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Islay to feature on BBC One Country Tracks tomorrow

newsroom — Sat, 05 Nov 2011 14:56:36 +0000

The glorious Isle of Islay is the focus of BBC One’s Country Tracks programme at 11.0am on Sunday 6th November 2011. (Repeated on 10th November but accessible after initial transmission on the BBC iplayer.)

Presenter, Joe Crowley heads out to the island from the mainland - so Kenncraig and West Loch Tarbert may get a look in.

He is exploring what Islay has to offer to visitors. There are plenty of us who know just how endless the resources of this spirited island are, so we’ll all be measuring his efforts against a well informed standard.

Crowley is billed as being there learning about shipwrecks, visiting the historic meeting place of the Lords of the Isles, hearing a Gaelic choir and tasting some of Islay’s finest local produce.

That’s only scratching the surface but it should take him at least to the magnificent Mull of Oa, to the American monument on the cliffside there to the US troops lost on HMS Otranto and HMS Tuscania in World War I. Otranto sank after a collision with another troopship, HMS Kashmir, in a convoy bringing US servicemen across the Atlantic to Glasgow and Liverpool. Tuscania was downed by the German submarine UB77 under Commander Wilhelm Meyer. UB77 sank one ship – which was the Tuscania – and damaged two in torpedo attacks – the Celtic, also under Meyer and the Lampoc under Meyer’s successor, Franz Maurer. UB77 surrendered at the end of the war, on 16th January 1919. She was broken up in Swansea.

Read the stories of these incidents with the Otranto and the Tuscania, the memorials and burial places, at Armin Grewe’s Islay website: here http://www.armin-grewe.com/islay/islay-otranto.htm

Crowley’s pursuit of the histories of these wartime wrecks may also take him to Kilchoman – for this and another reason connected with what he’ll be covering on the show. Those who could not be rescued and whose bodies were recovered after the Otranto sank are buried at the cemetery there, 43 of them unidentified. And Kilchoman is the site of the single malt whisky Isle of Islay’s newest and already celebrated distillery, Ki;choman. It launched its first distilling, the three year old, this year, to unimaginable acclaim. Crowley’s tastings on the island should include a dram of Kilchoman – and maybe a comparative dram at each of its siblings: Ardbeg, Bowmore, Bruichaddich, Bunnahabhain, Caol Ila, Lagavulin and Laphroaig. He’ll certainly be making tracks after that.

The quest of the Lords of the Isles must bring Crowley to Finlaggan, the heart of the Lordship’s long command of the west coast seas and islands from the north of the Western Isles south as far as the Isle of Man. It remains something of a mystery – although there are intuited explanations, why the Lords of the Isles chose the inland loch site of Finlaggan as their headquarters. It was already a site of historic significance, which may have had its attractions but the location carries a sense of long wisdom and timeless tranquillity rather than evocations of the territorial, strategic, defiant and enduring invincibility associated with the Lords of the Isles.

Read about and see Finlaggan here at Ron Steenvoorden’s Islay websiote: http://www.islayinfo.com/islay_finlaggan_lords_of_the_isles.html and at the Finlaggan Trist’s website here: http://www.finlaggan.com/default.asp

While Crowley is on the track of Islay’s rich and complex history , will he visit the memorial to a very influential Ileach recently unveiled by another one? Lord George Robertson, former Secretary General of NATO and Honoray Patron of the Museum of Islay Life, led the ceremony at Portintruin to launch the commemoration of Major General Alexander MacDougall, one of the leaders of the American Revolution.. (Our Article on this is here: http://forargyll.com/2011/09/islay-inaugurates-memorial-cairn-to-ileach-leader-of-american-revolution-2/)

The Islay Gaelic Choir (which Crowley will hear) is pretty legendary – as is the island’s Festival of Malt and Music. And as well as the malt whiskies, Islay now has a spectrum of fine dining establishments and first calss food producers. These should feature in any ‘tastings’ of Crowley’s.

Will he visit the island’s newspaper, The ileach? (http://www.ileach.co.uk/) Will he talk there to Brian Palmer about the rich connections between cycling and Islay that Brian promotes? The Ileach carries out kit tests and reviews. Brian knows all about the – all wonderfully named – Velo Club d’Ardbeg; the communal website for the cycling fraternity, thewashingmachinepost (and if you’re scratching your head, check out what famed cyclist Graham Obree built his magic bike from); and the Ride of the Falling Rain, the 100 mile annual social cycle ride for all comers that starts at award winning Debbie’s cafe at Bruichladdich. And then there’s The Islay Wilderness Guide, with Jez Hastings and extreme cyling.

Will Crowley check out the annual Islay Walking Week (you can, here, at its website, with details already there for the 2012 event: http://www.walkislay.co.uk/) ?

Will he visit the go-ahead Islay Marine Centre (http://islay-marine-centre.com/) and talk to Gus Newman, whose company, Stormcats (http://stormcats-islay.com/) is Scotland’s largest boatbuilder using Glass Reinforced Plastic (GRP) and who runs annual sea angling catch-and-return events off Islay, tope fishing?

Will he find out about the seriously ambitious plans to develop the Machrie Hotel and its magical golf links – by its new owners Gavin Davies, former banker with Goldman Sachs and Chair of the BBC and his wife, Sue Nye, former adviser to Prime Minister Gordon Brown – who together built the architecturally acclaimed Baggy Point House?

And, among multiple other seductive possibilities, will Crowley immerse himself in the island’s wildlife, with the wonderful RSPB Nature Reserve at Loch Gruinart and, as the song declares, ‘lovely Loch Indaal’? Will he talk to Mark Reynier at the Bruichladdich distillery and find out – not only about reinstated vintage stills and innovative spirits but about EatSand, the annual madness that is the international lslay Beach Rugby contest – a head-to-header if ever there was one; and about Team Bruichladdich and its successes in endurance touring car racing, including the renowned Le Mans 24 hour race?

Then there’s the Islay Energy Trust, bringing Islay right in to the foreftont of marine renewable energy development with, among much else, a trial marine turbine array in the glorious and superfast Sound of Islay, with the Paps of Jura thrusting conically skywards on the other side.

In short, will Joe Crowley ever leave Islay?

Main Argyll Events of 2011 Season

newsroom — Sat, 17 Sep 2011 08:00:40 +0000

This lists major events across Argyll and the Isles from April to October 2011.

Please note that while the dates are correct,to the best of our knowledge, some websites, regrettably, may not update until close to the event.

Please use ‘Contact’ (top right of this screen) to let us know of any event that should be here and isn’t. Events that should be included are those drawing a significant part of their audience from beyond their host community.

And one to make an internal journey for – you may never again see these magical historic artefacts back where they came from:

15 Apr – 12 Sep: The Lewis Chessmen Unmasked

Local event websites

Scotland’s Islands
The Ileach (accessible front page always carries Islay events listings)
Visit Kintyre
Argyll Secret Coast (Cowal)
Isle of Bute
Mount Stuart Events (Bute)
Helensburgh and Lomond
Oban Town Diary
Round & About Mull and Iona

Luing: island of voices

newsroom — Tue, 19 Jul 2011 12:17:08 +0000

The Isle of Luing, part of the inshore Atlantic group of slate islands south of Oban, is central to the move to bring together Scotland’s Atlantic Islands in a single cultural and marketing initiative.

For whatever reason, islands seem always to murmur, with the voices from their pasts almost audible.

Luing has for a while now, been making voices present and accessible in poetry and in linking word and voice to image and music in exciting new art forms. These initiatives have included collaborations between artists on and beyond the island and a fortnight long festival a couple of years ago.

One of the riches of being alive is the presence at the same time of multiple worlds – sometimes those of other people, sometimes those of other times and places.

What we call ‘art’ in any form – the word spoken or sung – and written, the deliberate object, the strain of music, the image – carries us between the now and the other so seamlessly that they’re never quite separate again.

Now Luing is host to a range of events, linking worlds, listening to current voices and encouraging new ones.

It is hosting one of the ten dates of the Poets Tour, moving across the Scottish islands this rummer and autumn and put together by the Scottish Island Writers’ Network. Island Voices is in Cullipool Hall at 7.30 pm on Saturday 23rd July 2011.

Jan Sutch Pickard, from the Ross of Mull, will read from her new poetry collection Horizontal – and will also lead a Storytelling session in Cullipool Hall the next afternoon – Sunday 24th July, at 3.00 pm, tell stories from Scotland’s Islands and from Palestine, where she used to live and in whose condition she maintains an active interest.

Nalini Paul from Orkney – and a recent writer-in-residence there under the Fellowship that celebrates the life and art of Stromness’ George Mackay Brown – will read from her new collection, Slokt By Sea, which was written on Orkney.

There will also be songs from Luinneachs – Kirsty MacLachlan, Fiona Cruikshanks and Mod Gold Medallist, Hugh MacQueen – and young Innes MacQueen will be the piper for the evening, which will be compered by Luing’s resident poet, Norman Bissell.

On Sunday 24th July there will be a wonderfully playful and creative Slate Sculpture Competition – from 1.30 pm – 4.30 pm, on the shore on the way into Cullipool. Entry is free and prizes for under-16s and adults include Sea Life Adventure boat trips for two and Luing T-shirts and caps.

The first ever Bards of Luing Poetry Competition has just closed (on Sunday 17th July). Entrants in three categories – primary, secondary and adult – submitted written poems which is in some way related to the Isle of Luing or its surrounding islands.

The winners – who will read their work – will be announced and the prizes presented at the Island Voices event on 23rd July in Cullipool Hall.

Russell welcomes commitment to extend RET to Argyll and Clyde islands

newsroom — Thu, 14 Apr 2011 16:49:22 +0000

Michael Russell, the SNP Candidate for Argyll & Bute at the 2011 Scottish Election, has welcomed his party’s formal commitment to the extension of the Road Equivalent Tariff (RET) to the Argyll and Clyde Islands in the next term of the Scottish Parliament.

Speaking after the SNP manifesto launch in Glasgow today, Mr Russell said: ‘I am delighted that there is a clear commitment in the manifesto to the extension of RET , something I have supported for some time and which has been campaigned for by the communities on the Argyll and Clyde Islands.

‘Once the evaluation of the Western Isles pilot is complete the SNP Government will proceed to roll out the new support and this is also allowed for in the financial projection published alongside the manifesto.

‘This is good news for Argyll’s island communities and gives another strong reason for re-electing this Government which of course brought in the original RET pilot. Whilst others have just talked, we have taken action’.

The Road Equivalent Tariff scheme is an attempt to create comparable travel costs for those who live on the Scottish mainland and those who live on its islands, the majority of which are on the west and north coasts.

Under RET, subsidised ferry fares equate to the cost of road journeys of the same length.

The purpose in removing the heavy costs of unsubsidised ferry travel is fourfold:

to enable people to continue to live, to bring up their families on the islands and to keep in touch with family and friends on the mainland
to keep island communities there sustainable by enabling people to live and work there – and to maintain the Scottish islands as inhabited and living places
to support the businesses vital to economic vitality on the islands by keeping travel and transport costs much as they would be for mainland competitors
to provide an incentive for visitors to go to the west coast islands as well as its mainland by maing it affordable to get to them.

There were powerful and well found complaints from the Argyll islands when the long 30 month pilot period was limited to the Western Isles and a few islands en route to them. The island of Colonsay in particular made the point that the sheer ferry cost differentials were so pronounced between Colonsay (not in the RET scheme) and, say another Argyll Atlantic island like Coll (that is included) were, over three years, habit forming.

Given that all of the Argyll islands are uniquely lovely, there was clearly a likelihood that visitors going to Coll, because it was much cheaper to get there, might start to make a point of going there over a three year pilot period. That sort of time frame is enough to form a habit and for the other islands to acquire an almost irrecoverable disadvantage.

When the Scottish Government then extended the Western Isles pilot for a further year, concerns became severe and vocal.

Argyll’s islanders – in the Clyde,as with Bute and off its Atlantic inshore and offshore waters, will undoubtedly celebrate this commitment.

It will also help major events on the islands to consolidate and build their audiences – like the Mull Rally and Mendelssohn on Mull; Islay’s Malt and Music Festival and its Beach Rugby extravaganza; Bute’s Eat Bute and its Jazz festival; Colonsay’s Caol Cholosa; Gigha’s Festival; Easdale’s World Stone Skimming Championships; Luing’s Atlantic Islands Festival and the Lismore August Festival.

Without the fantastic Jura Passenger ferry from Tayvallich to Craighouse, it will take real time to get to Jura but at least it will be cheaper than at present. (The passenger ferry should be retained – but not under the Jura Development Trust, which didn’t bother to market it in its first three years and is not sounding as if it’s learned any lessons.)

The spectacular Tiree Wave Classic in October and the Coll Half Marathon at the same time were already covered by the RET their sister islands enjoy.

One massive advantage in this potential extension of RET to Argyll’s Clyde and west coast islands is the support it offers to Argyll mainland residents to explore the islands as many have never done. The more Argyll gets to know about itself, the more coherent and mutually supportive it would be.

Surprise Yourself: VisitScotland gets it SO right. Now look at Argyll – Scotland’s Playground

newsroom — Thu, 17 Mar 2011 11:44:25 +0000

The latest VisitScotland commercial – Surprise Yourself – is its most encouraging initiative yet. At last it’s getting to the heart of Scotland – which is about doing awesome things in unimaginable places.

So there’s a Loch Lomond Seaplane (brand not visible but what else can it be) flying above and in front of the camera in a second aircraft. It’s over the instantly recognisable Tobermory and looking as if it’s on the way down to land in the bay.

Then there’s a diver surfacing off Eilean Donan Castle, arguably – in a tough contest – Scotland’s prettiest and on the lochside on the way to the nearby Kyle of Lochalsh and the bridge soaring over to Skye.

Scotland’s Playground

And in a country where there is so much to do outdoors, Argyll is Scotland’s playground.

Is there anything you can’t do in Argyll – and are there surroundings more beautiful while you do it?

This is just as major an attraction for the high net worth young city corporates as to the equally welcome backpackers. The young corporates like to balance their deskbound lives with fresh air and physical challenge followed by great food, drink and accommodation during their downtime. And they may be high earners but they’re canny with their money and they won’t pay if the quality and the service is not first class. Trying to attract and satisfy that market would improve Argyll’s concentration on what makes a winning hand.

Argyll needs young people to come here to enjoy the bewildering wealth of activities available on the back of its stunning natural resources. Some such visitors will come and settle here, strengthen and start businesses, send their kids to local schools and help to change the ageing population pattern.

Start to do your own tally as we’ve done ours (and as you’ll see from the comments, we’ve had gaps pointed out – and there’ll be more. No one can quite grasp Argyll. It overflows your hand and slips through your fingers.

Here’s the picture we’re seeing:

the best sailing grounds in Europe with yacht havens like Ardfern and Craobh, the spectacularly lovely Crinan Canal and internationally renowned annual races and regattas – like West Highland Yachting Week, Rhu’s celebrations of classic yachts, the Round Bute, the Round Mull, Tarbert’s Brewin Dolphin Scottish Series…
the best diving grounds in the UK from Dunoon to the Sound of Mull – walls, wrecks, marine life – and a raft of experienced diving schools like Puffin Dive in Oban; Shearwater and the Professional Diving Academy in Dunoon; the Islay Dive Centre; Mull’s Dive Charter Scotland
the big adventures of sea kayaking and kayaking rapids from the challenges in Glen Orchy to the Falls of Lora – with the inaugural Oban Sea Kayak Race held in 2010
great marinas – and more must come – at Rhu, Tarbert, Portavadie, Kerrera and Tobermory
some of the best and most unique golf courses in the world from the two stunners at Machrianish in Kintyre – the Old Tom Morris designed one at the Machrihanish Golf Club and the Mahrihanish Dunes course – the first to be built from scratch in a Site of Special Scientific Interest and with the Fairways grazed by a most photogenic herd of Hebridean black sheep; to the Carrick courses on Loch Lomond and to a series of idiosyncratic island courses. We need a special certificate for people who play them all – and we need an uber golf course that could be played over time – with the first hole at Machrihanish Golf Club a must to kick it off. Any ideas on where the other 17 holes should come from?
waterborne experiences like Seafari’s trips to the Corryvreckan whirlpool; The Hebridean Whale and Dolphin Trust’s marine life watching trips; Venture West; Sea Life Adventures; the Jura passenger ferry; small specialist inshore cruising with Majestic Line; anything you like with Coastal Connections and a host of seal watching trips…
airborne experiences with the breathtaking Loch Lomond Seaplanes‘ trips; the scheduled services out of Oban Airport over amazing scenery to the islands of Tiree, Coll and Colonsay; and scheduled services from Glasgow to Campbeltown, Islay and Tiree. The route to Campbeltown, over Arran’s Goat Fell – is the best geography lesson ever. Glaciation? You’re looking into it.
outdoor experiences anywhere and of course in the Loch Lomond and the Trossachs National Park, Scotland’s first – and with a water bus service.
the four great long distance walking trails of Cowal, Bute, Kintyre and the West Highland Way – mapping Argyll on foot
mountain walking in the famed Arrochar Alps dominated by the unbelievably Addams Family ridge of The Cobbler (Ben Arthur); and in the mountain of Glen Etive with the link through to Glencoe
a hopscotch of half marathons across the territory from Kintyre to Colonsay and Coll
wild swimming groups and swimming pools and sports complexes in Helensburgh, Dunoon, Oban, Lochgilphead, Bowmore on Islay, the Loch Fyne Hotel in Inveraray, the Isle of Mull Hotel at Criagnure, Portavadie Marna (in train) and the queen of them all – the magnificent Aqualibrium in Campbeltown which just pips the Loch Fyne Hotel pool for the swim with the best view
cycling – with the experience of Extreme Cycling on Islay and the annual Ride of the Falling Rain on the same island
horse rides at Argyll Adventure south of Inveraray and at Brenfield, south of Lochgilphead – with long distance horseback trails run annually
first class angling and sea angling everywhere in a place shredded by rivers and sea lochs, pock marked with freshwater lochs of all possible sizes and with sea angling supported by the SSACN and specialist custom boatbuilders like Islay’s Stormcats
quad biking with Quadmania in Cowal, paintballing at Argyll Adventure and clay pigeon shooting at Brenfield; just about any sport you care to name with Stramash; and the weird trip into a very complex past at the top attraction of Inveraray jail, listening post for specialists in the paranormal
ferry passages to the islands and between them – and out into the Atlantic to the boardsailors paradise of Tiree; and a fabulous new fast passenger run from Campbeltown to Ballycastle on the north coast of Ireland
the beavers in Knapdale, reintroduced in 2009 after 400 years and with kits born in 2010
bird reserves on Islay and Mull with the white tailed sea eagles at Mull’s Loch Frisa Eagle Hide
history everywhere from the mysteries of the ancient Kilmartin Glen, the very heart of Scotland; to the seat of the Lords of the Isles at Finlaggan on Islay; to castles galore, to the sanctuaries of the Christian saints on Bute, Lismore and Iona; to a battalion of Stevenson lighthouses; the glorious industrial architecture of Bonawe in Taynuilt; to the last of Scotland’s farm townships at Auchindrain, now one of Scotland’s 37 ‘Recognised Collections’; and to clan touchstones like Inveraray Castle, Duart Castle on Mull and Glenbarr Abbey in Kintyre
some of the best and most unusual gardens in the UK from the wonders of Benmore in Cowal; to Achamore on Gigha; and Crarae and Arduaine in Mid Argyll
the best of local Argyll produce from venison to pork to hill lamb to oysters; generally fabulous seafood; preserves; chocolatiers from Tiree to Tobermory to Oban - with innovative local produce and crafts markets – like the bi-monthly LORN markets north of Oban; and food fairs like the annual EatBute and the Loch Fyne Food Fair
the legendary single malt whisky distilleries on the islands of Islay, Mull and Jura and on the mainland at Oban and Campbeltown – and first class real ale brewers at Loch Fyne, Oban and Tobermory
great restaurants, hotels and pubs – the Isle of Eriska hotel winning ‘best hotel restaurant in Scotland’; the award winning Kilberry Inn; the Pier House Hotel at Port Appin; the internationally renowned Loch Fyne Oyster Bar; Islay’s Harbour Inn and An Taigh Osda; The George in Inveraray; The Mishnish in Tobermory; Eeusk, Coast and Cuan Mor in Oban; The Lodge on the Loch at Luss on Loch Lomond; the Portavadie Marina resort with stunning waterside accommodation of all kinds, restaurants and a spa on the way.
unique annual events from the biggest Highland Games in the world – the Cowal Games in Dunoon; to the joyously idiosyncratic World Stone Skimming Championships on Easdale; the messiest – the World Swamp Soccer Championships at Strachur; the most seductive – the Malt and Music Festival on Islay; the noisiest and breath-catchingly skillful – the Mull Rally; the maddest – Islay Beach Rugby; the most therapeutic – the Crinan Classic Boat Festival; the freest and most exhilarating – the Tiree Wave Classic; the most ruthlessly competitive – the Brewin Dolphin Scottish Yacht Racing Series at Tarbert; the craftiest and most artistic – Cowal Open Studios and ArtMap; the most all-embracing – the Cowal Festival of Walking and the Arts; and the most serendipitous – the music festivals everywhere, from jazz, to folk to traditional – not to mention the pipe bands with world champion bands in Inveraray and Oban.

Show us anywhere in Scotland that can get close to this.

We’ve got all this and more on our own doorsteps. Why would we ever want to go anywhere else? Visitors could spend a lifetime here and never repeat themselves.

You can play hard and relax in comfort with great food and drink – all in Argyll and all from Argyll.

All we need now is to knock sense into the dumbos who govern us at all levels and get decent roads to let folk get anywhere near a set of resources any other areas would deploy larceny to acquire.

There is no point having all of this to offer and the poorest imaginable roads infrastructure not to support it. The council is now planning to spend around £15.5 million on Aryll’s roads. At today’s public sector contract prices, £15.5 million will not look at getting the long-neglected roads in order.

Argyll and Bute Councijl would do us all a favour if it stopped pretending it knew anything about economic development strategy and just looked after the roads well. This is a simple strategy – Economic Development for Idiots, if you like – that would actually support everything but without it we’re going nowhere.

NOTE; We are progressively adding website links to the examples mentioned.

The wild west: route notes for the Sunday Edinburgh-Oban direct train

newsroom — Fri, 06 Aug 2010 23:13:41 +0000

This is an independent perspective on what is a fabulously beautiful part of Scotland to which we are unequivocally committed – but open-eyed.

Scotrail is running an innovative day return service to the wild west, direct from Edinburgh to Oban – as a pilot scheme, every Sunday from 25th July until the end of August 2010.

The route is a stunner, full of scenic delights which travellers would be able to see much more of if – as with Scotland’s roads – the scrub at the side of the track was progressively cut down. Add your voice to the shout for this madness to end. How do you defend selling anything on grounds that experience cannot absolutely verify?

However, there are intriguing glimpses and vistas- enough to conjure and almost grasp the mysteries and seductions around this unique route.

For people in and near Edinburgh, this service offers an adventure to the wild west coast from the more staid east. You don’t have to change trains and stations in Glasgow. You don’t have to drive. If you’re with friends or family, you can all see the same views at the same time. You can have a glass of wine with your lunch – or a dram at the Oban Distillery.

You leave Waverley station at 8.00am and you can join the train at three other Edinburgh stops (Haymarket, Linlithgow and Polmont) before it goes, like Peter Pan, straight on until morning – the dawn of your relationship with a part of Scotland you may never have seen.

So here, for all visitors coming to Argyll’s west coast on this Sunday escape treat, are notes on the train, some places the route touches and a little of the history you will sense as you pass. If you can only see fleetingly, these notes will help what you see to mean more to you.

You will also find information on places to eat, things to do and what’s on in and around Oban on the day at the Oban and Lorn Tourism Association website.

For train buffs

This direct route avoids central Glasgow and the need to change trains. How? Scotrail has given us the information on the routing through Glasgow and the stock used for the trip.

Central Glasgow is avoided on this direct service by routing the train on the east to north curve at Cowlairs, at Springburn in the north east of Glasgow.
The train is a Class 156 unit. It will be consistent over the trial period as it is Scotrail’s only daytime rolling stock cleared for the West Highland Line.

The section of the rail route this train takes, from Bowling on the Clyde to Tyndrum at the most northerly point of the journey – is part of the West Highland Line, voted the world’s best rail journey.

The line from Tyndrum to Oban which this train then takes is a branch of the West Highland Line, with the main route carrying on north from Tyndrum, across Rannoch Moor, coming in behind the Nevis range of mountains, then turning west down the Roy Valley and back south into Fort William.

This route, with its onward branch line from Fort William out to Mallaig on the west coast opposite the Isle of Skye – with the Jacobite steam train running some services in the summer season – deserves every inch of its international acclaim.

By now, everyone knows that the long curving Viaduct at Glenfinnan (the rallying point for the almost successful 1745 Jacobite rebellion) on the Mallaig line, was the scene for the flying car pursuit of the Hogwarts Express in the movie, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. What is less well known is that it also featured in two later Harry Potter movies, The Prisoner of Azkaban and The Goblet of Fire. The Glenfinnan Viaduct also features on Scotland’s 2007 £10 banknote.

We recommend the full West Highland Line as another major experience for your ‘to do’ list.

Cowlairs and the swing away from Glasgow

The rip through Scotland’s Central Belt from Edinburgh towards Glasgow is an OK but not particularly memorable part of this journey. But, unusually, you will find yourself passing through Cowlairs – where the the train is switched east and north to avoid central Glasgow.

Cowlairs is itself full of industrial historical interest. It was the first works in Britain to build locomotives, carriages and wagons in the same place.

In World War II Cowlairs’ role in the war effort was producing, among other things, Airspeed Horsa troop carrying gliders for the D Day airborne assault; and 200,000 bearing shells for Rolls-Royce Merlin engines. When you look at the interior shot of the aircraft (above – complete with folding bicycle), you can see why a railway works could adapt to such production.

The Clyde and Bowling

The fun on this journey starts when the Cowlairs east to north curve casts you up alongside the Clyde near Old Kirkpatrick.

Just west of Old Kirkpatrick, the train runs past Bowling, clearly once a busy shipping port with stretches of derelict timbers that once supported jetties poking skywards out of the shallows. Bowling is at the western end of the Forth and Clyde Canal (now restored), connecting via the Falkirk Wheel to the Union Canal and the gateway to the Lowland canals.

A £1.4 million regeneration programme at Bowling Basin (above) and sea lock has now been completed, with more moorings and better facilities for users.

What may not be known is that Bowling also marked the western extremity of the Antonine Wall – the northernmost Roman fortification.

This draws a line from the Firth of Forth in the east to the Firth of Clyde in the west, on the limit of their control of Britain. (Wikipedia mentions a play called ‘The Romans stopped at Bowling’.)

In the context of this article, the schematic above, showing its location and its ‘milepost’ forts, looks like another train route.

The second of two wall fortifications the Romans built in the north – Hadrian’s Wall to the south in Northumberland was the first – the Antonine wall ran for about 39 miles, was around three metres high and five metres wide. It had a deep ditch on the north side for further security.

Its construction, ordered by the then Roman Emperor, Antoninus Pius, began in AD 142 and took about twelve years to complete.

The scant remains of the wall (left) between Croy and Barr Hill are now a World Heritage Site.

The Gareloch and Faslane

After Bowling, the train sweeps further up the Clyde, past Cardross and Helensburgh, the shoreside town where Charles Rennie Macintosh built Hill House and with 16,000, about one sixth of Argyll’s population of 96,000.

The second largest local authority area in Scotland with the third most dispersed population, Argyll in far from crowded.

Now the waters of the Clyde, visible out of the left hand widows, become the Queen’s Harbour of the Gareloch, with the train rounding the back of Faslane with its security fence, now the UK submarine base and with a leaking nuclear waste facility the Ministry of Defence has no immediate plans to replace.

After this invisible evidence of military care for the environment – local communities needing jobs, remain largely blind and silent on the dangers – the train curves to the west across the narrow neck of the lovely Rosneath peninsula to the south. Then it straightens up to run northwards through part of Scotland’s first National Park.

Loch Long and Arrochar

This is the Loch Lomond and the Trossachs National Park, a lot of which is in Argyll. The train works its way into it, keeping step with the well-named Loch Long, all the way to Arrochar at its head.

Loch Long itself was used during World War II to train naval crews in tuning and firing their torpedoes and this link gives you the story of Roy Elwood’s time there. A nationally respected photographer, he served then on HMS Zambesi and his article includes a photograph he took during Zambesi’s torpedo training in Loch Long, with the ‘fish’ caught emerging from the hull of the ship.

Above the west shore of the head of Loch Long, opposite Arrochar, the spectacularly gothic, ‘Addams Family’ crown of the legendary Ben Arthur – or, popularly The Cobbler - in the Arrochar Alps rears its head (top). Now you believe you’re in the wild west.

Loch Lomond and the Sloy hydro power station

Just south of Arrochar, the line cuts eastwards across the narrow isthmus between Loch Long and Loch Lomond, passing through Tarbet and swinging on north up the west side of the great loch’s final finger to Ardlui.

Now the water you glimpse from the right hand windows is the Loch Lomond of the song, with Ben Lomond towering above it on the far side.

Leaving Ben Lomond behind and south of Ardlui at the head of the loch, the train passes above Sloy, North of Scotland Hydro Electricity Board’s first hydro-electric power station and the biggest until Glendoe – above the southern end of Loch Ness at Fort August – opened (and quickly closed again because of a failed tunnel) in 2009. . The elegant sandstone station building at Sloy, with its Georgian-style windows, can be glimpsed – if you’re quick, below the train.

On the uphill side are the great water pipes (above) coming down the hill from the reservoir behind the dam at Loch Sloy, below Ben Vorlich, the northernmost Munro in the Arrochar Alps. This water drives the turbines inside the building and exits – with high drama when the turbines are running – into a still pond ducted below the A82 into the loch.

Tour buses often stop on the A82 opposite the power station to take photographs of it. There have been occasions in the not-so-distant past when so much water has jetted so fast out of the turbine exits that some tourists have been soaked to the skin in the splash.

Sloy is known as Site One, the first built and coming into operation in 1959. It is now about to build a pump to drive the used water back up the hill from the still pond, keeping its reservoir topped up.

Into the Highlands

Now you leave the big sea and freshwater lochs and run on north inland up the glen to Crianlarich, gateway to the Highlands and on northwest to Tyndrum, already in the higher mountains which culminate in Glencoe.

After Tyndrum the route veers westwards through Glen Lochy to Dalmally and on across the head of Loch Awe, with views from the right hand side into spectacular mountain scenery.

Loch Awe and Kilchurn Castle

As the line runs along the head of Loch Awe, visible from the left hand side, it passes the causeway to Kilchurn Castle (above).

This is a 15th century foundation fought over by clans Campbell and MacGregor and used as a Government garrison during both the 1715 and 1745 Jacobite risings. It was badly damaged by a lightning strike and abandoned in 1760.

One of Scotland’s most photographed castles, it is now managed by Historic Scotland and can be reached either via the causeway routed below the railway viaduct across the marshes at the head of the loch or, romantically, by boat from Lochawe village, below the Loch Awe Hote, landing at the jetty visible in the photograph.

Ben Cruachan – ‘the hollow mountain’

After Lochawe village the line runs along the northern shore of Loch Awe, moving back from the loch a little after passing under a bridge at the little residential inshore island of Inish Conan.

From here it takes a track above the A85, below to the left and under Ben Cruchan (above) to the right. Ben Cruachan is known now as the ‘hollow mountain’ because it is just that.

During Scotland’s great post-World War II drive to power itself from its water resources – led by then Secretary of State for Scotland, Tom Johnston and starting with the Sloy station you’ve already passed – a reservoir was built below the top of Ben Cruachan, filled by pumping from Loch Awe below with 10% coming from rainwater. (The dam at its southern end is visible from the A816 as it drops down from Glen Aray to Loch Awe.)

The interior of the mountain was then literally hollowed out to host the cathedral-like turbine hall. The power station was listed by the conservation organisation DoCoMoMo as one of the sixty key monuments of post-war Scottish architecture.

Cruachan was the world’s highest head reverse-turbine hydro-electric power station. (There is now one higher.) It generates on demand during the day, earning revenue. At night, when electricity is cheaper, it buys power itself, reverses the turbines and pumps water back up from the loch to the reservoir above. Its profit is the difference between the money it earns for power produced during the day and the price it pays for the power it uses during the night.

What you will see from the train is the semi-circular boom in the water in Loch Awe, just below the track, where the force of the water exiting the turbines is buffered. You will see, at the same time, the Visitor Centre for the power station, perched attractively above the water. This offers a good, informative and visually interesting exhibition, a great lochside cafe and – a minibus trip into the mountain to the turbine hall.

The Pass of Brander and battle that shaped Scottish history

After the Ben Cruachan Visist Centre, you will see glimpses through the scrub of a steeply sloping slope, spread with gravel falls, running into a pronounced narrowing of the loch. The rail track runs above the A85 through the Pass of Brander (above), passing through the site of the famous battle where, in the summer of 1308, during what are known as Wars of Scottish Independence, the Scottish King, Robert the Bruce, defeated the MacDougalls.

Two years earlier, the Bruce had been badly defeated by the MacDougall force, led by John Bacach (the lame), son of the clan chief, Alexander MacDougall of Dunstaffnage, in the Battle of Dalry, fought at Strathfillan near Tyndrum.

In what amounted to an ambush, the remains of the King’s force, already defeated at Methven by the English, were demolished by the MacDougalls, a victory which left the King a fugitive for at least a year.

By the summer of 1308 though, the Bruce was back in contention and, with Edward II focused on affairs back home in England, decided to seize his opportunity before the English returned to support their Scottish allies who had been left to fight alone at this stage.

Knowing that the Bruce would come for the MacDougalls, John Bacah positioned his men, hidden half way up the hill on the northern side of the narrow Pass of Brander, above the path through the Pass below and ready to fall upon the King’s men..

But, once bitten by the ambush tactic, the Bruce was too wily to fall for it again. Instead he sent a party of Highlanders, under Sir James Douglas, high up the hill where, unseen, they waited to fall upon the MacDougalls in hiding below them. When the action started, the Bruce’s force fought up the hill, sandwiching the hapless Macdougalls between them and the descending warriors under the Black Douglas.

The MacDougall force broke and were pursued west by the Bruce, across the River Awe and right to their clan fastness at Dunstaffnage. John Bacach, who was ill and watching the battle from a galley on Loch Awe, escaped down the loch in it.

Back on land, Alexander MacDougall, the Lord of Argyll, surrendered, paid homage to the Bruce and not long afterwards joined his son in exile.

The battle of the Pass of Brander was one of the pivotal battles in Scottish history, the end of the internal opposition to the Scottish King, although it left bad blood whose price was paid later, in 1332.

The River Awe barrage and Bridge of Awe

At the western end of the Pass, if you’re watchful, you will see the barrage damming the River Awe. The bed of the river below the barrage looks untidily turbulent, full of tumbled boulders.

Not long after this, the rail track crosses the river at Bridge of Awe. From the left hand windows you may be able to catch sight of the runs of an old stone bridge beyond – the bridge that named the township of Bridge of Awe.

There is a single narrative linking the barrage to the oddly disturbed river bed, to the ruined bridge.

The River Awe Barrage is remotely controlled from Perthshire. In 1992, to reduce the level of water in Loch Awe, swollen with heavy flooding, the remote control procedures were used to open all three barrages gates simultaneously.

The force of water released suddenly into the river tore up the river bed and hurled boulders downstream fast, slamming them against the pillars of the still intact but – fortunately – by-passed old bridge. The stone structure could not withstand the impact and two of its three spans collapsed into the river.

The River Awe is traditionally an excellent salmon river with the pool below the barrage mentioned regularly in angling circles.

Taynuilt and Loch Etive

After the Pass of Brander and Bridge of Awe, the train curves through woodland, passing behind Taynuilt, a pretty village on Loch Etive (partial view above) whose preserved and beautiful Bonawe Iron Works, now looked after by Historic Scotland, produced, in 1781, no fewer than 42,000 cannon balls for the Ordnance at Woolwich. It supplied the cannon balls fired by the Royal Navy under Nelson at the victory of Trafagar in 1805.

The village of Taynuilt was allegedly the first to raise a monument to Nelson who died in this battle.

The affinity of the workers at Bonawe and the folk of Taynuilt with the Admiral fighting with their cannonballs for the survival of the nation was such that they raised the standing stone to his memory as soon as they heard of his death.

The monument’s inscription is dated 1805, the year of Trafalgar. Naval units in the area come here on Trafalgar Day to pay tribute to the victorious admiral.

From behind Taynuilt the rail line crosses down to and around the shores of Loch Etive, north east of Oban (now you’re in the vicinity), before swinging away to run south west through almost secret countryside and – thanks to the scrub – largely unseen. The train emerges on the south side of Oban with glimpses of the bay, the Isle of Kerrera opposite and the mountains of Mull and of Morvern rearing up to the west and the north west.

The west coast and Oban

And you’re here – at what is unquestionably the prettiest town on the west coast mainland.

The town of Oban was an 18th century foundation growing to become the attractive town that today climbs the steep hills around its crescent shaped bay.

By World War II it was a busy port used by both Royal Navy and Merchant Navy ships. It hosted a flying boat base at Ganavan, north of the town and on Kerrera, the long low island to the west of Oban Bay, giving it shelter and adding visual definition.

In the cold war Oban became very important as the place where the first Transatlantic Telephone Cable (TAT-1) came ashore at Gallanach Bay, south of the town where Puffin Dive now operate in what are the best diving grounds in the UK. The cable carried the Hot Line running between the presidents of the USA and the USSR.

A secret so well kept that the books are out of print, is the series of west coast marine thrillers written by the late Glasgow journalist Bill Knox – the Webb Carrick series stars the Scottish Fishery Protection Service, often operating out of Oban and engaged in deeds of derring-do all over the west coast to the Western Isles. Each is set in a known area but in a fictionalised locale. Working out where they are is part of the fun.

These are cracking page-turners, capturing the essence of life on the west coast and the islands. Any film company with imagination would snap up the rights. Webb Carrick and the exploits in which he features are the potential west coast action-packed James Bond movies – handsome heroes, mysterious independent women, villains smooth and rough, scenery and natural hazards only Scotland’s west coast can deliver – and boys toys galore.

If you feel drawn to read them, to cement your relationship with Oban and the west coast, try online at Amazon or Abe Books.

Oban is literally crowned by the folly of McCaig’s Tower, the views from which are spectacular and well reward a walk up out of the town. You look across Kerrera to the mass of Mull, seeing the Sound of Mull stretch away west, between Mull and the mysterious landmass of Morvern in the Ardnamurchan peninsula. This ends at the lighthouse on Ardnamurchan Point, the UK’s most westerly point.

A nasty piece of water to navigate, yachts that have roundes Ardnamurchan Point come in to moor in the shelter of Tobermory on Mull, with a bunch of heather tied to the pulpit to signal the achievement.

McCaig’s Tower was designed and commissioned by philanthropic banker, John Stuart McCaig, to make work for local stonemasons and to provide an enduring memorial for his family.

The tower was built between 1897 and McCaig’s death in 1902, at the age of 78. It cost him £5,000 – or around £750,000 at today’s prices.

Oban itself has good places to eat at all levels, with the renowned seafood restaurant, the red-roofed Ee-usk (above) on the North Pier at the top of the food chain, closely pursued by Coast, in the main street. It has a series of interesting shops, with the chocolate factory on the front beyond the North Pier a magnet for most of us chocoholics and the bookshop, Waterstone’s specialising in books on the area and on Argyll, often not seen elsewhere.

One book it carries was its best seller last year – the History of the Oban Lifeboat, one of Scotland’s busiest and visible at its berth beside the South Pier. The book was written by a former crew member, Willie Melville and the proceeds go to support the RNLI lifeboat.

You will have five hours in Oban, time to take life easy in this gentle town, explore its secret nooks and crannies. Details of Oban, what you can do, see and eat there, are on the Oban and Lorn Tourism Association website.

And if you get a chance to see The Illusionist, a magical 2010-release film with hand-painted period animations, you will see the fading entertainer at its heart play out the end of his career between Edinburgh, Oban and Iona, the holy isle with St Columba’s Abbey, south of Mull.

And home again

The train leaves Oban around 5.00pm and gets back into Waverly by 9.00pm.

Bon voyage.

Afterwards

You may discover you like the west and want to come back to the mysterious Argyll whose Dunadd Fort (above) in the archaeologically breathtaking Kilmartin Glen, is the birthplace of modern Scotland. With its lochs, its glens, its mountains, its welter of inhabited inshore and offshore islands and its embedded history, Argyll mirrors Scotland and is arguably the most complex and beautiful part of it.

Oban is a good place to start. Ferries to many of the offshore islands leave from there – to Mull (virtually a waterbus service in a large ro-ro), to Colonsay, Coll, Tiree (and Islay on Wednesdays), out to the Western Isles – and to the little inshore islands of Kerrera and Lismore.

There is also Oban Airport served by Hebridean Air Services, with unimaginably scenic flights to Colonsay, Coll and Tiree, with new trial flights on to Islay from Colonsay.

There are boat trips to seal colonies and from Tobermory on Mull there are whale and dolphin watching trips – the Argyll coast – longer than that of France – is on the orca migration run.

Loch Lomond Seaplanes does circular flights out of Loch Lomond itself and eye-catching flights from the Clyde up to Oban, with a leg on to Tobermory.

At heart, whatever you like to do outdoors, Argyll is the place for you. It has:

the best sailing grounds in the world and international sailing and sailboarding events
the best diving grounds in the UK – with wreck diving in the Sound of Mull a major focus
one of the best set of sea kayaking opportunities anywhere
great long distance walking trails – the West Highland Way, Bute’s West Island Way, the Kintyre Way and the Cowal Way
a slew of highly individual half marathons slung across mainland and islands
unique golf courses, also on mainland and islands – including the two famous courses at Machrihanish in Kintyre (the Old Tom Morris designed Machrihanish Golf Course and the new eco-course at Machrihanish Dunes, the first to be built from scratch in an area of Special Scientific Interest
fabulous sporting and music festivals of all kinds
the richest biodiversity in the UK – and you can see white tailed sea eagles at the Loch Frisa Eagle hide on Mull
first class local produce and world famous single malt whiskies (think Islay for a start)
there’s not an ugly corner in it – driving is bliss
every one of its islands and areas is unique and would take a lifetime to plumb – the mainland bastions of Cowal, Mid Argyll, Kintyre, Lorn ad Lomond, with their mix of viking and Gaelic heritage; and the islands of Bute, Gigha, Islay, Jura, Colonsay, Lismore, Mull, Coll, Tiree and the Slate Islands.
and it may be Scotland’s best kept secret but its accessible – on the west shore of Loch Lomond, half an hour from Glasgow, you’re already in Argyll,

In short, Argyll is very hard to beat.

Photographs accompanying this article are, from the top:

Ben Arthur – or The Cobbler – rearing its ‘Addams Family’ head above the west shore at Arrochar at the head of Loch Long. It is by copyright holder Stemonitis and is reproduced here under the GNU Free Documentation Licence.
Platform 14 at Waverley Station in Edinburgh, for the Oban express.
The interior of the Airspeed Horsa glider, built at Cowlairs, by copyright holder Dave Deben and reproduced here under the Creative Commons licence.
The Canal basin at Bowling, by copyright holder Dave Souza and reproduced here under the Creative Commons Licence.
The schematic for Roman Forts on the Antonine Wall, by copyright holder Notuncurious and reproduced here under the Creative Commons Licence.
The remnants of the Antonine Wall between Croy and Barr Hill, by copyright holder Tony Rotondas and reproduced here under the Creative Commons Licence.
The pipes to the turbines at Sloy Power Station on Loch Lomond, by copyright holder Paul Hadfield and reproduced here under the Creative Commons Licence.
Kilchurn castle on Loch Awe, by copyright holder, Peter Gordon and reproduced here under the Creative Commons Licence.
Ben Cruachan, by copyright holder Grinner and reproduced here under the Creative Commons Licence.
The southern end of the Pass of Brander, by copyright holder Chris Heaton and reproduced here under the Creative Commons Licence.
House at Taynuilt on Loch Etive, by copyright holder, Sue Anderson of Island Focus. This image may not be used without permission.
Oban with McCaig’s Tower. Copyright holder For Argyll.
Oban’s North Pier with the red-roofed Ee-esk seafood restaurant. Copyright For Argyll.
Dunadd Fort in Klimartin Glen, Argyll, by copyright holder, Sue Anderson of Island Focus. This image may not be used without permission.

Isle of Luing ambition to build an Atlantic Islands Centre

newsroom — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 09:30:42 +0000

In yet another example of Argyll and the Islands stirring with ambition, the Isle of Luing Community Trust has submitted a planning application to build an Atlantic Islands Centre in Cullipool.

This proposal was floated last year at the hugely successful Atlantic Islands festival held on the island in association with the Scottish Centre for Geopoetics which is based there.

Those supporting – and objecting to – the proposal have until this Friday (23rd July) for their comments to be received. Supporters must make their voices heard. Objectors always do. The planners need an accurate picture of community perspectives.

The challenge of renewal

Communities – individuals too – who do not renew themselves are self-condemned to progressive decline. The challenge of life itself is renewal, as that is its very process.

The Isle of Lismore in Loch Linnhe, north from Luing and its fellow Slate islands, was in this position a few years ago. A plan to build a new heritage centre with a bistro cafe, beside the old museum was founded on strong local support but drew persistent objections.

The centre was given planning consent. Its design, at once traditional and – today – innovative with its grass roof, sits comfortably in the landscape. A large outdoor deck, an extension of the bistro-cafe, makes outdoor socialising a communal pleasure in decent weather in the stunning landscape.

The St Moluag’s Centre supports residents, community groups and visitors alike. It provides contemporary facilities in an attractive, damp-proof, well insulated building. It has been a noted success for life on Lismore, with young folk confidently staffing the cafe and visitors given a sense of belonging for the time being.

This building won the inaugural Argyll and Bute 2009 Sustainable Design Award for public buildings – not only because of its quality but because of the insistent campaign on its behalf by its own community. That speaks for its acceptance and its perceived value.

Yet this building came from the same position as the proposed Atlantic Islands Centre now occupies – supported and attracting objections, many vigorous.

In Lismore, one focus of these was the assumption that a new centre would impact negatively on the existing village hall. This has not been the case. The new centre has added greatly to the island’s resources – for itself and for its visitors; and what had already existed continues to fulfill a vital function in the community.

There is every reason why Luing’s proposal should be every bit as successful and the two have much in common, including their architect.

Luing is a working island and a go ahead one. Many of those at the heart of the Atlantic Islands Centre proposal are involved with the Luing History Group and with strengthening the creative heart of the island. These are the last people to be insensitive to the nature and needs of the island.

What may well separate them from the objectors is that they are demonstrably willing to expend effort, time and expertise on making a contribution to the vital renewal of their island home.

Submit responses to be received by 23rd July

The application is on Argyll and Bute Council’s website.

If you click on View Associated Documents (at the foot of the screen) you can open the Design / Access Statement and the architect’s plans etc at the bottom of the list and see what is proposed.

Call to support the Community Trust’s initiative

The Community Trust sees this building being of great potential benefit to the people of Luing and its visitors and is asking for comments in support of this application (Ref: 10/01059/PP) to be submitted:

online at the above Council website address or
by letter to: Ms Fiona Scott, Planning Officer, Argyll & Bute Council, Planning and Regulatory Services, Lorn House, Albany Street, Oban, PA34 4AR.

Note: All comments must be received before Friday 23rd July 2010.

The Trust is asking those interested to pay particular attention to the planning issues that most concern the Council:

Appearance (design, materials etc)
Traffic, parking and access
Residential amenity (noise levels etc)
Impact on natural or built environment – e.g. benefit to natural heritage by raising awareness of bird and plant life in the area

It is legitimate for anyone to submit their comments, but if you have been to Luing please mention this and give your views as to how this Centre will enhance life on the island for residents and visitors. There are currently 8 objections and only 3 support letters listed.This is the usual pattern, with people motivated more strongly in objection than in support – but it gives a skewed picture.

For Argyll’s view is that objection and support should only be taken into account by the planners where it comes from full-time residents on Luing. These are the lives centrally affected by any change. Residents of all views and interests should talk to each other about it rather than become factionalised and rather than have a decision swayed by people who visit; by second homers; and by those who now live elsewhere.

But if it is legitimate for comments of either kind to be submitted even by people who have never been to Luing, then it is vital the the positives outweigh the negatives if progress is to be made.

People need to live in organic communities that grow and change to meet the wider context of the society of which they are a part. Living in fortress toytown may be the dream of witless romantics but sustainable communities need more realism, imagination and energy.

The Atlantic Islands Centre proposal is one which would bring new life and new opportunity to Luing while also enlarging its sphere of influence as an information junction for Argyll’s Atlantic islands.

The Isle of Luing

Luing is one of the celebrated Argyll slate islands, with the remnants of its slate quarries and quarriers cottages at the two villages of Cullipool and Toberonochy.

The proposed centre includes the former Engine House, with a contemporary addition.

Unlike some of its fellows, Luing is large enough and has land capable of having an agricultural as well as a fishing base, so it is, to a degree, a working island still. Luing cattle, a cross between Highlands and Shorthorns, were officially recognised as a breed in 1965. Clams/scallops, prawns and lobsters are the main focus for fishing.

Luing has the remains of two hill forts in commanding positions. Bronze age artefacts have been discovered on one of these. There are also the remnants of what seems to have been a sort of Crannog, with similar structures also on nearby Loch Seil.

The island is reached from the main road south of Oban via the secondary road to the Isle of Seil, by crossing the legendary Bridge Over the Atlantic and taking the minutes-long short ferry journey across the Cuan Sound.

The island – the archipelago – is very much a world of its own – as indeed are most areas of the amazingly diverse and beautiful Argyll.

The origins of the proposal

The Luing History Group could be said to have been the genesis of the move to provide an Atlantic Islands Centre.

The group describes its work as ‘collating and recording historical, ethnological, biological, archaeological, geological and other related information’. Its aim is to press the heritage and history of the Isle of Luing into service for the education and betterment of the widest possible audience.

As time has gone on, the group has also brought into its remit its adjacent, smaller and mainly uninhabited islands, including the Garvellachs, Scarba, Lunga, Torsa, Shuna, Fladda, Belnahua, Rubha Fiola and other small islets.

This has created the sense of Luing as a potential centre for the islands not only within but beyond its immediate vicinity. Others with related but different interests, like the Geopoetics group, have also been drawn to the attractions of helping to bond island alliances. Here there is the lure of creating affinities in contemporary culture, with its tap roots into island traditions.

In a way, the noti0n of a centre for the Atlantic Islands based in a small island close inshore, runs parallel to creating a St Kilda Centre on the Western Isles. This is guaranteed to be accessible virtually all the time; informing those who will find the opportunity to take passage out to the reverberant island group; and giving those who will never actually see it rich insights into its history and the lives it supported and destroyed.

The arguments around the proposal

We have read the eight objecting and three supporting letters/emails to the Council’s planners and have tried to look objectively at the picture that arises from them.

Here are what we consider to be the key facts emerging, for and against, fairly and objectively:

Luing is still a working island so, while something can be done to sustain a working population and working lives there, it should be done.
Ambition and change need to be embraced with discrimination. Without them, any community – any individual, any nation – will become moribund. With them, indiscriminately adopted, important and delicate social and economic balances can be lost.
The Community Trust seems initially to have wanted simply to restore the Engine House and make it a host for the historical records the Luing History Group collects; and for archaeological artefacts. There are questions as to whether or not conditions could be engineered in this historic structure that would be capable of the adequate preservation of historical documents.
The departure fr0m this first proposal may have been driven by Highlands and Islands Enterprise, which would fund a more expansive proposal founded on a business plan demonstrating its independent sustainability.
The community seem universally to want to see the Engine House brought back into productive use.
The two villages, Cullipool itself and Toberonochy, already have village halls. As with Lismore – which proved unfounded, there are fears that a third and larger facility would leave these buildings struggling to survive. There is not a need for all three.
The site for the proposed Atlantic Islands Centre, to link with the old Engine House is quite tightly squeezed in front of the edge of a deep, water-filled slate quarry. Safety issues have bee raised relating to this location – but these cannot be insurmountable.
The number of car parking spaces in the plan – four, plus two disabled parking spaces – is said to be inadequate to the numbers envisaged visiting the centre. There are concerns in the objections that under capacity would lead to random parking in the village, causing disputes with residents. Nevertheless, it is unlikely that great numbers of cars would visit simultaneously and this place is not a tour coach destination..
Local roads in Seil and Luing and the Luing ferry (currently leaking and out of service) are both seen to be vulnerable to seriously increased usage – if indeed such volumes were likely. Again, such a centre as that proposed is more likely to receive a steady but modest volume of traffic – not day-long surges.
Some objectors say that they would not oppose the creation of an Atlantic Islands Centre – if it was built somewhere else and out of Cullipool. This has all the hallmarks of nimbyism.
Others point out that such a building needs to be organic in its location – to be in what was a centre of the working island in its industrial heyday, so that visitors can absorb the original and changing nature of the place. And of course it does.
One objector says that perhaps if Cullipool was made a ‘warmer’ place, more visitors would come and more would stay. There is an issue here that reaches beyond attitudes to the proposed resource.

The big issues

There are two: indiscriminate policy development and muddled thinking by the enterprise agency; and a fortress mentality in some islanders.

Funding as the driver

There is an endemic problem here with HIE’s position – which is very familiar.

It is unhelpful to seduce communities into having more than they really want, need or can sustain. It is equally unhelpful virtually to compel them to produce unrealistic business plans which work to show that achieving the impossible might indeed be possible.

Auchindrain Township Museum in Mid Argyll – on the side of the A83 trunk road through Argyll – now says unequivocally that it can never hope to earn enough to support itself properly – and that even if it could, such numbers would destroy the fragile structure of the little historic township the museum preserves.

It is important to focus on what can be earned and to look at community assets in these terms – but it is too often ridiculous to force anticipation of unrealistic business volumes.

The Western Isles have massive sums of money pumped into them on every pretext imaginable. This can be indiscriminate on occasion but is born from the will to see such communities enabled to survive.

That determination – that value set – needs to be more widely applied. There is no reason why other small populations should not be supported in developing what they know they need and can modestly sustain.

Similarly if they have ambitious proposals which would regenerate a community while bringing a modest commercial advantage, that too is defensible within existing precedent, if one rarely applied to Argyll.

The Isle of Raasay – population 94 – was given over £4 million by HIE via the Big Lottery’s Growing Communities Fund, which it controls, to buy and refocus the Raasay Estate and Raasay House.

Repel invaders

On the second issue – that of the ‘repel invaders’ mindset – when we read the comment from a supporter of the proposal – that it would be better if Cullipool became a ‘warmer’ place, it chimed with what we were beginning to feel as we read the objections.

It was hard to avoid a sense of claustrophobia in a scenario where anyone visiting is observed, scrutinised and corralled into being as unobtrusive as possible.

While everyone in every circumstance needs to behave with consideration for others, joyous engagement with a new place cannot always be a silent or a still affair. There is a balance to be struck.

If you love your place, share it generously with those interested enough to come to engage with it.

If you want to repel invaders as opposed to welcome new friends, buy something large enough to give you the comfort of isolation. If you can’t afford to do that, celebrate what you have and share it. Understand that there are others who also love tranquil and enchanting places – that is what they come to find and they will not be there for long.

And…

It is always wise and constructive to consider the other side of a debate. There may be some substance to some of the objections. If the community works together, it is inconceivable that solutions to these cannot be found to the benefit of all concerned.

Saturday’s Daily Record travel section to major on Argyll

newsroom — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 15:16:13 +0000

Saturday’s edition (12th June) of the Daily Record’s travel section (readership 1.3 million) will include a full page promoting Argyll as part of VisitScotland’s new My Scotland campaign.

This campaign targets the Scottish domestic market - a strategy with very real value this season. There are significant numbers of people aware of the possibility of more ash cloud action from Iceland’s Eyjafjallajokull volcano and who want to copper-fasten their main annual holiday by going somewhere they can be virtually certain they will get to – and even more importantly, get back home from.

The current strength of the Euro is another pointer to the worth of making forays around Scotland, This country doesn’t in any serious sense have an ugly inch in it. It doesn’t matter where you go, it is breathtaking, varied and full of all sorts of historical resonances, hidden secrets and outdoor activities to calm the most hyperactive and to challenge the most skilled.

The My Scotland campaign launched on 5th June 2010, aimed at stimulating day and overnight visits for residents in Scotland throughout the year. It is building on the Homecoming Scotland 2009 initiative which had 92% awareness among Scots if, because of unfocused marketing, considerably less impact elsewhere.

Just as we now regard the oceans as ‘inner space’ – vast, largely unknown, unvisited, alien to us – our own country, our own area even, is often foreign territory, less known and less explored than we imagine.

We can move inwards to find worlds at least as fascinating and arguably less stressful than those we move outwards to reach.

This Saturday’s feature in the Daily Record is the second in a series that will run until at least the early part of 2011. VisitScoitland’s partnership with the paper will appear under their strapline ‘So close to home’ and there will also be a dedicated microsite supporting the coverage.

The Daily Record is one of the My Scotland partners. The campaign’s development over the summer of 2010 will see a range of other partners involved.

The specific editorial being developed by the Daily Record is in process just now and we do not know its specific focus – but we do understand that Inveraray in Mid Argyll features in it. And we gather that there’s a competition on Page 3. (Now there’s a conundrum.)

The campaign

The My Scotland campaign, which will reach almost 3 million Scots during its run, aims to grow the number of day and overnight trips taken within Scotland by the home market. It is expected to generate £7.5 million for the national economy.

Scotland itself is an important market for Scottish tourism and its potential is growing. Over 40% of trips were taken by Scottish residents last year, with overnight stays from January to June increasing by 6.8% (173,000 trips) compared to the same period in 2008.

My Scotland is the second phase of a major marketing drive which will see VisitScotland invest £5 million across four major campaigns during 2010. Together these are expected to generate at least £100 million for tourism businesses across the country.

Based around feedback from accommodation providers and others whose success depends on strong visitor numbers, the ‘ash rescue’ package included free advertising opportunities on the Perfect Day website and an immediate cash injection of more than £100,000 to help promote Scottish tourism businesses. Almost 1,000 Scottish businesses took advantage of the offer.

This strategy has a lot to commend it. Learning about your own country is the best benchmark for understanding others. It can often open completely new worlds and cultures, relatively close at hand.

A few years ago, in looking at the plans for student placements being put forwards by the emerging University of the Highlands and Islands, our own first response was to query why the target hosts were out of Scotland.

Shetland is as alien to Dunoon as is the Faroes, Iceland or Canada. Thurso, the north coast and the Flow Country is a world apart from anywhere. Sabhal Mor Ostaig, the Gaelic College on Skye with fabulous student accommodation (which can be rented by visitors – try the penthouse suite in the tower) offers a cultural experience as distant as any imaginable. The lush pleasures of wealthy Perth are a very long way from the Atlantic outpost of Stornoway. And, as the song says, there’s ‘Always Argyll’.

And there is always Argyll

Argyll’s topography and its histories make it a myriad of worlds, cultures and opportunities. How many of them have each of us personally visited?

How many mainland Argyllachs have been to their own county’s islands:

to see the the seat of the Lords of the Isles at Finlaggan, drink the single malts of the eight distilleries and watch the beach rugby contest at Port Ellen (this Saturday – 12th June 2010?
to experience the great Victorian neo-gothic extravaganza of Mount Stuart house, to experiencethe current Trilogy of Sounds installation art there for hte summer, or to Eat Bute?
to watch the sea eagles on Mull or the dolphins off it, to see Tobermory and to thrill at the car rally hoards come to see in October;
to take a sea trip to the Stevenson’s Skerryvore Lighthouse eleven miles out in the Atlantic off Tiree and said to be the most perfect of all lighthouses, or to hear the corncrakes in Tiree’s Flag Iris beds, or to gasp at the world class Tiree Wave Classic windsurfing contest in October?
to wander to the castles on Lismore and wind down at its award winning St Moluag’s Heritage centre and bistro?
or go to a music gig in the amazing hall on Easdale Island and take up residence in the Puffer Bar?

How many Oban folk have crossed the bay to Kerrera, the island that shelters them and that they see, minutes away, every day?

How many Argyll islanders know much about each other’s islands – start with the questions above – or about the Argyll mainland?

Who’s been around the Kilberry peninsula? Who’s done the Cowal Open Studios trail of artists and crafts people’s studios? Who knows the inside road up Kilbrannan Sound from Campbeltown to Claonaig in Kintyre or has been to Knapdale to see the beavers? How many have come to see Scotland’s only preserved traditional and unimproved rural township at Auchindrain in Mid Argyll?

How many came to the Connect Music Festival in Inveraray? Who’s been to the Cowal Games in Dunoon? How many have walked the Arrochar Alps or seen Argyll’s great post’war reservoirs from the first, Glen Sloy on Loch Lomond, to the technologically fabulous hollow mountain at Cruachan on Loch Awe.

How many from Inveraray know Glen Duror, where the Appin Murder of Colin Campbell took place and led to a trial and a false and managed verdict in Inveraray Jail with a gory execution at Ballachulish?

How many people from Cowal know the Argyll west coast – the Loch Melfort Hotel, the Slate Islands and the little road down Glen Lonan to Taynuilt with the awe-inspiring Ironworks at Bonawe?

Who from north Argyll has been to the Rosneath peninsula and to Helensburgh, with its Charles Rennie Mackintosh Hill House?

And there are the experiences and the challenges

How many Argyllachs have taken any of the plane trips out of Oban airports to the islands?
Who’s taken the new passenger ferry from Tayvallich on Loch Sween over to Jura?
Who’s been on a boat trip out to the Corryvreckan whirlpool, one of the most powerful in the world?
And what about the Loch Lomond Seaplane experience – one of Scotland’s top three visitor attractions? Been there?

How many golfers have set themselves the challenge of golfing Argyll?

How many athletes have done all of Argylls Half marathons?

How many sailors have done the Scottish Series out of Tarbert, the Round Mull Race and West Highland Yachting Week out of Oban? (This may well record the biggest number of positive answers.)

How many of us have walked up the 300 feet of Dunadd Fort in Kilmartin Glen, where modern Scotland began – and realised from being there why it was such an important and powerful place – and still is?

And we talk reverently about Iona. How many of us have actually been there, seen the Abbey, John Smith’s inspirational headstone and the Bay at the Back of the Island?

These places and experiences are just the start of Argyll’s resources, the most naturally rich place in the UK and the most complex. It’s a full blooded country in its own right. You could spend a manic lifetime and never grasp a fraction of it.

This is just the foreword. There’s so much more – and these are not just for visitors. They’re for us first. And how can we tell others about them if we don’t know what we’re talking about?

This is our own place and most of us know very little of it. The My Scotland campaign should remind us that there are foreign parts not very far away. Let’s go. There is no better place.

Traditional music stakes out Best Achievement for Argyll – and more

Sun, 03 Jan 2010 13:52:12 +0000

Increasingly Argyll is building a name for itself as a major player in the renaissance of the Arts outside the Central belt. Much of the thrust for this is coming from the volunteers and grass roots enthusiasm and dedication of community groups.

This was made transparently clear in the For Argyll Awards 2009, announced on 1st January, where arts (and particularly traditional music and Gaelic groups) gathered what might seem to be a disproportionately high public vote. There was only one category specifically aimed at the Arts (Best Arts Programme); there were five categories which excluded arts relating to websites, local newspapers and the environment.

But in the ‘open’ categories the Arts were heavily supported by the public. In the Best Achievement for Argyll category the only two individuals (as opposed to groups) represented in any of the finals were traditional and Gaelic musicians, and the other two finalists were traditional music groups – one from the world of piping and one from the world of traditional fiddle.

Eilidh Steel

Eilidh Steel, the winner, is a fiddle player and composer from Helensburgh. She started playing fiddle at the age of six and completed a BA Honours in Scottish Music at RSAMD in Glasgow in 2006. She is a prolific composer and many of her tunes are now being played and performed throughout the world.

Eilidh has always been influenced and interested in the music from her home area of Argyll researching this as part of her degree. The musical tradition of Argyll forms an important part of part of her repertoire with guitarist Mark Neal.

She also teaches fiddle both in groups and individual settings. She has considerable experience teaching workshops with many organisations and festivals including: RSAMD, The Royal Scottish National Orchestra (RSNO), Feisean Nan Gael, The Scots Music Group and Helensburgh Fiddlers. She is the musical director of the annual Fiddle Festival in Edinburgh, now considered to be one of Scotland’s key traditional music events for both players and audiences.

Joy Dunlop

Joy Dunlop, the close runner-up, is from Connel on Loch Etive and exudes talents ranging from singing to television presenting, dancing to award-winning Gaelic journalism. She was immersed in Gaelic culture from an early age, leading her to graduate with honours in Gaelic Language and Culture from the renowed gaelic college in Skye, Sabhal Mòr Ostaig.

A multi-prize winning Gaelic singer and popular international performer, she combines her full time Gaelic development work for An Comunn Gaidhealach with a regular stints on Gaelic TV and radio. She also writes a monthly column for the Gaelic newspaper An Gàidheal Ùr.

Joy is also in great demand as a teacher, speaker and translator and can normally be found at most cèilidhs dancing up a storm and keeping the crowd on their toes. She is the Gaelic tutor and member of the Taynuilt Gaelic Choir, who have had medal success in the Mod under her tutelage.

Inveraray & District Pipe Band

The Inveraray and District Pipe Band, another of the four finalists in this category, is the area’s first pipe band in 70 years. It was set up by local – and 2009 world champion solo piper Stuart Liddell, who hit on the idea whilst giving weekly bagpipe lessons in local schools.

The band takes part in competitions and is enormously generous in its contribution to local communities and charities regularly giving time to help other groups. It probably needs premises just to house its silverware! In 2009 alone it won the World Championship title at Grade 2 and the Drum Corps prize. Having won all but one major championship by then, it completed the Grand Slam of 5 major titles at the Cowal Gathering. This is the first time since 2002 that this has been achieved in Grade 2.

There cannot be many groups – in any field – who can claim to be Scottish, British, European and World Champions all at the same time. The band will be performing at Celtic Connections on January 16th.

Fiddle Folk / Lochgoilhead Fiddle Workshop

Fiddle Folk and Lochgoilhead Fiddle Workshop, along with their Gaelic arm Fèis Cheann Loch Goibhle, were, together, another finalist in this category.

Loichgoilhead Fiddle Workshop is a charity which raises money to put on about 10 professional concerts a year for local communities in Cowal and Mid-Argyll. FiddleFolk arranges fiddle teaching in five local schools and holds weekly workshops for adults, as well as monthly musical get togethers for youngsters. Fèis Cheann Loch Goibhle runs an annual ten-school tour; puts on residential music and outdoor activities weekends; and, in 2009, arranged the ambitious St Columba Ceilidh Trail over two weeks in Ireland and Argyll with young aspiring musicians.

In 2009 a total of 3,300 people benefited from FiddleFolk’s projects, including 1,200 children. For many of these children it will have been their first opportunity to play a musical instrument or to hear top quality live music.

And it wasn’t just music…

Amongst the finalists from the arts sector were the

Royal National Mod Oban 2009, an outstanding winner in the Best Major Event category
Helensburgh Heroes, an astonishing effort bringing an entire spectrum of the community of this large town together with professional recording specialists to produce a live aid version of David Bowie’s Heroes;
Easdale Island Hall Arts Programme
Meur Chruachain pre-Mod ceilidh and the Summer and Winter ceillidhs
Walking Theatre Company
Homecoming Lismore Week, with Coming Home, an original play for Armistice Day from Lismore Youth Theatre Group..

Then among the original list of nominations from the arts sector, there were:

Stuart Liddell, world champions solo pipe and Pipe Major of Inveraray & District Pipe Band
Islay Pipe Band
Cowal Pipe Band Championships
Ceann an Tuirc Male Voice Choir
Taynuilt Gaelic Choir
Glasgow Islay Choir with Coisir Ghaidhlig Ile - joint concert
Argyll Gold Concert
Mull of Kintyre Music Festival
Strachur’s Stars in your Eyes
Outback Gallery, Islay
Cowal Open Studios
AnElephantCant, Helensburgh’s interiors art company and publisher of children’s books
Islay Bards evening at Ionad Chaluim Chille Ile
The Islay Book Festival
The Flight of the Arctic Tern from Helensburg-based composed Mark Sheridan and performance group.
Atlantic Islands Festival, from the Scottish Centre of Geopoetics based on Luing;
The Hidden Jewel, a Walking Theatre production commissioned by Dunollie Homecoming

And we could all think instantly of other worthy candidates who just weren’t nominated – for example the Jazz Festivals on Bute and Islay; the work of Oban musician Finlay Wells… the bands…

These awards have shown the strength in depth of the arts in Argyll, and underlined the potential rewards that could follow from a concerted and strategic effort to develop them.

Mark Morpurgo, Fok and Traditional Music Editor

2009 For Argyll Awards: Nominations update

Thu, 24 Dec 2009 00:15:29 +0000

(As at Midnight 24th December) Nominations have now closed.

Below is the final list of all those nominated – and a very interesting document it is. It shows the spread of activity across Argyll, it shows the hot spots and it says a lot about where Argyll’s strengths lie.

All categories are hotly contested – and the one with most nominations was Best Achievement for Argyll. This indicates a great well of recognition and respect for the many significant achievements and achievers in Argyll.

Most of the action today was in supporting nominations but there were still quite a few new nominations. At this stage it is unlikely that a new nomination will have time to gather enough nominations to make the final – but the nomination itself runs a flag up a flagpole for good work done.

Finalists – those with the highest number of nominations – will be announced by 9.00am tomorrow (24th December).
Online voting will open at 9.00am on 25th December and close at midnight on 31st December.
Overall winners in each category – and the two special awards made by For Argyll itself – will be announced sometime in the afternoon of 1st January 2010.

Best Achievement for Argyll

National Mod, Oban
Eilidh Steel
Inveraray& District Pipe Band
Islay Blog
Mull of Kintyre Half Marathon and 10k Run
Lochgoilhead Fiddle Workshop
Islay Energy Trust
Coming Home (in Lismore Homecoming)
Stuart Liddell
Helensburgh Heroes
AnElephantCant
Arrochar and Tarbet Community Trust
Jan Brown
Joy Dunlop
Tobermory Christmas Lights
Ceann an Tuirc Male Voice Choir
Will Bonniwell
Mid Argyll Triathlon
Walk Islay
Walking Theatre Company

Best Tourism Initiative

Homecoming Scotland
Fiddle Fok / Lochgoilhead Fiddle Workshop
Cowal Tourism Forum
Visit Kintyre
Easdale Island Brochure
Jura Passanger Ferry
Spying Tonight Murder Mystery (Walking Theatre)
Proposed multi-functional Community Campus at Arrochar
Mull Eagle Watch
Joy Dunlop
Outback Gallery, Islay
Oban
Islay Car Hire
Mull of Kintyre Half Marathon and 10k
Walking Theatre Company
Sadie Dixon-Spain
Mull of Kintyre Half Marathon and 10k Run
Seafari Adventures

Best Environmental Initiative

Islay Energy Trust
Islay Birding
Luing Atlantic Islands Centre initiative
Seil Natural History Group
Seil Community Garden Project
GRAB Trust
Arrochar Community Garden

Best Community Initiative

Lochgoilhead Fiddle Workshop
Helensburgh Heroes
Finlaggan Centre Development (Islay)
3 Villages Hall in Arrochar
Lismore Homecoming
Eilean Easdeal
Port Ellen Primary School Blog
Seil Community Garden Project
Biomas boiler at Strachur Memorial Hall
Seil Natural History Group
Luing Atlantic Islands Centre initiative
Taynuilt Gaelic Choir
Tobermory Christmas Lights
Islay and Jura Swimming Pool
Lorn Market Initiative
Mull of Kintyre Half Marathon and 10k

Best Homecoming Event

Feis Ceann Loch Goibhle’s St Columba Ceilidh Trail
Joint Concert in Islay: Glasgow Islay Choir with Coisir Ghaidhlig Ile
The Hidden Jewel, Dunollie Homecoming
Islay Festival & Homecoming Parade
Inveraray Bluebell Festival
Spirit of the West at Inveraray Castle
Homecoming Lismore Week
The Flight of the Arctic Tern
Argyll Gold Concert
Oban Hogmanay party 2008/9

Best Major Event

Best Community Event

Helensburgh Christmas Festival of Lights
The Calor Village Of The year party at Arrochar
Islay Bards evening at Ionad Chaluim Chille Ile (Islay)
Islay Beach Rugby
Mull of Kintyre Half Marathon and 10k Run
Succoth Family Day
Lismore Homecoming
Easdale World Stone Skimming Championships
Seil Island Community Hall
Inveraray Bluebell Festival
Strachur’s Stars in your Eyes
Helensburgh Heroes
The Atlantic Islands Festival
Meur Chruachain pre Mod ceilidh
Finlaggan Centre Extension
Christmas Fayre Benderloch
Mid Argyll Triathlon
The Walking Theatre Company

Best Arts Programme

Lochgoilhead Fiddle Workshop
Royal National Mod, Oban
Easdale Island Community Hall
Islay Pipe Band
Dunollie House Homecoming Programme
Disconnect Festival, Inveraray
Cowal Open Studios
Atlantic Islands Festival
Meur Chruachain summer and winter ceilidhs
Disconnect Festival, Inveraray
Jura Visitor Evenings
Argyll Arts Trail
Mull of Kintyre Music Festival (MOKfest)
The Islay Book Festival

Best Activity website

Islay Wilderness Guide
Mull of Kintyre Seatours
Kintyre Forum
Seil Natural History Group
Arrochar and Tarbet
Islay Birding
Islay Shipping Blog
Wild Isles – ‘Mull & Iona wildlife website. eagles to otters – oysters to whales – its the business’
Mid Argyll Triathlon & Cycle Club
Seafari Adventures

Best Wildlife Website

Best Community Website

Best Local Newspaper

Newsletter from Luing’s Scottish Centre for Geopoetics

Fri, 11 Sep 2009 14:51:29 +0000

Its website is currently offline for maintenance but the latest Newsletter from the Scottish Centre for Geopoetics on the isle of Luing makes up for that.

The Centre, with Norman Bissell, ran the remarkably successful 2 week Atlantic Islands Festival this summer. The Isle of Luing Community Trust has already raised £22,000 to progress its plan to build an Atlantic Islands Centre on Luing and has now submitted an application for European funding for the project. The Scottish Centre for Geopoetics pans eventually to rent space for the Trust within the new building.

The Newsletter has retrospectives on both of these as well as information on a wide range of upcoming visits:

to Aberdour to walk the Fife Coastal Path on 24th October, before its AGM
to Islay for a weekend in mid-February 2010 with visits to distilleries and the nature reserve at Loch Gruinart (in reverse order?)
to the North of England, sometime in 2010, for a day to bring together cross-border members to talk about geopoetics

There’s also an article by Bill Eddie on a game of two halves when he and his brother (a lesser enthusiast) went bird watching together at Peffer Burn, where what was a transformational moment for Eddie was ‘alright’ for his brother.

What really roots in the mind from the Newsletter, though, is a phrase on Magnetic North’s touring production of Walden. This is an adaptation of Henry David Thoreau’s autobiographical account of the same name – and Luing is seeing the show at Cullipool Hall tonight (11th September).

The account and the performance describe the real life experiences of the author in an 2 year experiment living entirely by his own resources at Walden Pond in the woods near Concord, Massachusetts. Unforgettably, what drove Thoreau to this is described as the desire ‘not to live cheaply or dearly but to live deliberately’.

That’s the sort of perspective you tuck into your back pocket for good.

The Newsletter carries a offer to anyone who joins or renews their subscription to the Scottish Centre for Geopoetics by Standing Order – you will receive a free copy of Grounding a World: Essays on the Work of Kenneth White (a key spirit in Geopoetics) for only £1 postage and packing. Go to the Centre’s website for information – it will be back online shortly.

Crinan Classic Boat Festival 2009

Tue, 03 Mar 2009 15:28:40 +0000

The 2009 Crinan Classic Boat Festival runs from 2nd-5th July. This is a feast of classic wooden boats of all kinds – sail boats, fishing boats, motor boats, dinghys… There’s posing, whisky, racing, whisky, haggis-hurling, whisky, ceilidhs and… whisky. Well this part of Scotland is where the best of Scotch is born and made so who’s to complain?

The Classic is open to all wooden boats and the racing is fabulous. These are some of the best cruising grounds in the world and racing around them is not to be forgotten. Crinan is on the west ocast of Argyll – and of Scotland – on the Sound of Jura with the islands of Jura and Scarbha opposite, the Corryvreckan whirpool over the water, the Atlantic beyond and the Scottish west coast islands inshore to the north and out in theAtlantic to the north west.

For more information, contacts are the website – linked from the text above and:

Mike Dalglish – Mobile: +44 (0)788 793 1921
Ross Ryan – Mobile: +44 (0)776 627 7818
Landline: +44 (0)1546 830 261
Email: crinanclassic@yahoo.co.uk

Argyll & Bute Council sees third consecutive unanimous acceptance of its budget amid sense of positive collective responsibility

Thu, 12 Feb 2009 23:25:03 +0000

Yes, Argyll and Bute Council’s unanimously approved budget has frozen Council Tax for the second year running. But we knew it would. Not to do so would have been financial madness, throwing away the grant support from the Scottish Government for agreement to freeze the tax and requiring a rise in Council Tax of around 7%-8%. These are not the days for such a rise.

The real achievement of the Council is not the freezing of the Council Tax but the attitudes and processes whcih have made it possible for all shades of political opinion to set aside their narrow interests and work together constructively in the interests of Argyll.

The very aura of the Council Chamber during the budget meeting was one of mutual support and collective responsibility. It was serious. It was listening. It was alive to what it is on the way to becoming. If only Holyrood was half as mature, Scotland would not have had to endure the blinkered and old fashioned party politicking that saw the Scottish Government’s budget recently downed on its first outing.

Councillor Ellen Morton, Leader of the Opposition followed Council Leader Dick Walsh’s opening presentation and moving of the motion to approve the budget. Confidently on top of her brief, she dealt only with the issues of general concern to the Council in the framing of the budget and engaged in absolutely no party points scoring. How long is it since anywhere in the UK has seen this sort of grown up, engaged behaviour- which was reflected in the words and attitudes of every Councillor who spoke?

Councillor Morton and other Councillors paid particular tribute to the Council Leader, Dick Walsh, in the openness with which he had conducted the cross-party discussions that had led to this highly constructive outcome. When one such tribute was paid, Councillors on all sides of the chamber banged their desks in approval.

So what did they do with the budget? The budget allocation of £257 million for 2009-2010 was a tight one charged to dealing with difficult circumstances.

Councillors agreed that their unanimous priority was the protection of the most vulnerable citizens in Argyll and this was evident in the range of strategies adopted, one of which was the allocation of £2.66mllion to affordable housing.

Councillors have agreed to draw upon an additional £1.7million of Council reserves to balance the budget, enabling them to reject proposed savings on matters of significant community importance. This means that, among other decisions:

an additional £150,000 per year is allocated to help meet growth in demand for adult care services
the much admired small respite care home in Lochgilphead, Fyneview, is reprieved, pending a review
the part-time local libraries at Cardross, Rosneath, Garelochhead, Cove and Tarbert are similarly reprieved pending review
mini buses uwill continue to be provided for non-statutory pupil transportation in Tiree, Islay and Tobermory
the residential activity weeekend at Cowal Primary School will continue to receive funding
Community Learning and Youth Work will not see a reduction in the hours od sessional staff
the 50% reduction to the music instructors resource budget has been restored
businesses will benefit by no increse being made to the charges for commercial waste and commercial recycling
there will be continued support for a number of leisure facilities throughout Argyll and Bute, including the MacTaggart Centre, Atlantis Leisure, Mid Argyll Community Enterprise, Camanachd Association, Scottish Rugby Union and Argyll Active
there will be continued provision of community and housing support on Argyll’s Atlantic Islandsof Coll, Tiree, Jura and North Mull
external organisations will not, at this time, be charged for Streetscene services for a number of major events which bring considerable benefits to the area. These include the Cowal Gathering, Tarbert’s Scottish Series yacht racing, Connect (cancelled for 2009 but which may run smaller events), Oban Hogmanay party, Crinan Classic Boat Festival, Rothesay Games and other events in Tobermory and Helensburgh
public loos at Ulva Ferry, Kilmun, Glendaruel and Tayvallich will be kept open

The amount of £1.7million taken from accumulated reserves to enable the additional allocations described above leaves the Council with its stable internal contingency of 1.5% of its budget, or £3,873,000. This will remain as the contingency to support next year’s budget.

The word perhaps most used in the meeting – by the Leader, Councillor Walsh, by Depute Leader, Councillor Robert MacIntyre who seconded the motion to approve the budget, by Councillor Morton and by almost every Councillor who spoke, was – ‘challenging’. This was applied to the nature of the current and coming times. It means that there will continue to be hard choices and hard decisions to be made. No one will be surprised about that.

The last word here has to be a repetition of the first word – that Argyll is seeing the evolution of a confident, informed, collaborative and responsible council refusing to allow itself to be derailed by outdated party political posturing.