The pace has really quickened over the last week or so and the research is starting to fall into place and make sense - at last!
The snowy conditions prevented the group trip to the archive in Inverness , but the group has been busy looking at a collection of Valuation Rolls dating from c1920s to c1970s, kindly on loan from Clyne Heritage Society, based in Brora. The group has also been allocating house numbers and house names to copies of the current OS map of Helmsdale Village
Talk of the project has reached the streets of Helmsdale and the group has prepared questionnaires which are ready to circulate to the local residents, accompanied by the invites to the programme of street talks/discussions to begin in the New Year. This information will also be found in local shops and in the local news section of the Northern Times.
Some interesting stories are beginning to come to light from local residents about living and growing up in Helmsdale. One such story comes from local resident Jim Mackay, who recalls growing up in Lillieshall Street
“As a boy growing up in Lillieshall Street in the 1930s I remember that before I went to school in the morning I had to go and collect a bucket of mussels from our family mussel scalp down by the harbour. I also did the same task after school as well. My father, David Mackay, was a fisherman and when his boat came back from a days fishing around 4 or 5pm, I used to have to untangle the line in the back kitchen of our house. There was over 200 hooks to untangle on each line and sometimes I used to cut of the hooks, which was a bit of a cheat, but we got finished sooner. Each fisherman was responsible for four lines. The task of baiting the lines was usually done by the Aunts in the back kitchen. In the morning my father would take the baited lines back down to the harbour and the whole process began again.”
(Jim Mackay, 01/12/10)
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