Most Northerly

          Yesterday, we were at the most northerly tip of Britain, Dunnett Head, where sits an elegant, still operational lighthouse, built in 1830. On a rise just above it there is a collection of abandoned box-like buildings that once housed radar equipment, their utilitarian ugliness blighting what is otherwise a romantic spot from which to gaze over to Orkney and scan the sea, hopefully, for whale sightings. A few days before, we were at another ex-radar station, Balnakiel, near Durness, though that one has been imaginatively repurposed as a craft village, complete with a chocolatier operating from a classy coffee shop. Radar stations per se have had their day, but lighthouses remain, a tribute to early technology and the role it still has in navigation.

          But the seas around here were busy with traffic long before the invention of lighthouses. On the island and mainland coasts, the remains of buildings from as long ago as five-thousand years reveal evidence of frequent and prolonged connections with Scandinavia. In the (most northerly) town of Thurso, there is a ruined church that looks nothing special, but we had the good fortune to visit it on a morning when Maureen, a volunteer custodian-cum-historian, was on duty to inform the curious. She was at pains to point out that what is visible above ground is only the latest iteration of a place of worship that has been on the site since the time of the Picts. In populous places, new buildings sit upon old foundations.

          Is the same true of cultural mores? I’ve been reading some short stories by George McKay Brown, an Orcadian author who was writing in the early 20^th century. His stories and characters are peppered with references to Vikings, Norwegians, whaling, fishing, crofting and religious observance, reflecting the cultural influences of the past upon the living. History, in that sense, is like archaeology. Funny-sounding place name? Probably of Norse origin and descriptive of a feature or purpose. But names stick, whereas other traditions fade more readily. There are only residual traces nowadays of the particularly strict Presbyterian ethic that is the backdrop of McKay Brown’s stories: supermarkets are open on Sundays until ten p.m. and churches in smaller hamlets have faded notices pinned to the doors announcing their closure and suggesting alternative venues for worship.

          Change is driven by many factors, incomers being one. Some people move here to build a different kind of life for themselves Like Phil, the Mancunian building contractor, who sold up and is now the contented owner of Windhaven (the most northerly campsite in Britain). Unlike me, he doesn’t miss Manchester. His neighbour, who crafts objects in wood, is from Yorkshire. In the town of Tongue (a corruption of the Old Norse “tunga”, a spit of land) there is a famous bakery that, when it closed its doors, was revived – with a great deal of style – by a young couple whose commitment to wholesome baking is apparent in the excellence of their goods. He is from London; she is from Japan. And, on a walk towards a remote beach, we passed through a croft and were greeted by the new owners, a young couple from England. They had been there only five months and were “loving it”. Crofting, they explained, is a pure form of sustainable farming. When it comes to the future of farming, there is no need to reinvent the wheel!

          This wild and windy corner of Scotland will stay that way for some time to come. The lighthouse could well be here in another 184 years. What is changing is the population. This current wave of incomers is another element of history-in-the-making. They will certainly adapt to the peculiarities of the terrain. They will also, in time, redefine what it is to be a Scottish Highlander.

Rock of Ages

          Gneiss is a word that doesn’t come up very often. It’s the name given to a metamorphic rock formation – one of the oldest in the world. Here at Scourie, on Scotland’s rugged west coast, surrounded by classic outcrops of the three-billion-year-old stuff, I’m beginning to feel that its qualities exceed a purely technical, geological identity. The landscape it creates is spectacular – menacing in rough weather, majestic in colour-enhancing sunlight – but the living it provides is far from bountiful and, to a city dweller like me, whose interface with nature is less raw, it is the rocks, not the small settlements huddled below them, that comprise the spirit of this place.

          The sparse human population hereabouts seems to be adapted to the habitat and even to relish being far from the towns and cities. I imagine these folk feel little affinity with the big bad world of geopolitics, seemingly so irrelevant to their daily grind of making a living out of grazing sheep, catching lobsters and servicing tourists. Theirs is a different way of life from the always-on complexity and intensity of life in teeming cities. What difference would it make to them if, say, the USA invaded Canada? At times, momentarily overawed by the ancient bedrock, I feel my own mind disengaging from its habitual agonising over the machinations of power-hungry tyrants and nations striving against each other. Could this become a permanent state of mind if I were to live in a place such as this?

          Well, only by determined choice. Even in remote places, connection to the internet is possible and the foghorn of Trump’s posturing breaks through the ether as soon as a signal is established. Fortunately, the signal can also bring good news, as happened a few days ago. We were approaching the port of Ullapool, where we were due to stay the night, when I picked up an Instagram post from of a couple of old friends. They were happily hiking around Ullapool and staying over while they waited for the ferry to take them to that legendary hunk of gneiss, the Isle of Lewis. Thus, the combination of serendipity and internet enabled a joyful catchup in a pub, which we couldn’t have arranged better if we’d tried.

          Ullapool itself is an apparently gentrifying town. Being a port and ferry terminal, its purpose in life is well established and there is money passing through. I noticed there is a library and a theatre – neither of which we had time to visit – as well as a street that contains a deli, an on-trend coffee bar and re-fuel and re-use shop (the latter being of most interest to me, as it was the welcome source of a rare commodity – loose-leaf Assam tea), all of which we did visit. Another place we stopped at, en passant, was Gairloch, where there is evidence of colonisation by alternative lifestyle people circa 1975. It takes the form of a café-cum-bookshop called (?), which we discovered on a previous trip around ten years ago. We called in to check that it still retained its hippyish charm and, sure enough, it does. Nothing has changed – not even the stoner soundtrack.

          Back on the road, we take pleasure in small things: the little stands outside crofts offering garden produce, eggs and chutneys in exchange for cash deposited in honesty boxes; the temporary neighbourliness on campsites, where courteous consideration is the norm and conversation rarely has the time to develop beyond small talk; the wet, windy days devoted to reading, interspersed with the bright ones, ideal for invigorating walks; and the travelling fishmonger who dispensed seafood with a good deal of jollity and wit, and whose French accent was apparent despite his insistence on being from Aberdeen.

          Then there’s the background to the whole show, the time-defying gneiss that offers an insight into how and why it all works the way it does.

Not Quite Land's End to John O'Groats

          Last week I was on the SW coast of Cornwall, enjoying a couple of days at the raucous and rowdy Sea Shanty Festival in the well-to-do port of Falmouth. This week I’m on the NW coast of Scotland, quietly contemplating the Cuillin Hills of Skye across the sea from a campsite below the remains of an Iron Age broch (a fortified House in Multiple Occupancy). Whilst the experiences differ, the places have a commonality. They are tourist destinations hosting visitors, like me, who bring our spending power to bear.

          In Falmouth, my contribution to the local economy took the form of multiple purchases of pasties and pints of cider. These are specialities of the region that I am keen to support by making a stand against the big brands’ takeover of drinks and foodstuffs. Diminishment of quality and enhancement of prices follow inevitably - which may not matter to cynical, profit-maximising local businesses, but it degrades the experience of the discerning visitor and is not a good long-term business strategy.

          Still, the performances were free (donations to the RNLI, please). Perhaps the folk songs of mariners are immune to corporatisation: no one has yet monetised the genre by selling out a stadium. I suppose its appeal is too niche for that. Yet, like all good music, it has the power to move the emotions. Could it be that the songs are so familiar from childhood that they evoke nostalgia? Or is it simply that well-rendered harmonies hit the musical spot, whatever the song?

           In any case, and after a couple of pints, joining in the singing feels like joyful expression. No matter that the repertoire is limited (excluding the contributions of the visiting Bretons), with 85 groups singing mostly the same songs at venues across the town, their very familiarity promoted jollity. Jaunty tricorn hats were worn as fashionable accessories and, in an effort to fit in, even I sported a nautically themed tattoo (stuck on, that is).

          It's easy to make fun of sea shanties and to caricature them, along with Jolly Jack Tar, while forgetting that the life that spawned them was hard, the pay meagre and the chances of illness and death high. There is something of that also in a visit to the western fringe of Highland Scotland. We are currently on the peninsula of Applecross, which was accessible only by sea until the 1920s. The road built then was a steep, single-track switchback that is still in use today and, in winter, often impassable. In the 1970s the final, connecting stretch of a coast road was built – but only because the military needed access.

          The population in such places comprised the remnants of a genocidal land-grab by those who owned the titles to the territory and made their income by letting parcels out to tenant farmers – crofters. When they discovered that more profit was to be made from the land by keeping sheep, they evicted their tenants – often in the cruellest ways imaginable. The brutality of the landlords is legendary. Accounts of hardship are excruciating. Driven to the rocky coast, the crofters made a precarious subsistence living from the land and the sea as best they could. For a while, there was even a government subsidised scheme to encourage their emigration. Post 1945, things began to improve in respect of land-ownership rights, but a more potent factor of change also developed: tourism.

          Tourism, like capitalism, can raise some people out of poverty. But both isms have a sting in the tail. When they are overdone, the benefits accrue to fewer and fewer individuals. The residents of Barcelona, for example, have had enough of being priced out of their own housing stock, and the news today featured Venetians protesting the renting of their city to Jeff Bezos for his wedding. Applecross, on the other hand, seems welcoming and friendly. We are, after all, providing an alternative to subsistence farming. But tourist numbers are growing here. Will they kill the goose?

   

The Long Haul

          It’s funny how the 1960s keep popping up. This week, I got news that my 15-year-old grand-nephew, having seen the film A Complete Unknown, went out and bought the vinyl album, Highway 61 Revisited, first released in 1965. I was impressed. But he reportedly finds it hard to relate his newly discovered enthusiasm for Bob Dylan to the fact that I was in the audience of Dylan’s London concert in 1966 and have first-hand experience of the controversy featured in the film’s plot, his perceived “betrayal” of the acoustic folk music tradition.

          A couple of years after that concert, I spent a year in Sudan (then referred to as The Sudan), with no access to western music at all. I was one of a contingent of twenty or so newly graduated adventurers who had successfully applied to join the Voluntary Service Overseas (VSO) scheme. Among our number were Paul and Jim, two of the nicest chaps I ever met, before or since. As it happens, we came together last week – as we do from time-to-time – and, after telling them about my grand-nephew’s musical epiphany, we discussed which side of the “betrayal” argument we had been on at the time. Given the vagaries of memory, it was hard to answer definitively, but I like to think I was not on the purist side. Otherwise, why would I have bought a ticket to the concert, given that I knew what to expect?

          Paul, Jim and I have never lived in close enough proximity for our friendship to be kept alive by default. Chance may have brought us together, but it has required conscious effort to maintain the relationship through the distances of place and circumstance. So, as well as occasional get-togethers, sometimes including partners and family, we have for the past few years fostered a tradition of the three of us meeting annually.

          These rendezvous started as long-ish country hikes – something all three of us have always enjoyed – and involved camping out for a couple of nights (of which the same cannot be said). However, the years took their physical toll and, over time, the hiking routes became less ambitious. I’m not saying it’s all over now, but last week’s outing was, literally, a walk in the park – albeit a country park, Dartington Estate and its formal garden, to be precise. But such gentler excursions do have advantages besides reducing the intensity of the physical challenges. There is much less logistical planning involved than is required for a day out in the rough or remote terrain favoured by seasoned hikers. Packed lunches are not needed, and conversation flows easier when one is not out of breath or obliged to walk single file on narrow tracks.

          But what is it about old friendships that make us want to perpetuate them? My experience is that those made in one’s formative years have a tendency to retain the quality of warm familiarity, even after prolonged periods of non-contact. Yet during those years of separation, each individual life develops, sometimes in ways that may be unexpected. Unless you keep track, the person you once knew may end up as someone you no longer relate to. Then what would you have to talk about, other than reminiscing about the sixties?

          There’s a pragmatic case to be made for dropping long-standing friendships that are deemed to have outlived their purpose – however “purpose” is defined. Self-interest, perhaps? The need to find a place in society. The need for self-affirmation. The need to satisfy nostalgic yearning. Well, if friendship served only to fulfil such needs, then its eventual redundancy could be expected. But friendship is not about pragmatism. Our old friends define our past just as much as we ourselves do, thus they lend meaning to our present as well.

 

Poking Around Plympton

          Plympton. I wouldn’t have gone there but for the fact it was the only place I could get our campervan fixed in timely fashion. The right-hand indicator had suddenly ceased to function, so we were relying on sticking our arm out of the window, a signal that only elderly drivers recognise as an intention to turn right: younger ones look baffled.

          Once a town in its own right, Plympton is now a suburb of Plymouth. I have always perceived it as a dull dormitory, whose rows of box-like houses I glimpsed from the Devon Expressway, its lack of allure reinforced by the fact that the main service centre for our Renault van is located on its bland outskirts. I had approached all our local garages, but they were either baffled by the problem or too busy to look at it before our planned departure for a trip to Scotland, so I accepted Renault’s offer to diagnose the fault, immediately, for a mere £140 (which included washing the vehicle, as a “courtesy”). The subsequent cost of rectification, of course, would be open-ended.

          After checking in, I found myself with a few hours in which to explore a place that proved more interesting than I had imagined. The friendly chap at the service desk directed me to walk the mile down to the high street, where, among the usual proliferation of charity shops, there were traditional and modern retailers, as well as cafés – and all of it not too shabby.

          But what caught my eye was a relatively grand building in the centre, with the title, Stannary Court above its door, which means that this was once a centre for the regulation and taxation of locally mined tin. Conservationists have the Wetherspoons pub chain to thank for having sympathetically re-purposed the building, while the locals, many of whom thronged the place on that Wednesday morning, appeared to be giving thanks of their own. Meanwhile, the older pub, further along the street (and closed until midday), bears the name of that most famous son of Plympton, the artist Sir Joshua Reynolds.

          The site of the local Manor House, destroyed by fire in 1985, is now occupied by a clinic, a substantial community hub and a public library (closed on Wednesdays), encouraging signs that there is social activity at the heart of the housing estates that bleakly adorn the surrounding hills. But the biggest surprise (to me) was to discover that there is an older part of the town, where there are the remains of a barbican and a Norman castle that was continuously occupied until after the Civil War.

          But my meandering was cut short by a call from the service centre. They had found the problem to be a fault in the switch on the steering column. A new one was needed but, because of its age, it could only be found in the aftermarket, a place where Main Dealers are forbidden to trade – presumably for reasons to do with reputation and warranty. It was down to me to source the part and get a competent person to replace it – a simple job, they assured me.

          So, the race is on to sort it out before we go to Scotland. Our route, or part of it, has lately been branded NC 500 in a master stroke of marketing nous that has brought thousands more tourists to the coastal road around Scotland, so we want to go early in the season to avoid the crowds. Also, we intend to drive clockwise, starting – and lingering – on the West Coast, our favourite stretch. The new indicator switch is on its way from a European warehouse, delivery date unspecified. So, in case it doesn’t come in time, we have a half-arsed contingency plan to avoid right turns by driving the route anticlockwise instead.