Planting day at Wick memorial garden

THE community group responsible for Wick’s memorial garden recently held a planting and tidying-up day at the site in Bank Row.

Three new half-barrels have been installed and these were filled with a range of newly acquired bedding plants.

The work was made possible by a grant from CSV Action Earth.

Volunteers came along from Pulteneytown People’s Project to help members of Second World War Air Raid Victims – Wick.

The group’s secretary, Yvonne Hendry, said: "PPP continues to offer its support by carrying out regular grass-cutting and maintenance. This is greatly appreciated by the group as it is important to keep the garden looking neat, tidy and attractive."

The garden has also been enhanced by the installation of a stone slab engraved with a poem about the bombing of Bank Row written by the late William Lyall. It was donated by Mr Lyall’s daughter, Elise Gill, and her husband, Martin.

Meanwhile, the memorial garden group’s trophy from the 2010 Caithness Community Awards is now on display in a window in one of the renovated buildings at the rear of the site. It was presented for Best Community Project.

The memorial garden was officially opened last August. It commemorates the 18 people – 10 of them children – who lost their lives in two separate bombing raids in Wick’s Bank Row and Hill Avenue in 1940.