Scotland
in the
heat
Vacancies
Do you have a ‘broad appreciation of the historic, social and political context in Scotland’? Do you have a ‘proven track-record’ at senior or boardroom level in central government or the public sector, ‘with an ability to command respect with stakeholders in Scotland’?
If you are fortunate enough to understand any of this, and are quite interested in libraries, you will probably want to apply for membership of the British Library Board, which is looking for someone with special knowledge of Scotland. The going-rate is £9,130 a year for two days a month. You will only have to go to Boston Spa, a place in West Yorkshire, for a meeting once a year. Otherwise, just take a train to London.
For further information click here
SR anthology
Sit back, decide within five seconds that there’s nothing worth watching on the box, and relax instead with the Scottish Review, the new paperback anthology of pieces from Scotland’s online current affairs magazine.
Among the 42 selected gems:
Eileen Reid
My journey of love and loss
Anthony Silkoff
Kicked out of the mosque
Mike MacKenzie
The night I nearly drowned
Bill Jamieson
Grand Grossartia
Katie Grant
The age of disillusion
George Chalmers
First day in prison
Walter Humes
Tribal nation
Marian Pallister
The people crushers
Plus many other SR favourites, all neatly wrapped up in an elegant 144-page bedtime read.
£7.50 plus £2.50 p & p.
Order now: call 01292 473777 with your credit/debit card number.
Unlike many publications SR doesn’t have an online comment facility – we prefer a more considered approach. The Cafe is our readers’ forum. If you would like to contribute to it, please email islay@scottishreview.net
A political roundabout
spinning so noisily that
it drowns out the swings
Bruce Gardner
I
Diary week was muddied (rather than mired) in controversies. Last week began well. Aberdeen Music School, based in Dyce Academy, North Aberdeen, held its concert in the Music Hall, a plush city-centre, pre-Victorian (1822) venue. My wife and I attend various events here, watching world-class musicians with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, Scottish Chamber Orchestra and BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, all down the musical scale to Gerry and the Pacemakers. The Music Hall has the lot.
The Music School covered a spectrum too, from Mozart, Rachmaninov and Hendriesson to songs in Latin and jazz pieces like Timmons’ ‘Moanin’. The kids were a knock-out. Items featured beginners (none of whom sounded like beginners), as well as future professional stars. This was a great night for Dyce area and Aberdeen Music School. I call this happy prelude to my week: the swings.
Mid-week, swings are overtaken by roundabouts. One headline screams, ‘Shock as parents pull kids out of school’. In Dyce Academy, rumour and counter-accusation drag the secondary through a hedge backwards. It seems one parent does not think the school challenges pupils and is persuading others. On local streets, newly-born smiles fade to gloom. Academy and council spokesmen refute the ‘unfounded rumours’. Finally, a dramatically-reported ‘mass-walkout’ fizzles out in just nine pupil transfers.
This illustrates two things. First: rumour-mills and stresses can be ratcheted up destructively in modern reporting. Secondly: no political roundabout should spin so noisily that it seems to drown out the swings.
II
Aberdeen is the biggest village in Scotland. Its central thoroughfare, Union Street, was founded in 1801 to give a spine to a higgledy-piggledy fishing town. Legend has it that the granite mile was planned with a narrower girth. This was considered unworthy of the grand design, so hired gangs moved Doric pegs by night to a width befitting Athenian ambitions. Thus, Union Street rivalled Edinburgh’s Princes Street. It also bankrupted Aberdeen.
The street has an impressive elevation. Grand arches support a snub to nature that skims over hill and glen alike. One supporting arch, Union Bridge, is the proud centre of its Enlightenment promenade. It looks down where the Denburn once flowed, where women washed clothes. The burn is long covered over to support a railway, its east side cleared for a parallel road. Yet the land to its west remains what seems from the bridge a sunken garden – it is Union Terrace Gardens, the focus of a new, sweeping plan.
Scratch many civic schemes and you find a philanthropist. Self-made local man, Sir Ian Wood, offered £50m of his own money (adding a £35m hedge against overspends) to redesign the gardens to link high and low town levels and allow easy access from all sides. It unleashed a minor storm. (Habitually-quiet Aberdonians are vocal when disturbed). Finally, in a March poll, 86,500 citizens (52%) voted. and Sir Ian won a majority of just over 4,000. Inevitable hints of fraud began (on Facebook). They were investigated. A Labour demand for poll papers was refused by the electoral officer, sparking no anti-Putin-style protest.
The chosen scheme joins streets and gardens through a network of granite walkways. This ‘granite web’, by US firm Diller, Scofidio and Renfro, features social, cultural and artistic areas. Sir Duncan Rice, ex-principal of the university, says his jury was ‘overwhelmed’ by its vision. For sceptical minds, with which Aberdeen is richly-endowed, the web is a skate-boarder’s paradise, but its many admirers will welcome a communicative bridge between Aberdeen’s historic layers. New amenities are expected to appear above and below the web. (One surreal sketch is of cricket under a fly-over). Cynics will envisage less savoury activities, but that is hardly new. The challenge is to embrace Aberdeen’s granite web and make it work.
The most provocative aspect is the staggering initial estimate: £140m. It requires the borrowing of £92m from the Scottish Government, in addition to the generous gift of Sir Ian. How will it be paid back? It will apparently come from business that will flood into Aberdeen, impressed by the city centre redevelopment.
To some, this is far-sighted investment, like Union Street itself: despite teething troubles, the grand street was key in creating modern Aberdeen. To others, it is the economics of wishful thinking, writing cheques beyond one’s means, hoping that a ship will come in. Divided Aberdonians will unite to scan the horizon.
III
I welcome the recently-announced consultation on the changes to benefits that are likely to happen as a result of the UK Welfare Reform Bill. The Welfare Reform Committee advises that the bill will affect all ages and many organisations. It is seeking the views of those with experience of benefits.
I spent my 40th birthday in a welfare office, ‘between jobs’. That sounds like a leisurely interlude, but children’s tummies need filling daily. I suddenly found myself, with shock, a bread-winner without bread. So I sat in the welfare office, reading the faces of vulnerable men and women – all in a subdued mood, trying to act normally. It may have been a walk in the park for a few. We, the worried, were the majority.
Eventually, a civil service lady arrived with a smile and a generous cheque. I was relieved and grateful. Weeks later, I had a job. Apart from sickness, I never had to depend on the benefits system again.
Yet the impact of sitting with the vulnerable stayed with me. If people come to me in hardship, in addition to whatever help I give, I allay anxiety over state assistance. I know from experience the value of our civil servants here. I have criticised aspects of the civil service in SR, so let me commend it warmly in this.
Barbour wrote: ‘Ah! Freedom is a noble thing! Freedom makes man to have liking’ (i.e. choice). Today, we call it participatory democracy. If you have welfare experiences to share, please write. Send your views to: welfarereform-yoursay@scottish.parliament.uk or write to: James Drummond, Welfare Reform Committee, Room T1.01, Scottish Parliament, Edinburgh EH99 1SP.
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