Charles Bannerman

Gerx.. so Baillie kicked you in the face TWICE!?

Have any other former pupils of the Royal Academy (or Millburn for that matter) journeyed up Victoria Drive over the last couple of weeks? "The Field" is now in the process of being dug up! - I understand to build a new Millburn. It's the passing of an era. Since as long ago as the 1930s Royal Academy pupils had their games periods on that field which from the early 60s was shared with Millburn Junior Secondary who then took it over exclusively after the IRA moved out in 1979.(As an aside, before the 1930s the Academy Field was on Glenurquhart Road where the newer part of the Highland Council Offices - aka County Buildings - now are. The older part of these buildings used to the the IRA girls' hostel.) Football over beside the Distillery in an era when you could be half drunk by half time with the fumes when there was an east wind. The big rugby pitch parallel with what used to be the Highland Printers building. The small rugby pitch beside it and the hockey pitch in the remaining corner beside the old tin shed where the hurdles and other equipment were kept. In the summer it was all replaced by the running track where I have so many memories of painful training sessions and winning the 1970 and 71 school sports championships amid the smell of creosote from a newly marked track. In that very hot summer of 1976 the back straight became incredibly undulating when the grass dried out completely. And the changing rooms - a War Memorial for 39-45. I was at school from 65-71 but I went back into these changing rooms in about 1996 when my son was playing in a primary tournament there and they smelled just the same - that sort of foosty aroma with just a hint of mature leather and a whiff of disinfectant from the toilets. I also found the sink in which I used regularly to be sick if I had overdone that afternoon's interval training session.... probably in that case taken by Baillie. In 1967 we all got injected thanks to Dodo Sinclair. Poor Dodo (who was a contemporary of mine at Millburn and whose dad Butch was the last person I remember who played for Citadel) fell and cut himself and became very ill with tetanus. The field had previously been part of a farm and the bug had hung around for a very long time. The upshot was that both schools in entirety got the tetanus jag. So many memories of that playing field which is fast becoming a battlefield now that the bulldozers have taken over.

Latviaman ... the diving champion.... do you not mean Barry Wilson?! Seriously, though, you're maybe thinking of Brian Phelps who I don't think came from Inverness. There was a guy from Inverness in the early 60s called Maurice Campbell who was a pretty good diver. I remember him giving demonstrations off the 3 metre board at Glebe Street. On one occasions he did a dive with his younger cousin... Maggie ?Reid? (used to scare the **** out of us anyway) from Dalneigh on his back. Remember the hit or miss nature of the wee cubicles.. whether or not you would get one with the whiff of the last occupant's foot odour. The pong of cheesy feet mixed with chlorine is a very subtle one... despite the wee sinks at the shallow end in which to wash your feet. These must also have been days of limitless cheap energy because around four very hot showers ran all the time in the men's alone. There was also the cold one on the opposite wall and it was something of a trial to go from ages in the hot one straight into the cold. My main memory of the shop was the Puff Candies and the Cow Toffee which must have done untold damage to so many teeth. There were also the "baths" (hence the popular name of the premises) in an era where many people still didn't have a proper one at home and could come there.

Thank you Scotty. As an assiduous chronicler of the merger, I have always insisted on observing what was agreed in the dying days of 1993, even though my first experience of football was at Telford Sreet. I can also say that, with only one exception, I have NEVER referred to "Caley" in any report. That exception was imposed on me when I opted for a particular final line for my Sportsound report on a certain 5-1 scoreline which read: "Super County go ballistic, Caley are atrocious."

I take it this thread should really be entitled "Caley Thistle Song" but does anyone remember in the 1960s (and maybe later) a thoroughly cringeworthy Caley song to the tune of Mairi's Wedding and under the name of "Come Away The Caley" which boasted such emabarrassing inanities as: "Parkhead, Brockville and Dens Park Found our football was no lark"? HELP!!!!! (On the other hand the pre match music in these days did include Andy Stewart and Jim Reeves!)

CMIB... it must be the stage of life you're at!

Laura... I just can't believe that any Santa on whose knee you may have sat could be as old as 91! Ticket prices.. in the mid 60s the cheapest I can remember is 1s for the front stalls on a Saturday afternoon but that may have been the La Scala. The Playhouse might have been 1s 6d. I think balcony prices went up to about 5s or 6s for an adult. This was the alternative when Caley were away from home. At the time it cost 9d to get into Telford Street, not that we ever paid!

Social Club?!

That's the building on the corner of Academy St. and Margaret St isn't it? I only remember it as Simpson's the electrician's and a cheapie store.

Thank you Mantis. As Captain Mainwaring would say ..... I was waiting for someone to mention that. And here's a bit of ICT trivia. Although Charlie Christie was the first player to 100, 200 etc appearances, he was not the first to 50. It was Mark McAllister. Charlie had a period of injury during Caley Thistle's first season 94-95 which initially left him a little bit behind in the appearance stakes.

If you think it through there were so many fine part timers (ie never full timers) at Caley Thistle. Calder, Christie (who, despite his full time employment with the club was, in effect, a part time player if you also exclude his time at Celtic), Ian MacArthur.... Paul Cherry was part time since he ran his own finance business, the legendary Herchie as mentioned, Mikey Noble, Brian Thomson... indeed so many of the side which won the Third Division title in 1997, and outwith that Paul Ritchie is the first thought. I think I would have to give top equal to Christie and Calder (football's answer to Alf Tupper!) with Ian MacArthur possibly next but I'm also so sorely tempted by many of the others I've listed. All time top part time eleven anybody? (Only players who never latterly went full time.) Calder, MacArthur, ??????, Hercher, Noble, Cherry, Robertson, Thomson, Ritchie, Christie, Ross. I'm struggling for a left back, given that Hastings is ineligible. (Vetle??!!!... NOT!) I'm also asking Herchie to play in central defence. If I didn't I could possibly put MacArthur there which would then leave the right back slot blank and also possibly force Herchie out of the team which I'd be very reluctant to do. Gringo - I think Teasdale has too long a full time pedigree at Dundee and ICT to be eligible. Memories of so many of these guys at Telford Street!!! (By the way I do admit that this is very similar to the D3 championship winning team.)

Sandy.... as one of the local media "behind glass in a heated box", could I just perhaps point out that you forgot about the O'Brien's sandwiches? Delicious! ICT look after us very well and I think we reciprocate. Can I also point out that this "story" appeared in the news and not the sports pages of Tuesday's Sun? Sports journalists on newspapers not uncommonly get thoroughly fed up with their news colleagues pressurising them to connive at raking muck within football clubs. I certainly don't want to comment on the Sun's story, apart from remarking that it is fundamentally and dramatically inaccurate in a number of respects. But what I can say is that the minute the Sun appeared on Tuesday, the spontaneous and virtually unanimous reaction of the LOCAL media was not to touch this with a barge pole. (The local media, by the way, Sandy, are the privileged eight or so sandwich munchers with our personally allocated seats "behind glass in a heated box" who gererally have an excellent and mutually beneficial relationship with Caley Thistle and who have reported on/ photographed the club and attended twice weekly press conferences for years.) My final comment on this sorry issue is thoroughly to agree with the first ten words of Sandy's last post. This thread now seems to be the only thing that's keeping this unfortunate pot boiling. Drop it for God's sake!

Well you learn something every day! I certainly wasn't aware that the Empire started life as a cinema, although I did know about the theatre in Bank Street since my father was a kid in the town when it burned down and he told me about it. Indeed I'm not sure if my grandfather wasn't in the place that night. I do remember the Empire (not as a cinema!) being pretty basic while the La Scala (ironically, given its role as a flea pit) was a bit more ornate, although not in the same league as the Playhouse. I also remember one or two visits to the Palace where I saw Lorna Doone and a Jimmy Edwards "Whacko!" film. (An interesting change with the times there. "Whacko!" probably wouldn't be given a certificate these days since it would be deemed to have content relating to child abuse.) The theatre wasn't the only building to burn down on Bank Street in that era. St. Columba High Church also suffered that fate in 1940. On the subject of multiple conflagrations, all three football grandstands in Inverness burned down within less than half a century - Caley in about 1951, Clach in about 1989 (!) and Thistle in 1995, after Kingsmills had closed as a football ground.

Perhaps I can clarify the matter here. All of the newspapers you are talking about are owned by the same company, Scottish Provincial Press, to serve their local areas on a broadsheet/ tabloid basis. Within SPP there is the Highland News Group which are all tabloids and all edited in the same room - the HN which serves INVERNESS, the North Star which serves Ross shire and the Lochaber News whose catchment area is obvious. They all have the same editor and sports editor (Paul Chalk) and a few common pages but the football in particular is directed towards the local readership. The arrangements for broadsheets are a little different. The Courier and the Ross shire Journal are based in Inverness and Dingwall and are completely independent of each other. They are quite rigidly directed towards their local areas and indeed just about the only anomaly is that the Courier carries a limited amount of Ross County coverage. But they are completely separate papers covering their own areas. I therefore don't understand why an exception should be expected to be made in the case of this cup victory (about which I am very pleased for Ross County btw). People in Inverness, wanting to read about truly local football and indeed other sports as well would be rightly annoyed that their opportunities were being reduced by a large football report about a nearby team. I don't imagine the North Star or the Ross shire Journal would have carried much when ICT won the Challenge Cup in 2003 and quite rightly so. There was reference above to the fact that I covered the final extensively on the BBC. Of course I did. Ross and Cromarty is a significant part of our transmission area which covers all of the Highlands and Islands as well as Moray. On the other hand I would imagine I would get quite a few complaints if I started giving large chunks of air time to Aberdeen FC, the team next door. The local media is just that - local - and there are designated catchment areas.

A visitor was touring a hospital ward when he spotted a patient standing on his bed proclaiming: "Wee sleekit cow'rin timorous beastie..." He moved on to meet another man intoning: "And scarcely had he Maggie rallied when out the hellish legion sallied..." And in the far corner: "Oh thou who in the heavens doth dwell, who, as it pleases best thysel..." Turning to his guide the visitor asked: "Is this the psychiatric ward?" "No," came the reply. "It's the Serious Burns Unit." Just thought I'd take the thread back to hospitals. I have to say that watching The Royal on ITV on a Sunday night creates strong echoses of the RNI in the 60s. I was just too old for the York Ward when I had to go in to get my sinuses flushed out (couple of tubes rammed up your nose so they could pump salt solution through... very messy.) As a result I had to go into an adult ward. Don't know if I missed anything or not.

TMFTJ... there's only one problem with that last post... the commentator was Bill Leckie! In fact I am in at the BBC just now lifting slices of Bill's excellent commentary to use in my sport review tomorrow morning. I must add my sincere congratulations to Ross County. I am delighted for them. The two Highland teams which came into the SFL in 1994 certainly haven't disappointed.

David ...was it the 5th Seaforths? That was who my father was with, although he was actually at HD 152 Brigade HQ, but he was right through the whole thing, including the battle for Caen which we also visited while over there. I have to say that by far the most emotional moment was the visit to the Ranville cemetery and the inevitable thought that had one man's war gone just a little differently, I would not have existed to have that experience. I also couldn't help but muse over the amount of money the Gondree family have made in their cafe over the last 60 years, just because they were the first family in Europe to be liberated......

Strange, isn't it, that when Armistice Day comes around there's this preoccupation with the First World War while WW2 and other conflicts seem almost to be ignored. TV keeps churning out reruns of the Battle of the Somme, the poetry of Owen, Brook and Sassoon is wall to wall and of course there are the lines from Binyon (they shall grow not old....) I suppose that for the first 20 years or so WW1 had the field to itself and observing Flanders etc became something of a tradition ...and indeed military casualties there were huge. We also continue to observe Armistice Day in November rather than May or August. In terms of British lives, there were about 3/4 of a million dead in 14/18 and around 400,000 if you include civilians in 39/45. But globally far more people died in WW2 compared with WW1.... 50 million as opposed to around 10. One thing that does annoy me when there's talk of WW1 at this time of year.. people keep saying that these soldiers died in the trenches "so that we might be free". That's just simply not true. There was never the remotest chance of Britain being occupied by the Germans in 1914-18. Britain went to war in 1914 to preserve the integrity of Belgium in accordance with the Treaty of London. WW1 was essentially a continental war which almost happened by accident after massive rearmament and which Britain could have avoided, but which morally it was obliged to join. WW2 is completely different. The freedom of the nation most definitely was at stake there although once again the war was entered in support of the territorial integrity of another country, Poland. I hope this doesn't sound like a history lesson, but I always have mixed feelings about November 11th.

That was the very same book. It was so vital that the Allied bridgehead remained intact from the East and in particular they had to prevent Panzers reinforcing German troops from there. The American 82nd Airborne performed a similar function at the West end of the invasion zone where (according to the Longest Day (1961)) John Wayne, despite being wheeled about Northern France with a knackered ankle, of course did the business single handedly. When I visited Pegasus Bridge I had the book in my bag. The run down the Caen Canal over Lovat's reverse route was one of thwese things you remember for years to come.

Dmacca... I had a similar experience to your own. My father, who survived the war, went ashore on Sword Beach with the Highland Division on June 8th 1944 (D+2) and while in France I took the opportunity to visit the British cemetery at Ranville which was a tremendously emotional eperience. We then walked down the hill to Benouville and Pegasus Bridge beside the Cafe Gondree, the first building in occupied Europe to be liberated. I had just been reading an account of the Pegasus Bridge operation and it was fascinating to see it unfold on the ground, down to the points where the gliders landed. Then my daughter and I jogged along the Caen Canal to Ouistreham at the eastern extremity of Sword beach, the reverse of the route Lord Lovat's Commandos took to relieve the Paras at the Orne bridges. The whole day was an incredibly memorable experience.

Agreed! Apart from that, one of the big bonuses of the Italy trip was the ice creamer round the corner from the Hotel in Montecatini.

If it was over the Infirmary Bridge she came, I wonder, if it was summer, if she got the ice cream in Bellfield Park. What wonderful ice cream you got there! Best ice cream in Inverness came from Bellfield, Ness Cafe, Salvadori's, Pagliaris (did they supply Bellfield?) and, the only non Italian in the group... Stratton. I'm sure there were more that were just as good, but you just can't get that kind of ice cream in Inverness these days. Bring back the Tally Cafes!

Laura... couldn't remember which way round the two ironmongers were. Ta. Latviaman ....the Captain of the 3rd BBs you refer to would have been David Thom who was Principal Teacher of Classics and latterly Depute Rector of the Royal Academy until he died in 1970. He was quite a disciplinarian and was also starter at a number of athletics meetings. There was always the fear that if you did a false start, the next one was a live round and was for you! (He had two sons, one of whom became a chiropodist, the other a dentist... they were known as "foot and mouth".) The sweetie shop in Hill Street became legendary to generations of Crown, Millburn and IRA pupils as "Frankie Jew's" but I think in the era which you are describing it would have been called Galloway's. Tom Galloway owned it until about 1965 when he was succeeded by one F.C. MacKay... aka Frankie Jew. To give you a flavour of what Frank was like, those who smoked (not myself!) would have the following kind of conversation: "Single please, Frank." "Threepence" "And do you have a match?" "Ha'penny."

latviaman... this was Hamilton Street (side of Markies now) and BB HQ was Washington Court. Some will have memories of Scoobies getting the whole battalion in order for church parades on Sunday mornings. Now that you mention it, I do think i might have a vague memory of the FT being printed there too. There was also an ironmonger in Hamilton Street (Gilbert Ross?)... you know wehat I mean, brown coats and "forkhandles" like Fraser and McCall. What was the ironmonger in Academy Street between Station Square and the old Academy building? Mitchell and Craig?

I believe that John Worth latterly (after the Empire closed I suppose) set himself up as a freelance "impressario", general arranger of Inverness entertainments, because I remember a plate with his name on it, outside an office I think in Queensgate. He also did a lot of production work with the Opera Company among others. PS Latviaman - it's "dementia"!