LOOKING BACK: Rifle association formed, crochet challenge and A&E expansion plan
Rifle association formed
From the Groat of August 22, 1924
Representatives from clubs in Caithness affiliated to the Society of Miniature Rifle Clubs (SMRC) met to agree the formation of a Caithness county association.
Major David Bain, a member of the council for the SMRC, told the meeting in the Commercial Hotel in Wick that there would be many advantages for the clubs should they form themselves into a county association, including greater availability to grants, cheaper ammunition and equipment, a common range for county meetings and competitions, and a higher profile for the sport locally.
It was unanimously agreed to form the association, which would organise and promote shooting. An executive committee, comprising the secretaries of all the existing clubs, was to be formed.
It was also decided to invite the Duke of Portland to become patron of the new association, with Lord Horne as president, the Rev W Robertson as honorary secretary and Major D B Keith as treasurer.
Major Bain presented a “handsome shield” to be competed for by the county clubs affiliated to the association.
Elsewhere, hearty praise had gone to cemetery groundskeeper Mr Picker, “whose interest in beautifying the cemetery by the cultivation of choice flowers never flags”.
It was reported that “this season again the wealth of bloom, not only on many of the graves but also on the laid-out flower plots, is striking, and very pleasing to the eye of all who visit the last resting places of our departed loved ones”
Chain gang challenge
From the Groat of August 23, 1974
Four Wick schoolchildren had spent part of their summer holidays crocheting a chain which “grew and grew until it was the length of the Bignold Park”.
Twelve-year-old Ann Wilson and her nine-year old sister Jacqueline, along with sisters Anne and Lillian Rosie, aged 10 and eight, all of Cairndhuna Terrace, had started to crochet the chain without any particular aim in mind.
It was Anne Rosie who thought they should keep going to see how long they could make it.
“What may have prompted the girls to sit down to their long, patient goal was the fact that Ann Wilson had an accident. She fell from a wall and broke her right leg. But she could crochet and the other three kept her company.”
It was reported that the girls were “looking for new fields to conquer”.
Meanwhile, more than 40 caravans had crowded the riverside for the Scottish Caravan Club’s first rally in Wick. The caravanners, from all over Scotland, Wales and the south of England, had been welcomed to the town by Provost W G Mowat and entertained by members of Wick Girls’ Pipe Band.
During their stay the visitors enjoyed a dinner-dance at Mackays Hotel, an open-air church service and trips to Caithness Glass, the local distillery, UKAEA at Dounreay and the coastguard station.
A&E expansion plan
From the Groat of August 27, 1999
A bid was to be made to secure funding for a £250,000 project that would upgrade and extend the accident and emergency department at Caithness General Hospital.
The scheme would be funded from an £11 million package to modernise A&E services throughout Scotland.
Members of the Highland Acute Hospitals NHS Trust board backed the plan after hearing from local consultant surgeon Richard Stanley and charge nurse Neil Pellow, who described the present facilities as “less than ideal”.
Mr Pellow said the department had been designed 20 years previously and had not been substantially altered “to take account of the new and increasing demands on the service”.
And he stressed that the existing facilities meant that the Major Incident Plan using the department “cannot be fully implemented”.
Trust chief executive Richard Carey supported the plan, as did local representative John Rosie, who said: “We are 120 miles away from the main centre and could make a good case for such facilities.”
Elsewhere, people who had been bereaved were being invited to remember their loved one with a light in Thurso’s Christmas display.
The scheme was being promoted by Thurso Town Improvements Association as part of its efforts to replace strings of festive lights with displays clamped to lampposts.
Secretary Ila Simpson said the idea had emerged after she had been approached during the gala by someone wishing to buy a light in remembrance of a loved one.