EMBO'S historic village hall has been demolished, closing the curtain on its 112-year history.

AN Army piper from Assynt, Corporal Peter MacGregor, has had the honour of playing in front of the Queen.

CAITHNESS, Sutherland and Easter Ross MSP Jamie Stone embarked on a fact-finding rail mission this week – but was unable to fulfil his boyhood dream of driving a train.

IT'S a far cry from the hills, lochs and coastline of Assynt, and Corporal Ben MacLeod even misses the cold!

IN any settlement across the globe, it seems, can be found someone of Scots or Highland origin.

LAIRG Primary School held a great day of fundraising for Sport Relief last Friday.

MEDICAL student Emma Ross will have little time to relax when she returns to her Sutherland home for the Easter break.

BILL Grant's 28 years of loyal service as secretary and treasurer of Dornoch Highland Gathering was celebrated with a dinner in his honour at Royal Dornoch Golf Club.

LOOKING forward to the challenge of a lifetime are motorcyclists Iain Clark and David Sutherland, both from Brora.

WHEN GP Mary Fortune quit the Brora health practice last year, she did so because she felt in need of a change.

LOUISE Smith, convener of the Caithness Energy Alliance, is to play an important role in revitalising the economy of the far north following the decommissioning of Dounreay.

CERTAIN DATES are imprinted on the collective memory.

AN INNOVATIVE activity booklet has just been produced, with the aim of teaching children about the history and wildlife surrounding Brora Harbour.

A LARGE turnout witnessed the first cast of the salmon season on the River Helmsdale by experienced local angler George Sutherland last week.

OPENED 15 years ago, Ferrycroft Countryside Visitor Centre at Lairg has since suffered from the reputation of being somewhat dull - but not for much longer.

A YOUNG Rogart girl has become the 65cc class North of Scotland Motocross champion and is aiming this year for the Scottish and British Championships.

BBC ONE'S popular Sunday night programme the Antiques Roadshow will take viewers to the Castle of Mey, former home of the Queen Mother, this weekend.

A PIECE of sandstone, inscribed with mysterious ancient runes, is to become the focus of a new exhibition after being installed at Dunbeath Heritage Centre more than ten years after it was discovered by local schoolchildren.

FOR over 40 years the Stornoway Dance Band was a firm favourite on the social scene. No local event was complete without its toe-tapping dance music and the group became a legend in its own time.

HIGHLAND Council is holding a series of civic receptions to mark the voluntary service of court and signing Justices of the Peace, many of whom are retiring as the result of changes to lay justice provisions which took effect this week.

TWO students at Brora Learning Centre have been recognised in the annual Celebration of Achievement Awards in Inverness.

WHEN Golspie postmaster Jonathan Creed tore down a partition during renovation work at the post office it was a chilling moment.

ALEX Munro is quick to dispel any myths about the romance of sheep shearing.

SUTHERLAND Accordion and Fiddle Club held a grand celebration in Rogart Hall on Saturday to mark the 25th anniversary of the club, which began in November 1982.

ONE OF Gaeldom's best known and best loved characters, Hamish Menzies, hangs up his baton as conductor of Dingwall Gaelic Choir at the end of the year.

A SUTHERLAND woman has become the first bed and breakfast owner to scoop the most prestigious prize in the Scottish tourism industry.

THE Pipes and drums of the 1st Battalion Scots Guards recently travelled to Moscow to take part in the inaugural Kremlin Zoria Festival.

GRANT MacNicol, head chef at the Dornoch Castle Hotel in Dornoch, has made it to the finals of this year's Highlands and Islands Tourism Awards.

FORMER Highland Councillor Duncan Allan received a resounding "thank you" last week from residents of Dornoch and Embo.

HIGHLAND Disability Sport has named Golspie pensioner Kathy Sykes as one of its sports personalities.

FARR High School has, for many years, presented a special book prize to a promising student on the brink of tertiary education.

EAST Sutherland Rescue Association, which this year celebrates its quarter-century of active service, on Sunday paid tribute to a dedicated former founder member by naming its latest fast rescue boat after him.

ORGANISERS OF the Dunrobin Castle Piping Championships have hailed the event as a major success following the eighth annual competition on Saturday in which more than 60 pipers, from seniors to schoolchildren, took part.

WHEN Edinburgh couple George and Muriel Philip took their two daughters on a caravan holiday in Assynt for the first time, it was the mid-1960s and there were none of the luxuries taken for granted today.

JOCK Sutherland from Durness was in action with his dog, Maid, who at nearly 11 years old was the oldest dog in the Scottish National Sheep Dog Trials which took place in Fearn near Tain, over three days last week.

RETIRED Sutherland dentist and veteran charity fundraiser Norna Hall, from Matron’s Cottage, Cambusavie, is about to embark on her most ambitious and arduous project yet, which is an unsupported 1300-mile cycle ride taking in the four compass points of mainland Britain.

THE internationally important peatland of Caithness and Sutherland will join other national natural treasures like St Kilda and Beinn Eighe when The Flows National Nature Reserve is launched today (Friday) by Rob Gibson MSP.

AUTHOR Gillian Ogilvie will be at the Tower Bookshop in Tain tomorrow (Saturday) to sign copies of her second book, entitled Lost in France.

A SUTHERLAND man who was spurred on to raise thousands of pounds for charity when his wife died of cancer is now battling the illness himself.

THE North-West Cattle Producers’ Association has appointed Phil Taylor as its new co-ordinator.

THE North Coast Leisure Centre in Bettyhill opened as the North Coast Leisure Pool on 29th April 1995 and in the intervening 12 years has been managed by Sheena Mackenzie of Melvich.

ONE of the more innovative events organised in Sutherland to celebrate the Highland Year of Culture was a celebration of the life and times of the drovers.

A NEW employee for the handyperson service for the over-60s and those with a disablilty in Sutherland has recently been taken on and is based at the Lairg Care and Repair Office in the industrial units.

A BEAUTIFUL tawny owl chick is settling in at the Bird of Prey Rescue Centre near Inverness after falling 50ft to the ground from the window ledge of a Sutherland church.

A MUSSEL FARMER from north-west Sutherland is one of the growing but still select band of people who can say they have stood on the top of the world.

LOCHINVER creel fisherman and avid Scotland football supporter Bruce MacKenzie set sail for the Faroe Islands last week in his boat, the Fortitude, hoping to see Scotland play the Faroes in the Euro 2008 qualifier on June 6.

FIONA Gilmour, daughter of Colin and Carol Gilmour of Shenaval, Altass, and three friends from Edinburgh - Pete Thomson and Andy and Tracy Norris - took on the challenge of cycling coast to coast across Scotland last month, a journey of around 50 kilometres. Here Tracy tells their story.

A WILD golden eagle chick has become the first to hatch in Ireland for nearly 100 years – and its mother comes from Sutherland.

VINTAGE car enthusiasts in Caithness and Sutherland should keep their eyes on the road early next month in the hope of catching a glimpse of some of the world's best known cars.

TWO new residents are happily settling in at the Church of Scotland's eventide home, Oversteps, at Dornoch.

SUCH WAS the impact of her experiences in East Africa that Linda Ross says she would jump on a plane and return there tomorrow if she could.

A DATE has been set for what looks likely to be the most novel and eye-catching fundraiser of the year.

WHEN Sutherland woman Evelyn MacKenzie decided to stand for the Highland Council in next week's election she was confident of at least two votes.

BONAR Bridge pensioner Alice Grant has clocked up more than a million miles as a volunteer driver for the ambulance service.

GOLSPIE soldier Mark MacRae travelled to West Africa recently with the Pipes and Drums of the 1st Battalion Scots Guards to take part in the 50th anniversary celebrations of Ghana's independence.

A YEAR and a half ago, millionaire businessman Paul Lister created a stir when he announced a plan to launch "safari" tours on his newly acquired Sutherland estate.

MORE than a century of service to Northern Constabulary was recognised at a retirement presentation which was held recently in the Trentham Hotel, Dornoch.

SIMON and Jennifer Allen have recently taken over ownership of the Caberfeidh restaurant and public house in Lochinver.

THERE was a grand social gathering and ceilidh in Rosehall Hall recently to mark Garrie and Iain Munro’s retirement as managers of Achness Hotel in Rosehall.

A COMMUNITY timber venture has opened for business in the heart of the Flow Country of Sutherland.

A BUSINESS consultant and veterinary locum from Wester Ross has been appointed to a new advisory forum in a move to develop further links between Scottish Natural Heritage, local communities and external groups.

ALNESS man Robert Maclean has been appointed to lead 17 Openreach engineers responsible for all business and residential phone lines across the Sutherland area.

FURTHER TO my recent article on learning to play the accordion a bit later in life than most people who get involved in these musical skills, there is a man mentioned in the unravelling of my tale who deserves a story of his own.

THE chieftain of the 2007 Durness Highland Gathering is to be journalist Willie Morrison, it was revealed this week.

GAZING OUT of her arched kitchen window and on to the tree-lined drive sweeping down to the imposing bulk of Dunrobin Castle, Dympna Rochford muses that she is “the luckiest girl in the world”.

WHEN Doreen Mackay was growing up in a village on the north coast of Sutherland in the 1960s, she thought a bus trip to Thurso was a huge adventure.

A TAIN couple upped sticks this week and set off on an adventure of a lifetime. Peter and Chris Howell, both aged 52, of Burgage Drive, have packed in their jobs — Chris as manageress of both filling stations in the town and Peter as an internet analyst with BT in Alness.

AS A youngster I was a Scots exile living in London and when I was seven I had an opportunity to learn to play the piano.

THE 2006 PGA exams will be remembered for their toughness and the fact that only 13 assistants in Scotland managed to pass them. But Lesley MacKay from Golspie, one of Scotland’s most successful amateur golfers over the past decade, was one of the 13.

THE Albannach Hotel at Baddidarroch, Lochin­ver, was last week named among the top 10 in The Independent’s 50 Best Brit­ish Hotels.

A SUTHERLAND crofter and a local councillor have gained awards in the New Year’s Honours List.

A NEW JOB beckons for Caithness and Sutherland Enterprise’s head of business management, Susan Smith.

THE LAST time I visited the Royal Golf Hotel in Dornoch, it was for an office Christmas party.

A PROMINENT central Suther­land landmark for more than two centuries is in the process of demolition.

A SPECIAL service was held in Lairg Parish Church last Friday evening to welcome another lay member as a newly-qualified reader in the Church of Scotland – the fourth in Sutherland in recent weeks.

NORTHERN Constabulary Deputy Chief Constable Garry Sutherland this week presented some of his officers and support staff with Long Service and Good Conduct medals and Long Service Certificates.

NEARLY 100 people crammed themselves into the community centre in Brora last Thursday evening, eager to hear veteran Doll resident George MacBeath recount some of his memories and stories of yesteryear in the latest of Clyne Heritage Society’s winter talks.

EAST SUTHERLAND Bird Group's first meeting of the new session on November 6 proved to be a visual feast, not untouched by nostalgia.

THE mother of Lyme disease sufferer Margaret Thomson has called on public agencies to do more to warn people about the illness.

A RUN-DOWN Sutherland hotel, well-known as a venue for fostering musical talent in the North, has been bought over by two brothers from Cornwall.

IN PROBABLY his last press interview before retiring, Sutherland's most senior police officer, Inspector Alan Drummond, lets slip an unexpected snippet of information.

AN ORIGINAL Fifie fishing boat can now be seen proudly on display at Helmsdale's old inner harbour.

KINLOCHBERVIE High School rector Dr Ian Smith undertook a novel fundraising stunt last Friday.

A UNIQUE handcrafted log home recently built in Sutherland is attracting substantial interest from potential housebuyers across the UK, according to the local man behind the project.

THE substantial remains of an old shepherd's cottage, hidden from view for well over half a century deep in the middle of a Sutherland wood, have now been uncovered as a result of a large-scale tree-felling operation.

Golspie Beavers took part in the Cheeky Monkey's Marathon Challenge for the national charity Children with Leukaemia.

Beset by various difficulties and only rescued late in the day by the generosity of sponsors, Invercharron Highland Games deserved some luck in its silver jubilee year.

SPEEDING AT 120mph round a race circuit last season, Sutherland motorcyclist James Urquhart suddenly came to grief, crashing his powerful and very expensive Yamaha 1000cc bike.

THE NINTH annual four-legged race organised by Bonar Bridge Primary School PTA was held on a beautiful sunny Saturday evening, as cheering locals and visitors lined the route.

FORMER Dounreay worker Tommy Weale, one of the North Coast's few remaining native Gaelic speakers, celebrated his 100th birthday last week.

EVEN WITH the help of an above average interest in history, or perhaps time travel, it's difficult to get a grip on what 16,000 million years actually means.

THE ANNUAL Loth and Helmsdale Flower Show in Helmsdale Community Centre on 25th and 26th August was a great success, with increased entries in many of the categories.

I TURNED ROUND and couldn't believe my eyes. There he was standing only a metre away from me - my idol David Beckham. All I had hoped for had come true.

IT'S NOT everyone who wants to house 25 large rare breed rabbits in their back garden and another 18 chinchillas in the house, however cute and captivating, but Morag Fox from Ord Place, Lairg, does and her three infant children love them.

ON 9th April, 1917, the 51st Highland Division, including the 5th (Caithness and Sutherland) Battalion of the Seaforth Highlanders, formed the backbone of a British attack on the Hindenburg Line at Arras, a strategic thrust designed to divert German troops away from the main target of Allied attack that year, further north on the River Aisne.

THE success of a project to help the survival of one of the UK's rarest bumblebees has caused a real buzz in the north coast village of Bettyhill.

LAST month, on what must have been the hottest day ever in Ross-shire, the Scottish Executive's Enterprise Minister Nicol Stephen visited the KBR yard Nigg. As the constituency MSP I was asked along too.

BEN Klibreck is the highest mountain in North Sutherland, a towering 3154 feet of Moine schists shadowing Loch Naver to the north-west and Loch Choire to the south-east.

Traditional crofting is changing but David Green, chairman of the Crofters Commission, is optimistic about the future. For the last of our special series on Scotland's 'New Lairds,' he spoke to Bob King.

Continuing our special three-part series on Scotland's 'New Lairds,' Bob King talks to Highland historian and land reform enthusiast Dr Jim Hunter, who says the astonishing thing about community buy-outs is that so many of them have gone so well.

THREE artists have been appointed to carry out artistic interpretation of heritage sites in Mackay Country, each working in different forms and media.

In the first of a three-part series, Bob King looks at Scotland's 'new lairds' - the increasing number of local communities who are buying their land.

GOLSPIE-BASED ambulance staff Gordon Raspin and Sandy Young demonstrated the capabilities of a £100,000 state-of-the art new ambulance which has just replaced the station's older model.

A HAVEN of temptation for chocoholics has opened in the Sutherland village of Durness, where a local resident has launched a luxury chocolate manufacturing business called Cocoa Mountain.

A LARGE area of internationally important peatland in Caithness and Sutherland is set to become Scotland's latest National Nature Reserve.