From the Northern Times 25, 50 and 100 years ago
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25 YEARS AGO
From the newspaper of March 27, 1998
Hunters of Brora will be handed the keys to their new £5m factory today and start moving in on Monday. The long-awaited announcement came this week as final trials of new machinery intended to launch the company into the new millennium neared completion.
The water supply to around 100 households in Armadale has been transformed thanks to a new filtration system pioneered by boffins at the Dounreay nucelar plant. The £400,000 new purification plant has solved the problem of brown, peaty, sediment laden water. The plant was officially turned on by Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross MP Robert Maclennan on Monday.
Three neighbouring crofts on the west shore of Loch Eriboll at Laid have departed from conventional sheep rearing to diversify into the planting of saplings in an attempt to create natural forestry. Fifteen different native species, amounting to a total of 21,000 deciduous trees, have been planted under the Farm Woodland Scheme.
50 YEARS AGO
From the newspaper of March 23, 1973
Next August third and fourth-year secondary pupils at Dornoch, Brora and Helmsdale schools will be transferred to Golspie High School, which will ultimately be the only senior secondary school in the county. For the moment this will leave Dornoch, Brora and Helmsdale secondary departments with first and second-year pupils only. In addition, parents in these areas who want their children to receive their complete secondary education in one school will be allowed to send them to Golspie, but they will have to pay the transport costs themselves. The new proposals were approved by Sutherland Education Committee at Golspie on Wednesday. Meetings have been held with parents in Dornoch, Brora and Helmsdale on the question of the reorganisation of secondary schools.
Sutherland Education Committee are deferring discussion of the possible closure of Drumbeg's one-teacher school. They took this action after hearing representations by the Rev. Donald Madonald, Stoer.
100 YEARS AGO
From the newspaper of March 22, 1923
While a number of children were playing recently at the mouth of the river Brora, beside the harbour, a small boy, son of Mr Mackay fisherman, Lower Brora, fell in and had a narrow escape from drowning. Alarmed by the cries of the children, Mr Grant Murray, postman, who happened to be passing the spot at the time, rushed to the scene and effected a timely rescue. It seems that the little fellow was being carried away by the tide.
The artificial pond belonging to the Lairg Curling club has been purchased by the Lairg Tennis Club and arrangements are being made to reconstruct the ground into a tennis court.
A most successful entertainment was given in the Carnegie Hall on the 8th inst., in aid of the funds of the Clashmore school soup kitchen, got up by Mrs Hardie, who takes a lively and continued interest in everything pertaining to the welfare of the district. The chief item on the programme was a lecture on Robert Burns by Mrs McCrone.
