Rest room for female fish workers, No junket for Wick councillors and Clergy oppose Section 2A repeal
LOOKING BACK: News from the John O’Groat Journal of yesteryear
Rest room for female fish workers
From the Groat of March 6, 1925
Wick Harbour Trust was to consider providing a restroom and dressing room for fish workers with the cost to be met by charging the fishcurers a certain sum per crew.
At a trust meeting, chairman Mr J Steven said that the secretary had contacted the trust’s tenants and other fishcurers – “to the number of 37, of whom 17 had replied” – and “these employers, who had the largest numbers of women, were quite agreeable”.
The Dean of Guild and Mr Steven were representing the trust in the negotiations, while Mr Henderson and Mr Cormack represented the curing trade.
“They had, after discussion with local ladies interested in the welfare of the workers, visited various sites, and came to the conclusion that the old lifeboat shed would be the most suitable property for the purpose. It was proposed that the curers be charged five shillings per crew.”
It was noted that this restroom would only be suitable for workers of curers on the trust’s property and those in Lower Pulteneytown. “Those above the brae would have to make provision for themselves.”
Trust members were undecided whether they would follow Board of Health rules and have a nurse in the property for “finger dressing”. They agreed to investigate the matter further.
No junket for Wick councillors
From the Groat of March 7, 1975
At a meeting of the Wick Town Council, the town clerk was keen to underline that “Wick was one of the few local authorities which had denied itself the luxury of a junket paid out of the Common Good to mark its demise in May”.
Instead, he said, “all monies in the fund had been disbursed as fairly and equitably as possible for the benefit of the town”.
The £4770 left in Wick’s Common Good Fund was to be passed to the trustees of the George Swanson Trust for the aged poor in Wick and Pulteneytown.
More than £12,000 had been distributed from the fund since May 1973, and groups that had benefited spanned the arts, youth clubs, sports and the town’s old people’s home.
Meanwhile, classrooms at Wick and Thurso high schools which were suspected of having structural defects were soon to be declared safe for pupils – “provided there are no heavy falls of snow”.
Director of education Hugh R Stewart said engineering consultants were likely to give the all clear in time for the summer term. However, they were playing safe and wanted pupils to be sent home if there was a heavy snowfall in future, “as a purely precautionary measure”.
Clergy oppose Section 2A repeal
From the Groat of March 10, 2000
Members of the Caithness Presbytery of the Church of Scotland had opposed the “controversial plan” to repeal Section 2A of the Local Government Act – which banned the promotion of homosexuality in schools as a valid alternative lifestyle.
Their stance was in accord with the Church of Scotland’s board of responsibility which opposed the blanket repeal of Section 2A (known as Section 28 in England and Wales) as its members were “unconvinced” by the Scottish Executive’s arguments.
At a meeting of Caithness Presbytery, the Rev Bill Wallace, of Pulteneytown and Thrumster Church, hit out at the move to scrap the clause and attacked the Executive for its handling of the matter.
He said that “we were told this would be a listening parliament, but it seems it is contemptuously pressing ahead with the proposal even though it is against the wishes of the vast majority of the people of Scotland”.
He stressed that he “deplored discrimination purely on the grounds of sexual discrimination” but felt there was “no equivalence between marriage and a homosexual lifestyle”.
Elsewhere, members of Wick Community Council were to consider challenging a decision taken several years previously which had changed the route of the A9 away from Wick.
Community councillors were concerned that the rerouting of the A9 had had a detrimental effect on the town.
