Eann Sinclair is a native of Caithness, and works as Programme Manager for Caithness & North Sutherland Regeneration Partnership. He thinks he has the perfect day job, working with others to help ensure that the north Highlands have a vibrant future. He also loves his night-time gig, playing bass in They Drove by Night, an eight piece rhythm & blues oufit. More on his day job is at www.cnsrp.org.uk/blog/ and on his night-time existence at www.facebook.com/TheyDroveByNight/
Images Credits: Alan Hendry; Editor Scottish Provincial Press Supplements
Last week I watched a flock of wild geese arriving in the fields near my home, and thought “that’s great. Summer is coming.” I tend to mark the changing of the seasons by the appearance of geese – either northbound in springtime or southbound in autumn – or the distinctive seasonal cries of a lapwing or curlew.
In a past life I worked in the tourist office in Thurso, on the north coast of Caithness, and one of the most frequent questions asked of me as a young local man was “what do you do around here?”
Actually (and to the surprise of visitors) I would say “I play in a band.” Not what people might expect of a remote rural area, but perceptions of remoteness are there to be confounded! In the 19th century a resident of the northernmost island in Shetland was recorded as saying:
“It was a good hour, that my son went to Caithness. He can call rossa mare; big bere; eld fire ; klovandi, taings”
The 19th century boy had been sent south to learn “proper” Scottish/ English words, rather than what were seen as more coarse dialect words of Norn (of which more later). In the 21st century places like ours can seem remote from big centres of population. Everything is relative, and in a digital age remoteness becomes less of a barrier.
I still play in an amateur rock ‘n’ roll band, in an area where music has always been an important lifeblood. The US Navy had a base on the north coast of Caithness in the 1970s and 1980s, and you can still feel the influence of American music in the area! It’s a real joy to travel around the area playing (in both summer and winter). If you venture north you’ll find a surprisingly vibrant nightlife, and an amazing range of creative venues. The Ceilidh Place in Ullapool is internationally renowned, but you’ll find traditional and modern music in village halls, pubs and theatres around the area. Music legend (and fellow Venture North blogger) Edwyn Collins has his proud family roots in Helmsdale, on the east coast, and has recorded a beautiful album of songs inspired by the area and its heritage.
As children we would be taken not on holidays to overseas destinations, but to Tongue and Durness and Lochinver and Dornoch and Ullapool and Gairloch. Holidays where access to the great outdoors was taken for granted, whether that was to the beach or up into the hills. In fact our coastlines (east, north and west) are studded with beaches that can quite literally stop traffic in the summer season. But as children we knew where the best, quietest and most sheltered beaches were. Just ask around and you’ll find out. My favourite as a child was Achnahaird, tucked away at the end of the road near Achiltibuie on the west coast, on the Sutherland/ Ross-shire border. From there, nearby Ullapool and Lochinver seemed like big settlements.
Or, much closer to home in Caithness, we would head into the hills to Loch More, with its tiny patches of “beach” where summer picnics were always worth the trip. It’s also one of the best places in the area to indulge in “dark skies” gazing.
But back to that question from a visitor – “what do you do here?
Well, maybe more than you’d think. We quarried flagstone (and marble) then exported across the globe. It’s said that Red Square in Moscow was paved with Caithness flagstone. Most evidence of that industry is gone, but I still love the relatively hidden Castlehill harbour in Caithness (5 miles east of Thurso) where you can still see the remains of a flagstone works, as well as the tiny harbour from which paving stones were exported. From this harbour it’s a short walk along to the sweeping beach at Dunnet, and Dunnet Head, which is the most northerly point on the British mainland. I love being up on Dunnet Head in the middle of Summer: you can see for about 60 miles in every direction on a clear day, and with good eyesight see the spire of St Magnus Cathedral in Kirkwall in Orkney.
From splitting flagstones to splitting the atom. The atomic plant at Dounreay brought huge change to the area in the 1950s. The site is now being decommissioned, but one of my favourite sites on the north coast is thousands of years older: a little-known Historic Scotland chambered cairn site on the hill above Dounreay. Sitting on top of Na tri Sithean (Gaelic for “the three fairy mounds”) that sense of zen-like calm takes over. Maybe that feeling is influenced by the memory that I first discovered the site thanks to a Japanese professor, who arrived as a visitor asking for directions to reach it. My shame at not having a ready answer was compounded by the fact it lay within a few miles of the area that was home to generations of my family.
My home area is studded with castles, churches, chambered cairns, brochs, standing stones, and stone rows, and I’m in the enviable position of having favourites in each category! Depending on mood, prevailing weather or available time I have easy access to the most fantastic sites.
The setting for Castle Sinclair Girnigoe is stunning: set atop the sandstone cliffs of Caithness, it seems to grow out of the cliff itself. I love the short road that leads from Wick up to the Castle and to Noss Head Lighthouse, and from Noss Head you can see north across Sinclair Bay to Keiss Castle, the first of several Viking strongholds that played a key role in the battles described in the “Orkneyinga Saga”. Like the other castle sites on the east coast of Caithness, Castle Sinclair Girnigoe is never busy with visitors. But don’t let that put you off: in the relative peace you will have stones, seabirds and sea breezes for company, and that’s worth seeking out.
You can’t get too far away from one of the darkest periods in our history when you move around the area. The Highland Clearances of the 19th century touched every part of the north, but were probably most evident in Sutherland. Elements of this story are memorably told at Timespan in Helmsdale and Strathnaver Museum in Bettyhill. But for me the place where that whole story is distilled to its essence is not in a museum or visitor centre – but rather in a small church. Croick church is several miles up a narrow road from Bonar Bridge in east Sutherland. It is like many small Highland Churches that served remote communities like those of Glencalvie. But I can still recall as a child being taken to see the church and being shown one of its windows, in the corner of which a phrase was scratched into the glass – “Glencalvie people. The wicked generation.” Not graffiti as such. Instead the last message of one of the tenants who had been evicted in 1845, and had taken refuge in the church. That nothing is known of who wrote the message or what happened to them makes it all the more poignant. It has stayed fresh in my mind since the first day I read it. If you make it to Croick and look around, you will see tell-tale signs of a once-populated Highland glen.
Maybe it’s something about ancient ruins, but the places in the north I have returned to again and again all have an association with one of more of these structures. Cairns and fairies; castles and seabirds. But mostly it’s about the space to think, and to breathe.
I love the placenames of the north of Scotland. It tells you much about our area’s history, if you look closer. In the days when the ocean, not the highway, was the means of travel the north was a central point for traffic to and from Scandinavia, as well as to and from the Baltic States and other parts of Europe. Our area is rich in Pictish symbol stones, which give us tantalising glimpses into a culture largely lost to the arrival of Norse settlers. Placenames in the north seem to contain mainly Gaelic and Norse elements, and indeed Caithness spoke a dialect of Old Norse (“Norn”) until around 1300. We still have words that we share with cousins in Norway and the Faroe Islands – as kids we helped build a “gilt” of hay or a “scroo” of corn sheaves. We still call a diving bird a “scarf” not a cormorant, and sea stacks are “cletts” or “skerries”.
Apart from my rock ‘n’ roll adventures I have a day job – and what a day job! Working to help make sure the area has an economic future. Which takes me right back to where I was 25 years ago, answering that question about what we do here. Stones and atoms, yes. Like my grandfather the quarryman or my father the engineer. But fish and corn and beef and lamb too. Or what about making batteries that have powered space missions; or making and moving the world’s largest moveable structures; or making 60% of the world’s underwater cameras; or making devices that measure at nano-tech scales; or launching the world’s first commercial tidal stream project? All happening here in this place I call home.
That cultural crossroads between Pictish, Norse, Scottish and English influences, that geological melting pot that brought Victorian scientists north to usher in the modern age of geological science, that creative hub of music, literature, art and drama, that modern business community working right at the cutting edges. Or maybe just a wee rock ‘n’ roll band in the pub round the corner.
Venture north; ask around. You’ll find it all.
