Former residents of Morvern will surely be delighted to read in the Oban and Lochaber Times April 11, 2024 that this small peninsula has won a top Scottish planning award providing an assurance that its future is secure. Let us hope so.
However, lest it be forgotten, Morvern was not always a rural backwater bereft of key residents whose role was essential to the wellbeing and economy of the community, nor was it dependent on the largesse of government agencies.
Well within living memory and through written records, we know at one time there were; two doctors, a surgeon, nurse, pier master, registrar, four clergymen, four churches, a fever hospital, 24 public houses, 12 schools, a salmon fishing station, a chemist shop, three meal mills, three full-time millers, 34 weavers, 15 tailors, five shoemakers, three joiners, two cart-makers, eight stone wall builders, four boat-builders, two cart-wheel makers, two barrel-makers, a butcher’s shop, two cattle fairs, three blacksmiths, five post offices, a policeman, three general stores, a tobacconist shop, three shinty teams, four mines, four quarries, two undertakers, several kelp kilns, four inns and enumerable carters.
Direct [weekly and in certain places daily] boats running to and from Liverpool, Oban, Fort William, Glasgow, most major villages round the island of Mull, Loch Sunart and the Outer and Inner Hebrides.
Not bad for an area of 200 square miles in comparison with what we are left today.
Sic transit gloria mundi – Thus passes worldly renown.
Iain Thornber, Morvern.
We really want to encourage the people of Lochaber to write in support of the Back the Belford build.
This is an extract from a letter Fergus Ewing MSP wrote to the community of Grantown on Spey who have been campaigning for the remainder of the contract for their Health Centre to be funded to completion:
“My thanks go...above all to the public who turned up at the meeting on 7th March and then wrote to the
Scottish Government and MSPs in order to demonstrate the strength of feeling locally. It was this huge turnout and massive response that plainly made a marked difference as Neil Gray mentioned to me he was acutely aware of the strong views and importance of the matter to the local community.”
So you CAN make a difference! We know you already turned up in huge numbers at the rally but now go one step further.
Please write to: Neil Gray MSP, Cabinet Secretary for Health, Scottish Government, St Andrews House, Edinburgh EH1 3DG CabSecFORNRHSC@gov.scot
Sarah Compton-Bishop, Chairperson NHS Highland, Assynt House, Beechwood Park, Inverness IV2 3BW or nhshighland.board@nhs.scot
We need them to agree to fund the planning and the design work so that it can be ready for the building to start as soon as capital funds are released – we have waited too long already for a new Belford.
Michael Foxley, John Gillespie, John Hutchison, Patricia Jordan, David Sedgwick.
Dear Neil Gray MSP – Cabinet Secretary for NHS Recovery, Health and Social Care, Scotland’s A&E is in permanent crisis due to the SNP’s mismanagement.
Waiting times in Scotland’s A&E department remain unacceptably high, with the latest statistics showing that five per cent of those attending had to wait 12 hours to either be admitted, transferred or discharged.
A&E waiting times have skyrocketed under the SNP, putting thousands of lives at risk. Their inability to fix this mess has real consequences for Scotland’s most vulnerable.
As the Cabinet Secretary for NHS Recovery, Health and Social Care, you must take urgent action to address this crisis and should start by adopting Scottish Assembly opposition proposals, which would deliver a modern, efficient and local health service.
My constituents are justifiably angry about this and are demanding an explanation from the Scottish Assembly.
Councillor Alastair Redman, Kintyre and the Islands ward.
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