Former council convener recalls how atomic power came to Caithness 70 years ago
Former council convener John Young has been looking back to the coming of atomic power to Caithness 70 years ago and how it brought “a great deal of benefit” to the county.
He remembers how sites at Golspie and in the Staxigoe area were considered before Dounreay was chosen as the location for the UK Atomic Energy Authority’s centre of fast reactor research and development, with construction work starting in 1955.
Mr Young (91) devoted 38 years to local government after being elected to Caithness County Council in 1961. He was convener of Caithness District Council from its inception in 1975 until further reorganisation of local government in 1996.
He reflects on his council service, as well as memories of growing up in rural Caithness during World War II, in a wide-ranging new recording for Wick Voices, the online oral history project of the Wick Society.
Mr Young explains how Sir Christopher Hinton, chief of the Ministry of Supply’s Atomic Energy Industrial Group, visited Caithness and Sutherland to look at potential fast reactor sites.
“I remember quite clearly in 1955 when the UKAEA came to Dounreay,” Mr Young says.
“The MP, Sir David Robertson, had been fighting for a long time to try and get industry to the area and he succeeded in persuading Sir Christopher Hinton to come up to visit.
“He took him to a site near Golspie, which he rejected. He took him to a site at Staxigoe and he rejected it.”
Mr Young tells how eventually Sir Christopher was keen to go for dinner. “But Sir David insisted he go and look at Dounreay first, and whenever he saw it of course he said, ‘Now, here’s what I’m looking for.’
“That’s how Dounreay came to be established in Caithness, and it has given so much employment ever since.”
Mr Young also recalls the influx of workers to the county and the growth of Thurso.
“Local people would refer to the newcomers as the ‘Atomics’ in those days but it was said in the most kindly manner – it was not meant to be in any way offensive,” he says.
“There was never any question of ‘them and us’. Caithness people accepted them and they accepted things in Caithness.
“It gave a great boost to many of the clubs here, the increase in population, and indeed people with new ideas and so on. Socially it was a great success, how they blended in.
“I remember when all those houses went up. Big firms from the south came to Thurso to build houses on a massive scale which we’d never seen previously.
“And there is no doubt that Dounreay conferred a great deal of benefit to the people of Caithness.”
Mr Young also remembers the establishment of the prisoner-of-war camp at Watten, and how some of the prisoners went on to work on local farms.
“From hating the Germans, as everybody felt by that time in the war, we discovered that many of them were just people like ourselves who had no wish to have gone to war and were conscripted to fight for their country,” he says.
“Those out on farms were accepted by the farming community… I think most of the farmers extended hospitality to them when we found that they were very much like our own folk.”
Mr Young took over the running of the family farm at Carsgoe at an early age following the death of his father. He also talks about his experience of taking part in the Monte-Carlo Rally in 1959 as a co-driver and navigator.
Mr Young was the only person to be convener of one of Scotland’s district councils throughout their 21-year lifetime.
“I got a great deal of satisfaction from being in a position to help people who could not help themselves, in many cases people who were then the age that I am now,” he says. “Most people were grateful for what one was able to do for them.”
The 35-minute recording can be heard at www.wickvoices.co.uk.
Wick Voices began in 2016. There are now 457 recordings freely available, with more being added regularly. Collectively they have been listened to more than 591,000 times.
The interviews cover a wide range of topics with people from all walks of life, from the Wick area and other parts of Caithness.