Bid to improve Thurso pitches, Wick music firm success and Coxswain’s award for bravery
LOOKING BACK: News from the John O’Groat Journal of yesteryear
Football park improvements bid
From the Groat of May 15, 1925
Thurso Town Council was to consider allowing the Football Parks Improvements Committee to carry out work to upgrade Sir George’s Park.
The approval of the council and Sir Archibald Sinclair was being sought to heighten the dykes and level the playing pitch and also to impose a charge for admission to football matches.
Town councillors were told that “the proposed improvements would be in the interests of the town as the park would be more suitable for field sports, etc, and the Thurso football teams would be able to join in a county league competition and entry for the Scottish Qualifying Cup would be made possible”.
The park had been gifted to the town for the purposes of recreation and the councillors heard that it was used 95 per cent of the time for football.
J Wilson remarked that the proposal would make the park unavailable for shows and circuses, but he was reminded that the council had previously agreed to stop letting the ground for the type of entertainment.
Elsewhere, work was under way to improve Argyle Square in Wick where 27 men were laying out footpaths and planting trees.
Unfortunately “it was discovered that some youths had indulged their love of destruction to the extent of pulling up four young trees that had been newly planted”.
Firm’s success is music to the ears
From the Groat of May 16, 1975
Grampian Records in Union Street, Wick, was getting into gear in a new media – cassette recordings – and was the first firm in Scotland to enter this field.
It was reported that “at a new site at Wick Airport, top-class equipment such as that used by EMI and Decca will soon be turning out cassettes at a rate of half a million a year”.
There were only six such duplicating companies in Britain and the rest were in the south of England.
At that time Grampian Records employed eight or nine workers and was producing just under 5000 cassettes a week. “But within the month a second shift will come into operation to reach the 10,000 per week target.”
Meanwhile, it was hoped that 50 jobs would be created within the following two years by Osprey Electronics, which was moving into a Highlands and Islands Development Board advance factory in Wick.
Managing director Bill Bryan, of Wick, had been interviewing people for jobs in the business which specialised in “the design and manufacture of a wide variety of electronics equipment”.
The company hoped to be operating by early September and envisaged employing 10 people by the end of the year, depending on contracts.
Coxswain’s award for bravery
From the Groat of May 19, 2000
Thurso lifeboat Coxswain Billy Farquhar had made a special trip to London to collect his bronze bravery award from the Princess Royal.
Mr Farquhar had been honoured by the RNLI for his part in the Multitank Ascania emergency and attended a ceremony in the Barbican Centre to receive the award.
Also, the retiring chairman of the RNLI, David Acland, had made mention in his speech to the charity’s governors of the bravery of the crew members of RNLB The Queen Mother “as they battled to keep tanker under control and off the rocks at Dunnet Head in order to save the captain who was still on board”.
Elsewhere, Scotland’s transport minister Sarah Boyack was to be urged to provide funding for maintenance work to be carried out at the two runways at Wick Airport. That had been agreed by the Highland Council’s transport planning select committee.
Around £2 million was needed to carry out resurfacing work at the main runway, but members had heard that money was also required for the cross-runway which was used during certain conditions.
Councillor Deirdre Steven said she was delighted that the committee was “putting its weight behind Caithness on this issue”, while Councillor John Green said the airport was “important to the economy of Caithness and to the transport infrastructure of the county”.