Cromarty Image Library

I have a clipping from "The Nairnshire Telegraph" re John Watsons death in 1944. My fathers folk were Watson and Finalysons. Watsons lived at 70 Big Vennel until the early 1960s. The last one being Annie Fraser, my fathers aunt.

This is my Great Granda! Does anybody know where the Ailsa is now?

Craig - The Ailsa was sold to someone in the Orkney Islands just before the outbreak of WW2. What work she did after leaving Cromarty, I don't know. If any seafaring Orcadian looking at this web site who knows anything of the vessel, in Orkney, after 1939, I'd be pleased to hear from them.

Clem, it may be worth posting one of your pictures of the Ailsa on the Orkney Image Library site to see if it stirs any memories.

Thanks Andrew, I'll do that!

From "Days of Orkney Steam" by Alastair & Anne Cormack, we read that Ailsa was purchased in May of 1938 by John Laird of Burray to replace Sutors, a vessel he had bought from Cromarty in 1925. Ailsa was requisitioned on the outbreak of war, but still released for civilian duties on certain days. In 1943 she was completely taken over by the Admiralty and is reported to have been used in the Normandy landings. Her final fate is not recorded.

Hey Clem, email me at joelmason60@hotmail.com and I'll send you the beginning of the play I started writing about your grandfather and the wreck of the Enterprise

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