Looking Back – news from the John O'Groat Journal of yesteryear
New lifeboat for Wick
From the Groat of April 22, 1921
Wick was to have an up-to-date lifeboat, which, with the modern station completed some years previously at Shaltigoe and the efficient Rocket Apparatus crew, "should then provide full and adequate protection for the seamen frequenting the port".
The new motor lifeboat was of the Watson type and was to be named Frederick and Emma as some of the costs had been met from an endowment by the late Miss EM Beer.
The vessel should already have been completed but work had been delayed by a strike at Cowes, Isle of Wight, where it was being built. It was now expected to arrive around the middle of May and a crew was to be sent from Wick to bring it north.
Meanwhile, a Castletown man and his son were injured as they tackled a fire in Dundee.
Firemaster Captain Weir and his son George were dealing with a gymnasium fire and trying to save neighbouring jute stores when the gym roof collapsed, leaving George Weir and another man "prostrate on the ground under a heap of fiery debris", while Captain Weir was knocked down and severely injured.
Despite his injuries Captain Weir refused to leave his post until the blaze was brought under control.
The injured men were said to be making good progress with their recovery.
Round Table established in Thurso
From the Groat of April 23, 1971
A major step in the development of the Round Table movement in the north of Scotland was taken when 106 young men met in the Park Hotel, Thurso, to create Thurso and District Round Table No 1052.
Wick Round Table had been aware of the need for a group in Thurso as six of its members were resident there.
The main work of setting up the new group was done by John Mowat, an engineer at Dounreay, who had been a Tabler before he arrived in Caithness and was a "power of strength" to the Wick branch.
The chairman of the new Round Table was Richard Cardosi, vice-chairman was George Bruce, secretary was Bill Finlayson and treasurer was Jim Langlands.
Meanwhile, the Highlands Sea Foods Ltd factory at Thurso's River Harbour had been put up for sale.
The factory had closed in March with the loss of 55 jobs, although seven men and three women had been back in the premises at the weekend to deal with a consignment of scallops for the Peterhead depot of the firm as a result of a dockers' strike in Aberdeen.
The company's decision to close Thurso had been followed by the news that the workforce at Peterhead was to be increased from 90 to 270.
Ceremony at wartime crash scene
From the Groat of April 26, 1996
Tribute had been paid to eight people who were killed in a wartime accident 55 years previously.
Relatives of those who died unveiled a plaque during a ceremony at the Town and County Hospital in Wick where the incident had occurred.
Two young maids, Joan Bain (23) and Mary Waters (20), had lost their lives when a Whitley bomber crashed into the building on April 25, 1941. The six crew from the County of Aberdeen 612 Squadron also died.
Margaret Ramsey, from Aberdeenshire, who had been born just 36 hours after her father, the second flight officer, died, said the tribute was "a very nice thought after all these years" and that it "means a lot to me".
Elsewhere, the wartime memories of servicemen who passed through Thurso on their way to Scapa Flow in Orkney had been gathered and published in a booklet by local schoolchildren.
Entitled Passing Through, the book was put together by P7 pupils at Miller Academy under the guidance of deputy head teacher Ally Budge.
Such was the interest in the publication that the print run had been increased from 600 to 750 to cater for demand.
Mr Budge had carried out similar projects while teaching at Hillhead Primary School in Wick.
