‘Mindless yoofs’ only acting the same way their ancestors did

IT takes a deleted man with time on his hands to recognise the true eminence of a grey old town at the end of the road to nowhere.

I’m enjoying the regular dispatches from the Courier’s correspondent who reports on the lot of a recently retired public service worker – especially when he recognises all the superior cosmopolitan features that give Wick its distinctive brand…

I must admit I never did see Dempster Street as some sort of a London Soho district replete with its underwear outlet (if that is the correct word).

I’m not sure, though, that the purported "15 stone heifers of Wick" out pushing their buggies around town wearing tight-fitting basques and all manner of "large erotic drawers" would agree with his observations. Still, wha wid the giftie gie to see ourselves as ithers see us!

Yes, it all seems to be hip and happening in Wick just now. What with a new high school, two new primary schools, a new children’s home, new council offices AND a national nuclear archive facility heading our way… blimey, there’s no stopping us. It seems our correspondent from the west is anxious that the gleaming glass palace currently being constructed for council workers in Market Square will become a centralised service point for all county-based public sector staff serving the northern hemisphere. Albeit they will have to hotdesk and share facilities. (Don’t you just hate sharing someone else’s vacated hot chair? yeeuch!).

Thurso, he reminds us, does have the third biggest population in the Highlands, so he makes a very valid point about the relentless march of centralisation and the ever increasing distances people have to travel just to access services…. Verily, as he says: "one size doesn’t fit all".

But his comments about spreading the Wick Academy Development Fund monies around the summer football league simply go beyond the pale. Hands off!

IT was interesting, then, to read in the Groat just a few days later the plea by Highland Council’s Caithness and Sutherland area leader Deirdre Mackay for the far north to be granted equal status from Holyrood as the Northern and Western Isles.

With similarly special recognition given to the Orkney, Shetland and the Western Isles, the counties of Caithness and Sutherland – which face the same challenges of rurality, remoteness, peripherality and small population numbers, she argues – could benefit from government funding to combat their fragile economies and – in the case of Sutherland – population decline.

I can’t think anyone would disagree with Councilllor Mackay’s observations. Pity, though, that the case is only now being made so late in the day. It seems the Brora-based councillor is setting out her stall for a post-referendum scenario and hopes that an independent Scotland will pledge special arrangements for the far north to ensure its interests are best represented at the heart of government.

Call me a cynic but I am sure that somewhere in Mrs Mackay’s plea is an attempt to discredit the current SNP administration while omitting to remind us of the failed performance of her own Labour Party’s various governments.

The Highlands and Islands have always, historically, been a special case – and, yes, much more needs to be achieved.

Perhaps Mrs Mackay is drafting a job description for the government position of Minister of the Far North. She will doubtless be filling in a job application at some stage.

I would have given her more credit had she truthfully pointed out, from the benefit of her many years of experience in local government, that the interests of the Highlands can only be served by an independent Scotland and not some remote Conservative-led administration in Westminster.

You’ll note I’m automatically writing off the Labour Party because any man who (metaphorically) stabs his brother in the back is deemed unelectable. Just to say, Ed Miliband, that fratricide is not conducive to winning the public mandate. Why no one in your party has pointed this out to you is beyond me. A messy business politics. (The Lib Dems are finito).

MEANWHILE back in the county’s centralised cosmos, the council’s Caithness civic head, Gail Ross, has challenged dirty Weekers to show some "pride in your town".

It seems she spent over 30 minutes last Sunday morning cleaning up litter and bags of dogs mess at The Nold play area (part of the Bignold Park). That’s over and beyond the call of duty in my book.

It’s easy, though, to blame the mindless yoof for all the woes of the town. In a way, if it is down to them, they are only acting out their genetic predispositions. We are, after all, as the Nordic name for the town implies, descendants of the rampaging Viking race.

Our noble third cousins twice-removed were once nomadic Vandals. Why change the habit of a lifetime? And see how easy it is to get a bad name in the press!

But to be serious, I do think we need to share some civic responsibility. Wick, let’s be frank, despite all of the massive inward investment, is skint.

If the Thurso-based Man Deleted can carry out a slow drive past in Dempster Street and come to all sorts of dodgy conclusions, then maybe the rest of us just need to take five minutes to drive around the rest of the town to see how run down it is.

It’s sad to say, but many parts of the town look depressed. Local government spending has, for many years, been pared back to the bare bone. We have pot-holed public roads, for example, that would put many third world countries to shame.

Yes, the long-overdue public investments are very welcome – but just how much of that money is being (or will be) spent in Wick? How many building suppliers and those construction workers belong to the town? Most townsfolk, I believe, are struggling just to make ends meet. We have a new council glass palace under construction but in these continuing times of austerity will there be any public sector workers left to fill it? Is that why they’re coming through from Thurso?

If our parks are full of discarded rubbish, shouldn’t the council simply provide more refuse collections? If our riverside footbridges are rotting and falling dangerously apart, what reassurances can we have that they will be properly repaired and maintained (before another child gets seriously injured)?

I, too, would welcome a renewed sense of civic pride but I think it’s too much to expect our civic leader personally to collect dog pooh in a children’s play park.

It’s good to lead by example Councillor Ross. But the bottom line, as you know, is Scotland has suffered too long from remote government in Westminster while London and the south of England – as always – benefit from Tory economic drivers.

Must get the car keys, time for a slow drive through in Thurso…

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