May 16, 1966

AS THE UK's first official strike by seamen for more than a century began to bite, The Herald reported: ''A request by David MacBrayne Ltd that crews be allowed to operate services to the Western Isles to avoid hardship to islanders is to be considered by the local strike committee. Mr C B Leith, general manager of MacBrayne, said: 'We have asked that sympathetic consideration be given to the needs of islanders. Bread, meat, milk and other perishable consumer goods are mostly purchased on a day-to-day basis from the mainland. I hope that the strike committee will approach the question from a humanitarian angle.'

''At Lerwick yesterday thousands of gallons of beer and 70 tons of food and groceries - twice the normal amount - were unloaded from the North of Scotland Shipping Company's steamer St Magnus, the last ship to take supplies to Shetland before the strike.''

n THE Herald also reported: ''A challenge to Scottish Conservatives to go out into the country and win new supporters from all ranks of society and an attack on Labour's housing record were the twin themes of Mr Edward Heath's speech to the rally on Saturday which ended the annual conference of the Scottish Conservative and Unionist Association at Perth.''

n MR R A Parry, of the department of pyschological medicine at Edinburgh University, said the only pyschological difference between men and women was that women's main drive seemed to be creative, while that of men tended towards destruction.