A wonderful place to live if you like deprivation!
SOME years ago I attended a meeting in London. The venue was the 20th floor of a multistorey office block. As I waited for business to commence one of the directors of the company hosting the meeting asked me where I lived. “Tongue,” I replied, and could see by the look on his face that he hadn’t a clue where Tongue was. So I explained: “On the north coast of Scotland in the county of Sutherland, population about 250 souls. Next stop north, Iceland.”
He paused, absorbing this information and then said, quietly, as though not to alarm anyone who might be listening, “All year round?”
I glanced out of the window. Tower blocks, mini tower blocks, mass housing and industrial premises stretched to the horizon. Arriving and departing planes trailed long, white vapour tails. The roads below were nose-to-bumper jammed with exhaust-fume-belching vehicles. Ant-like, hundreds of people thronged the streets
“Yup,” I said, smiling, “all year round and we have done for the past 30 years.” We have become accustomed to responding to this sort of question and it is surprising just how many people ask it; not only those living in the far south, but also from fellow Scots, from Edinburgh, Glasgow, Perth and even, on one memorable occasion, from a man and woman who lived in Inverness.
I remember when we lived near Watten in Caithness taking my mother out for her first and only visit to the Flow Country, to Loch Dubh Lodge in the days when it was run as a hotel.
Mother was Edinburgh through and through. As we bucketed along the bumpy track from Loch More she announced in sombre tones, “What a desolate wasteland.” For ever afterwards, in our family, the Flow Country was known as the DWs.
Even people who live in semi-rural areas and commute to cities or large towns to work have difficulty in coming to terms with the attitude of those amongst us who love and live in Scotland’s wild places.
Last week I collected one such man from Wick Airport who was to be our guest out here beyond the Split Stane in Tongue. There is a famous viewpoint along the A836 road just west of the turn-off to Kirtomy. Suddenly, you are confronted with one the of the most magnificent vistas in the land; Ben Loyal, Ben Hope and, in the distance, the peaks of Foinaven, Arkle, Cranstackie and Quinag shimmer before you in a gold and purple sea of mountain and moorlands, canopied by cathedral-like skies.
Almost involuntarily I muttered, “What a wonderful place to live.”
My friend replied, “Aye, right enough, if you like depravation.”
“You make that sound almost as though it were a disease,” I said.
“It probably is,” he quipped, “and you are terminally infected.”
The following Sunday morning, after church, I called at Burr’s Stores to collect the papers. It is always busy at that time, with local people collecting their papers and forgotten items of shopping, visitors stocking up self-catering properties, motorists and black-leather-clad bikers queuing for fuel.
A friend who had heard the “depravation” story – not much remains unreported for long here – said, “Well his is right. We are deprived of concerts, theatres, cinemas, art galleries, nightclubs, shopping malls, restaurants and, well, most things. I ask you, what is there to do?”
I GUESS that if you are an inveterate urbanite, wedded to the anonymity and bustle of a city, it might be difficult to adjust to our way of life. But it is sheer nonsense to think that it is semi-comatose, slow and unhurried. Nothing could be further from the truth. We never have enough time to do everything we need to do, let alone to do the things that we would like to do and I wager that this view is shared by the majority of our neighbours.
I don’t miss city life – youth hooliganism, rampant crime, dirty streets and dreary buildings.
I don’t miss the daily traffic snarl of getting to work in the morning or fear of after-dark attack. Our children are safe and unmolested. Our schools are excellent. Pupils do not attack or abuse their teachers. The level of healthcare that we experience is second to none.
As to the question, “what is there to do?” – what about: art classes, music tuition, reading groups, weekly knitting and nattering sessions, discussion groups, bowls, golf, sea fishing and fishing for salmon, sea-trout and brown trout, bird watching, wildflowers, geology, archaeology, hill walking, climbing, photography, sailing, wind surfing, surf boarding, historical societies, visiting musicians and theatre groups and social events and swimming pool with sauna, spa pool and fitness suite, to name but a few.
Above all, at least for your correspondent, it is the endless wisdom of the passing seasons and the large religion of the hills. Whatever, each to his own, but my own is here.