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Final Surfacing Works on Shore Street

Some overnight working will take during during the coming week BUT it should all be finished by the end of 7th July.

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Mary’s Meals

Dear Editors
Today, more than 141,000 children in Zambia are sitting in classrooms with full stomachs, learning how to read and write, thanks to your readers’ incredible response to a previous match funding campaign supported by the UK government.
Mary’s Meals serves nutritious food at school to children living in some of the world’s poorest countries, giving them the chance to gain an education that can, in the future, be their ladder out of poverty.
Thanks to generous public donations to our 2018 Double The Love campaign – which were matched by the UK government, up to £2 million – we have been able to transform more young lives in the Eastern Province of the African country.
Of these 141,734 children now receiving a mug of vitamin -enriched porridge from Mary’s Meals, I am most encouraged to see half are girls – often the ones who face the biggest obstacles to gaining an education. Martha, 13, is able to attend St Anne’s Primary School thanks to the kindness of both our wonderful supporters and the UK government.
Martha lost her arm in a car accident and spent a year in hospital before adjusting to day-to-day life. Despite her disability, Martha is determined to put her sharp mind to work and excel at school.
She tells us: “There are nutrients in the porridge that give me more energy for my education. When I am educated, I will do things, I will provide for my family.”
A heartfelt thank you to everyone who donated to Double The Love for helping us to deliver real and lasting change for some of the world’s poorest children.
You can learn more about our work by visiting marysmeals.org.uk
Karen Gray, Director of Communications at Mary’s Meals

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Ullapool’s Second Hotel?
The Caledonian Hotel is first mentioned in a newspaper advert of 1881, less than 20 years after the Royal opened. Tenanted by John Campbell, it was owned by Roderick Tuach Mackenzie, who had lately retired from the Excise. It may already have been an inn before it became a hotel. Roderick died in 1886 and his son Alexander and daughter Mary then took the hotel on. Alexander was a land-leaguer and clearly very popular, so his death in 1898 was a shock to the village. Mary, with her husband George Morrison, then took the hotel on. Sadly she too died very young in 1905. George Morrison was another larger-than-life man, who also built a new hotel in Invergordon in 1913. He called it the Royal.
However, another local hotel appears to date back to the 1880s and maybe even further. The present-day Argyll Hotel was taken over after the last war by George and Margaret Thomson, from Charles Mackinnon who traded as the Argyll Inn. In turn, he had taken over from Isabella Mackenzie, junior, after her death in 1930. J.R.Matheson, writing in the Ullapool News in 1973, recalled a huge brawl once taking place at this establishment, when it was known as “the juniors”. Perhaps that nickname came from Isabella, who had taken over the licensed premises from her mother in 1906 and yet, to her death, was still known as “Miss Mackenzie junior”. Her mother Jamesina was listed as having the inn back in the 1880s. But it does not seem to have been called the Argyll Inn back then.

First Tearooms and Coffee Shops
Finding the first example of something is intriguing. The first motel in the village? The Morefield (1969), followed by several others, plus a Motor Inn. The first tearoom? Was it the Captain’s Cabin? Mrs Mitford opened it as a tearoom / gift shop after the war. The 1970s Frigate also included a tearoom downstairs, referred to as ‘the lower deck’. The first- ever guest house? Was it Coul-more (as it was then spelt), opened before the last war, or was it the Lochbroom (later the Ferry Boat Inn)?
The Frigate’s history ties in with the original village inn. In 1880 Mrs Fowler of Braemore opened the first local ‘coffee house’ here, renting the premises from Thomas Mackenzie. At that time, the Temperance movement run by the Good Templars Organisation was very strong, and was looking for ways to counteract the ill-effects of heavy drinking in society. Establishing coffee houses up and down the country was seen as a way of challenging the licensed public-houses. Mrs Fowler’s business was well subscribed and it initially did well. However, the withdrawal of the Ullapool-Stornoway steamer service then affected local trade badly. David Macbrayne had taken over the service and switched the mainland port from Ullapool to Strome Ferry, where the Dingwall & Skye railway had terminated since 1870. Then in 1884, there was controversy in Ullapool as the good templars opposed the granting of a licence to Mr and Mrs Anderson of the inn. J.R.Matheson wrote of those days in the Ullapool News. Mrs Fowler eventually gave up the coffee house in 1887. But there was a postscript, when local woman Ena Matheson restarted it in 1894 – and she managed to keep it going until 1909, when it was bought by John Maclean.
J.R.Matheson was the son of James and Ena Matheson and went on to win the military medal in 1918 for his bravery with the Gordon Highlanders, before a career as a teacher. Kenneth Macleod recalled that his nickname was ‘cubes’. In retirement he wrote a good many articles for the early issues of the UN. His knowledge of the village was amazing, and it would have been wonderful if he had decided to write a book of his reminiscences. DS

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