From the Northern Times 25, 50 and 100 years ago
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25 YEARS AGO
The Royal National Mod in Sutherland opens with an official ceremony in Golspie High School tonight, when the county welcomes the cream of Gaeldom to the nine-day festival, last held here in 1977. More than £100,000 has been raised locally and by public and private sponsorship to ensure the 1995 Mod is a success. Fringe or Feis events are being held throughout the week.
Migdale Hospital in Bonar Bridge will not close and surgical services at the Lawson Memorial Hospital will not be withdrawn – for at least another year. That was the promise given by Caithness and Sutherland NHS Trust chief executive George Bruce at a recent meeting in Golspie.
Highland Health Board announced the possibility of Migdale Hospital closing and the reduction of beds in the Golspie hospital from 45 to 30 in October 1993, as part of their draft plan for medical centres in the Highlands. However, despite local consultation, the board has yet to announce its final proposals.
50 YEARS AGO
Dornoch Town Council are to have talks with the Royal Dornoch Golf Club about a £200,000 golf complex on the links as a tourist development project.
A second 18-hole golf course is included in the scheme, as well as indoor holiday facilities and chalets, but the Highland Development Board, who are behind the project, have suggested there should be "professional management".
The golf club are not prepared to surrender their identity but want to retain complete control of their own affairs. This appears to be one of the obstacles to ultimate agreements. They have been having talks with the board and now they want to know how they would be involved in such a scheme.
On Thursday of last week the Town Council, by five votes to four, rejected a holiday development scheme on the links, unconnected with golf, put forward by Norscot Hotels Ltd., who run Dornoch Hotel.
The scheme would see an entertainment complex developed on the foreshore at Dornoch beach.
100 YEARS AGO
On the day of HM Inspectors' visit to Portgower school there was an offensive odour in the vicinity of the offices. Some minor repairs to the school fabric should be undertaken. The schoolroom walls are in need of painting and distempering and the school water supply is barely adequate, owing, it is understood, to some defect or obstruction in the supply pipe. An additional blackboard should be provided.
It is very desirable that the remaining long desks in the room should be replaced by others of a modern type suited to the stature of the pupils. The teacher in charge is a probationer and the instruction at certain points shows the results of inexperience. But, viewed a s a whole, the work is of distinct promise and there is reason to anticipate further improvement. A creditable appearance was made by the pupils of the highest class.
At Glencassley (school), while at points the standard of attainment reached is good, in certain important respects there is room for improvement.
