Mervyn looks back a century as he prepares to keep up Pulteneytown bonfire tradition
The organiser of the Hogmanay bonfire in Wick has been looking back at how the occasion was marked a century ago as he prepares for this year’s Bignold Park blaze.
Mervyn Hill, who runs Wick’s Nethercliffe Hotel along with his wife Helen, has followed in the footsteps of his late father-in-law Iain Sutherland to keep the tradition going.
Each year he gathers an assortment of combustible materials to ensure the flames make a striking spectacle and he is helped by a team of volunteers.
Mervyn has researched the history of the New Year bonfire in Pulteneytown, a custom that goes back at least 150 years at various locations.
Bignold Park has been the venue in the post-war period apart from a couple of years around 1969/70 when it was held at the South Head.
“Man’s fascination with fire goes back thousands of years,” Mervyn explained. “The Pulteneytown bonfire goes back as far as the 1870s and almost certainly before that.”
Last year the bonfire attracted its biggest crowd for many years, with Mervyn estimating that more than 500 people had gathered to welcome in 2024.
“It seems like no time at all since last Hogmanay,” he said this week. “We had a damp and misty afternoon and evening. Then, with about an hour left of the year, the stars shone and the last hour couldn’t have been better.
“What a lovely crowd turned out, with the pipe band playing and the warmth from the fire. I for one can’t imagine taking in the New Year anywhere else.”
Mervyn has located a John O’Groat Journal report giving details of a bonfire at Shilling Hill as locals got together to see out 1924.
“‘Wee Pulteney’ [a collective term for the youth of that side of the town] had been busy and built a large bonfire on Shilling Hill, below the distillery,” he said.
“Despite poor weather on Hogmanay night, large crowds were going about the streets. As midnight approached, a large crowd had gathered at Shilling Hill. Some ‘ardent spirits’ who had arrived early, and who had been ‘drinking freely from the social bottle’, decided to get the fun going and set the bonfire alight by half-past 11.
“Although drizzle was falling, the fire burnt up rapidly and when the chimes of the town clock, and sirens of some ships in the harbour, announced the departure of 1924 and the arrival of 1925 the fire had passed its brightest. Friends and acquaintances met and shook hands, wishing each other a good New Year.
“Members of Wick Pipe Band were present and played some lively tunes.”
Among those attending the bonfire 100 years ago was the town’s oldest inhabitant, John Cruickshank, a retired fisherman from Vansittart Street, who was in his 95th year. It was reported that Mr Cruickshank had not missed a New Year bonfire on Shilling Hill for more than 40 years.
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