In short, SNH wants Highlands’ and Islands’ best nature photos. Continue reading
Category Archives: Photography
Why do we go where we go?
What makes each of us choose to go to the places we go to? Continue reading
Island Moments
Island Moments is the headline title of Catherine Wilson’s latest book for Ailsapress. Continue reading
Robert Mapplethorpe Exhibiiton at Dunoon Burgh Hall until 8th July
One of Scotland’s most unusual cultural venues, the Burgh Hall in Dunoon, is presenting Continue reading
Craignish Hall packed for Falcon Scott slideshow
Falcon Scott, grandson of Robert Falcon Scott of the Antarctic, made his own expedition Continue reading
Falcon Scott reports on his work at Scott’s Hut, his grandfather’s Antarctic base
Next Thursday, 22nd March 2012, Craignish Village Hall is hosting a quite unique Continue reading
Islay’s quakes ripple on to Fair Isle
The series of earthquakes felt on Islay – with the most recent of them being the five shocks on Wednesday (29th February) – seem to have been passed on up the line from Argyll and the Isles to Fair Isle - with interest.
Lying between Orkney and Shetland, the island everyone knows for the instantly recognisable pattern of its knitted jumpers, was jumping to a subterranean beat yesterday, with one of the strongest recent quakes to shake UK. Continue reading
Tourism engine for Argyll and the Isles a bright hope
Tomorrow (1st March 2012), at the spectacular Portavadie Marina, Argyll and the Isles Strategic Tourism Partnership is hosting Continue reading
Being in Wick
Being in Wick is constantly being conscious of the elements, of the stern and uncompromising beauty of this part of the world.
The town is an old one, dating back to the time when Norway ruled Caithness, a situation brought to an end in the Treaty of Perth of 1266.
With a population of 7,350, around 1,000 fewer than Dunoon, Wick takes its name from its Norwegian history, with the word ‘vik’ meaning a bay. It straddles the Wick River (above, with Wick Parish Church on the far side) and wraps itself around the inner reaches of the unusual equilateral triangle of Wick Bay.
Its sturdy and magnificent stone harbour (above, under attack by natural forces) has seen a flourishing fishing industry and a history in support of naval operations as the port of transit of high ranking officers and politicians visiting the British Grand Fleet based at Scapa Flow in Orkney.
It used to be the county town, now ceded to Thurso, It is on the A9-A99 linking the rest of Scotland to the UK’s most northerly point at John of Groats.
Some of its road names are Norse – like Sandigoe road – the route Dr Ewen Pearson’s children take, now for the time being, to get to Hillhead School.
Near the town are some of the great Caithess ruined castles, most of them Sinclair fortresses, like the once impregnable medieval-to-renaissance stronghold of Girnigoe (with Sean and Tomas Pearson visiting, left). This is the most spectacular ruin in the North of Scotland, currently undergoing preservation by the Clan Sinclair Trust. Continue reading
Why it’s ‘Hillhead’ school
This is not hard to guess.
But let’s make Hillhead school real by following the route many of its pupils walk to the school at the head of the hill, in the rain we’ve all seen too much of lately.
We start at the bottom of Scalesburn Road, below – and walk up. ‘Scalesburn’ simply has to be telling us about what went on in the burn at the time when Wick’s then burgeoning fishing industry will have provided a naming convention as well as fuelling new housebuilding.
The we get to the middle of Scalesburn Road, below – still climbing.
At the top of Scalesburn, below, we turn to look back down to Wick Harbour far below.
Then we turn along Willowbank, below, the road the school is on at Hillhead.
And there it is, below. Home. But not for long.
These photographs capture the sense of the community in which the pupils at Hillhead instinctively look out for each other.
They can be proud of that and of what they have achieved in a school that has looked after them well.
Note: we have parental permission to use the photographs we have been given by Hillhead school campaigners.