Charles Bannerman

It looks as if it may have been longer ago than 30 years IBM. This is in front of the "new" station building which apparently was replaced between 1966 and 1968. Also, the shop on the left says British European Airways which went out of existence in 1974. I also see a couple of miniskirts in the photo which may suggest mid-60s.

Brilliant!!!

Must be the start of the 1913 Snowman Rally!!!

You are spot on Ed. Excellent post. The cultivation of perceived grievances is standard Nationalist practice wherever you go - whether it's austerity blamed on the English (aka Westminster) and the Tories.... or defeat in World War 1 and the Depression blamed on the Jews and the Communists. There are plenty of other disturbing parallels such as the Sturm Macteilung roaming Scotland's streets and the Cybernats polluting the ether at referendum time, the burning of literature they don't like, the boycotting of businesses they don't like (for Finkelstein read Tunnock), the diktat against believing or stating anything outwith party dogma, attempts to render Party and State indistinguishable, bullies in the Reichstag and the 53.5 members of the Westminster Ajockalypse squad, the conflation of national and party emblems..... and I wonder who will win the race between the Reverend Whinge Over Skintland and The National to become the new Volkischer Beobachter? Oh yes, and the Germans also came to regret bitterly the way they had voted in droves in 1933 - so watch this space. Strangely, though, there's one parallel which defeats me - I just can't think of an equivalent of the gormless public school muppet who is a shoe in to be re-elected by the discerning nationalists of Inverness

Scarlet.... I don't think you quite "got it". If you mother was born "along with" your uncles, then that suggests a multiple birth. And if it was "all" your uncles, that suggests at least three of them. So if you add in your mother, that makes at least four - or quads!

"Paddy McGinty's Goat" is a good laugh but I'm not so sure about a couple of guys strumming guitars, sticking their bums out and belting out pseudo-romantic mince about the Jacobites.

I believe that's the playing field at Craig Dunain where you can see Craig Dunain RFC's goal posts. I believe the golf course was just behind the trees.

One of a number of "Delavault Prints" of Inverness round about the turn of the 20th century. Pierre Delavault was the Royal Academy's French art teacher and did a lot of these now quite well known prints. You can see the signature bottom left. And above that.... Viewmaster!! Isn't it incredible the simple pastimes we were content with back in the 60s?

I thought he would have been more at home at Celtic Boys' Club.

Val Doonican AND the Corries? That's a lot of white jumpers!

Room 36. (37 was a hut.) But yes, next to the Rector's office. It used to be the school library before they built the early 60s extension which meant that the old assembly hall could become the library and the old library became Room 36. I think Hector Fraserius did live in 36 for quite some time although he may have spent time also in the "new" library. He is currently in the library in the Culduthel building so may well move on to the library in the new building when it pens later this year. I certainly remember Alan Dougherty, who taught in 36, having quite a flash car, registration number YEE 988.

That will be at least quads then?

It does rather look like one. The most likely explanation is probably that it was dug for Primary Schools (Central and some others I believe) who used the park as a playing field.

The "Horficer" looks a bit of an upper class tube, but he does appear to have the Military Cross.

OK, maybe I didn't explain this to Alex as thoroughly as it seems I needed to earlier this afternoon, so I'll try again now, and a bit more meticulously. His first quoted link does indeed seem to say that the Scottish Government does get £35bn a year to run health, education, police and all the other things it so conspicuously mismanages - ie the Devolved Functions. And yes, his second quoted link does seem to say that Scotland contributes a touch over £40bn a year to the UK exchequer. Now it's here that I would normally get to the "and your point is?" stage, because here we have two figures which do not actually relate to each other. This ithe the crucial element here, but what I think Alex is trying to make us believe here is that because 40odd is a bigger number than 35, then we are subsidising the rest of the UK. Simples!!!! However what he is trying to do is to establish the difference between 35 apples and 40 oranges which is as good an example as I have seen of a great big non sequitur. Unfortunately these are the kind of simplistic non sequiturs with which the SNP have been conning the gullible for decades. Indeed, Scotland does contribute £40bn+ to the UK Exchequer (including Grand Theft Auto revenues!), but that's not only to cover the £35bn it gets back to fund devolved functions, it also includes Scotland's contribution to non-devolved UK-wide functions such as defence, foreign policy, pre-Smith welfare and pension matters etc etc. All of these cost a lot of money and while the Gers figures aren't a precise and categorical expression of the net difference, the magnitude of what they say still indicates that when you take into account ALL the things, devolved and reserved, that we benefit from as UK citizens, then up here we are being subsidised pretty generously by the rest of the UK. As things stand, that amounts to a Scottish DEFICIT of £15bn which is an eyewatering % of GDP.... as opposed to the £5+bn (40odd - 35) surplus that Alex seems to be trying to con us into believing. Alex also tells us that Gers applies to Scotland as part of the UK as opposed to a separate entity. Here I do really have to ask "and your point is?" For a start, Alex seems to assume that all Scotland would need to do post-separation would be to wave that big saltire-tipped magic wand and that deficit of Zimbabwean proportions would simply disappear just because we're doing things "the Scottish way". This obviously makes the assumption that things must get better post-separation. Again, what justification does he have for this apparent assertion? How does he not know that things would not get much WORSE? After all, the way the currently devolved powers have been administered to date (and not only by the SNP) has been far from impressive, so God help us if we also have the Big Ticket items to deal with. So in summary.. yes £35bn to run devolved powers and yes £40odd bn in tax revenue - but these two numbers simply aren't comparable and when you add in the cost of all the other reserved functions Alex has (conveniently?) failed to mention, then we do have that multi-billion Big Black Hole. Sorry if this seems a bit lengthy whilst coming over as pretty obvious to many, but needs must.....

I'm sticking with my Gelluns Poll theory as the origin of the assertion! It seems to subscribe to the expected standards of reliability and impartiality.

Judging by the number of Labour and especially Hangman's Noose placards already in Inverness High Street, it wouldn't surprise me if campaigning down there were to be in full swing tomorrow. Presumably we can expect the usual form from the Nats - they trot out some unsupported political or economic fantasy..... you point out its obvious weaknesses..... they tell you that you are "Anti Scottish" and move on to their next unsupported political or economic fantasy.......

So how many people did they actually ask in the Gelluns the night after the referendum to "confirm" their "majority" in Inverness? I must have missed the pollsters there when I popped in that night to sample the "atmosphere" and order my pints of Schadenfreude and Scottish Bitter. The link to the Record is alarmingly light on how rigorous the analysis referred to there may or may not be. That it's by "Edinburgh University" isn't necessarily an endorsement and I'd also be interested to know how the claimed number for the Inverness subdivision of the Highland count was really established. Even if it wasn't in the Gelluns it was presumably from some poll or other but again, given how wrong even the "professional" pollsters can be, it would be interesting to see how reliable this is in its claim that Inverness is so far out of step with the rest of the Highlands. But in any case, the SNP decided to have that referendum, they set the rules.... and they lost. And given the number of Christian Allards and Tasmina Ahmed Sheiks that are around, it would be difficult for them to complain about non-natives. But, perhaps to return to the upcoming Holyrood elections, these assertions of dubious provenance about who voted where in the referendum simply join the lengthening "Alex MacLeod" queue of GTA, 20 tonners on the Forth Road Bridge, resilient oil prices and the Scottish economy being in surplus to illustrate the extent to which peddling unsubstantiated and downright erroneous assertions has simply become a nationalist way of life. It certainly doesn't say much for the level of critical thought that goes into voting Yessenpee. So, despite the SNP's woeful administrative record and recent cataclysmic economic data, their ballot fodder will, for the moment, still uncritically put their crosses in that box - until the bawbee drops. I don't believe that stage is too far away but, given the woeful state of the other parties, there is little doubt about the outcome on May 5th.

Yup.... 44.7% of them voted yes while 55.3% of them voted NO. And could you please quote me the verified figures for Inverness to support your assertion? On the other hand I'm sure it would have been very different but for yet another of Alex' "Facts" - that MI5 and the BBC conspired to add a further 77% of NO votes to the postal tally.

This will be another of Alex' "Facts".... like GTA being worth more than the oil, the oil price rapidly bouncing back to Salmondesque levels and thousands of 20 ton trucks grinding their way across the Minister's flexible truss end link on the Forth Road Bridge. To Alex what he's said is just a "Fact"... another rabbit out of the hat.... with apparently no need to justify it. By way of explaining the "black hole" there, perhaps you could first explain to us where Scotland's share of the cost of defence, foreign affairs budgets, and other non devolved matters appears in your "Fact". Look at the Gers figures Alex.... the ones which are the official product of the SNP run Scottish Government! "Gers".... now that brings me on to the breathtakingly simplistic first quoted statement with its nonsensical "loyal William" reference". Now Alex, I can appreciate that a lot of you SNP chaps will have some difficulty in conceiving of this, but there are actually also rather a lot of people - 55.3% the last time you insisted we had a count in 2014 - who don't really think that this separation lark is a hell of a good idea. Some of them, including myself, do also believe that such a step wold also crash and burn while others don't.... but still want to stay as we are. You were told back in 2014 that most of the people of Scotland want to stay as they are and not turn the clock back to the failed state predicament of pre-1707. You have to understand that history evolves and Scotland - which has never really interested me as an entity - was simply a transitional phase (albeit an unfortunately long and unsuccessful one) between Pictland/ Stratrhclyde/ Dalriada/ Lothian and the United Kingdom which, since 1707, has consistently been one of the most successful countries in the world. The real debate now isn't about turning the clock back to the bad old days but about how much further integration we want with other European states, some of the largest of which are also the products of political unions - except that they don't have equivalents of Whingeing Jocks to distract and embarrass them. So if it's not too much trouble to attempt to cast your nationalist blinkers aside, maybe you could wake up to the simple FACT that there is a majority of Scots out there who, when asked by the SNP in 2014,told them that they are actually quite happy as they are.

Joe... it's sometimes a bit difficult to assess the age of posters on forums like this so you leave me with a genuine dilemma. Are you actually one of the Young Team members yourself, sticking up for your chums, or are you a bit older than that but simply afflicted by some unfortunate Peter Pan complex when it comes to deciding what is and is not appropriate behaviour in public?

The SNP will deliberately facilitate anything in order to build up support for separation and the Scottish people, whom they claim to champion, are mere pawns in that grand design. As for tax rises, you get what you pay for in terms of public services, plus or minus any deficit/surplus you may generate (but there is a limit to the former). If you want better services, then you need to accept tax rises - or of course you need to be a bit cleverer with how you allocate your funds. For instance the SNP are, at the moment, dishing out free university tuition like sweeties, to the extent that UHI and the University of the West of Scotland (aka Paisley) have dreadful first year drop out rates of over 14% with some others not far behind, which is a complete waste of cash. And in the case of UHI, this is out of sometimes quite bizarre sounding degree courses where the entrance qualifications are more often than not just 3Cs at Higher. However, rather than illustrate how money could be saved, I'll return to the notion that to a large extent you get what you pay for. As for the capital flight, brain drain etc, unless tax disparities get too extremely bad, I wouldn't expect that to become too much of an issue unless or until an actual INDEPENDENCE DAYarrived or was fixed. Then the southbound carriageways of the A1 and the M74 would fast become gridlocked in a belated confirmation of Dr. Johnson's dictum: "The noblest prospect which a Scotchman ever sees, is the high road that leads him to England!".

But Alex, you were also quite sure that the oil price plunge was just a short lived blip of no consequence.... and that Grand Theft Auto is worth more to the Scottish economy than the oil (which it probably now is for that matter!) And now you tell us that you are sure that if the need arises, the government will raise taxes. So the need hasn't arisen then? So our public services aren't struggling for lack of resources... our Councils aren't slashing services in a manner which could have been mitigated by a rise in Council Tax etc etc? Nothing, of course, to do with fostering resentment against financial stringency blamed on south of the border but really an active grievance-mongering policy of the SNP. I find it very interesting that your bland and unsupported assertions mirror closely the very same thing that comes from the party you support. What the SNP has had to offer so far is nothing more than unsupported statements, many of which have been utterly blasted out of the water by post-referendum revelations that Scotland's deficit is sitting at levels that a central African fourth world republic would cringe at and that the resource you have tried to shove down our throats for decades is a busted flush. And of course anyone casting sensible doubt on a lot of this fantasy and injecting some reality into the situation is simply accused... usually pretty loudly and aggressively in classic SNP style.... of "talking Scotland down" All of this totally epitomises the manner in which the SNP have simply fed the electorate with a series of porkies and we do indeed now just have to pray that the public, as DD earlier hoped, waken up to what a bunch of chancers this lot are before they can inflict even more damage. Their problem is that they have painted themselves into a corner with a series of assertions which aren't actually related to what is best for Scotland but is merely designed to hold as many people, many of them poorly informed, to the only policy that matters to the SNP. Let's be quite clear - whatever the SNP has to offer between now and May 5th will have NOTHING to do with what is best for Scotland. But, although it's taking a little time (and these things often do) the penny will eventually drop with the Scottish electorate that they are merely pawns in a big game which, if it had been successful in September 2014, would today INDEPENDENCE DAY have had the whole lot of us staring into the abyss as our neighbours, and now rivals, removed the financial scaffolding at the request of a one-off slender majority of poor, deluded souls.

Yeh, unusual for Nats to be as quiet as this with an election coming up - or even without one for that matter! It all brings me back to our obsessive chum on the way into Dingwall who, every single day for nearly a year post-referendum, physically updated a sign in his front window screaming something like "Day #X and still no new powers!" But now they've got the new powers they screamed for, all that seems to have happened is that the top 10% or so of highest earners won't be getting the £300 or so that the rest of the UK will be getting (a tax cut which, as DD pointed out, the FM says will raise an "extra" billion - and, as ever, over the usual unspecified period). This is hardly the rampant socialism we have witnessed in SNP rhetoric, which has now been clearly exposed as typically empty. Give them the powers they demand and they more or less, with one minor exception, still follow the Westminster Tory line!! So I wonder how this sits with the Gers Revisionists who, after they attempt to sideline these official Scottish Government statistics as a 1992 creation of the Tories, try to tell us that the current £15 billion Scottish public finances black hole - which will get even worse when the current debacle of "Scotland's Oil" catches up with them - just need a tartan-branded magic wand waved at them and the problem will simply disappear? Apart from this being complete fantasy in the first place, it is also predicated on the (as usual, groundless) assertion that all we need to do is to tackle things in a different "Scottish" way and everything will be fine. However, I haven't yet seen anything of substance - including the Council Tax freeze - that doesn't follow pretty standard Westminster Tory dogma. But heyyyyy! The clock has now ticked past midnight and it's March 24th.....INDEPENDENCE DAY! Had the nightmare scenario emerged on 18.9.14., Life President Salmond would, as I write, have been out on the balcony at Beaut House (they'd have built one if it doesn't already have one) acknowledging, arms folded Mussolini style, the accolades of massed ranks of saltire waving Cybernats celebrating the formal casting away of the oppressive yoke of the English Imperialists. And to a man and woman they would have been euphorically declaring the birth of a new era of unprecedented Scottish prosperity based on.... A £15 billion public finances back hole which can only rise next year.....oil having gone belly up....loss of the Barnet Billions... total uncertainty about whether a new applicant with a banana republic deficit like that would even get into the EU ..... and if it did, how on earth would a tiny Euro-using economy survive when its hugely larger former biggest trading partner becomes its biggest sterling-using non-EU competitor with currency control, passport control and customs on a border designed to curb the influx of Scottish economic migrants. On that one, I would say to DD that even if these affluent and productive people didn't start to trickle out if their devolved taxes went up, there would have been a veritable torrent of them, and their accompanying expertise, before Independence Day. On the other hand the UK would still have been distributing Foreign Aid to poor nations. Maybe Scotland could have got a post-Independence Day sub from that!

Have Caledonian AFC got Urquhart registered this time? I'm not sure about rights to names since I'm also not sure whether or not the original clubs were ever wound up in the end. I also wonder what the copyright situation is regarding a name, especially as neither of the originals would have remained registered with the SFA.