was costing fifteen shillings a year just to keep them in store.

It was not until after the Second World War that street lighting returned

to Strathkinness.

There are people still living in the village who think the old well water was

superior to the water that comes from the tap, but the truth is that most, if

not all, were at some time or other condemned as unfit for domestic purposes.

Because of general concern with the quality of the water, by 1893 many

Special Water Districts had been set up, but the report on Strathkinness said

that, ‘although it is desirable that steps should be taken without delay to have

the village properly drained ... they cannot recommend the expenditure by the

District Committee of so large a sum of money as would be necessary for that

purpose, and if the Local Authority undertook to drain Strathkinness and

assess the whole district for the expense thereof, a similar course must be

followed in the other villages’. The subject of a Special Water Supply District

came up again in 1907-8 when an analysis of the water taken from twenty wells

showed that nine were passable for domestic purposes but the other eleven

were ‘either doubtful or definitely unsafe’.

Although there had been many epidemics of water-borne diseases and

the schoolchildren suffered frequently from diarrhoea and ‘wateries’, the

‘feeling of the village was strongly against the Special Water District ... a few

inhabitants favoured the idea and were pressing for it’ was said at a special

meeting held in the village to discuss the proposed water scheme. They argued

that not all the wells had been tested and that at any rate the cost was too

great. One of the few who favoured the setting up of a Special Water Supply

District for Strathkinness was Mr. Andrew Thom who expressed the view that

‘the introduction of one, if it could be financed, would be the making of the

village’.

In April of 1910 on the advice of the Medical Officer of Health, two wells

were closed, five others were to be cleaned out and repaired and the others

were to have more samples taken for analysis. There continued to be tests

on water from the various wells, and other wells were closed at times. Notices

were put up at the wells found to be unfit for domestic purposes, and at one

time ‘Mr. Thom was to find out how much inconvenience the closing of un-

satisfactory wells could cause in the distance the water would have to be

carried’.

In addition to the concern expressed about the water from the wells,

there were many complaints about the drainage. As the cost of draining the

village properly was too high, drainage pipes were often cleaned out, repaired

and sometimes replaced with new ones; but having pipes throughout the

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