When I won the Kitschies Red Tentacle earlier this year, I decided I would spend the prize money on making some forays into the Scottish landscape, seeing places that were new to me and generally getting to know this country a little better. I spent some time in Edinburgh back in June. Other than one brief lunch hour between trains, this was my first visit to the capital and it was a memorable experience, not least because I was lucky enough to catch a screening of Alien at the Filmhouse while I was there – talk about excellent timing! In terms of its architecture, history, culture and overall vibe, Edinburgh is so very, very different from Glasgow, and I came away with the sense that my understanding of Scotland as a nation had been increased substantially.
In July, Chris and I visited Arran, our nearest island neighbour. We took the longer, three-ferry route via Claonaig and Lochranza, a spectacular approach, especially under piercing blue skies. Arran is a marvellous place in every respect and we will certainly be back (I need to climb Goat Fell…) Then at the beginning of this week I undertook what turned out to be my most memorable rail journey since taking the sleeper train from Leningrad to Moscow in 1987., when I boarded the Far North Line to Thurso.
There is no better reminder than this of how big Scotland actually is. After travelling the three hours from Glasgow Queen Street to Inverness – a spectacular stretch of railway extending right through the Cairngorms – there are still another four hours of journey time to go, all accompanied by far-reaching views of the northern Highlands and the strange, vast interior of Caithness, the unique and environmentally important peat bog known as the Flow Country.
The journey will forever be characterised in my mind by the acreages of fireweed – rosebay willowherb – that daubed bright pink along the whole length of the line, in full and vivid bloom on my way up, just beginning to go over on my way back. Strangest of all though was the fact that I happened to be reading Michel Faber’s Under the Skin, a powerful and original work very different from Glazer’s film, and travelling through places – Dornoch, Tain – almost in the very moment that I was reading about them.
In the Caithness Horizons museum in Thurso, they have Pictish stones, whose elusive, unreachable mysteries move one to tears. They also have the original 1950s control room equipment from the Dounreay nuclear power station. You can sit in the seat where the controller would have sat – a cup of tea and a bourbon biscuit on the side lend a particularly grounding touch of realism – and lift the telephone they would have used in the event of an emergency. You can see and touch the SCRAM buttons. It really is quite something.
On my second day in Thurso I made the crossing to Orkney on the Hamnavoe, leaving from Scrabster and landing in the old port of Stromness, whose history has been shaped equally by the herring industry, Arctic exploration and WW2. Travel logistics made it impossible to stay on Orkney more than a few hours on this occasion, enough time at least for me to gain a sense of the place, to climb up to the heather moorland behind the town and look down towards Scapa Flow. The Hamnavoe ferry’s route takes her right past the Old Man of Hoy, and as we passed by on our return journey – our captain made an announcement that orcas had been sighted alongside us, but in spite of our rushing immediately on to the decks, none of us passengers were lucky enough to catch sight of them – it seemed inevitable that I would think of Peter Maxwell Davies, the life he made on Orkney and his perennially lovely and timeless Farewell to Stromness.
Holy Isle from Lamlash Bay, Arran
Piers, Stromness
Main street, Stromness
Above Stromness