Memories Of Wick - Connie Dunnet Sutherland - Part Two

23rd February 2014

Connie Dunnett Sutherland ( late of St Fergus Arms, Wick, now domiciled in Edinburgh).

Connie has sent us some of her memories of growing up in Wick.

Going to school at Wick Academy
A year or two further along on life's way, I was enrolled in the Wick Academy Primary School. At 4 years old, it was quite a wrench from my quiet back street with just two companions, Christine and Billy (who owned a fabulous red car, which on a very rare occasion, Christine and I would get to take a trip in for the space of a few yards) to walk to the other side of town and enter a dark oak-panelled school room – long, uncurtained windows, grim, smelling of chalk, full of other children (42 in number), all strangers and a cross teacher with a strap.

My companions also separated, one to the South School and the other to the North School. My 4 daily journeyings took me across theTelford Bridge over the Wick river at the main street to a frightening junction (to a young child seldom out alone), unlike today's schoolchildren, taken by car. In those days, children were encouraged to act grown-up. There were five junctions - to the left, River Street; in front, Union Street; slightly to the right, Cliff Road, a fairly steep climb on icy pavements. Right again the Station Road and behind me Bridge Street which I had traversed.

Mercifully the 1930s traffic was not on a par with Brands Hatch. We were likely to be waved off, if a girl, immaculately dressed with ribbons in your hair and a boy with hair neatly parted or combed forward and down into a fringe or, in local parlance, a Gruschen and knee-stockings and short trousers only to return home like a drowned rat with blue noses and scarlet knees. Girls with hand knitted or crocheted Pixie hats and boys with balaclavas for warmth and to combat chilblains on bare ear rims, Not Hoodies, for gang warfare! Changed days indeed!

Memories of Wick - Part One

Memories Of Wick - Part Two

Memories Of Wick - Part Three

Memories Of Wick - Part Four

Memories Of Wick - Part Five

Memories Of Wick - Part Six

Memories Of Wick - Part Seven

Other Wartime Related Items On Caithness.org
Wings Over Wick
A collection of memories on RAF Wick - World War Two compiled by Primary 7 Hillhead School (first published in 1993)