Born in Cromarty, Catriona Gillies was the youngest of six children. For 44 years she was the town’s sub postmistress and in 1992 was the last person in Britain to receive the British Empire Medal – presented by the Lord Lieutenant in Cromarty’s Royal Hotel.

I have one particular memory during the war, when I was at Cromarty School, and I’ve never forgotten this. Mr Malcolm, the head teacher, used to take us down on to the Links for gym, for exercises. I can remember this very clearly, this plane coming in the Sutors, flying over our heads and it went past, we didn’t know where it went, but anyway I would say not ten minutes after that it came back and it went back out the Sutors. And what do you think that plane did? It came to bomb the oil tanks at the Royal Navy base at Invergordon but missed the target. And we were all on the Links. We didn’t know anything until the next day. You didn’t know then what was happening until it was on the radio the next morning. I remember saying to somebody at school, “that was the plane that flew over - that was a German plane going over our heads”. You know, you could almost touch it, it was so low, just over our heads. I don’t know if anyone else remembers it.

After the war, when I finished school in Cromarty, I didn’t want to go to Fortrose Academy, and I was offered a job with the Bank of Scotland in Cromarty. But my sister Florence was with the Post Office and I really wanted to go and work for the Post Office too. Anyway, my sister was asked by the Dingwall Head Office if she would go and work in Dingwall and I went to work in the Cromarty Post Office and that’s where I stayed. When I started, the Postmistress in Cromarty was Morag Campbell. They were desperately needing somebody to work in Invergordon for a few weeks, so I went every morning to Invergordon at about 7a.m., getting back about 6p.m. – it was quite a long day. They were very nice at Invergordon. I used to travel each day on Albert Watson’s ferry boat from Cromarty to Invergordon, all on my own. Albert was such a wonderful sailor, really, but it could be very rough. And in fact, when I would come home at night and go to bed, my head was filled with the motion of the boat, but it’s amazing, I never felt sick; just that feeling when I went to bed that I was still on the ferry!

Just before I started there were two postmen, Hugh and Evan. The mail came over from Invergordon on the ferry. They would take a little barrow, go down to the harbour and pick up the mail which would come in about half past nine in the morning. But the first mail would leave Cromarty at half past seven to go to Invergordon and one of the postmen would have to take that down to the ferry. Then when Albert Watson gave up the ferry they had to find another way of getting the mail to Inverness, so after 1969 it went by bus to Fortrose where it was picked up and went right through to Inverness. Just after my brother John started as the postman, he got a post office van.

There was always a fishery cruiser coming into the Firth. They always used to come in and collect their mail – we would keep it for them if they were going to be up here for any length of time. I always remember Captain Owen, captain of the Longa. There was the Longa, the Brenda and the Freya: fishery cruisers going back and fore to Cromarty from Leith. A lot of the men who were on the Longa belonged to Leith. Fishery cruisers would look after the waters of the Firth, see that nothing untoward was going on: protection duties, you might say. They were terribly nice and kind. Every Christmas I would get this huge box of chocolates from the captain and crew and I was invited out to tea with them on board, which was lovely. Bigger ships would also come in and ask us out there for tea. We’d get dressed up, certainly. Actually, when big ships like the Courageous came in, people were always invited – it was like an open day. They would send in the pinnaces to pick people up and take them out on board. And I can even remember when I was at school, going out to the Courageous with our headmaster, Mr Malcolm. The Courageous was very much part of Cromarty. Some of the officers would give us a tour of the ship. We were all on our best behaviour. Many years later the sailors would ask if we could organise a dance for them in the Victoria Hall, and they would all come to the dance – and sometimes they would bring their own band.

How did I get involved with the RNLI? I would be maybe 18. There was a notice up, I think, asking for people to go along to a meeting at the Hugh Miller Institute. Mrs Ross of Cromarty was the President. There weren’t very many there, I remember. As time went on we had various sales and afternoon teas. Effie Mackay from Farness took over as Secretary and later, Phyllis Hardie. We had sales of work, tables down at the harbour – the Lifeboat was based here in those days, with Albert as Coxswain.

As an RNLI supporter, Catriona wears a special uniform hat, bottom right of the picture Courtesy of Catriona Gillies

I always remember when the Duchess of Gloucester came in 1956 to name what was to be Cromarty’s last lifeboat, the Lilla Marras, Douglas and Will. When the Lifeboat was taken up to Invergordon it was very sad for Cromarty. Albert’s son Clem Watson, now retired, became the Area Organiser for the North of Scotland RNLI. I was President of the Ladies Guild for some time and have enjoyed being involved for over fifty years – I’m still involved!

Naming ceremony programme for Cromarty's last lifeboat Courtesy of Babs Mackay

When I was in the Post Office I started collecting old postcards of Cromarty. The little bits that are written on the back are so interesting. I have one with the date: 4th September 1905: ‘This is a bonny place, quite different from anything I have seen before.’ It was posted in Cromarty 101 years ago. And another one postmarked 1905 with a picture of the Saga, a very famous boat in Cromarty.

We loved the sea, that’s where we went in the summertime. We would all go down and sit, quite a few of us, just sit down on the shore – we didn’t go and sit in the garden. We were drawn to the sea and people still go and sit by the sea if it’s a lovely day. I don’t think I could ever go away from here.

 

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