Not so efficient

“Faskally and Scotland’s other hydroelectric dams are not as reliable or efficient as your correspondent assumes (September 27),” says a Craigie reader.

“This is because – though it might not always feel like it – the rainfall that replenishes the reservoirs varies greatly throughout the year. Generators are often left idle or running at a fraction of maximum power during dry spells or when it falls as snow.

“The most efficient dams lie on glacial rivers, such as those near the Alps. Snow and ice falls onto the cold tops of glaciers, while melt water from the foot fills the river and keeps the turbines spinning, even in summer.

“A combination of both natural and man-made climate change is slowly reducing the number of glaciers in the world. Scotland lost its last glacier centuries ago following the end of the last ice-age, but every continent on earth, except Australia, retains some.” to a newspaper advert placed by Brian Jones who aimed to start a group. The pair, the initial founders of the Rolling Stones, then recruited Mick Jagger and Keith Richards and the combo became six-strong when bassist Dick Taylor and drummer Mick Avory were added.

“However, manager Andrew Oldham reduced the line-up to a foursome and Bill Wyman and Charlie Watts linked up with Jagger and Jones. Stewart was appointed tour manager but retained as a musician and arranger in every single and album recording from 1964 until his tragic death in December 1985 at the age of 47.

“With Ronnie Wood having replaced the group’s other co-founder Brian Jones who died in 1969, the surviving quartet paid a special tribute to the group innovators in 1989 by including them posthumously when the Rolling Stones were inducted into America’s Rock n’ Roll Hall of Fame.

“In the ceremony shared with Otis Redding, Stevie Wonder and the Temptations, Pittenweem-born Ian Andrew Robert Stewart was then known for posterity as ‘the sixth Rolling Stone.’”