Prince gets gun salute to mark his special day

From our archives 5 years ago

PRINCE Charles’ birthday went off with a bang as soldiers gathered in Edinburgh for a traditional military salute. The Prince of Wales’ 69th birthday was marked by a 21 Gun Salute in the capital at 12 noon. Crowds gathered to watch the 7th Parachute Regiment Royal Horse Artillery – the Airborne Gunners – fire the salute from Mills Mount Battery at Edinburgh Castle. It is a military tradition to fire artillery in honour of the Prince of Wales’ birthday. The Airborne Gunners are based in Colchester, and their primary role is to be ready to deploy anywhere in the world as part of 16 Air Assault Brigade, the British Army’s rapid reaction force.

10 years ago

POLITICIANS have demanded greater clarity over AG Barr’s plans for its workforce after the Irn-bru maker agreed a £1.4 billion merger with rival Britvic in a move that will result in 500 jobs being axed across both businesses. Barr Britvic Soft Drinks will have its registered and legal headquarters in Cumbernauld, North Lanarkshire, but its operational base will be in Hemel Hempstead, North London, where Britvic has been located since March. Roger White, AG Barr’s chief executive, who will run the combined company, said it was “rather simplistic” to say that the important decisions will be taken down south.

25 years ago

A MYSTERY surrounds a new Nessie movie set to bring millions to the Highlands. Will the Big Yin or Big Tam play a starring role? Billy Connolly and Sean Connery have both been ear-marked as favourites for one of the leads in The Water Horse, a £10 million production that will be shot around the Caledonian Canal at Fort William and on Loch Ness itself. Behind the venture is the Scottish company Ecosse Films which made the successful Mrs Brown starring Connolly as Queen Victoria’s Highland companion, John Brown. The Water Horse, adapted from the novel by Dick King Smith, tells the wartime tale of two children who find an egg on the loch’s shore and take it home and hatch it.

50 years ago

A SPECIAL “Motorway ambulance” is to be introduced to Scotland next year. It will be based at Douglas, Lanarkshire, and will serve an area which includes the A74 dual carriageway on which 19 persons have died this year so far.

After a spate of fatal accidents on the A74 earlier this year, a campaign was launched to have the section between Lesmahagow and Gretna upgraded to motorway standard. Although this campaign has so far failed, the St. Andrew’s Scottish Ambulance Service regard this section of road as being in the same category as motorways.

100 year ago

MISS M. A. P. Crawford, assistant superintendent in the Telegraphs Department of Greenock Post Office, who retires this week, was the first lady to be employed in the Greenock office and has now completed 44 years’ service. At a gathering of the staff in Crawford’s Hall last night she was presented with a gold wristlet watch and a lady’s handbag as a mark of the esteem in which she is held. Mr J. Locke, assistant superintendent, who has been promoted to the postmastership of Lerwick, was presented with an inlaid mahogany clock, and a handbag for Mrs Locke.