SIXTY YEARS AGO Tuesday June 4, 1963
Bus falls 30 feet in Argyll crash
Thirty-nine people were taken to Oban’s West Highland Hospital on Monday evening after a Rutherglen touring bus, carrying members of a church women’s guild on their summer outing, toppled down a 30-feet steep bank near the Neil Munro monument at Cladich Hill between Inveraray and Dalmally.
Twenty-nine of the injured were allowed to leave after treatment for shock, bruising and minor injuries, but 10 detained with multiple injuries were said on Wednesday, by a hospital spokesman, to be improving.
The luxury coach, which landed upright after somersaulting down the slope and coming to rest astride a burn, was carrying 39 passengers from Rutherglen Old Parish Church Women’s Guild on the return journey from Oban. They were to have had tea at Inveraray.
A doctor and police from Inveraray and a local AA patrolman were on the scene within minutes and with the assistance of passing motorists, helped to extricate the injured from the wreckage.
Every member of the party appeared to sustain an injury of some sort, many from flying glass.
Rescuers experienced some difficulty in carrying or assisting the injured to the main road owing to the steep slope and some of the most seriously injured had to be carried on stretchers about 200 yards before rescuers could climb up to the road.
They were removed by ambulances and police cars to Oban.
The accident occurred shortly before 6pm when the two busloads of guild members were
Tarbert girl wins £500
Glasses were raised in Tarbert last week and the toast was “Bonnie Wee Elizabeth MacFarlane”.
For the four-and-a-half-year-old girl has won the final of Pears Soap Company’s preparing to be a beautiful lady competition and with it a first prize of £500.
She went forward to the final, which took place in London, as the representative of Scotland and Northern Ireland. The prize was presented to Elizabeth, by the Duke and Duchess of Bedford at Woburn Abbey.