From the Northern Times, 25, 50 and 100 years ago
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25 YEARS AGO
From the newspaper of December 26, 1997
Aultnagar Lodge, near Lairg, is playing host for the second Christmas running to a party of young Ukrainian child victims of the Chernobyl disaster. A 44-strong group was due to arrive for a nine-day stay at millionaire philanthropist Andrew Carnegie's former hunting lodge on Christmas Eve. Their holiday is courtesy of Glasgow-based charity Scottish Gospel Outreach who bought the lodge three years ago.
Dornoch Heritage Society has decided against retaining a 150lb German howitzer as a showpiece outside their museum. The future of the World War I German artillery fieldpiece is now in doubt - it may be sent back to the scrapyard, or given to any military museum willing to pay to haul it away.
David Grant, founder and managing director of Highland Stoneware, Lochinver has been presented with his MBE at Buckingham Palace by the Princess Royal, who told him that she uses Highland Stoneware at home.
50 YEARS AGO
From the newspaper of December 22, 1972
After a magnificent display of fireworks and a bonfire at the village of Achfary, in West Sutherland, last Tuesday night, Earl Grosvenor, son and heir of the fifth Duke of Westminster, was welcomed by the estate workers at his 21st birthday party in the local hall. In fact he came of age today and automatically inherited a fortune, conservatively estimated at £11,000,000.
The Highland Development Board, as the result of a survey, want the tourist information centre at Brora closed down, leaving six such centres in Sutherland, in addition to Dornoch – at Bonar Bridge, Helmsdale, Melvich, Durness, Lochinver and Lairg.
The North and West Sutherland Council of Social Service is working towards sourcing funding to provide a training vessel for local young men who might want to go into the fishing industry. With two thriving white fish ports at Lochinver and Kinlochbervie, there is considered to be a need for such a vessel.
100 YEARS AGO
From the newspaper of December 21, 1922
Golspie Parish Council heard that a number of people in the village were in a defiant mood and had failed to get their children vaccinated. Chairman James Matheson wondered with smallpox rife in the country that people neglected to vaccinate their children. Some 25,000 a day were getting vaccinated in London. If the defaulters do not comply with the Act and get their children vaccinated, prosecution will follow.
To commemorate the memory of the men from the parish of Kildonan belonging to the 1st Battalion Seaforth Highlanders who fell or died during the war, a memorial tablet was unveiled in the Drill Hall, Helmsdale, last Sunday by Mrs McGregor, The Shore, Helmsdale. The Rev. Mr Scott delivered an address and Mr A. R. McLeod read out the names on the tablet.
Helmsdale Golf Club is carrying out improvements to the course and are to be commended on their patriotism in employing ex-servicemen to do the work.
