THE ARCHIVES

100 years ago

George Pirie, corporal in the RAMC at the 1st Scottish General Hospital, Oldmill, Aberdeen, pleaded guilty before Sheriff Laing at Aberdeen to the theft of weight blankets and quantities of foodstuffs, amounting to several cwts of sugar, oatmeal and also supplies of tea, cooking fat and cheese from the hospital on various occasions between July 1 and January 15 last. It was stated that Pirie had been a janitor in one of the large schools in the city and had hitherto borne exemplary character.

50 years ago

Raymond and Robert Philip, of Grantown-on-Spey, were so pleased with life in St Andrews while they were university students that they decided to move from their home in the shadow of the Cairngorms to open a knitwear business in the Auld Grey Toon. Now their Speyside and Cairngorm Sportswear Ltd, which occupies what used to be Forgan’s golf factory beside the eighteenth green, is enjoying success in the export market. The brothers have customers in America and Bermuda.

25 years ago

Machinery and tonnes of straw were destroyed yesterday in a fierce blaze at a north-east Fife farm early yesterday. A shed at Easter Clatto farm, near Blebo Craigs, was gutted in the blaze which started shortly after 6am. Fire crews from Cupar and St Andrews attended the fire and as firemen fought the flames, tractors were used to pull farm machinery out of the burning shed. Farmer Bill Carswell said that the shed contained straw, potatoes and machinery, including a tractor.

One year ago

An Angus stonemason will down tools to jet off on a mercy mission. Alex Holmes, 59, from Inverkeilor, will work for three months as a human rights monitor with the Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme in Palestine and Israel. The trip will have a personal resonance for Mr Holmes whose father was a young officer with the British Army who was based in Palestine during the Arab Revolt in 1936-39. Ecumenical Accompaniers provide a protective presence to vulnerable Palestinian communities.