Cigarette case returned home to Inverness athletics club after 70 years
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A 70-year-old cigarette case found in a house near Lincoln has become Inverness Harriers’ oldest keepsake and has extended knowledge of the club’s earliest history.
Barry and Louvain Jackson were arranging the effects of Inverness exile Ian Peterkin who died from Covid-19, aged 93, last December.
These included an engraved cigarette case, presented by the Harriers to Peterkin in 1950 on his departure from Inverness, and acknowledged him as a founder member and inaugural club captain from 1947 to 1949.
The couple contacted the club through Facebook and, while in the Highlands to oversee the burial of Peterkin’s ashes near Grantown on Spey, visited Inverness Harriers’ Queens Park base to present the case to the club.
It was received by the longest-surviving life member
Ian Tasker (87), the only person who remembers Ian Peterkin as an Inverness athlete.
“We got to know Ian about 20 years ago when we moved in next door to him,” said Mr Jackson.
“He never had a TV, but had athletics photos on his wall and was always making things.”
Peterkin’s creative talents certainly rang a bell with Tasker who joined the Harriers aged 16 shortly before Ian Peterkin left Inverness.
“He worked for AI Welders and actually made a starting pistol for the club which fired blanks,” Tasker said.
“He certainly did a lot for the club just when it was getting on its feet in the very early years and it’s great to get this souvenir.”
Peterkin was Inverness Royal Academy sports champion in 1945. The following year he won the North of Scotland AAA 440 yards title and went on to join Inverness Harriers on its foundation in 1947 by former councillor Tom MacKenzie and others.
He also left behind pages of notes and photographs from his time with the club and the Jacksons have donated a copy to the Harriers.
Charles Bannerman, who wrote Maroon and Gold, the club’s official history, in 2014, welcomed the new documents.
“When I wrote the book, virtually nothing was known about the club before 1950,” he said.
“So these papers are an absolute goldmine of completely new information which may even form the basis of a prequel chapter.”
