Gairloch calendar proving hot seller in run-up to Christmas

IT has been quite a year for the team at Gairloch Heritage Museum with a final push on a major funding drive culminating in the royal opening of its new premises in the heart of the Wester Ross village.

So what better way to celebrate a momentous year than the release of a calendar which draws from a treasure trove of archived images from days gone by as it looks forward to its first full year in its new home?

The 2020 calendar has already proved a big hit with locals since going on sale with a limited edition 200 print run with around 40 left at time of going to press after initial copies were snapped up.

Some of the images included show reveal the dramatic changes the village has witnessed down the years while others capture historic moments, such as an inquiry into a food poisoning incident at Loch Maree in 1922.

That centred in the fallout of an incident in which a party of 35 people, a mixture of visitors along with guides and ghillies, departed the Loch Maree Hotel to spend the day exploring the local area. The hotel staff had prepared packed lunches for them. Within three days, eight of these people – six hotel guests and two ghillies - were dead.

The cause of the fatalities was eventually discovered as being food poisoning after the botulinum toxin was discovered among the leftovers of a potted wild duck paste made by the firm of E. Lazenby & Son in Southwark. Why the contents of this one jar, out of the hundreds of thousands produced by the firm, had been tainted by the deadly spores was never discovered.

At the inquiry at Dingwall Sheriff Court in September 1922 no fault was attributable to any particular person.

Another taken outside the Gairloch Hotel shows how motor transport has evolved.

The new £2.4 million museum opened in a former cold war bunker and gives visitors an insight into the natural history and cultural heritage of the Gairloch area, from the making of mountains to the modern day across two floors.

The calendar is available from the museum.

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