Looking Back – news from the John O'Groat Journal of yesteryear
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Cinema ban for children considered
From the Groat of March 4, 1921
Wick Town Council was considering the question of supervising the local cinemas "more carefully than has been hitherto done".
Reports by the medical and sanitation officers had been submitted to the council's monthly meeting and it was agreed that the recommendations should be communicated to the proprietors of the buildings concerned.
The suggestions made reference to lavatory accommodation, cleanliness and heating.
It was also agreed unanimously that steps should be taken to draft regulations which would prevent school children, whether accompanied by parents or not, from attending the picture houses on any evening during the week.
Meanwhile, there was mounting concern about the increase in unemployment in Wick and the surrounding areas.
The industrial situation showed no sign of improving locally and with the close of the winter herring season larger numbers of unemployed were being registered. In Wick the total had risen to 800 – 400 men and 400 women – an increase of 100 from the previous week. In Thurso the number of those without work stood at 200.
There was no sign that the "summit of the unemployment wave had been reached" with almost every trade and industry affected.
Bus bid for Haster pupils
From the Groat of March 5, 1971
Ten parents of Haster children who attended Hillhead primary in Wick had written to the Caithness Education Committee asking that the lunchtime bus, already plying to and from Milton, be engaged to continue as far as Haster.
Hugh Stewart, director of eduction, said that the Haster parents held the view that they would be unwilling to meet the imminent increase in the cost of school meals and wanted their children home for lunch.
Mr Stewart had discussed the matter with the bus operators who had explained that if the lunchtime service was extended to Haster the children living there would only have 17 minutes at home.
The town children and those from Milton had been in a position to go home for lunch before Hillhead school had been opened, but the Haster children had previously been taught at Bilbster school where, Mr Stewart believed, 100 per cent took school meals.
The matter was deferred for consideration at the next meeting.
Elsewhere, the new Wick Youth Club was to hold its first session the following Friday in the Assembly Rooms offering a range of recreational activities and a canteen. The club was to run for two hours on Friday and Saturday evenings.
Police drugs warning
From the Groat of March 8, 1996
Drug-dealers were operating in every village in Caithness, where cannabis farming had become a cottage industry, according to the Northern Constabulary.
Children entering high schools were growing up in a culture where drugs had replaced alcohol as the biggest social problems facing youths, and detectives believed it was only a matter of time before hard-core drugs such as heroin started appearing regularly on the streets of Wick and Thurso.
The warning about the increase in drugs locally was issued at a conference in Thurso, where delegates heard that cannabis plantations had sprouted up across the county.
"It seems we have a cottage industry here. We have a reputation. It seems to be quite prolific," explained Thurso-based CID officer Duncan Fraser.
He said that the use of cannabis was seen as acceptable by youths and it was difficult to convince them otherwise.
"You can go into any village right across the north and, if you know who to go to, you can get drugs. That is not scaremongering – that's fact."
Meanwhile, a bitter row had broken out over Wick Academy's proposed takeover of the publicly owned Harmsworth Park.
County league football teams claimed they had been frozen out of discussions leading up to the decision by Caithness District Council to negotiate a deal with Academy and were calling for the lease to be redrafted.
