Looking Back – news from the John O'Groat Journal of yesteryear
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Pig taboo in Scotland
From the Groat of August 11, 1922
Pigs were the focus of one of the fishing fraternity's superstitions, an article revealed.
"It may not be generally known that there are Scotsmen who will not eat pork," it was stated.
A scheme to recommend pig-rearing to crofters in Lewis and the introduction of swine had failed to take off.
"In 1920 there were eight pigs in Lewis, in 1921 there were two and this year there was one pig, and its state of health was said to be very bad.
"A native of Barra stated that it was a common saying in his boyhood that there had never been more than two pigs on this island: these had been washed ashore and promptly committed to the deep again.
"The pig has often been associated with the devil. Fishermen in some parts refuse to put out to sea if, when walking toward their boats, they meet a pig or a hare.
"A middle-aged native of Wick said that in his youth the Caithness fishermen forbade mention of a minister or pig when at sea.
"If in the course of conversation a minister had to be mentioned, he was referred to as the 'cauld-iron gentleman' while a pig was 'the cauld-iron beastie', cold iron being the antidote to the baneful spell."
Food and fodder for Highlands
From the Groat of August 11, 1972
Wick was serving as a base for emergency airlifts in the north.
Supplies of merchandise were being delivered to Orkney and Shetland from Caithness in efforts to meet the shortages caused by the strike action taken by dock workers in Aberdeen and other major ports.
The first of the airlift operations from Wick on the Wednesday had transported to Kirkwall a considerable quantity of animal feeding stuffs, while Shetland was supplied with flour, sugar, butter, margarine and baking trade fats.
Ten flights on that day had accounted for 7.5 tons of the most essential of the agricultural feeds being delivered to North-Eastern Farmers' Kirkwall depot, which had no supplies left in stock.
The emergency had attracted a band of helpers to load the animal feed onto the planes, including a number of local schoolboys.
However, the general view in the islands was that anxiety would not be dispelled by "token deliveries".
Meanwhile, Wick Round Table had staged a charity event at Reiss sands, which members styled a "razamataz".
Misses Maureen O'Sullivan and Shona Bremner, both Wick, shared the honour of being "Miss Razamataz".
One of the fête's most interesting contests, with around 200 competitors, was throwing a 2lb rolling pin.
SEPA upset by foreign waste ruling
From the Groat of August 15, 1997
The Scottish Secretary had blocked a move by his own pollution watchdog to curb the build-up of foreign nuclear waste at Dounreay.
Donald Dewar had stalled the Scottish Environment Protection Agency in its attempts to reduce the length of time that waste could be stored from 25 years to 10 years.
He asked the agency to carry out further consultation. In the meantime the UK Atomic Energy Authority could continue to offer waste storage for up to 25 years.
SEPA was upset at the ruling, particularly as Australia was very close to announcing its decision on an offer from the UKAEA to reprocess almost 1000 fuel rods assembled at Dounreay in the 1960s and irradiated in a research reactor at Lucas Heights, Sydney, where they were stored.
The contract was crucial to Dounreay's highly enriched uranium reprocessing plant, which had been closed by a lack of work since an initial batch of 114 Australian fuel rods was recycled 12 months previously, and would secure the jobs of dozens of workers.
But anti-nuclear groups in Australia and Britain were outraged and believed that Mr Dewar had evaded the issue under pressure from the Department of Trade and Industry in London, the governing body of the UKAEA.
