Staff of the Station Hotel, Dornoch c 1950

Date Added: 08 January 2022 Year: 1950 Institution Name: dnhhl Cat No: ◀ | 2022_002_08 | ▶ Picture No: 14881

Monochrome photograph, mounted on card, of Staff of the Station Hotel, Dornoch c 1950. (The Station Hotel was later renamed the 'Dornoch Hotel.) Ray MacDonald was born in the Hotel in 1937 and his father, Alex MacDonald, is 6th from the left in the rear row, with his uncle Willie MacDonald 4th from the left. During WW2 the Station Hotel was requisitioned and served as a military hospital and servicemen's accommodation.

Dimensions: Width 210 Height 154 mm

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1 Comment

I'm pretty sure that the identifications of Alex. and Willie Macdonald are not correct: substitute "6th from the right in the front row" for Alex., and "4th from the right in the front row" for Willie. (That's our right, as we look into the photo.)
The seating in these photos follow a strict hierarchy. The hotel manager is sitting in the middle of the front row (the bespectacled man with his legs crossed). Flanking him are the next in importance - the housekeeper and the head chef. Further out you have the assistant manager and the head waiter, the head porter (Alex. Macdonald), and so on down the pecking order. In the rows behind you have the ordinary folk - chefs, commis chefs, waiters, commis waiters, stillroom staff, housemaids, kitchen porters, gardeners, and such like.
Apart from Alex. and Willie Macdonald, the only other face I recognise is in the back row, far left (as we look into the photo) - Willie Mackay, who was the head gardener. Comment left on 22 June 2022 at 15:08 by David MacLean Many thanks for the additional detail and identification of people in the photograph. Administrator

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