Charles Bannerman

The last call up seems to have been 31st May 1960 so you JUST missed it! And yes, definitely the same Andrew Hay.

The mind boggles

By pure coincidence I happen to be reading a book about National Service just now and there is definitely at least one common theme - the 10 week basic training where groups of young lads in huts etc were mercilessly bullied by foul mouthed regular NCOs whose sole training technique seemed to be shouting at people. (It seems that these Military Training fitness wallahs you see these days adopt similar methodology.) If your kit was a centimetre out of line on your bed, the whole lot could get thrown out of the window. Other activities ranged from painting coal tips white to cutting lawns with nail scissors. Pay at the start of NS in the 40s was 28/- (£1.40) a week and the food was often awful. After that the experience of most people improved and indeed many eventually thought it beneficial. Another common theme is that Glaswegians and Geordies frequently couldn't make themselves understood to the rest!

Oddquine... for the first time in my life I have placed a "like" against one of your posts. I am not a fan of political parties, or to misquote George Orwell "All parties are objectionable, but some parties are more objectionable than others " I certainly don't like their presence in Local Government which is meant to be a local arrangement to provide and facilitate local services so the philosophies of Karl Marx, Adam Smith, Hugh McDiarmid etc etc have no relevant place. Councils should be run for the benefit of the public and not for the benefit of political parties and the same really applies to national government. Independents should be truly independent, taking each issue as it comes. Inevitbaly Independents will have their own political views be that right/ left, unionist/ nationalist etc but if they are operating truly independently these should not be in evidence. As for Oddquine's knickers.... I am sure she is a extremely hygienic individual but still changes same less frequently that parties change policies or even their fundamental views! The best recent example is Labour who used to be all about the public ownership of the means of production and distribution and Tetley Teafolk with big bunnets and Oop North accents proposing "hit composyte" to the brothers. But when an extreme version of that became unelectable, they suddenly reached out for the prawn sandwiches and canapes on the entrance of Tony Blair who the Queen apparently later observed was "in the wrong Party" Since then Labour have turned pinching Tory policies into an artform, and their expendient political U turn is one of the root causes of the recent rise of Nationalism in Scotland. Labour's chicken atre well and truly coming home to roost now following their Faustian lurch to the right in search of electability. There is a well established precedent for this mind you when Ramsay MacDonald in the 20s threw his lot with the Establishment. Most hilarious hypocrisy of all, however, has been "New" Labour luminaries, advocated of nicked Tory policies, on the stage at party conferences singing their hearts out to The Red Flag Then you have the SNP who have been pretty consistent about separation being all they are interested in, but have been prepared to "believe" anything on the political spectrum, currently the vacant far left agenda, in order to get people to vote for that. The Lib Dems? Well say on more about the former "Bloody Nice Blokes" who became barefaced political chameleons in an effort to grasp some kind of power. Next up, the Lentil Munchers. Well I suppose the Green Party have been pretty consistent in their espousal of eveything from itchy woollen jumpers and beards (and that's just the women!) to cycling and self sufficiency, but I'm not sure what the link is between saving the planet and separation. That leaves the Tories who have actually been quite consistent throughout but just can't agree internally on their level of Euroscepticism.

ONLY the Inverneess Courier could have published an account like that of a 70s music festival! I sense the hand of the legendary Miss Barron herself in the somewhat reactionary first part of the report although not obviously the second. Note the liberal use of inverted commas - and also, almost unprecedented in the Courier in these days, a wrong spelling.... "canabis" (sic). I actually wonder if the report on the event itself might have been Gordy Fyfe's although July 1970 might have been slightly too early for Gordy at the Courier?

The last intake was in 1960 so everyone who did it would have been born in 1942 or before so the youngest National Servicemen will now be in their early 70s. The Basic Training was notoriously unpleasant.

Same organisations, same Companies.... slightly different generations though! St Columba High Church, like Crown, also had a Youth Club which I also went to. I was never a member of the QOCH Boys' Club (latterly the Cameron Youth Club) but that was pretty vibrant when I was a lad. I think there was also a club (50-50?) at the top of the Raining Stairs. Into the 70s the Spectrum also opened and the harriers used to use that for training in the late 70s. Jim - I am interested in Doc Hay's Club. Do you happen to know if it was Dr Andrew Hay who was I think a gynaecologist at Raigmore. He had a son who was a year above me in school but I think you are possibly talking about a little earlier than the later 60s.

That is exactly it! They are there for the benefit of their parties and not for the benefit of the electorate, and that even applies to the "Independents".

Is Gerard... the "Torry Frenchman" still on the go? This was the guy many years ago who did his own voiceovers for his Grampian TV ads in a French accent proclaiming "Zis is Gerard in ze keetchen of Gerard....Ebbardeen's favourite restaurant." The restaurant was said to be very good indeed.

I'm just at a loss to understand what Highland Council is about at the moment. They have two opposing groups - a ruling one which is a coalition of political parties SNP/Lab/LibDem) which hate each other's guts and an "opposition" of people who stood for the Council as "Independents" and then apparently forgot what the word means because they formed a political grouping which is effectively that ultimate contradiction in terms - "The Independent Party". This is basically politicians being politicians - telling you anything they think you want to hear in order to get your vote and then, once elected, casting you aside in favour of their own pursuit of power by way of party loyalty. So for whom do I vote in a Council election? Labour or LibDem so they can enter a coalition which sustains the influence of the SNP which is anathema to me, or for an "Independent" so his/her independence (which I expect the canadidate to exercise in my and other electors' interests) can be totally compromised by the poitical requirements of an "Independent" group?

Wow! the odds are against the 14 most formidable forces in Scottish football (apologies for that oxymoron ) among 32 teams all being drawn together in seven ties are pretty long. It's actually 41,209 to 1! I wonder if the Cup sponsors were offering bets? It's only when you get down as far as Hibs that you get any disparity in the apparent "heavyweight" factor in their draw - so maybe this is Hibs' year! But that draw says that seven major forces - 5-7 Premiership teams or Hearts/Rangers - will go out at this early stage.

Is that not the Craig Dunain bowling club? I was actually thinking of a rather larger brown house behind where the photographer is standing.

The Yes campaign? I have to admit that, for a laugh, I went into the Gelluns on the Friday after the referendum result and asked the barmaid for a pint of Schadenfreude. She said they didn't have any so I asked for a pint of Scottish Bitter instead. When it emerged that they didn't serve that either, I settled for a half of Tennents.

Which is why, outwith the circle of toffs who normally wore them, they used to be called "sh*te catchers". By the way I have a feelng that the W. Urquhart in that last photo is Willie Urquhart, Billy's dad who also used to play for Clyde when they were a force to be reckoned with. I only knew Willie much later than that but the resemblance seems quite strong and I do believe that Willie played for Thistle. IHE will be delighted that Caley's most prolific goalscorer is of Jeggie ancestry!

Under the circumstances it might be useful to clarify to the uninitiated that "the Craig" actually refers to the location of IHE's family home and is not a reference to the Big Brown House!

Doing the same for me Sneckboy! Wonderful memories. I wonder if that was taken during the Baltic winter of 1963 and which point the distillery would still be there? And indeed.. the game probably DID go ahead Difficult to make out whether the goals are made of square wood or of more modern material of circular cross section - I suspect the former.

No I am pretty sure that is the old Gasometer roughly where Fraser and Sons' gravestone dept is now behind what used to be Andersons the Bakers and now Blythswood. Gas distribution moved to Millburn Road during the 60s - apparently 1966 according to the blurb with that photo. What we are looking at here is coal gas generation where coal was heated to a high temperature and produced a number of things including coal gas which was principally a mixture of carbon monoxide (which was why the gas oven used to be a classic suicide option in the old days), hydrogen and methane. It left behind coke which had a number of industrial and domestic uses. Round about the late 60s we switched to North Sea Gas which is principally methane and that's what was - and I think still is - distributed from the container off Millburn Road. As Diggar MacGillivray said at a meeting about local energy supply "I'm all gas".... and everybody fell about laughing!

There is not much in Dalneigh, the High School looks new and there are no houses on the west side of Laurel Avenue, looking at the block 21-27 it looks as the roof is half slated and others beyond look under construction. Could you imagine how many houses Macrae or Tulloch would have built there! I could guess that this photo was taken between 1936, when the High School was built, and the late 40s when much of "new" Dalneigh went up. I am tempted to go for the late 40s since it seems that the Swedish houses in Limetree Avenue and Maple Drive are starting to appear. As far as I am aware these did not start going up until about then. The one thing that worries me slightly is that the HORSA huts don't seem to be there in the High School yet and I would have expected these pretty soon after the war since HORSA means Huts On he Raising of the Schoolleaving Age which I think was implemented by a 1945 Act.

The structure bottom left of that picture certainly seems to be what was known to locals as the "gasometer". The exterior was wooden slats, I think painted grey for much of the time I recollect it, and I do also seem to recollect that it was demolished in the second half of the 60s.

And how much local control would councils have over the rate of that tax and hence over what levels of services they can provide? When is this change scheduled to take place by the way?

Subsequent to Alex' plea to return to the topic as originally defined, responses seem mainly to have been about the average speed cameras, for which there is already an existing thread. So if there is a shortage of material here, let me try to make two suggestions within the title of the topic- What has the SNP done for the Highlands? * The SNP has given Highand Council a huge headache about what to cut next since the Scottish Government persists with its Council Tax Freeze which prevents the Highland Council (and others) from raising more money in that way. Even Highland Council's budget leader, SNP councillor Maxine Smith, yesterday stuck her head above the parapet and mentioned this - hence risking a right good handbagging from Nicola when she inherits Beaut House. So the reality is that SNP policy has resulted in Highland Council having to contemplate the possibility of four weekly bin collections, sending kids home from school on Friday afternoons, closing swimming pools and libraries, cutting spending on Gaelic, and a lot more. The SNP will of course defend itself by:- 1 - blaming "Westminster". 2 - claiming that it has given £70 million nationally to offset this - which is rather like farting at a wind farm. 3 - asserting that its policy is "popular"- although possibly not based on a poll among people who have their kids coming home from school Friday lunchtimes and stepping over four week old rubbish rotting at their front doors. * The SNP, following its scaremongering about a Referendum NO vote leading to more privatisation of NHS Scotland (which it controls) has, according to a report published today, actually presided over increased private service use within NHS Scotland. And the Highlands? Well up here we lead the privatisation trend with an increase of 40% in the use of private facilities in the last year. NHS Highland (the responsibility of the SNP) also has a particularly poor record in terms of budget control and waiting times, according to the same report.

The numbering may have been different in your day SP but in my time, and IHE's, as you went up the main stairs to above the Library (Assembly Hall in your time) you took the right hand upper walkway going towards the front of the building and it was the last of three rooms looking down on the Library?Hall. (I hope that doesn't sound like one of Fritz's explanations!) When i was in school, the occupant of R16 was Cuurly, Head of Modern Languages, known I believe to a previouis generation as "Ginger".

It's not at the Skye Games in Portree is it? On the other hand the arena there is possibly too small to accommodate a football pitch.

Since it's a listed building, I would think it's unlikely that it would be demolished - unless the 1960s wing at the back isn't listed. The sooner these huts at the back - especially the festering brown one which has been put there more recently - disappear, the better. I don't know if there's any plan to convert the existing shell into flats but, even though someone might have Room 16 as their toilet , that's not what I would call a good idea.

Probably "Match Of The Day" or "Westering Home To The Ferry"