Off the Spike: The miner’s strike is over and the post-mortem’s started. There is no doubt the miners have suffered great financial loss as a result of their action. Likewise, as a result of going back to work with no coal board agreement not to close “uneconomic pits” a good number of them will lose their jobs.

Seventy-five Shetland exiles in New Zealand have already booked their passage home for the Hamefarin ‘85, the festival organising committee heard this week.

My recent article in Off the Spike about women Guizer Jarls seems to have created a bit of interest and I have been told of several informal fire festivals or parties where women have acted as Jarl – including one after the recent Uyeasound Up-Helly-A’ when Annette Priest presided over the burning o an old boat in Norwick and the festivities that followed.

Leif Larsen, the Norwegian seaman whose exploits during the Shetland Bus operation made him one of the heroes of the Second World War, has made a nostalgic visit to the isles this week.

Shetland Islands Council will have to cut its expenditure by over £1 million to keep within government spending guidelines, director of finance Mr Malcolm Green has warned.

Shetland has continued to enjoy relatively mild, dry and calm weather this week while the rest of Britain, according to press reports, is slowly grinding to a halt under snow and freezing conditions.

Letter – G. W. Adam’s contributions to the miners’ strike debate is easily the most hilarious I’ve read so far – especially when he likens “uneconomic” pits to exhuasted peat banks.

A value of nearly £50 million was put on Shetland Island’s Council’s charitable trust at last Thursday’s meeting of trustees.

25 Years Ago Faced with the prospect of not being able to build any new houses for five years or cutting back savagely on house repairs, the SIC is to ask the Scottish Office for permission to spend oil monies on housing.

25 Years Ago Further meetings were being held yesterday and today between Nor­way and the EEC over the disputed share-out of North Sea herring.

A fish farm worker who assaulted his daughter and threatened to kill a man as he battered him with a hockey stick managed to avoid jail at Lerwick Sheriff Court this week.

Jonathan Wills has accused the five people who referred him to the Standards Commission for an alleged breach of the councillors’ Code of Conduct of spending more than £3,000 of public money on preparing the complaint without the authority of the council.

An elderly woman in Lerwick thought that the stranger who appeared in her house on Monday was her new home help.