I READ with interest the letter from David Adams (January 14) about his good times at the Invergordon Smelter. I, too, was a great beneficiary of the man management skills employed there, although, at the time, I didn’t realise how fortunate I was.

In the mid-1970s I had been living in Arabella, a hamlet halfway between Invergordon and Tain for about a year. I had worked as a labourer in Tain and as a machine operator in an Alness quarry when I applied for a job as a trainee technician at the smelter.

At the interview the personnel chap said I was the best qualified for the job (I had good Highers and was very interested in science) but added: “You’re not a local boy and we want this job to go to a local boy.”

I tried everything to convince him to give me the job. I told him that if he did so I would settle there for good and establish roots in the Highlands. “If I have a son, he would be a local boy,” I pleaded with him.

He said he’s think about it and two weeks later I received a rejection letter.

Some months later I returned to my native Glasgow and luckily found a traineeship as a journalist with DC Thomson. I eventually enjoyed more than 30 happy and fruitful years in the media.

When the smelter closed in 1981 I covered it for my paper and I remember thanking my lucky stars that I wasn’t “a local boy”.

Colin Grant,

6 Melford Avenue, Giffnock.