Week 75: 3-9 February 1941
After weeks of fighting the Italian 10th Army was in full retreat from Cyrenaica in Libya. Now the British XIII Corps cut them off and, after heavy fighting, forced the surrender of some 130,000 Italian soldiers on 7 February. The 10th Army had been effectively destroyed, and on 9 February Churchill ordered British Forces to be redeployed to Greece. Ominously, however, Lieutenant-General Erwin Rommel took charge of German forces in North Africa this week, as Hitler honoured his commitment to support Mussolini.
Caithness experienced another major snowstorm this week, in what was turning out to
be a winter of storms. Almost all the schools in the county had to close. In Barrock Assembly School the teacher recorded only 3 pupils present on 5 February, and “as the weather showed no immediate signs of improvement, I saw the children safely home.”
In Gillock School log book the teacher recorded on 7 February, “As Wednesday was a day of ‘Blinding Drift’ there was no school that day and the roads which had just been opened after the previous storm were again blocked. D. McKay has been assisting at the cutting of the roads these two days without leave. The road to Bower [Station] has never been opened, the scholars from there are consequently absent.”
Even the county’s Director of Education ran into difficulties. On & February he wrote, 
“The weather would take advantage of the circumstances! I spent several hours in Claredon myself using the footboards to dig myself out.”
Two members of the Home Guard from Ousdale Farm in Berriedale were finding it hard to get to drill. “We got a notice to attend drill in the Borgue School on Monday nights, as it’s 6 miles from Ousdale it’s impossible for us to attend and although we were getting petrol it has been impossible for anyone to ride a motor cycle any Monday night since the drill started, with ice and we have the two Berriedale Hills.”
Mines were an increasing menace at the start of 1941. The Wick Coastguard reported 
on 5 February, “We heard another explosion similar to the one we reported earlier to-day. The explosion occurred South of this Station in the region of the Trinkie Swimming Pool.”
Finally this week, The John O’Groat Journal reported the award of a Distinguished Service Medal to one of the survivors of HMS Jervis Bay,
Seaman Donald Bain of Wick, for “courage and devotion to duty”. It was thought to be “the first war decoration won in this war by a Wick man, and it is fitting that it should be in connection with such a gallant action as that of the Jervis Bay, on which 18 Caithnessmen were serving, nine of whom lost their lives.”
Coming soon! Week 76, 10th - 16th February 1941, will be published on Monday 10th February 2014. To view previous issues please use the menus on the right hand side of the page.
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Comments
It was fascinating to read the extract from the Gillock school logbook meticulously written up by the school marm Miss Slater. I can see her yet as she was my first teacher and Gillock my first school.
They paid rigorous attention to regular attendance these days and each school had a “Whipper in” ours was a Mr John Calder who was a near by farmer who signed the log book every month.. The boys she refers to from Bower Station were two sons of a quarryman who was recruited from England and was a specialist required to get the huge quantities of stone and tarmac from the Bower Quarry to make the runways at the Skitten and Castleton Aerodromes.
The roads were blocked for weeks as there were no snow ploughs big enough to tackle them but people just got on with life and there was no electricity anyway and running water supply was in place in most places. We had milk from our cow, oat meal from a huge girnel in the kitchen, tatties fro a pit, herring from a firkin in the barn , ham from a pig killed in the autumn, eggs from the hens , and peats from the stack to heat the house and cook with so we were fine. We did need bread, flour, sugar,salt and petrol and paraffin which we carried over the fields from the village shop. Petrol for the threshing engine and oil for the lamps and lanterns. Only thing to dampen our enjoyment at having all these holidays was we were roped in to help feed and water the cattle and sheep which was not easy and digging turnips out of fields where the earth was frozen making the ground as hard as iron and then dragging them home on sledges to feed the cows was no fun.
I continue to lookout for your extracts each week – thanks and keep up the good work it is much appreciated by your readers – I am sure.
JC
I don't envy you digging up the neeps from the frozen ground but at least you had warmth and food to get through the winter.