The Tech was a tough and regimented form of education organised along Boarding School and Army lines. It would appear from the research that, in its early years, it achieved exceptionally high standards of academic and craft based work.

This school provided academic and technical education for crofters’ sons from Sutherland and Caithness. Their fees were paid through a Bursary system for which they had to qualify via their elementary school. The Sutherland Technical School was run as a boarding school and had four dormitories. It was located at Drummuie in Golspie, East Sutherland. The ‘Tech’s rules and articles drawn up in advance of opening state:

 

The chief aims of the School are declared to be:

• To provide training in relation to small agricultural holdings

• To provide training in handicraft industries, especially in such industries as can be usefully cultivated by the resident population

• Instruction in navigation for boys looking forward to the fishing or other sea-faring occupation; and

• Along with these technical branches a good general education will be given

• The governors shall have the power to make such modifications as they may from time to time deem expedient

 

The first cohorts of those attending, such as Angus Macleod, Tarbet, Scourie, who was amongst the first pupils arriving in 1904, spoke very highly of the experience. Angus spent his working life in Lewis and Harris as the Agricultural Officer there. He is mentioned by Frank Fraser Darling in the acknowledgments to his book The West Highland Survey. In Stornoway he was known as ‘Page 28’ on account of the frequency with which he quoted Page 28 of The Board of Agricultural Handbook in the line of duty.

 

Magnus Mackay from Bettyhill also attended in the early decades of the Tech. His daughter Christine sent the following from her home in Canada:

‘This is my favourite photo of his Patagonia days, I’d guess mid to late 1930s.  He lost all his possessions in the Atlantic, coming home to join up in WWII. Torpedoed twice was the tale; lucky he somehow had a few negatives. They must have been in his pocket. Dad managed the livestock side of the Vestey estate from 1955 to 1976, farming at Farness on the Black Isle and travelling to the west every couple of weeks. I used to go with him and tramp over the hills. He wasn’t easy to keep up with. Mr and Mrs Alastair Ross were in charge on the ground, in latter years. There was a parallel hierarchy looking after the gamebird and sports interests.’