25 years ago

‘PLEASE drink up... the pub is on fire’ was a headline in the East Lothian Courier on December 29, 1995.

Time was called early at the Auld Hoose pub in North Berwick last Wednesday after a fire broke out in the public bar.

Customers spotted smoke coming from the floor near a fireplace about 10pm and the local fire brigade was alerted.

The premises were evacuated – including an upstairs flat occupied by Jean Borthwick and her Labrador dog, Freeway – as landlord Ian McMinn tried to tackle the blaze with a fire extinguisher containing powder.

But help was soon at hand in the shape of his brother Hugh, a local fireman, and the rest of the retained crew who began fighting the dense smoke and flames.

Sub-officer McMinn explained that cracks in the old hearth at the pub’s real fire had caused joists and beams on the floor to burn.

50 years ago

AN EAST Lothian pupil became the first from his high school to be accepted to study at the University of Cambridge, reported The Haddingtonshire Courier of December 31, 1970.

Ian Graham, son of Sergeant and Mrs Graham, Tranent, has been accepted for entry into Emmanuel College, Cambridge, in October 1971.

Ian is at present in his sixth year at the Ross High School.

He was Dux of the School in his fifth year and is at present Head Boy.

He is a young man of high intellectual ability but at the same time he is an accomplished games player, playing in the School XV and also in the Badminton Club.

He is an office-bearer in the Literary and Debating Society and last summer was a gold medallist in athletics at the Scottish Schools Athletics Championships.

100 years ago

A MAN was fined £3 after being caught stealing a bird from a train station, as reported in The Haddingtonshire Courier of December 31, 1920.

In the Burgh Court, on Friday, before Bailie Main, James Kelly, railway porter, Church Street, Haddington, pleaded guilty to having, on Tuesday, 21st, stolen a cockerel from a hamper lying in the booking-hall of the station.

The Fiscal stated that, about eight o’clock on the night in question, a booking-clerk heard a person entering the booking-hall on tip-toe.

On going out, he found Kelly alongside the hamper.

He made the excuse that the label had been torn off the hamper, and that he was putting it on.

The label was afterwards found lying on the floor, but it was discovered that the hamper had been opened and the cockerel removed.