THE ARCHIVES

100 years ago

Recording the opening of the latest “push” Sir D Haig gives credit to the Guards for the way they carried out difficult operations. Included with the Household troops taking part there was a battalion of the Scots Guards. A graphic story of the work of that battalion is told by Private Andrew McKelvie of Perth who has been with the Guards since the first year of the war. “It was not the Germans we minded so much as the weather,” said McKelvie. “It’s one great lake of mud and slime.”

50 years ago

Reluctant railwaymen who are not taking three day’s extra holiday to which they are entitled are causing concern to union leaders. They want the management to issue an instruction to compel the men with more than 10 years’ service, who are due for the holiday, to take it. Mr George Barratt, general secretary, said the extra holiday was awarded as a result of the rail strike threats a year ago. But some men were prepared to work the holiday to get a bit of extra money. “We don’t like this at all,” he said.

25 years ago

Crieff man Norman Haddow, who holds the royal warrant as the dry stane dyker “by appointment” for Balmoral, has passed the mastercraftsman test of the Dry Stone Walling Association. Mr Haddow was one of several dry stone dykers who sat tests held by the central Scotland branch of the DSWA but the only member to qualify for the mastercraftsman certificate. “The test involved constructing a 30-metre stretch of dyking in five days, with several different features.

One year ago

An initiative has been launched to mark Arbroath’s ties to Hercules Linton, designer of the clipper ship Cutty Sark. Mearns historian Dave Ramsay has been instrumental in a range of other programmes honouring Inverbervie-born Linton. But despite Linton’s Bervie history being the subject of national recognition, Mr Ramsay believes myriad little-known links to the Angus fishing town and figures, including Robert Burns, deserve to be celebrated, with hopes of a new maritime museum.