Winchester memorial to Halkirk man, Travel help for nurses and Mother and father of family trees
LOOKING BACK: News from the John O’Groat Journal of yesteryear
Winchester memorial to Halkirk man
From the Groat of June 19, 1925
The mayor of Winchester had unveiled a memorial to the founder of the “D K Murray Almshouses” in the town.
Created in white marble and slate, the plaque had been placed “in an effective central position on the wall of the houses”.
It was reported that the “founder of the homes whose memory is thus perpetuated was a son of the late James Murray of Halkirk, and was born in 1857”.
Having served his apprenticeship as a jeweller, Mr D K Murray eventually settled in Winchester where he had established a successful business in the High Street.
“In his will he bequeathed with endowment seven houses in Boscobel Road for the use of the deserving poor of Winchester and district.”
Meanwhile, housing in Latheronwheel had come under the spotlight at a meeting of the Latheron District Nursing Association.
Mr A M Gunn maintained that epidemics in the area were largely due to “old and unhealthy houses” and he moved that the Board of Health be asked to demolish these dwellings and new houses erected under a government scheme.
Elsewhere, the Caithness Presbytery of the Free Church heard of Sabbath-breaking in Dunbeath. George Sutherland said that “the beauties of that region were now desecrated by bands of modern pleasure-seekers turning the Sabbath scene into a haunt of noise and profanity”.
Travel help for nurses
From the Groat of June 20, 1975
Highland Health Board had agreed to implement an assisted travel scheme for nurses working in Wick. The intention was to assist those who lived more than five miles from their place of work.
Those using their own cars would be paid a mileage allowance and those using public transport would be reimbursed part of their fare. Staff who qualified would be reimbursed for only one return journey a day.
It was proposed that this scheme apply to nursing staff only as “they are the class difficult to recruit and retain”.
The local MP, Robert Maclennan, had raised this matter on a number of occasions since first taking up the issue in 1974 and he said he was “very pleased” that the scheme was to get under way in the near future.
Meanwhile, Wick Harbour Trust was to apply for grant aid for repairs to the port’s crumbling slipway. A detailed inspection had revealed that the rails were in an “advanced state of corrosion” and there was “considerable sign of wear” on the slipway.
As a result, the slipway was beyond repair and would have to be renewed. Trust members heard that the estimated cost of renewal was £109,000 and they agreed to apply to the Department of Agriculture and Fisheries for a 90 per cent grant.
Mother and father of family trees
From the Groat of June 23, 2000
A Caithness group set up to help people track down their ancestors heard how an amateur genealogist had compiled a massive index of local families stretching back three centuries.
Retired civil servant Ian Aitchison had no connection to the county when he started to research his family tree in 1982.
He told a meeting of Caithness Family History Society that his interest had been stirred by the discovery in Leith of family records left by his wife’s late mother.
His research then took him back to 1751 and the marriage in Wick parish of David Nicolson to Mary Coghill, from whom his own mother was descended.
He had become so captivated by his Caithness roots – and the help and support of local people he had approached for information – that the project soon branched out, with the result that the records of tens of thousands of people who were born, married or buried in Caithness had been transcribed and joined together in family trees.
Over the years his research had produced 75 family trees for the Swansons alone, and another 150 trees for surnames such as Coghill, Nicolson, Bremner, Rosie, Shearer and Gunn.
An index giving details of each person had been created and a copy deposited in the North Highland Archive, which was accessible to members of the public.