A WELL-KENT face around Merkinch is Angus Shearer, who lived here for 15 years before moving to Muirtown Street. At Christmas Angus, who has taken to writing poetry this last couple of years, sent off one of his verses to Scottish Secretary John Reid – and then for good measure sent a copy to the Queen as well. The subject was a thank-you for granting Inverness city status, and it was a follow-up to a poem he wrote earlier in the year pleading that the Highland Capital should be so elevated. Another topic that has inspired his muse is the Homeless Shelter, which opened near Shore Street Roundabout this winter. Angus works as a volunteer with the Trust that has run these shelters in various venues in recent years and he says the Waterloo Place premises are the best there have ever been.

The Royal Family does not reply to mail personally, but in a letter from Sandringham House dated 5th January, Pauline Adams, one of the Queen's Ladies-in-Waiting, wrote:

“I am commanded by The Queen to write and thank you for sending Her Majesty the copy of the poem you wrote to mark the granting of city status to Inverness. The Queen thought it was so kind of you to let her see these verses, and I am to thank you very much.”

Congratulations to Mr Shearer for his literary initiative – even if his passion for the subject caused him to embroider somewhat the cathedral's architectural shortcomings, steeplewise! He puts it down to poetic licence…