Days gone by – flower power in 1997

This week we travel back to June in 1997 and a photograph of youngsters from Fort William Primary School who were planting new flower beds at the town’s leisure centre.

Following our picture of April 20, reader Hughie McNeill wrote to say: ‘ The photo was taken at the launch of the Colonsay Disco Club. The adults at the back row are the late Laura Rose, Kate Bowman and myself. We, along with John Campbell and a few others, were the founding members of the club. It was started to provide something for local children to do at weekends. The children make up the rest of the photo and I can put names to all but one of them. At that time, weekly ceilidhs were held on a Thursday night so we decided that Saturday night would be disco night. The club was a great success and ran for many years. I took over as “head DJ” when John Campbell left. I used to listen to the new pop chart being announced on a Tuesday afternoon then telephone Douglas’ Record Shop in Oban and put in an order for the week’s new hits. They would post the records off to us and they would arrive on Friday afternoon in time for the Saturday night disco. The discos were mostly held in the village hall (then at Kiloran) and occasionally out- of-season ones would be held in the games room at the hotel. They were very popular with local kids and, after 10.30pm, some of the “young at heart” would arrive from the pub and keep the dancing going into the wee hours. It was a highly enjoyable time and after we had raised money to buy our decks and lighting we continued to raise funds via sponsored walks etc which we donated to various charities. Happy days!’