THERE is so much of my own country about which I know so little. Arbroath was one such place, somewhere to pass by on the way elsewhere. It's one of these wee broon toons (the sandstone of the buildings is supposedly red, but then I'm as colour-blind as a bat in a 1930s movie) up the east coast, and I was heading thither to spend the weekend with my old friends, David and Nessie.
David worked at the Hootsmon for 48 years, first as a linotype operator, then in pre-press (something neither of us knew the meaning of) and latterly in IT. He used to pad around the North Bridge nuthouse in sandals, a moving oasis of calm amid the h
ot sands of barely suppressed hysteria. Nessie was a civil servant. She paints wonderful landscapes. Both keep themselves active and interested. David has a super collection of antiquarian books.
His ancestors hailed from Arbroath, and Nessie discovered hers too were from the surrounding Angus area. David runs a website about the Bell Rock lighthouse. His great-great-great grandfather was one of the key men involved in its construction. Later, yon ancestor became a lighthouse storekeeper in my beloved Leith.
David and Nessie keep a lovely little second home in Arbroath, to which they repair when life in Edinburgh's leafy suburbs becomes too constricting. Arbroath is constricted by the big boa of a dual carriageway slithering right through the middle of the place. Makes getting in and oot – and through – pretty straightforward, though.
At the wilfully plain Foundry Inn, an amiable bunch of old guys playing accordions and fiddles sparked mixed memories of other places for me. A group of visitors from Philadelphia, artists of some sort, took it all in. Some looked very Scottish, with fiery red hair. They'd probably heard the place would be jumping, but it was quiet. Many "legendary" places in the sticks turn out to be prosaic, but I liked the unpretentious bar at the Foundry.
Another night, we went to Wetherspoon's, where it was £1.29 for a pint of IPA. I had to drink several to make sure I wasn't dreaming. For another few quid I could have had a "meal deal". There was no muzak either. Sounds great? Up to a point. For it was THE place to be in Arbroath, so there were burdz with skirts up to here and baldies with tattooed biceps. Biceps have become a bore. You can't move for them nowadays. How kinder men looked back in the Sixties and Seventies. Now the look is determinedly brutal.
But enough of boozers and biceps. Let's leave town. The village of St Vigeans is actually just on the outskirts. We'd come to look at the graveyard, as you do. It sits on a mound, with the parish church at the top, and the ground so steep that some folk must have been buried standing up. St Vigean was originally St Feichin, incidentally, an Irish name that sounds like it might have been made up by Father Ted.
Such a quiet, atmospheric place. We heard ethereal singing from somewhere. Back in the car, switching on the radio, we found it was coming from Classic FM. What a delight to see the Pictish stone at Aberlemno. I'd seen it so often in photiegraphs. No one knows what the symbols stand for. Probably a load of rubbish. In the past, unbelievable though it sounds, people were even thicker than they are today.
Inside the church, the minister's pulpit seemed hemmed in. In the past, he'd have been literally looked down upon by the lairds. Maybe he still is. Aargh, already my blood is starting to boil! Lairds! They still own vast tracts of the lands, when these are not foreign-owned – something forbidden in other countries. Doesn't matter to me where they're from. The idea that someone "owns" thousands of acres, and can fence these off from the citizenry, is absurd and immoral. Excuse me a second, while I have a stiff drink. It's either that or headbutt something.
Ah, that's better. I just headbutted the door. Oh, the joy of quiet roads. It was like being back in less mad times (which people then thought mad, or certainly madder than the past, when everything seemed better but, generally speaking, was worse). Some roads were neither single-track nor comfortably wide enough for two cars. There were no passing places, which is a problem in these in-betweeny, not quite Highlandy places (where single-track roads predominate and have passing places every few yards). But we managed fine in David's dinky little Honda Jazz.
Next week: We climb a Caterthun, pay a sociable visit to the Rocks of Solitude, sit above the beach at St Cyrus, and are treated to an unexpected bonus of dolphins in Carlingheugh Bay.
The full article contains 823 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
