Articles

Articles from Tain & District Museum

The Diary of Roderick Christie

Roderick “Roddy” Christie of Drummond Street, Tain, served with the 4th Battalion Seaforth Highlanders and was captured following the fighting at St Valery in June 1940. His surviving wartime diary provides a remarkable first-hand record of almost five years as a prisoner of war.

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Lachlan “Lachie” Gallie

4th Battalion, Seaforth Highlanders

Lachie Gallie’s story has been compiled from information provided by his wife, Irene Gallie.

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Hugh Macdonald – Memories of War and Captivity, Part One

Hugh Macdonald of Tain writes to his daughter Liz, recalling memories of his service with the Seaforth Highlanders, the fighting and surrender at St Valery in 1940, his years as a prisoner of war, the long winter march of 1945, and his eventual liberation and return home.

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Hugh Macdonald – Memories of War and Captivity, Part Two

Hugh Macdonald of Tain writes to his daughter Liz, recalling further memories of his service with the Seaforth Highlanders, the fighting and surrender at St Valery in 1940, his years as a prisoner of war, the long winter march of 1945, and his eventual liberation and return home.

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Helen Fraser — Courage in Cambodia

Helen Fraser was a Tain-born nurse whose courage under extreme circumstances earned her one of the highest international honours in nursing, the Florence Nightingale Medal.

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The Night of the Witch-Cutters

In 1750, long after Scotland’s last formal witch trials, men in Obsdale near Alness still turned to blood and blades to “break a spell.” The Presbytery of Tain met in this church to hear how neighbours were dragged from their beds, cut across the face, and forced to swear secrecy at swordpoint. Drawing on their records, this article revisits that night of terror and shows how the belief in “witch-cutting” lingered in Easter Ross into the nineteenth century.

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Clan Ross in the ’45

A question I am often asked in the Clan Ross Centre is: where were the Rosses at Culloden? The answer is not a romantic one. It tells neither of a clan rushing to the aid of a prince nor of a regiment standing firm for the government. Their story is different — but no less important — because it reveals, in unusual detail, the slow unravelling of a clan.

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