25 years ago

A SCHOOL’S music department was damaged in what was thought to have been a deliberate fire, reported the East Lothian Courier on March 22, 1996.

Police are investigating a suspected arson attack at Musselburgh Grammar School early last Sunday which caused up to £100,000 worth of damage to the music block.

Several instruments, including a piano and organ, were burned.

However, most of the instruments and vital project work for forthcoming exams escaped the flames, as they were locked away in cupboards and filing cabinets.

Firefighters had to rip off much of the music block’s roof to get to grips with the fire.

As school staff counted the cost of the damage, the building was sealed off this week and placed out of bounds.

One of the two music rooms in the block is expected to be back in use next week but the other is likely to remain closed until after the summer holidays.

50 years ago

HADDINGTON'S pending TV appearance made headlines in The Haddingtonshire Courier of March 26, 1971.

Haddington will tonight be featured in the B.B.C. documentary programme Current Account during an item examining the working of the Glasgow overspill agreement in which the town has participated for some years.

Earlier in the week, a camera team from the Corporation’s main Scottish base at Queen Margaret’s Drive, Glasgow, filmed interviews with some of the longest-standing tenants in the overspill houses, which the town undertook to build in 1959.

In all, 250 overspill houses have been built by Haddington Town Council and all are now occupied.

100 years ago

NINETEEN people were living in two rooms of a house in Tranent, told a court report in The Haddingtonshire Courier on March 25, 1921.

On Monday, at Haddington, a continued case of alleged child neglect was called in the Sheriff Court.

The Fiscal stated that on the last occasion the wife had pleaded not guilty, and since then he had satisfied himself that she had been in bad health and he had resolved to drop the case.

This was a case where two families occupied a two-roomed house, nineteen persons living in the dwelling.

Since the case was last in Court, he had seen the County Sanitary Inspector, Mr Geo. Reid, and the County Medical Officer, Dr G. Y. Richardson, and had drawn the attention of the Colliery Company to the over-crowding.