Has Inverness changed much..

[Croylo]

Leakey has done well, when you consider that some new bookshops don't make any money. I have never grudged him his prices and as the poster before said you are not obliged to shop there. I bought some decent copies of the inverness field club volumes for ?18 each and was happy to pay that as they are hard to come by. Also nice cafe great woodburning stove and I am happy to see a building used instead of falling down.

Has Inverness changed or have you changed for example do you drive now instead of walking everywhere, do you now want a ciabatta with parma ham instead of a pie and beans. Did you used to enjoy a pint in the afternoon whereas you are too busy these days. In short the craic is much the same but you are not currently part of it, Find the people you used to hang with and go out its the same as it was, somtimes better.

So the next time you are in the town find what you like, not what you don't, if there is no craic, then make some. If you dont then you are just another one of those depressed looking people wandering the street.

[MrsICTFC]

I think two things that have contributed to the downfall of Inverness was it's sudden growth and the internet.

I remember I used to run about and play in the fields behind my house - that is now matalan/inshes etc.

I remember the enjoyment of going into town - not anymore I use the internet for a majority of things.

I am starting to dislike living here! On a positive note bring back the Jolly Green Giant!

[Charles Bannerman]

Leakey has done well, when you consider that some new bookshops don't make any money.

That's probably because they charge a lot less than Leakey does for manky old tomes! But you're right - I'm not obliged to shop there so, having tested the water once, I don't!!

[caleykid1994]

Hello,

I remember the ness when i was about 16 in 1994, ages ago now...

I remember coots (?) the sports shop down academy street, the swimming pool near there as well, that little cafe in the market(you know who you are!), an arcade room i think opposite that desinger clothes shop lumo ladona... loads of good memories.. are these all still there?

Is it still the same old inverness, or has it's city status, influx of Europeans and other Brits, and whatever else changed it a lot?

It used to be so ordinary and plain which was it's best quality i think.....

Dont remember much of Coutts(although that was Church street wasnt it?)

The swimming poo, i was only ever i once and my parents then insisted on taking me and ma bro to elgin baths as it was more fun.

The cafe in the market(im assuming) you mean the cafe above Morrison's Bakers whihc was beside the old Viccy Wine.

I remember when Au Naturale used to be JJB

I remember when Sports Direct on Academy street used to be MFI]

I remember when church street was one way down instead of both meeting at Queensgate(curse the Streetscape)

I remember when the Eastgate extension used to be a cafr park(cant remember what was there before that though)

And ofcourse the big two, I remember there being two football stadiums, one in the crown and one on telford street...what ever happened to them? ;)

[RiG]

I can still mind when the old Highland buses went along the High Street.

[DAM]

I can still mind when the old Highland buses went along the High Street.

I remember when the High Street had two way traffic.

[Charles Bannerman]

Dont remember much of Coutts(although that was Church street wasnt it?)

The swimming poo, i was only ever i once and my parents then insisted on taking me and ma bro to elgin baths as it was more fun.

The cafe in the market(im assuming) you mean the cafe above Morrison's Bakers whihc was beside the old Viccy Wine.

I remember when Au Naturale used to be JJB

I remember when Sports Direct on Academy street used to be MFI]

I remember when church street was one way down instead of both meeting at Queensgate(curse the Streetscape)

I remember when the Eastgate extension used to be a cafr park(cant remember what was there before that though)

And ofcourse the big two, I remember there being two football stadiums, one in the crown and one on telford street...what ever happened to them? :001:

Laddie... stop demoralising me!! :P

Although I have no recollection of the "swimming poo" (sic :D ) I do remember the swimming pool at Friars Street and when the Coop used to be in the former swimming pool (which I don't remember) in Montague Row.

I remember when there used to be houses on Shore Street (my father was born in one of them)

I remember Queen Mary's House and the rest of old Bridge Street.

I remember the Museum, Old Library and Fire Station between the Castle and Bridge Street.

I remember the Library being temporarily housed in a portakabin in King Street.

I remember First Second, Third and Fourth Streets where you remember the Eastgate Car Park.

I remember Stratton milk being delivered by a man driving a horse drawn vehicle.

I remember Harry Barclay delivering paraffin round the houses from a tanker.

I remember Jocky Lawson's van before there were shops in Dalneigh at St. Margaret's Road.

I remember Bobby MacKay's butcher's van.

I remember the Old Caley Hotel and the Northern Meeting Rooms.

I remember when there were car parking spaces along Bank Street.

I remember when Highland used to play rugby at the Queens Park.

I remember old Eastgate.

I remember MacKay's library and bookshop on High Street.

I remember the old Post Office (Queensgate, not High Street!!!)

I remember the suspension bridge and the temporarry bridge.

I remember Castle Tolmie.

I remember when Inverness only had three sets of traffic lights.

There you go. I thought we hadn't had a "Memories of Olde Snecke" thread for a few Christmases! :D

Edited March 3, 2010 by Charles Bannerman

[caley100]

Aye and ye remember when bread was tuppence halfpenny, and shoes were made out of t'boxes, an' pictures were sixpence... and i'll bet ya had a cloth cap an nowt else! :001:

[Scotty]

I'd be interested to see what his percentage mark up is! It's not so much a case of finding the same book elsewhere as making a value judgement as to whether a couple of manky old tomes are worth the funny money he charges.

What's his rate for "Against All Odds"? :001:

[PullMyFinger]

Laddie... stop demoralising me!! :001: :P

Although I have no recollection of the "swimming poo" (sic ) I do remember the swimming pool at Friars Street and when the Coop used to be in the former swimming pool (which I don't remember) in Montague Row.

Would that not be the laundry Charles?

[Scotty]

My uncle (Donnie Ross) worked at the baths for many years ..... I still remember going there with my little card from the High School that got you free entry and had a box marked off each time you went. Once you got there it was over to the right hand side for males, left side for females to change in the cubicles with the swing doors facing the pool and putting all your stuff in the wire baskets ......

after your swim, when you were chucked out on the basis that your hands were all wrinkly and you had therefore been in there long enough, the chicken soup from the machine tasted like the best ever. For some reason, I always seem to remember the walk down the riverside (either along the river or past the house where the guy made targes) and over the Greig St Bridge as always being drizzly after a swim but maybe it was me that was still damp rather than the weather ....

[SMEE]

My uncle (Donnie Ross) worked at the baths for many years ..... I still remember going there with my little card from the High School that got you free entry and had a box marked off each time you went. Once you got there it was over to the right hand side for males, left side for females to change in the cubicles with the swing doors facing the pool and putting all your stuff in the wire baskets ......

after your swim, when you were chucked out on the basis that your hands were all wrinkly and you had therefore been in there long enough, the chicken soup from the machine tasted like the best ever. For some reason, I always seem to remember the walk down the riverside (either along the river or past the house where the guy made targes) and over the Greig St Bridge as always being drizzly after a swim but maybe it was me that was still damp rather than the weather ....

Scotty...do you ever remember a sort of youth club that used to be right opposite the Baths. I can remember going in there a few times in the past. Im sure it was just a little shed thing...but cant really remember much about it.

[Scotty]

Can't say I do ...

[+Tree]

My uncle (Donnie Ross) worked at the baths for many years ..... I still remember going there with my little card from the High School that got you free entry and had a box marked off each time you went. Once you got there it was over to the right hand side for males, left side for females to change in the cubicles with the swing doors facing the pool and putting all your stuff in the wire baskets ......

after your swim, when you were chucked out on the basis that your hands were all wrinkly and you had therefore been in there long enough, the chicken soup from the machine tasted like the best ever. For some reason, I always seem to remember the walk down the riverside (either along the river or past the house where the guy made targes) and over the Greig St Bridge as always being drizzly after a swim but maybe it was me that was still damp rather than the weather ....

Scotty...do you ever remember a sort of youth club that used to be right opposite the Baths. I can remember going in there a few times in the past. Im sure it was just a little shed thing...but cant really remember much about it.

I certainly remember that there used to be some form of tuck shop in the sheds across from the baths which used to open in the evenings.

Scotty - The hot orange always trumped the Chicken Soup :001:

[Charles Bannerman]

My goodness this has become a thread you can't really leave for very long.

Caley100 - yup, cue 't 'Orlicks music bah goom!

Scotty - as far as I am aware Against All Odds is now officially out of print, so that would enable the extortionate Mr Leakey to pile on the price even more. We were looking for a copy in the club shop a month ago for a TV item we were doing in connection with the Celtic Park anniversary and there are none left. As it happens my first two Royal Academy books which went out of print in 2001 have just undergone a limited reprint but for a variety of reasons I can't see Against All Odds running to that. So Leakey can probably extract about ?20 for them.

Donnie Ross! The man taught me, and thousands of others, to swim! Initially that was on dry land in a side room on the ladies' changing side. When you mention these cubicles, I always think of the ambient pong of sweaty feet which constantly seemed to permeate them. And I remember the "wrinkly hands" test too. I've often wondered what the old baths' "carbon footprint" was for keeping these hot showers on all the time. Different era though. I think the puff candies from the shop in the baths up top must have ruined my teeth.

And the Baths Cards. Five to 4 bus from outside Dalneigh School and into the Baths. Present the card to save the 6d entry fee.

On the subject of the walk back along to and over the Greig Street Bridge, I remember one occasion when we were assailed by the Neds from the top end of Laurel Avenue and had to leg it all the way to the safety of my mate's house in Huntly Street.

SMEE - I dopn't remember any youth club opposite the baths but you may be thinking of the 5th BBs' Eddie MacGillivray Emeorial Hall which was very close by?

PMF - now that's ringing bells. Did the very old baths on Montague Row first become a laundry (Ashgrove?) before the Cope moved in?

Edited March 3, 2010 by Charles Bannerman

[+DoofersDad]

[i remember when there used to be houses on Shore Street (my father was born in one of them)

I remember Queen Mary's House and the rest of old Bridge Street.

I remember the Museum, Old Library and Fire Station between the Castle and Bridge Street.

I remember the Library being temporarily housed in a portakabin in King Street.

I remember First Second, Third and Fourth Streets where you remember the Eastgate Car Park.

I remember Stratton milk being delivered by a man driving a horse drawn vehicle.

I remember Harry Barclay delivering paraffin round the houses from a tanker.

I remember Jocky Lawson's van before there were shops in Dalneigh at St. Margaret's Road.

I remember Bobby MacKay's butcher's van.

I remember the Old Caley Hotel and the Northern Meeting Rooms.

I remember when there were car parking spaces along Bank Street.

I remember when Highland used to play rugby at the Queens Park.

I remember old Eastgate.

I remember MacKay's library and bookshop on High Street.

I remember the old Post Office (Queensgate, not High Street!!!)

I remember the suspension bridge and the temporarry bridge.

I remember Castle Tolmie.

I remember when Inverness only had three sets of traffic lights.

There you go. I thought we hadn't had a "Memories of Olde Snecke" thread for a few Christmases! :D

I'm sure you'ld find some excellent books or prints in Leakey's to bring those memories back to life.

[PullMyFinger]

PMF - now that's ringing bells. Did the very old baths on Montague Row first become a laundry (Ashgrove?) before the Cope moved in?

Are you sure about there being a swimming pool there Charles? I remember hearing about my Granny and Aunty working there and taking my baby cousin to work with them. They left her in a laundry basket sleeping while the worked. She died a few years ago but would have been about 70 now so that would make you what? Were you in school with Johndo?

[caley100]

PMF - now that's ringing bells. Did the very old baths on Montague Row first become a laundry (Ashgrove?) before the Cope moved in?

Are you sure about there being a swimming pool there Charles? I remember hearing about my Granny and Aunty working there and taking my baby cousin to work with them. They left her in a laundry basket sleeping while the worked. She died a few years ago but would have been about 70 now so that would make you what? Were you in school with Johndo?

:D

There did indeed used to be a swimming pool on montague row, was never in it meself, ut it was turned into a co-op supermarket.

[PullMyFinger]

Are you sure you weren't duped into paying for a dunk in the boiler?

[PullMyFinger]

Well there you go, the baths and laundry were in the same building at the same time.

[SMEE]

TREE i think is correct...it was a tuck shop. i was in two minds as to what it was....but do remember it selling crisps and juice etc.

[Charles Bannerman]

PMF - now that's ringing bells. Did the very old baths on Montague Row first become a laundry (Ashgrove?) before the Cope moved in?

Are you sure about there being a swimming pool there Charles? I remember hearing about my Granny and Aunty working there and taking my baby cousin to work with them. They left her in a laundry basket sleeping while the worked. She died a few years ago but would have been about 70 now so that would make you what? Were you in school with Johndo?

(EDIT - PMF's extremely interesting map of old Inverness appeared as I was writing the original of this.) The baths in Montague Row closed in about 1936 when the new ones at Friars Street opened so there wouldn't be too many people these days who remember them. I (obviously) only heard about them by repute but one man who will certainly remember them clearly will be that legend of Inverness swimming Alex Sutherland. Alex is well into his 80s now (he served in Bomber Command during the war) and has possibly taught more kids to swim even than the legendary Donnie Ross. He was also a competitive swimmer right through to a very mature age and if he has now stopped doing the Veterans' competitions, it will only be relatively recently.

Was I at school with Johndo?

:D

When I was a prefect at the Royal Academy Johndo was the most irritating little hyperactive nyaff of a Second Year that anybody could imagine. The standard way of dealing with Johndo was to grab him by the scruff of the neck, bend him over the arm of the sofa we had in the Prefects' Room and serially and seriously set about his backside with an Adidas Rom training shoe. Nowadays that would see the front page of The Sun but then it was quite normal.

Normal perhaps, but in Johndo's case it may have given us prefects a sense that justice had been done but, as Thistle, Elgin etc fans will testify, it was totally ineffective.

Edited March 3, 2010 by Charles Bannerman

[Glen Mhor]

I remember when Boots ran a lending library upstairs.

I remember when there was a police station at the castle.

I remember McLeays TV, model and toy shop on Church Street.

I remember when Melven's first brought Private Eye to Sneck (1968 I think).

I remember when there was a boutique on Queensgate (where the property centre is).

I remember when the Labour Exchange was on Queensgate.

I remember when Sneck had three distilleries.

I remember Myrtle's Bakery and their great mutton pies.

I remember Watson's Handicraft Supplies

I remember the Maureen Mhor and the Chrsitian Bach on the canal.

I remember the Round Britain Powerboat Race calling at Sneck in 1968.

I remember when you could park on Academy Street.

I remember when there was a post office in Eastgate.

I remember Bowes the newsagents on Young Street.

I remember when Wollies had wooden floors.

I remember the York Drive Laundry.

I remember when MacRae & Dick had a TV and radio shop on Academy Street.

I remember the National Commercial and British Linen Banks.

I remember the Queen visiting Sneck and trooping up to the Bught Park from school to see her from afar.

I remember when there was a ladies' clothes shop called Hoares on Lombard Street.

I remember Cairds.

I remember Highland dancing and roller skating in the Islands.

I remember when there were terraced houses on Railway Terrace.

I remember when High Street was two-way.

I remember the Stratton milk dispensing machine outside Clubb's shop in Eastgate.

I remember Cooper's Fine Fare.

I remember the Fairfield Dye Works.

I remember J.T.L. Parkinsons on Tomnahurich Street.

[Charles Bannerman]

Well there you go, the baths and laundry were in the same building at the same time.

A closer look at that map has revealed rather a lot. Obviously it predates 1936 when the Baths moved to Friars Street but it apparently even predates the First World War. My reason for believing that is that what is now the front part of the Highland Council HQ on the corner of Ardross St and Glenurquhart Rd is labelled "Collegiate School". This refers to the Boys' College which was there until certainly no later than 1921 and I suspect it ceased to have that designation earlier than that. Indeed I have a vague recollection that the Navy may have been in there after the College closed, possibly during the war when Inverness was a significant British and American minesweeper base.

After the war, Inverness Royal Academy raised enough cash and shares to acquire the building as a War Memorial girls' hostel with the school playing fields behind it and the premises were reopened as such in October 1921. When the IRA girls' hostel moved to Hedgefield and the playing fields to where the new Millburn Academy now is in the 1930s, Inverness County Council moved into Ardross Street - hence the term County Buildings which evolved into HC HQ.

I also note from the map that half way down Castle Hill towards the Haugh is a building marked "County Buildings" which presumably performed that function before Ardross St. That building and the one marked "Prison" are long gone and were probably demolished as part of the radical changes in that area following the Castle Street landslip of 1932.

PMF - where on the net did you find this little treasure because it would be good to have a look at the whole town?

Glen Mhor... the post above briongs back more wonderful memories. I suspect you must be a rough contemporary of mine. What a great thread this is turning into!

Edited March 3, 2010 by Charles Bannerman

[caley100]

Interesting map for sure, i notice that the crown area is called Barnhill! wonder when that changed? also the observatory at the top of castle street hill - which is still there.