A NEW venue for this weekend's haunted house of horrors in Thurso may provide those who dare to visit with a more frightening experience than they expected.

THE deafening sound of the air-raid siren rang out across the darkened city streets of London, the air of which grew thick with dust.

WITH the recent sad news of the passing away of Harry Patch, Britain's last Great War survivor, at the grand age of 111, a war-linked story with a pleasant ending recently ran its course here at Sinclair Street.

HUNDREDS of visitors flocked to Wick's beautifully decorated Bridge Street Church for its final open day last Saturday.

THERE was an inevitability that Katanes, hitherto a Nordic satellite province, would ultimately align itself with its neighbouring Souther-lands.

ON and off the park the 2008/9 season has been a busy one for Wick Academy.

ALONE among the sagas, the derring-do deeds of one of the most extraordinary men ever to have featured in the history of Katanes predominates.

A FAMILY firm which ran grocery vans throughout the Far North, including to Thurso, is the subject of a new project being carried out by Strathnaver Museum.

PART of Castle Sinclair Girnigoe will be opened to the public next year in the latest phase of investigation and preservation work at the site.

A 19TH-century bugle has been returned to the town hall in Wick after an absence of over 30 years.

PRINTING from the past in Caithness has been brought into the present in an exhibition attracting considerable interest at the Wick Society's heritage museum in Bank Row.

THE present owner of what is believed to be the first Rolls-Royce sold in Scotland is keen to find out more about its first eight years on the road in the north Highlands.

EVIDENCE of the first days of Christianity in the Far North has been unearthed at a site of major archeological importance in Dunbeath.

A MAJOR community project to investigate Viking and Norse heritage around Dunnet Bay is to get under way this weekend.

RECENT discoveries made at the mysterious monastic site at Chapel Hill in Dunbeath will be open to the public this weekend.

SENIOR pupils from Castletown Primary have been at the Castlehill Heritage Centre experiencing what it was like to be a stonecutter in the 1800s.

A TEAM of archaeologists are digging at Ballachly, near Dunbeath, this summer in the hope of finding evidence of a unique, very early, monastic site.

THE fossilised remains of an armour-plated fish which lived in the north of Scotland 380 million years ago have been unearthed in a former flagstone quarry.

CAITHNESS proved to be an excellent choice of venue for the prestigious Archaeological Research in Progress conference which this year achieved record-breaking attendance figures.

SIXTY-FIVE former pupils of Janetstown school travelled from far and wide to attend a reunion at Thurso Golf Club on Saturday, May 3.

SENA Leitch has long been interested in Castletown, the village where she was born and has lived most of her life.

A NEW archaeological research centre which has been developed on the outskirts of Castletown will process materials from all over the UK.

WHETHER broadcasting from its base in Thurso or bringing some light entertainment to county shows, Caithness FM has, over the past decade, become a popular local choice for radio listeners as well as establishing itself as a mainstay of community events across the county.

THERE will be a dinner/dance in Keiss next Saturday, organised by the village football club.

AFTER 80 years of competitions and demonstrations, the Staxigoe branch of the Scottish Women's Rural Institute has fallen victim to modern trends – and declining membership has forced it to fold.

A NEW-look Timespan will open its doors to the public on Friday, revealing an upgraded and more user-friendly museum, and a new community archive.

MANY would be horrified if they found that the idyllic site for their new home was right beside the grave of a beheaded murder victim.

TODAY'S navigators have it easy compared with those of long, and not so long, ago.

I WAS interested in the article in the John O'Groat Journal of February 22 regarding the sudden snowstorm in which several people tragically died on the Ord and others survived in unusual circumstances.

THE history of Castle Sinclair Girnigoe is changing. As new excavations take place, so new information is forthcoming and myths are dispelled.

A RETIRED Caithness policeman this week recalled a snowstorm which struck the county 30 years ago.

AN ancient sandstone inscribed with mysterious lettering is to become the focus of a new exhibition after being installed at Dunbeath Heritage Centre more than a decade after its discovery by local schoolchildren.

A FASCINATING insight into the top-secret prisoner of war camp at Watten is provided in a new book due out next week.

A FORMER Second World War aircraft fitter who was told he was terminally ill in the 1940s has been recalling how he became a human guinea pig by taking part in ground-breaking medical trials led by the world-famous Scottish scientist Sir Alexander Fleming.

CAITHNESS life before the advent of television, computers and mobile phones is recalled in a new booklet that contains some old tales from days gone by.

A FIRST World War poet whose best-known work was dedicated to a Caithness soldier is to be honoured in northern France next week.

A COUPLE of years ago an official from the French Embassy asked why his own country, with the highest proportion of deaths of any First World War combatant nation, was not able to hold a national act of remembrance on the scale of that in Britain.

A BERET belonging to a former member of the Royal British Legion Scotland in Thurso will be worn at a special commemorative parade in Australia next year.

IN 1848, the three Olsen brothers, Fredrik, Petter and Andreas, each one a sea captain, founded the shipping company that carries their name to this day.

THE Qualifying Cup has been the way into the Scottish Cup proper for clubs from outwith the Scottish League for as long as most people can remember.

THE old saying has it that God helps those who help themselves, and the Barrogill Hall is a good example of self-help by the people of Wick and Pulteney who lived towards the end of the Victorian era.

IN one sweep, looking from east to west, the panorama presented from Noss Head offers a landscape whose history is simply awesome. No other locality that I know of can compare with it.

REAY and District Gardening Club chairman Mike Potts this week displayed the latest addition to the club’s silverware prize list. It’s well over half a century since it was competed for, and it only turned up by chance.

A COLLECTION of Victorian marbles has been unearthed in the latest archaeological dig taking place at Castle Sinclair Girnigoe.

THE man who built Britain. The Colossus of Roads. Thomas Telford is known locally as the man responsible for Pulteneytown – a radical and imaginative 19th-century design.

DEEP in the bowels of the National Library of Scotland in Edinburgh, where a copy of every publication brought out in the UK is held, there is a piece of Caithness history.

A NINETY-year-old motorbike originally owned by a First World War soldier is proving to be the focal point of this year’s summer exhibition staged by Halkirk Heritage and Vintage Motor Society.

A REBUILT Mustang wartime fighter plane arrived in Wick on Saturday on its way to the prestigious Flying Legends air show which takes place at Duxford in Cambridgeshire this weekend.

CONSIDERING that Wick had been "dry" for a quarter of a century, you'd have thought that the lifting of the alcohol ban 60 years ago this week would have been marked in spirited style.

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.

THE nine Caithness heroes of an epic Second World War naval encounter were remembered at the weekend in an exclusive memorial roll of honour.

THE decision to hold press and public open days at the Dounreay nuclear station was probably considered a very bold step in 1957.

A CAITHNESS man was among a small party of World War Two veterans who were honoured at the Scottish Parliament recently for the part they played in getting vital supplies to their Russian allies between 1941 and 1945.

THE Castle of Mey, the Castle of Old Wick and Castle Sinclair Girnigoe are featured in the latest edition of what is described as an essential visitor guide to the best in Scotland.

WORK to create an exhibition area at the Castlehill Visitor Centre was completed this month, the annual general meeting of the Castletown Heritage Society heard on Wednesday night.

THE brewery building in Manson's Lane was first mentioned in the late 1700s in the Statistical Account of Scotland when it was mentioned that "a gentleman has disposed of a part of his property in town, on the most moderate terms, to one of the inhabitants willing to undertake such work; and the buildings requisite for the purpose are now erecting on an extensive scale".

A DATE has been set for a ceremony to commemorate the bravery of nine local men who died in one of the most heroic naval episodes of the Second World War.

VISITORS to the George Bain exhibition in Wick's St Fergus Gallery are being challenged to help solve an intriguing mystery surrounding some of the pictures on display.

ALTHOUGH the Dounreay sphere is seen as the symbol of the fast reactor, in reality the function of this instantly recognisable structure is to house and protect the reactor and all its associated facilities.

THE elderly granddaughter of General Lord Horne has paid tribute to members of the local community who helped restore a memorial fountain erected in her grandfather's honour.

AN exhibition about a Scrabster artist has stirred the interest of local people, and the organisers have learned more about influential artist George Bain as visitors recount anecdotes and bring in examples of his work.

THE first issue of the John O'Groat Journal, 171 years ago, carried an article about herring; hardly remarkable from the one-time "herring capital of Europe". (Perhaps we might better describe Wick today as the retail capital of the North!)

SHE sailed a million miles during the course of her 44 years at sea, calling in at more than 600 ports in 135 countries. But once every summer, even if only for a day, Britannia belonged to Caithness.

I WAS born in Wick in 1933 – the year Adolf Hitler came to power. Ten months after Britain declared war on Germany, on July 1, 1940, I was badly injured in an air raid – the first daylight raid of the war, so I was told.

A NINETEENTH-century vision of elegance and convenience was laid out in the original designs for Pulteneytown.

A RICH collection of documents giving a fascinating insight into the operations of estate management in Caithness is now accessible to the public.

EXCAVATIONS at a Caithness broch have produced a revealing insight into how people lived and died in the north-east of the county 2000 years ago.

BROUGHT up in a Caithness manse, Richard Oswald became one of the richest Scots of the 18th century, profiting from a trade that would become abhorrent to later generations: the shipment of African slaves across the Atlantic.

REVEALING notes written by a senior Caithness detective who played a key role in the hunt for Jack the Ripper over 100 years ago have been presented to the newly-refurbished Metropolitan Police Crime Museum at Scotland Yard.

A PROJECT to bring colour into old photos of Thurso has been started by the Cinema For Thurso Group.

A LOCAL man is trying to revive interest and remembrance in a First World War hero by restoring a memorial fountain in Haster.

LESSONS from history are brought sharply into focus for Jim A Johnston in a DVD produced by Strathnaver Museum, featuring recollections of World War Two.

Wick Baptist Church is celebrating its 200th anniversary. Church secretary Willie Miller looks back over two centuries of faith and change.