Changes in Shetland (what can you remember?)

[crofter]

Babycham for sale in pubs. "girls" on the back of lager tins. Piper export. Beer cans which needed an opener.

 

http://www.cannyscot.com/Piper2.htm

[stilldellin]

can mind when a pint at Sumburgh Hotel wiz half a croon so you got 8 pints for a pound !

[stilldellin]

holiday tae Orkney on a Douglas Dakota DC3 afore da Handley Page Dart Herald took ower prior tae the Vickers Viscount !! Mind a graet debate ower da cost, tink wiz aboot five pound.

[Melman]

Tammie Sinclair's Shop at the fit o' Bells Road

Eddie Sutherlands Shop (next to where the Health Centre is now)

Dolly serving in da Excelsior

Eric Broons Cycle Shop - an amazing emporium of bike bits

The Sanatorium (Montfield noo) wi TB sufferers lying ootside in their beds in da summer wi bright red blanket covers

Cars lifted onto da Nort boat at Vic Pier wi cranes - no Ro-Ro

Ronnie's Travelling Shop selling 'Whales' & Cookies ootside da Central School

Doris Day's old Cadillac (?) white & red convertible in Shetland

Upstairs in Goudies (noo da Wine Shop) which was full o' Airfix kits

Porteus da Chemist (sooth end Bank o' Scotland building) wi da cardboard Kodak lady standing ootside

Charlie Moars in Harbour Street

Old MacPhee playing the bagpipes in Willie Birnies shop next tae Alex Morrsions

'PT' at da original Institute in the central lobby and you changed in the 'dungeon' underneath the building

Sweeming at da Waari Geo

Charlie Armstrong

Guizing at Christmas

Ginger Cordial

 

[Ghostrider]

Northus' green trucks, Boddam's mauve and cream trucks, Brindister's orange trucks, Lime's reddy broon an cream trucks, Toorie Gerrick's cream and greeny blue trucks, Johnson's (Scallawa) broon trucks, and da coonty only haein twartree peerie blak trucks.

[Guest Anonymous]

an josie mansons old yallow bedfords, bob coplands blue eens wi yallow rufes, an of course robbie coopers red n blue sheepie larry , aa bedfords as far as i can mind

[joenorth]

Da Coonty's old Mack war surplus 6- wheel drive artillery tractor snowploughs. Straight six petrol engines, 45 gallons of petrol ploughing snow to Sumburgh and back.

[soljey]

The Tirrick & the Hirta to Burra; the Brenda to Bressay; Georgeson & Moore buses from Scalloway; no TV; Highlands & Islands film shows; the Scalloway open air paddling & swimming ppols; Scalloway shops like Nicolson's, the Hygeinic, Doble's cafe, the original Castle Cafe, Melody Corner, Lyla's, Mouat's Bakery, the shop on Meadowfield Road, the other shop on the corner above Blacksness, Hay & Co's shop at Blacksness; Trondra & Burra before the bridges; East Voe with only about half a dozen houses along it; Iceatlantic, Williamson's & TTF fish factories; the lobster pools at Da Point; when you couold get a bus from Scalloway at 0830, 1000, 1200, 1400, 1600, 1900, 2000 and back efrom Lerwick at 0900, 1030, 1300, 1430, 1700, 1930, 2230. And there were buses on Sunday!!

[Guest Anonymous]

Da Coonty's old Mack war surplus 6- wheel drive artillery tractor snowploughs. Straight six petrol engines, 45 gallons of petrol ploughing snow to Sumburgh and back.

they came north too , there werent many , about 2-3 maybe? ,believe there was no cab heater n no "second man"(?) and no mountains of saat fleeing from the back o it

[MuckleJoannie]

For you nostalgia freaks here is a link to some film of the 60's in Shetland I posted a while back, including some of the things mentioned above. I have some more that I intend to put on You Tube smetime.

 

http://www.shetlink.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=3007&highlight=

[joenorth]

I mind enjoying runs in them as a boy with my Dad when he drove for the Coonty. I also mind no power steering, no heating, just lots of grunt, a big plough and a big winch. They used the winch and a steel rope to rip through buildings when demolishing houses to build the road that now goes past the masonic. I mind the Coonty trucks changing colour schemes from dark green to grey and red.

[Twerto]

Who Killed Roger Rabbit being the last thing i watched at the North Star Cinema

[Ghostrider]

Da Coonty's old Mack war surplus 6- wheel drive artillery tractor snowploughs. Straight six petrol engines, 45 gallons of petrol ploughing snow to Sumburgh and back.

they came north too , there werent many , about 2-3 maybe? ,believe there was no cab heater n no "second man"(?) and no mountains of saat fleeing from the back o it

 

Who had the low loader set up, maybe the only one in Shetland back then, in the very early '70s? It looked not unlike a WWII Tank Transporter, and was painted khaki as best as I can remember.

 

Have no clue what make it was as I only ever saw it once, but it could well have been an old Mack from the looks of it, definitely a petrol engine, and a big one though. It was hauling a decent sized bulldozer up the brae past the Spiggie Hotel when I saw it, you could walk faster than it crawling in low gear, the engine noise was such it physically hurt your ears to be next to it, and you couldn't see the windscreen(s) or guys in the cab through the heat haze above the bonnet when you looked at it head on.

 

I wonder how many yards to the gallon it got coming up that brae.

[joenorth]

I reckon the Coonty had that low loader. It probably was an old tank transporter. I think it had a drawbar and a steering axle, as opposed to a fifth wheel coupling. Must have been a b****r to reverse. It was towed by the Macks, as I remember it sitting outside our house in the late sixties/early seventies when my Dad was driving it. The Macks were American gun tractors (N.O. models) from WW2, designed to tow 155mm artillery pieces across battlefields. They were low geared, and could certainly pull, as well as having a huge winch. They used one to drag a good -sized fishing boat (the "Joey Brown") out of the water at Hay's dock right up onto dry land. I think they had ground anchors to sink into the earth when winching.

 

The first "proper" low loader and tractor unit the Coonty had was an AEC Mammoth Major, equipped with an "Ergomatic" cab, in the early seventies.

[stilldellin]

Yep, dem wir da days, I mind a big sna likely aboot 1957, Faedder wiz wirkin in da ZCC water ootfit and da rod wiz blocked fae Sanick an sooth. Faedder abanded his trusty auld Aerial at Fort Rod, somehow aquired a sna ploo and headed tae Sumburgh. I tink I can still hear da snore o him goin up by wir hoose dat nicht ! Spaek aboot multitasking !!