From the Northern Times 25, 50 and 100 years ago
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25 YEARS AGO
From the newspaper of March 5, 1999
Dornoch's historic jail and jailhouse has been put up for sale. The 19th century jail, complete with craft centre, is being advertised all over the country at a knock-down price of £100,000. Built in 1850, the jail was used as a prison for 38 years before being sold to the army. It has been run as a museum and craft centre since the current owners, Galashiels-based knitwear company Lochcarron bought the property in 1972.
Scottish Office funding has been secured for Golspie's planned new £440,000 health centre, it was announced this week. Caithness and Sutherland NHS Trust chairman George Bruce confirmed he had received official intimation of funding approval for the project.
Work has started on a major Highland Council roadworks scheme on the outskirts of Lairg. The new Lairg south approach will remove a 700m bottleneck on the main A836 road. The work will take six months to complete.
50 YEARS AGO
From the newspaper of March 8, 1974
A BIG door-to-door fundraising campaign is being launched in north Sutherland this month in an attempt to collect the balance needed towards the cost of the proposed indoor public swimming pool at Bettyhill. The project is estimated to cost about £22,000 and already £18,000 is in the kitty. The organising body behind the project are Tongue and Farr Sports Committee under the chairmanship of county councillor Mr A G Fraser, Trantlebeg.
With a majority of 2352 over his nearest challenger, Mr Robert Maclennan, for the third time since 1966, was last Friday returned as the Labour member of Parliament for Caithness and Sutherland. The voting for all four party candidates was practically the same as in the 1970 election.
There was a possibility that Army engineers might be interested, as a training exercise, in doing restoration work to counter coast erosion threatening part of Golspie golf course, Mr Gordon Edmond, surveyor, last week told Sutherland County Council.
100 YEARS AGO
From the newspaper of March 6, 1924
H M Inspectors' reports were submitted to Sutherland Education Authority on the following schools: Invershin, Kildonan, Rogart, Armadale, Kirtomy, Farr, Halladale, and Strathy. The reports, as a whole were considered satisfactory, with Halladale outstanding for excellent work. Mr Mackay spoke in laudable terms of the excellent work done by the teacher at Halladale school and asked if it might not be advisable, in order to retain her services, to put her on the graduate scale. For the past two years the pupils under this teacher had headed the list in the examination for bursaries. She was producing most excellent results.
The authority, while admitting the teacher was doing excellent work, could not see their way of introducing the principle of putting a teacher with only six years service on the graduate scale. If they agreed to the suggestion they would have no end of applications from teachers to be put on the graduate scale. Those who had already been put on had a long number of years of service and had done highly commendable work.
