Sandy's Blog
Cromarty Wartime Memories
by Casagrandeblog - 12:53 on 09 April 2013
I mentioned last week that I had been listening to the recordings made by the Courthouse Museum back in 1994 of conversations with elderly residents like Mrs Jean Newell and others. This particular group of recordings focuses on the wartime years - mainly WW2, but in Mrs Newell’s case WW1 as well.
She was a schoolgirl when the first World War broke out in 1914, and some of her memories are of the physical changes to Cromarty, like the boom defences at the entrance to the Firth, rows of mines stored at the west end of the Links and the corrugated houses built at the east end to service the searchlight batteries there. There were sentry boxes on the Braehead, and a field gun was placed alongside the old cannon that already stood near the Coastguard station. 
Others are of people and events. She remembers the arrival of the flying boats on the Links and the first test flights. She tells of the aftermath of the great naval Battle of Jutland on 31st May 1916. Both sides claimed victory, but Britain lost twice as many ships and men as the Germans - 14 ships and 6784 men. Mrs Newell remembers the officers’ wives who were staying in Cromarty - all dressed in black and sobbing - going down to the harbour for news of loved ones.
The army had a hut at the Crafty (junction of High Street and Marine Terrace), and periodic concerts were organised there to entertain the troops. Mrs Newell recalls one of her own performances when she recited Kipling’s ‘If’ (If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs . . . ).
Cromarty life was utterly transformed by the outbreak of war, and although we now look back in horror at the tragic waste of young lives, Mrs Newell’s stories remind us what an exciting time it must have been for a young schoolgirl.
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