School cleaner dumped rubbish in river, New home in Wick for town bugle and Church at centre of dispute
LOOKING BACK: News from the John O’Groat Journal of yesteryear
School cleaning ‘a perfect outrage’
From the Groat of April 3, 1925
A member of the Wick School Committee was unhappy with the actions of the cleaner in Bilbster school and was anxious that the committee was not seen to endorse the behaviour.
Mr A Cook told the meeting that the cleaner was emptying refuse into the nearby river and turning it into a “sewer”.
The councillor said he “did not know how the cleaner of the offices at Bilbster school had been appointed” but he took great exception to the cleaner’s method of disposing of waste, saying it was a “perfect outrage”, and he called for the man to be dismissed.
Fellow councillor P C McGhan explained that it had been difficult to find someone to do the work and the man was “not getting too much to do it”. He said that “the farmers in the district had refused to allow the buckets to be emptied on their land”.
The previous cleaner had had to carry the waste a long distance and dig pits for it, the committee was told, and Mr Cook maintained that this should still be happening. And he added that if they, as a public body, sanctioned putting waste in the river then they should be “ostracised”.
He said he had “mentioned this matter to several parties and they said, ‘You should be stoned, every one of you.’”
New home for town bugle
From the Groat of April 4, 1975
A bugle that had been given to Wick Town Council for safekeeping when the 1st Caithness Artillery Volunteers were disbanded was to be handed over to the 2/51st Highland Volunteers as a permanent “loan”.
The bugle, along with a Spode plate, which had been presented to the town council by the Lovat Scouts, was to go to the Highland Volunteers’ premises in Dempster Street “to join an already valuable collection of cups and trophies”.
One of the conditions of the loan was that “these valuables should be kept in safe custody and not leave the town”.
Meanwhile, chief officials of local authorities in Caithness were to get no extra pay for the additional work they were doing as a result of the reorganisation of local government.
It was reported that “in some parts of the country allowances of up to 15 per cent of salary are being paid to those chief officials who are working ‘in double harness’. But Caithness District Council were unsympathetic to such allowances, although they heard how some officials often got no lunch breaks and were required to work long after office hours, even on Sundays.”
Meanwhile, in Thrumster, members of the local church were preparing for the dedication of a new bell. The bell was in memory of Lord Aberdeen “who used to worship regularly at the church when he was on holiday in the county”.
Church at centre of dispute
From the Groat of April 7, 2000
A historic Caithness church was at the centre of a dispute between Highland Council’s planning department and the Church of Scotland.
Council officials had served a formal notice on the Kirk requiring action to remove all timbers and roof materials from the decaying old parish church in Halkirk.
But the Church of Scotland had objected to the order, arguing that it intended to demolish the building and the formal notice would commit them to unnecessary expense.
The church had been constructed in 1753 on the site of the chapel of the third Bishop of Caithness. It had served the parish until 1933, when it had been declared surplus to requirements, and decay had set in.
It was now “considered by building control officials to be a danger to the public”.
Noting the Kirk’s position on the formal notice to have the work carried out, Caithness planning manager Stephen Bell said that “they do not argue that the building is, in the interim, any less dangerous to the public frequenting the area”.
In a report that was to go before the area planning committee, Mr Bell said the efforts by Highland Council “to encourage the owners to carry out works to save the building have failed”.
He recommended that, given the dangers, they should issue an order “giving the owners seven days to complete the work and make the building safe”.
