FIERCE gales swept across parts of Scotland a few days before Christmas 1954. Wind speeds reached 105mph at Kinloss, Morayshire.

Air services and shipping were badly affected. Gale-force winds surging from the hills of Arran struck a Super-Constellation airliner so violently as it approached Prestwick that 15 of its 61 passengers were injured.

A van-driver was pinned by the foot for more than three hours when his vehicle was blown over on the road at Loch Restil, at the top of the Rest and Be Thankful in Argyllshire. Rescuers used wooden props to ease the weight, but before he could be released the foot had to be amputated. “He was great,” said an eyewitness. “For over three hours he lay in the teeth of the gale, still conscious. He lost a lot of blood.”

Nine vehicles were overturned or blown off the roadway on a mile stretch along the loch.

Read more:

Herald Diary

In Glasgow, chimney-heads were blown down (pictured is one such incident, in Maryhill Road) and there were remarkable escapes from injury, though one slater did suffer serious injuries after being blown off a tenement roof.

In the city’s London Road, pedestrians and passengers in a passing tramcar had narrow escapes when a tenement chimney-head fell onto the roadway, taking the overhead tramway cable with it.

A prefabricated house in Greenock was wrecked; the living room and front bedroom disappeared, and wreckage was scattered across neighbouring gardens. Damage to property of various kinds was reported in Bo’ness and Inveraray. In Oban, where gusts in excess of 80mph were reported, heavy seas swept over the esplanade and flooded the road.