SIXTY YEARS AGO Tuesday May 19, 1964 Lochgilphead school gets the green light
fish satisfied the Norwegians, and when they placed a total order for 60,000 smolt, 25,000 of these came from Clachan.
On Sunday, the 25,000 young fish were transferred to a small mobile tank for the short journey to Tarbert, where they were loaded onto a Norwegian freighter for the trip to their new homes.
Mr Horrex said this week that the main reason for the success of the venture was their record of disease-free fish, which is achieved by testing each smolt individually instead of just a sample as is the normal practice.
However, with the Norwegians wanting smolts for the next three years, Mr Horrex is confident of increasing his sales to them to 50,000 a year.
And he continued: “In fact, the Norwegians could have taken more smolts from us, if we had had them. Unfortunately we only had 25,000 left, as we had already sold the rest of this year’s stocks.”
Work on the building of a new junior secondary school at Lochgilphead will begin this summer. Argyll Education Committee announced on Friday that they had been authorised by the Scottish Education Department to proceed with the £388,500 project.
The starting date has been given as June 1. The school is expected to be completed by 1966.
It will replace the existing, outdated school which was at one time described by Mr T. G. Henderson, Argyll’s director of education, as
“the worst secondary school in the county”.
Argyll education authority agreed in 1960 to provide new schools at Dunoon, Lochgilphead and Campbeltown.
The three projects were awarded as a joint contract to Gilbert-Ash (Scotland) Ltd, Glasgow.
Dunoon - given priority because the existing grammar school had been badly damage by fire - was completed last year.
The committee planned to go ahead with Lochgilphead school in 1963 but the project was “put on ice” when Mr Michael Noble, Secretary of State for Scotland, axed the county’s schools-building budget in the face of furious protests.
The new tender prices are understood to exceed by £11,000 the department’s ceiling figure of £388,000. County planners, however, are confident that with minor adjustments, they will be able to keep the scheme within the limits of the schedule.
For instance it is highly probable that, initially, the school will go ahead without a playing field.
This will be added later when finance is available.
A county official said: “We are quite sure that the people of Lochgilphead would rather have a school without a playing field than no school at all.”
The headmaster of Lochgilphead School, Mr HYC Scobbie, said on Friday that he was delighted to hear the project was going ahead.
“There is no doubt that a new school is very badly needed,” he said.
The present 20-classroom building caters for a roll of 400. Three of the classrooms are housed in a former Free Church Mission Hall. Temporary accommodation is also provided by two HORSA huts.
The new school, which will be built on a site at Manse Brae, will have 23 modernly-equipped classrooms, as well as a general purpose room, a gymnasium, a large assembly hall, a school library and reading room and kitchen and dining hall facilities.
With the exception of one four-storey block, the school will be of either single or two-storey construction.
Although the major part of the project will be completed by Gilbert-Ash, a useful share of the contract has been won by a local firm, Messrs A Stewart and Co, Ardrishaig, who will carry out the plumbing work.
Other sub-contracts go to: Glazing work Scottish National Glass and Glazing Co Ltd; carpentry etc - Dick and Benzies Ltd; floor covering - Durastic Ltd; electrical and heating installations - Jas Scott and Co; asphalt - Scottish Speedwell Co Ltd; site works - John R Stutt; floor and wall tile work - Forsythe P Paton and Co, Ltd; thermal installation - Kitson’s Installation Ltd; plasterwork - James Williamson.
▍ The post-Second World War Education Act of 1944 raised the school leaving age to 15 and suddenly schools across the UK had to find extra classrooms quickly. The government launched the Hutting Operation for the Raising of the School-Leaving Age (HORSA) with temporary buildings that ended up not so temporary; made of concrete and with the roofs full of asbestos insulation.