for a home support which I would guess is typically around 2800. That crowd was the biggest at any game in the North since the 3-1 Friday night derby in October 2012 and significantly larger than for a number of more recent visits of Celtic (thanks to Caley D for looking up the relevant numbers). I would have thought that between a capacity Aberdeen support, a larger than normal home one and what seemed to be pretty busy hospitality, this game would have been a pretty profitable affair for ICT.

Great to see that the usual levels of Peace And Goodwill To All Men are operating in the Dougal household this Yuletide.

So was it the Bell Tower, the door, the corridor or the "Rectum's office" that you tried to steal? The outline of that tale is actually also the combination of two incidents involving the same pupil in the mid-50s. Robbie Ewan was the school's rugby captain and on a visit to Gordonstoun, where the hospitality wasn't great, Ewan decided to make a protest by stealing the handbell which sat on a table within Gordonstoun School. On another occasion Ewan, who seems to have had some kind of campanological fixation, got into the Royal Academy bell tower and wrapped a rugby shirt round the bell clapper, hence silencing it. For that he was stripped of the rugby captaincy. The Gordonstoun Bell, which is still at the Royal Academy, had an interesting history following its liberation from the Moray establishment. It was used to call to order IRA RFC meetings and a plinth was built for it for that purpose, inscribed in Latin "Robertus Me Liberavit" "Robbie 'liberated' me". It was also used as the bell to mark one lap to go in races at the school sports. When the Royal Academy celebrated its bicentenary in 1992, the bell was included in an historical exhibition mounted in the library. During the celebrations, there was a royal visit from former Gordonstoun pupil Prince Andrew who asked the Rector about ther bell when he passed it on the way round, leaving the Rector with the problem of having to explain how it got there.

There seem to be six of them so maybe the one on the upper right is Jimmy Calder sitting on the crossbar.

I can't either, but i think it may have been a hatch in the ceiling of the upper transverse corridor. By the way, firewatching was not instituted at the Royal Academy until the relatively late stage of March 1941 by which time the London Blitz was into its last couple of months. The Rector, Mr Crampton Smith, instructed that: "There will be on duty every night from 6pm until 7:30am, from Saturday at 12 noon and all day on Sunday either the janitor (or groundsman), a male member of staff and two girls over 16 years of age, or, the janitor, two female members of staff and three boys over 16 years of age. Light refreshments to be supplied."

Yes, very funny but in all seriousness, terms like the one used by Laurence about Kingsmills need to be avoided. In addition, I just don't know why Laurence found it necessary to come up with all that political fiction about 200 trucks an hour and so on, with which I would prefer not to associate myself. There were already plenty of gaping holes exposed in the Separatist case during the referendum campaign - holes which have become all the more gaping now that the oil price has gone bellyup and is struggling to stabilise at little more than half the value on which Salmond based his assertions of solvency. All we need is for the price to drop just a little bit more and the SNP will surely invent an entirely new slogan... "IT'S ENGLAND'S OIL". Now.... have I managed to write this in a single "take" before pressing "post"?

Despite disagreeing vehemently with Kingsmills on the issue in question, I would also want to condemn the overtly abusive tone of Laurence's comments. To make things worse, the "political" assertions in the posts in question read like the script of an old Party Referendum Broadcast on behalf of UKIP. Laurence... some people on here say that I'm a bit of a Unionist but I would want to distance myself from the fiction you've come up with there as fast as my legs can carry me!

Wick actually had two serious air raids with civilian casualties including children. The first, in July 1940, was the first air raid on mainland Britain. The reason was that the aerodrome at Wick was the base for fighter cover for the Fleet at Scapa Flow and that was what they were looking for although they didn't actually find it. The strategic significance of Wick was therefore quite large. My mother remembers both air raids and my grandfather was involved in getting children to safety when the Luftwaffe strafed the streets. Inverness had no such strategic or industrial importance so escaped. However all the standard firewatching arrangements were in place. For instance a janitor and/or senior pupils used to ocupy the bell tower at Inverness Royal Academy at night, just in case Fatty Goering's lads paid a visit.

Going a bit of topic DD I was once told that there is a spring or well on Glentruim Estate just west of Newtonmore that the Laird claimed was the center of Scotland. Your geography is quite good! Which means that the real Central Belt Old Firm rivalry is between Newtonmore and Kingussie!

Good questions Alex to which answers will presumably be forthcoming into the New Year. I do believe, however, that there is a raft of criteria which clubs have to fulfil before they can go into the playoffs.

I would have thought that Annan and Berwick are much nearer the back of beyond than Brora in that they are far closer to the edge of Scotland. The problem is the so-called "Central Belt" mentality which is a complete misnomer because this is a state of mind prevalent within a circle of radius 40 miles with its centre at the mid point between Edinburgh and Glasgow. That is nowhere near the centre of Scotland but the kailyard attitude which tends to be held down there means that it is regarded as such. The reasons are probably historical since the Highlands and the Borders have for centuries been regarded as beyond the pale by too many Lowland Scots. So Brora have as much right as anyone to be in League Two next season should they win the Highland League (virtually certain) and the playoffs (pretty good chance if they actually played in them). However all the signs are that there is little or no appetite within the club for national league football.

Alex... making conditioning training of a higher intensity doesn't necessarily make it more effective. For instance you won't build much aerobic endurance by running sprints all of the time. Also, high intensity conditioning sessions often actually take longer since recovery times within the session are much longer. For example you could do a relatively low intensity session of 400m runs with a 200m jog between efforts in less than 20 minutes. On the other hand doing a series of 60 or 80m sprints for speed/speed endurance would take longer because you would need to take much longer recoveries between your runs for the session to be effective. Similarly, lifting weights at around maximum loading needs long recoveries. The other consideration is that there are so many different boxes that need to be ticked for a team ball sport. In the case of "fitness" you need to pay attention to speed, strength, endurance and various combinations of these three as well as to the likes of mobility. Then you also need time to cover personal technical ball skills as well as whole-team manoeuvres such as what are called "training ground moves". If players are doing just 2-3 evening training sessions in addition to games, I just can't see how that could be nearly as effective as daily and sometimes twice daily sessions.

Are you just using "wee wave" as a tactful euphemism? The hand gesture I saw and which you can just catch on the You Tube clip might just have a rather more profound message than that, referring to a certain preferred means of sexual gratification. That was from the smaller of the two who also tried to pull the keeper's shorts down. It will be disappointing if he is not charged with assault. There is a standard expression used in the teaching profession to describe guys like that.... "wee sh*tes" I did find it quite astonishing that the stewards were neither able to prevent the incident nor apprehend one of the two culprits. Maybe the stewards were too busy listening out for what they imagine to be racially motivated comments from home supporters - for which I understand there is already a precedent this season.

Fair dos Scotty and therefore profound apologies to Mantis. I wasn't aware that anything more than the last edit was visible to ordinary injuns. As it happens the way I construct posts is to batter out a quick draft and then do serial edits and saves to correct the errors. In fact I can then compund the situation since from time to time, purely for academic interest, I use my own posts to experiment with alternative sentence construction. A full record of my edits must therefore look pretty lengthy!

Don, maybe I'm just lucky enough to have had 30 odd years of coaching international athletes, but conditioning and preparation training programmed round competitive priorities is important in anybody's book. I certainly don't envy team sport coaches for the constraints they have to work under by nature of the competitive programme because it's a big juggling match at the best of times. I certainly wouldn't rule out the possibility of looking at this in a Highland News Sportsview column at some point, although at the moment I am engaged with why, despite teams doing well and clubs bending over backwards to encourage fans through the turnstiles, people are instead sitting on their couches at home, drinkng beer and watching foreign football.

There are plenty of unwelcome developments which "bore the arse" off a lot of people but they still feel obliged to oppose these on the strength of their fundamental undesirability. In similar terms, I was bored to the teeth with the referendum but felt obliged to oppose Yessism. Unfortunately some members of the 45 minority just don't seem to understand the meaning of the two simple words "YOU LOST" so continue to bore the arse of us with the post-Smith Commission whingeing which has joined death and taxes on the list of life's certainties. So, much as I would prefer to get on with my life without having to concern myself with this tedious nonsense, the obligation to defend the Union and oppose Separatism regrettably persists. (And I suppose Nat-bating can be quite funny at times ) PS - I hope I am allowed the edit I have just made in order to sort out the quote at the top?

I am hearing from a man selling ICT merchandise in the Eastgate Centre that both Santa and his Elf were very well suited to their roles