Desperate fighting continued in Stalingrad as the latest German assault in the north of city continued. The defenders were told that no artillery or reinforcements were available; by the end of the week they were reduced to only a dozen isolated pockets. In the Pacific, Japanese forces attacked American marines at Henderson Field. American forces set sail from Virginia to start Operation Torch, the Allied landings in Algeria. And on 23 October, Montgomery opened the Second Battle of El Alamein when he attacked the Afrika Korps’ defensive lines. On 25 October Rommel, though still ill, returned to reassume command.
School attendance was very much the issue for teachers across Caithness this week. For the pupils of Stemster School in Bower the weather was the problem, as the log book records on 19 October: “Only 6 pupils present today (those who live near school), fields flooded, making it impossible for pupils from Clayock to come.”
In the case of Thrumster near Wick, it was a matter of health. On 23 October the head teacher recorded, “One girl is getting a M.C. [medical certificate]. She had her tonsils removed. The senior boys have been lifting the vegetables from the school garden and they are now taking in the potatoes.”
Meanwhile, Tain Public School had closed and the pupils removed to Bower. The head teacher was not happy: “The distance is considerable – from 2½ miles to 3½ miles – and defaulters have a standing excuse. One family lost 30 attendances this week although they were all in good health. Have reported the family.”
“Thor”, writing in the John O’Groat Journal this week, under the heading “The Persians”, mused on an alleged incident from fifty years before, when “130 skeletons were dug up by workmen at Canisbay Parish Church. An enterprising Canisbay farmer used the earth and skeletons as manure… Anti-Persians maintain that this sacrilege is typical of the Canisbay people.” According to the online Dictionary of the Scots Language, “Persian” was a nickname for a person from Canisbay parish, with a meaning similar to barbarian or philistine. However, Thor concludes: “While this incident certainly does no credit to the fair name of the Persians, it can safely be said that they are just as law-abiding as any other community in the North of Scotland.”
Finally this week, on the subject of school exemptions, the John O’Groat Journal reported that “Caithness Education Committee have refused to grant exemption to an 11-year-old girl who had intended to drive a tractor during the harvest.” The father had applied on her behalf, on the grounds that “although the girl was eleven years of age, this was the third year she had driven a tractor. The Provost said he had refused the application, as it was illegal for a young girl to drive a tractor.”
