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HONOUR for Brechin Scientist reported the Brechin Advertiser of June 16, 1942.
"News of the knighthood conferred on Mr R. A. Watson Watt was received with satisfaction in Brechin, which had a special pride in the disclosure - just a year ago - that Mr Watt was the man chiefly responsible for the development of radiolocation as a weapon to defeat the Luftwaffe.
"The attendant blaze of publicity must have been very much against the natural inclinations of Mr Watt's modest nature.
"Mr Watt, who was born here fifty years ago, belongs to a well-known Brechin family. He is the youngest son of the late Mr and Mrs P. Watson Watt, and a brother of County Councillor J. S. Watt, Ferryden, and Mr D. M. Watt, Helensburgh (formerly a Baillie in Brechin).
"Mr Watt was educated at Damacre School and the High School at Brechin, and then at University College, Dundee, where at the early age of 20 he became the assistant to the Professor of Physics.
"During the last war he was meteorolgist-in-charge at the Royal Aircraft Establishment, before joining the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research as an assistant superintendent. For some years he acted as superintendent of the radio research stations of that department.
"Later he held appointments as superintendent of the radio department, National Physical Laboratory, and superintendent of the Bawdsey Research Station. In May 1938 he was appointed Director of Communications Development. In January 1940 he became scientific adviser on tele-communications at the Air Ministry and six months later was transferred to the Ministry of Aircraft Production in the same capacity.
"In March last year Mr Watson Watt was made a Fellow of the Royal Society, and the award described him as "distinguished for his contributions to radio engineering, particularly in relation to aerial and marine navigation."
"He was made a C.B. in the 1941 New Year honours. His wife, who has given him valuable help in his experiments in this country and abroad, is a Perth lady."
It was time for the Taranty Market.
"Though there was little doing at the Taranty in the way of market business, the young people found to their satisfaction that despite wartime conditions there were a few shows on the Muir last week.
"These did a steady trade, particularly on the Wednesday evening. Chairoplanes swung round giddily with their merry crews; the shooting galleries were busy, and there were various other ways of getting rid of one's "market penny" which seemed to appeal to the visitors. The gipsy fortune-teller with her caravan added to the picturesqueness of the scene."
And in the looking back section of the paper there was an extract about Taranty from the Brechin Advertiser of June 14, 1892.
"The Trinity Muir Market is on the wane in a commercial sense owing to the institution of auction marts. We remember the time when the Muir was covered with cattle and excited buyers and sellers, only a few sweetie stalls besides the refreshment tents forming the luxurious element in what was then a purely business market.
"But now-a-days things are changed; the cattle are few and far between, and luxury, the sure sign of decadence from the Roman Empire downwards, has crept in the shape of shooting galleries, shows and various attractions on the 3-balls-a-penny system. As for the few sweetie stalls they are quadrupled."
June in the Public Park saw many residents out enjoying a variety of activities.
"The beehive which you will find somewhere near the centre of the Public Park is but a symbol of the busy activity which goes on all around - though one could hardly find a more attractive scene for bees to bestir themselves than near meadows of clover and flower-beds which will soon be hurrying into fragrant bloom.
"Mr Duthie and his helpers must be very busy bees themselves to keep the Park so attractively and they seem to be always full of new ideas for increasing its charm and widening its usefulness (not the onion beds so nicely laid out this year that the effect is decorative as well as eye-and-mouth watering).
"On a sunny evening everyone seems to make for the Park, the boys and girls to play tennis, older men (and women too) for a game of bowls or putting, the Guides to play games, the children to swing or gather buttercups and daisies, clover and yellow crowsfoot.
"Even baseball is played in the Park now but nobody thinks anything of that these days.
"For those who do not play games there are seats to watch those who do and pleasant strolls. The flower beds which have been made of recent years behind the bowling green are a continual delight in summertime, and for the coming season some 2,500 plants, every one reared in the Park greenhouse, have been planted out.
"Up to now it has been the pansies which have had all the attention, so rich in colour and size and "expressiveness" that they are a tonic to admire."
With food rationing ongoing there was advice on acquiring meat from the garden.
"While Lord Woolton tackles energetically and skilfully the problems of foot distribution, Mr R. S. Hudson, Minister of Agriculture pursues his policy of encouraging householders to be as self-supporting as possible in regard to home-produced food.
"Already there are more than a thousand rabbit-keeping clubs controlled by Area Organisers of the Ministry's Domestic Poultry Keepers Council. Yet, the keeping of tame rabbits - an excellent hobby for boys and girls, by the way, is officially regarded as a very economical means of getting more meat. Pelts, also, are wanted, for the pre-war sources of supply are lost to this country, and to the U.S.A.
"Tame rabbits are probably the most efficient converters of household scraps into food for human beings. Although they can be fed almost entirely on greenstuff from the hedgerow, on garden or allotment scraps, breeding will benefit greatly by the Government's new issue of bran.
"Rabbit-keepers, however can only get their rations of bran through a club. Mr Hudson's department are developing this food-producing plan very thoroughly, providing detailed information and instruction to beginners in all parts of the country. At the present rate of progress, the people who refrain from rabbit-keeping will soon be in minority."
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Weather for Brechin
Sunday 05 February 2012
Today
Sunny spells
Temperature: 1 C to 5 C
Wind Speed: 16 mph
Wind direction: West
Tomorrow
Sunny spells
Temperature: 0 C to 5 C
Wind Speed: 14 mph
Wind direction: North
