Far between sundown’s finish and midnight’s broken toll

Posted on December 15, 2024 by Stephen Shellard

I saw a post on Facebook recently, an excoriation of racism. Maybe I thought it a little self-righteous in its sentiment, but I couldn’t think of any comment that wouldn’t itself seem a little self-righteous.  I don’t really know the author of the post other than through Facebook, but I find what he puts up interesting. I clicked the “like” button, felt a bit lame, and moved on. 

But I continued to stew about the matter. I share a visceral dislike of racism – and sectarianism and the gamut of othering responses. For me, openness to difference is a virtue. Yet I know that sometimes my response to other people, on the basis of trivial aspects of their appearance or character or manner or views they express, can be ungenerous. To some extent, my identity as a liberal and open-minded person is an act. It is not entirely genuine and requires effort to sustain.

Many people who exhibit casual racism can also, in other circumstances, demonstrate generosity.  If I am unable to recognise this other side of their character, and if I am too ready to accuse them of being racist,  I may trap them in a racist mindset. This polarisation is a defining feature of the current era.

A less brisk and judgmental response might open someone to a different view of the world. Sometimes, getting along with others requires effort, and the world would benefit from more of that effort. 

These reflections on prejudice  brought to mind two Dylan songs that deal with the same theme in contrasting ways.

I pity the poor immigrant

Who wishes he would’ve stayed home

Who uses all his power to do evil

But in the end is always left so alone

That man whom with his fingers cheats

And who lies with ev’ry breath

Who passionately hates his life

And likewise, fears his death

The song seems to acknowledge that immigrants, often under extreme duress, may face challenges that can complicate their relationships with others.  Elsewhere Dylan provides a message with which I feel more at ease:

Far between sundown’s finish and midnight’s broken toll

We ducked inside the doorways, thunder crashing

As majestic bells of bolts struck shadows in the sounds

Seemin’ to be the chimes of freedom flashing

Flashing for the warriors whose strength is not to fight

Flashing for the refugees on the unarmed road of flight

And for each and every underdog soldier in the night

And we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing

They’re both remarkable songs: Chimes of Freedom stands as a great visionary piece, while I Pity the Poor Immigrant serves as a reminder of the challenges of realising such a vision.

Endnotes

I Pity the Poor Immigrant

Chimes of Freedom  

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A National Park for Galloway…

Posted on December 7, 2024 by Stephen Shellard

A Chance for Revival or a Risky Gamble?

Landscape in Galloway

A proposal is afoot to make some part of Galloway – as yet undefined — a national park also to include, perhaps, South Ayrshire. This proposal has sparked increasing debate, with strong resistance emerging within the local community. If the placards that have gone up around the region are a reliable indication, the farming community seem mostly to be opposed. Farmers are inclined to present themselves as the guardians of the land and so are no doubt fearful of a blizzard of petty regulation in the wake of a park designation. There is plenty of evidence however that many modern farming practices — overuse of fertilisers, pesticides and more, have been the destroyers of the land and are depleting the soil. But even writer and broadcaster, Tom Heap, a proponent of  “regenerative agriculture,” is sceptical. When interviewed at the Wigtown Book Festival recently about his book Landsmart, he said national parks are “a bit of a red herring” and that “Unlike US national parks, they are not very good for nature as the land is still in private ownership.”

Amongst those supporting  a park are a subset who imagine the designation would halt the march of wind farms. Many clearly believe wind turbines are a blot on the landscape with pylons on the way to add to the eyesore of it all. This reasoning is fanciful. More wind farms and pylons are on the way, like them or not.

My principal experience of a national park is the Lake District.  It was established “to protect the landscape by restricting unwelcome change by industry or commerce.” I haven’t been there for a few years now. It was always a lovely place to visit, unspoiled by economic forestry and the litter and mess of industrial farming that is widespread in Galloway, where little traditional farm steadings are so often surrounded by huge and indisputably ugly sheds. Regiments of Sitka spruce  occupy the hillsides. 

This said, all is not lost in Galloway. Despite these blots, much that is to be treasured remains. It is a beautiful region, its hills and largely unspoilt coastline, its salt marshes and tidal extremes. There is no shortage of places to walk. Whatever I may think of industrial farming and the ecological damage it has done, there are still small and unspoilt farms to be seen, mostly in the hills. In addition to the dairy herds corralled in sprawling sheds, there are belted galloways in the fields, year round. Less common and less showy are rigget Galloway cattle, an older breed, small and hardy with a white strip along their back.

In the Lake District I’ve stayed in bed and breakfasts, I’ve stood in queues to climb Great Gable in the snow, I’ve enjoyed the outdoors ambience on the streets of Keswick, and walked the margins of the lakes. The Lake District was established as a National Park over seventy years ago. Its cultural heritage was already widely celebrated, from Wordsworth and John Ruskin, to Beatrix Potter — who gifted land to help establish the park. There were, from the outset of park status, unspoilt, working traditional hill farms.  The contribution of the landscape was equally clear, the immutability and grandeur of the mountains, valleys and lakes.  

But our understanding of what may be important in a landscape and the environment has changed. The hills and uplands of  Galloway, which were once thought to be as immutable as the mountains of the Lake District, are now recognised as ecosystems: complex, fragile, already damaged—perhaps beyond repair. I was talking with a friend recently and we were lamenting the disappearance of field mushrooms from our landscape, something we were both familiar with in years gone by. That is just anecdotal evidence of species decline in this area but I also read Patrick Laurie’s blog and he paints a very grim picture detailing the decline of ground nesting birds in heathland areas of Galloway. Another friend, more authoritative on such matters than I, assures me that “national parks, in particular, have lower biodiversity indices than  non-park areas.” I would accept that this is not conclusive evidence of the failure of national parks to protect nature. The matter requires further research.

It is suggested that a Galloway National Park designation could be the foundation for an economic regeneration of the region. Given the nature of the proposal, any economic dividend is surely going to be based on tourism. In 2022, the Lake District National Park received 18.14 million tourist visitors. Those are impressive figures, but I feel I must ask a challenging question at this point. Is it possible to increase tourism in a manner that is consistent  with the regeneration and restoration of our environmental heritage? Is doubling the number of camper vans on our roads and increasing the foot fall in the wild places of the region really going to support fragile ecosystems. And then there will be all those toilets we have to put in. And the signs. Signs for every damn thing you can imagine.

The concept of National Park was first developed in the United States.  Huge areas of land were set aside. Access to these areas is, as I understand it, highly regulated. It really is all about the wildlife, the bears, the wolves, the coyotes, the eagles and the myriad other species less well known which contribute to the viability of such an ecosystem.  Such a model depends on the existence of unpopulated wide open spaces, on a grand scale.   

We are a small and rather populous island. Dumfries and Galloway’s status as a relatively quiet backwater is unlikely to be secured by a commitment to a project intended to increase visitor footfall.

And another thing. Yes, more tourism would bring jobs, and in particular shops, restaurants and hotels could hope to see some increase in their business. But tourist jobs, for the most part, are seasonal and poorly paid. Tourism will never be the basis of serious prosperity in the region.  

Of course I believe a national park could be designed in such a way as to genuinely protect the environment, but so many competing interests are crowding in to try and shape the outcome. I’d like to suggest a citizens assembly as the best and fairest way to decide the matter; a genuine cross section of the local population facilitated by a capable team who would bring the expertise required to answer questions and provide a full spectrum of opinion for those selected to make the adjudication.

I might not agree with the recommendations that came out of such an assembly, but I would live with them.  Is it likely to happen?  I doubt it, but I haven’t given up hope yet! 

End Notes and References

Tom Heap — Land Smart: How to Give People and Nature the Space to Thrive  I mention Tom Heap’s visit to Wigtown Book Festival in another post, where he also comments on windfarms and one or two other things which may be of interest.

Information from NatureScot  Information Hub – A proposal for a National Park in Galloway 

The Lake District Known as the Lakes or Lakeland, is a mountainous region and national park in Cumbria, North West England.” Wikipedia  Lake District National Park  

Patrick Laurie, Bog Myrtle and Peat This single post is just a sample of Patrick Laurie’s often challenging thoughts on the matter of conservation.

A Citizens’ Assembly is a representative group of citizens who are selected at random from the population to learn about, deliberate upon, and make recommendations in relation to a particular issue or set of issues. It is still up to elected politicians whether or not to follow the assembly’s recommendations.Citizens Assembly 

How national parks failed nature – and how to fix them This Guardian article lends support to the point that national parks do not score well for biodiversity.

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From Cat Food to Clickbait

Posted on November 29, 2024 by Stephen Shellard

The Evolution of Irresistible Convenience Food

Cats
Macklin and Lenny

Out in the unsettling world of clickbait, family pets seem to have a special place in the pantheon of what the bored or purposeless internet user finds irresistible. So here’s a story of Macklin and Lenny, the two cats I feed each morning but I am sure you are neither bored nor purposeless and that is a good thing, as there’s a purpose in this tale.

Lenny and Macklin are brothers but are a striking contrast to one another, both in appearance and character.  Macklin is slim, very smart, hyperactive, while Lenny is solidly built, indolent and — it grieves me to say it — would not score well in a cat IQ test. That’s Macklin sitting on a fence post and Lenny posing in a laundry basket, unsure of what to do next.

I love them both of course, but that’s not the point. When they first came into our home, we provided dried cat food ad lib. That was very convenient  and seemed to work well for the cats, even if Lenny was a little greedy for his meals and gained weight. But then he developed a problem. He became bunged up. I’ll spare you the details, but veterinary intervention was required and the vet made it clear that his fluid intake was insufficient relative to the quantity he was eating. 

How do you explain to a cat that he really needs to drink more? Availability of water had not been the problem. We didn’t dwell on this question for too long before deciding that we should move Lenny  onto wet cat food. Actually, that meant both cats moving onto the wet stuff. 

From the outset  this change suited them very well, so we thought we’d cracked it; wet food was the answer. When we ran out of supplies we went to the supermarket to pick up some more of Brand A, but it wasn’t available. We bought some sachets of Brand B. I was shocked when they refused to eat it. They wanted the original stuff and they really let me know that was the case. They started to behave like the food critics on Masterchef.

Of course you can’t stand by and watch your cat starve. So,we sourced some of Brand A, and that did the trick for the time being. But suddenly we were in a new world of cat food gastronomy and the little quirks of their fussy eating became a daily battle. What would they eat? What would they not eat? We tried brand C, but only brand A did the trick. 

In my youth I seem to remember cat food being pretty homogeneous stuff that came out of a tin, the scrapings of meat that was not considered fit for human consumption.  Now it is all sachets and secret ingredients. Somethings going on. 

It’s clear that in the cat food business, a small investment in finding the magic formula to hook a cat can lead to a big reward. Incrementally, the whole marketing process becomes refined, each cat food company competing for market share with increasingly sophisticated advertising, packaging and, of course, a recipe irresistible to your cat. 

Well, you may ask: If cats are happy, what’s the problem? Who’s dead?  

Concerned as I am for cats, I have a wider concern. The food industry is not just trying to seduce cats through a process of inexorable marginal product refinement; all of us are on the receiving end of this fiendish process. And, as Chris Van Tulleken lays bare in his BBC 2 documentary Irresistible – Why We Can’t Stop Eating,  quite a lot of us are ill and dying early as a consequence. [1]

That might seem counterintuitive given that our population is ageing. It’s true that the rich and educated are, on average, living longer. The poor, less so. They are eating cheap processed food, becoming obese, diabetic, and developing a multitude of health problems. This bleak picture is somewhat complicated by the way in which individual metabolism responds to modern diet. Not every person on a poor diet gets sick, but circumstantial evidence of the scale of the problem is there to see in the doctor’s waiting room, the hospital queue, in the high street of your town.  The problem, Van Tulleken suggests, is Ultra Processed Foods.

In 2009 Carlos Monteiro, working with a team of researchers at the University of São Paulo, coined this term. A key ingredient of an Ultra Processed Food are laboratory produced ingredients not to be found in a normal kitchen; preservatives, flavourings, emulsifiers. [2]  

Chris Van Tulleken interviews a series of scientists who have worked in different parts of the food industry. One by one they testify to the sophistication of the development process, the juggling of ingredients, getting the “mouthfeel” just right, the testings and tastings  — all of the elements that combine to produce a product which, eaten once, we just can’t pass by in the supermarket.

Henry Dimbleby in his book Ravenous sets out the  statistical evidence:  A “10% increase in the proportion of ultra-processed foods in a person’s diet is correlated with a 12% increase in cancers, a 21% increase in depressive symptoms, and a 12% increase in cardiovascular disease risk”  

In July 2020 Dimbleby led the team writing the National Food Strategy. This proposed actions to help disadvantaged children and to promote environmental and animal welfare standards. The recommendations for disadvantaged children were supported by Marcus Rashford in his 2020 Covid-related campaign but largely ignored by the then Conservative UK Government. Their friends and funders in the food industry may just have had something to do with this.  [3]

Professor Tim Spector is a particularly significant critic of Ultra Processed Foods. He  has written a series of books which overturn many commonly understood ideas about what constitutes a good diet. The subtitle of his 2020 publication, Spoonfed, tells us a good deal about just how radical his ideas are:  “ Why almost everything we’ve been told about food is wrong.”  

Someone not wishing to read their way through his excellent back catalogue would be well advised to move straight to his recently published Food for Life cookbook. The introduction is an excellent and up to date summary of the science and arguments which support what he is saying. Crucial to this perspective are  the millions of microorganisms that live in your gut. He explains in plain language the recent  science which shows how this microbiome influences your health and how changes to your diet may tip the balance of its constituents in your favour or to your detriment. 

His recipes will have more immediate appeal to the adventurer in food than the neophobe, but Tim Spector’s approach is realistic and practical and avoids punitive regimes. He is determined to ensure the food you eat will remain one of the pleasures in your life. If your diet is in a bad place, you can  change what you eat incrementally and feel better for it, at every stage. Indeed, even if you think your diet is pretty good, Prof Tim will likely give you some interesting and, for the open minded, tasty suggestions on how it could be even better. 

His focus is not just on health. He is also concerned with the impact of food production on the environment and its overall sustainability. Above all, he is a relentless critic of the food industry. We may expect some fierce pushback from their outriders as the debate unravels. 

Endnotes

[1]  Irresistible: Why We Can’t Stop Eating   

[2] Carlos Monteiro and UPFs  I’ve heard UPFs called Frankenstein food, but that does not seem accurate to me. We do not recoil from them — rather the contary.

[3] Henry Dimbleby  Ravenous  Highly recommended! I heard Henry Dimbleby interviewed by Gavin Esler at Wigtown Book Festival in October 2023. The Festival is always a great day out, but this was a really splendid event.

[4] Tim Spector   The Food for Life Cookbook   If it’s the cookbook you’re wanting, be careful not to buy Food for Life, also  by Tim Spector. It’s an interesting read — but not a cookbook!

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From Apex Predators to the hidden World of Mycorrhiza

Posted on November 23, 2024 by Stephen Shellard

I’ve never been much of a bird watcher. I can just about name the birds that turn up at my feeders, which occasionally include some eye-catching specimens. Greater spotted woodpeckers come from the woods nearby for peanuts and there’s also delicately coloured nuthatches, and even, once, a green parakeet, blown north by a storm, no doubt. They are a commonplace now in London, I believe. Occasionally there is a great scattering of birds at our feeders and that’s generally all that I see of the sparrowhawk when it calls. But my attention has also been drawn to less showy visitors; for example, a little drab bird, distinguished mostly by a rich brown cap. I’m told that’s a tree sparrow, the population of which has been in a severe decline since 1970, a fall estimated at 93% in 2008. Real birdwatchers notice and thrill at such modesties, while I must have their significance pointed out to me.   

Apart from an inexplicable fondness for those untidy black marauders, corvids, my real thrill as a dilettante birdwatcher would be to see a golden eagle. I have never managed a confirmed sighting. I look out for them in the Galloway and the Moffat hills, occasionally have seen something flying high above and have squinted hopefully but have been forced to conclude it is probably a buzzard, a fine bird in its own right but not at the apex: perhaps it was an eagle, but I remain uncertain. 

I could not resist the lure of the Dumfriesshire and Galloway Natural History and Antiquarian Society talk given by Philip Munro on  The South of Scotland Golden Eagle Project. Eagles in South West Scotland have, for many years, been a population just limping along, no match for the iconic golden eagle presence in the highlands. The South of Scotland Golden Eagle Project has been doing something to correct this imbalance. 

The talk was illustrated with beautiful video clips showing how, in the Highlands, single chicks are carefully removed from nests containing two or more hatchlings. Where there are twin birds, or triplets, generally only one would be likely to survive to maturity. The strongest chick may even kill its sibling. The captive birds are removed to pens in the south of Scotland and nurtured until their release into the southern hills.

Phil Munro presented a slide which summarised the great variety of species on which golden eagles feed: badgers, hare, rabbits, red squirrels, grey squirrels, grouse. Although concerns exist about predation on lambs, no evidence has been observed during the project’s time-frame. Indeed the impact on other species of the approximately fifty birds now present in the South of Scotland was, he suggested, hardly discernible. Much of the food is taken as carrion so, already deceased, just tidying up really. But those red and grey squirrels inevitably raise a question of balance in such matters. If they are just taking greys, well fine, but what about the threatened reds? 

Patrick Laurie writes eloquently in his blog, Bog Myrtle & Peat, about the decline of ground nesting birds in South West Scotland, in particular of curlews. In  a previous era these birds were plentiful and could coexist with farming practices, but there has been a long slow decline disguised by the longevity of the curlew which returns each year to try again to raise a couple of chicks, only, once again, to fail.

The  precise reasons for this remain mysterious though there are many suspects; foxes, badgers, crows, red kites – another recent reintroduction to the area, now thriving spectacularly. In the circumstances Patrick Laurie’s defence of moorland managed for grouse shooting, in which context a range of other species, including ground nesting birds can thrive, is easy to understand. Achieving a balance of habitats in which the widest range of species can coexist is not an easy matter. We can be clear, however, that certain types of economic forestry and industrial farming practices are, plain and simple, habitat destroyers. 

Part of the problem, in terms of public understanding of the issues, is the appeal of apex predators and other iconic species at the expense of a diversity of life of which a public, with a short attention span, is simply unaware. 

Merlin Sheldrake’s programme Fungi: Web of Life – currently available to stream from BBC iPlayer – is a reminder of exactly this problem of invisibility.  It is beautifully made with wonderful time lapse photography revealing the multicoloured and endless variety of fungal fruit bodies; but more striking still, is the revelation that the most significant part of this little understood part of the plant world is the vast network of mycelium which lie beneath the surface and which draw nutrients in whilst at the same time supporting the plethora of other plant species on which they depend. Nearly 90% of the iceberg which sank the Titanic lay invisible beneath the surface and, so it is also, with fungi. 

Merlin Sheldrake is a low key presence in the programme, a tall slim figure with a flop of hair, prowling about in the background of a Tasmanian forest, as if he himself were an endangered species. Much of the voice over comes from Bjork, her Icelandic intonation adding to the transcendent appeal of the production. 

So, thank you Philip Munro for your work on the South of Scotland Golden Eagle project but thank you also Merlin Sheldrake for reminding us that what at first may seem insignificant, on closer inspection, can prove to be beyond anything we might have imagined. 

Endnotes

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The Climate Kitchen and the Ghost of Christmas Past

Posted on November 16, 2024 by Stephen Shellard

It has not been a good week for the planet and I was doubtful the Dumfries Climate Kitchen could raise my spirits in the wake of what has just happened in the USA, where Donald Trump’s nominee for Attorney General has been under suspicion of sex trafficking, his nominee for Health Secretary, is a vaccine sceptic and, amongst those who have elected him, support for fracking and drilling is  a badge of honour. 

I made my way up Bank Street from the river and began to thread a path through the  festive gathering in front of the Midsteeple. Those present had come to witness the switching on of the town’s Christmas lights. Milling around me were moody teenagers and families with young and excited children. I could feel the great Christmas juggernaut  cranking into life. A  song I know well played on the PA:

It’s comin’ on Christmas

They’re cuttin’ down trees

They’re puttin’ up reindeer

And singin’ songs of joy and peace  

For me, in mid November, Christmas is something I’d prefer not even to be thinking about, but I could see those around me were happily embracing the spirit of the event. And as it turned out, on reaching the far side of the concourse and entering the building of The Stove Network and Cafe, I found the Climate Kitchen offering their own Xmas vision. Set out on two floors of the building was a Climate Conscious Christmas Market. This offered a gentle challenge to the unrestrained consumer blowout which has come to define the close of our year. 

The Climate Kitchen certainly wasn’t taking its lead from Just Stop Oil, which might incline more towards a Just Stop Christmas approach to the matter. I had been sent a link earlier in the day to a petition initiated by Just Stop Oil, inviting the Government to run a public information campaign on the climate crisis. That seems a modest request. I signed it. Maybe you would like to think about signing too? I’ll put the link in the endnotes.

The Market featured, amongst other things, an opportunity to  rent-a-Christmas tree, the idea being that you return your tree when the season is over. All being well, it will live to adorn further Christmases until it is just too big to fit any available domestic space. At that  point it will be set free to grow to maturity. 

The market also featured an eye-catching workshop offering instruction in the art of Japanese scarf-wrapping for gifts. Once the gifts are unwrapped, the scarves are carefully folded away for the next time. 

The focus of the other stalls was more conventionally commercial, offering artisanal gifts from natural materials, but I will also mention the workshop which invited us to reflect on how Christmas has changed over the years.  

My earliest memories of the season come from the late 1950s through the 1960s, growing up in Newry, Co.Down. I would rise on Christmas morning, excited to receive a few trinkets, brought to me by a Santa Claus in whom, from an early age, I did not believe. There was rarely snow on the ground other than in the Christmas cards, but frost was a commonplace.  I went with my parents and my two elder brothers to St. Patrick’s on the hill. We drove  past little houses each, it seemed, with a single illuminated star hanging in a front window. The church service we attended, with its carols and readings from the Gospels, was a part of the ritual of the day which I sat through, impatient for it to be done.  We returned home to eat our turkey, roast potatoes and sprouts, followed by Christmas pudding. Presents were given out in the afternoon. I never received the binoculars that I always said I wanted. In the evening there was rich fruit cake, with a generous layer of marzipan and icing, followed by Morecambe and Wise on the black and white TV. I loved it all. 

I don’t go to church anymore or believe in the Christmas story, other than as some kind of allegory. I still enjoy Christmas. There’s just too much of it for me. If I had my way, there would be no Christmas music or decorations or lights before mid-December. But I know that ain’t gonna happen and I’ll just have to make the best of what is on offer and hope I never tire of listening to A Fairy Tale of New York.  

Eleanor Farjeon captures something of what has been eclipsed by the jamboree of commerce which Christmas has become. I don’t think religious belief is really necessary to be touched by her message.

Christmas Carol

God bless your house this Holy night,

   And all within it:

God bless the candle that you light,

  To midnight’s minute;

The board at which you break your bread,

  The cup you drink of:

And as you raise it, the unsaid

   Name you think of:

The warming fire, the bed of rest,

   The ringing laughter:

These things and all things else be blest

   From floor to rafter

This Holy night, from dark to light,

   Even more than other:

And if you have no house to-night,

   God bless you brother.

Endnotes

Petition  https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/700189 

The Climate Kitchen  https://climatekitchen.co.uk/ 

The Stove Network and Cafe  https://thestove.org/ 

The Climate Conscious Christmas Market

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The Role of Schooling in the Rise and Rise Again of Donald Trump

Posted on November 13, 2024 by Stephen Shellard

This gallery contains 3 photos.

Anthony Scaramucci tells many amusing stories arising from his brief period as White House Director of Communications in the first Trump administration. For me the most striking of these relate to Trump’s difficulties with the written word, his reluctance, for example, to … Continue reading →

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This is Robert Rutherford Speaking. What can I do for you?

Posted on November 8, 2024 by Stephen Shellard

I was lucky enough to be in attendance at a book launch in Dumfries’s Coach and Horses to celebrate the publication of Pete Fortune’s two books of short stories, Waving at Strangers in Passing Cars and A Pauper from Irishgait Tannery an ither  stories in Scots.  Readings from both of these works  featured in the event and I was particularly pleased to be introduced  to the surreal though “…Incomplete Guide to Robert Rutherford” the tale of a wrong number as the opening of a door to infinite possibility. 

In a catalogue of performances from local and not so local poets this willingness to engage with  unlikely twists and turns was strongly featured. Hugh McMillan, who hosted the event, at one point offered the seemingly improbable proposition that “poets don’t drive” and then added, in his address to this room full of poets, “And if you do drive, stop! You’ll be a better poet!”  

By way of justifying this unlikely assertion, he then read us a poem which had arisen from a “three day” (possible hyperbole?) odyssey on public transport from his home in Penpont to the Wigtown Book Festival in 2022.  The  poem centred on an encounter in a pub in Newton Stewart with a man who had just bought a crossbow at a car boot sale. Why, other than for obvious reasons of conviviality, was MacMillan in that particular pub? Because, through the window he could see the arrival of the bus which would take him on to Wigtown. 

Being a poet, McMillan would never be likely to reflect on the explicit environmental and situational advantages of eschewing the private car as a means of transport. Having never been accused of being a poet I feel more freedom to digress on the matter.  The electric car is seen by many as a solution to at least one aspect of the gathering climate crisis. It is a seductive notion, but pause for a moment to consider what has just happened: the elevation of Elon Musk, a man with a vision of a world so overstuffed with electric cars that he is planning an escape route to Mars for himself and a few others. 

I am not a poet, and so will continue for the time being to rely on the five wheeled incubus that sits outside my house. Maybe I’ll even upgrade to an electric version. But Hugh McMillan’s got a point. Philip Larkin couldn’t drive and favoured a bicycle for his visits to country churches. One of his finest poems was written following a train journey to London. And for the record: it was a surprisingly mild November night. Some might say, too mild. I decided to travel to Pete’s book launch by bike.  

Endnotes

List of those scheduled to read at the event.

[Corrections and updates to match the actual roster of those who appeared would be welcome at stephen.shellard@carruchan.blog ]

Part One

Douglas Lipton

Tom Murray

Andy Murray

Stuart Paterson

Derek Ross

Mark Thomas

Pete Fortune

Part Two

Morag Fortune

Martin Goldie

Charlie Gracie

Angus MacMillan

Hugh McMillan

Julie McNeill

Pete Fortune

Liz Niven

Clare Phillips

Drunk Muse Press

https://www.drunkmusepress.com/about Where the work of a good many of those reading can be purchased.

Pete Fortune

Pete’s work available on Amazon . To purchase copies of Waving at Strangers in Passing Cars and A Pauper from Irishgait Tannery an ither  stories in Scots, message Pete on Facebook or contact him on golferfortune@hotmail.com Pete, by the way, claims never to have swung a golf club.

The Audience … who was present?

In coming years this photo may help, when people who weren’t present at this soon to be legendary event, claim to have been there.

https://www.facebook.com/photo?fbid=1108216457710480&set=a.101221191743350

Picture from Pete Fortune’s Facebook page.

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Time for a Detox

Posted on October 21, 2024 by Stephen Shellard

Toxic culture sparks school strike threats! 

This headline,  referring to a fairly newly built Dumfries multi school complex, was recently drawn to my attention. Toxic culture seems a rather vague term and in discussion of the topic I suggested that a failure to properly manage problem pupil behaviour was often at the root of staff unrest, and in the subsequent back and forth of this conversation the problems arising from the experience of Covid, increasing defiance of some pupils in the face of teacher authority and  parents often weighing in to give support to their offspring all being reported. In a former era, a reflexive deference would have been more likely to kick in, with parents giving their backing to the school.

A teacher friend pointed out the pressures arising from a performance indicator driven culture. This is a top down system, put in place by educational leaders who have not been in front of a class for some time and, it was suggested, have not fully understood the shifting ground on which teachers are now operating. 

Way back in 2004 a Labour/LibDem coalition in the Scottish Parliament set in motion the Curriculum for Excellence (CfE), a vision of a school curriculum which could be flexible and inclusive of all, regardless of background ability and inclination.  This developing project was adopted by the incoming SNP administration, under the leadership of Shona Hyslop, and finally implemented in 2010.

I became aware of the policy in 2007, when I was seconded to Dumfries and Galloway Council from Dumfries and Galloway College, to become, for two years, the More Choices More Chances Implementation Officer.  I thought the ambition  of the Curriculum for Excellence very pertinent indeed to the needs of the group of young people, not in employment, education or training, that  the More Choices More Chances initiative was trying to serve. CfE was, I thought,  a brave attempt to create a flexibility in the school curriculum which would meet the needs of all learners. The private sector often does this better for paying customers who will not accept a null outcome for their progeny, and so every effort is made to find what will engage an individual and allow them to develop.  This is not an argument for private education but rather an argument for the state to find a constructive way forward for every young person. 

Even in 2007 I could see  there was resistance in the secondary sector and amongst educational managers to the idealism embedded in the CfE. Later, when back in College, I had some experience of what may have been at the root of this disquiet. I had been assigned to the delivery of a Psychology Higher as part of the Schools-College link outreach. I went out to work in Kirkcudbright Academy, Dalbeattie High School  and Annan Academy to deliver the course as it was then structured.  There was something bargain basement about the whole deal, not  least  my own questionable qualification to deliver a course in  psychology at Higher level.  Anyway, I was willing, and mostly quite enjoying the experience of this teaching, but then I was made part of a College team to develop the new CfE version of Higher Psychology, which gave much more freedom to students to come up with their own projects and do their own research. I was an enthusiast. 

Suffice to say, the College was a bit ahead of the game so far as this development was concerned, but when I started to deliver the new Higher, I met with a lot of pupil resistance, and in one case, something of a rebellion. I’ll spare you the unsavoury details.  “Just give us the answers,” I think is a fair summary of what my classes were saying. Perhaps seduced by the glamour of the subject, they had mostly signed up as a way of getting an extra higher in one year through a programme of rote learning. One member of my class even spoke about wanting to do a “crash higher.” She was not at all happy about the demands that the CfE Higher appeared to be making. Some pupils responded really well, but mostly these were the smartest and best motivated. Others really hated it. The idea that psychology could be studied on the basis of a personal interest and enquiry into the subject had no appeal for these students whatsoever.  

I could see that an anxiety about passing exams underlay this resistance to the CfE, but that there were ambitious parents in the background, also concerned about this new direction of travel, which they probably perceived as wishy-washy, woke, nonsense. And then of course there were the school teaching staff, already lining up to call a halt to the whole exercise and not entirely displeased to witness my struggles.

I modified my approach in subsequent years, pulling the delivery back to something more aligned with the students’ learning experience in their schools. For all of this compromise, my perception was that some students really got a lot out of this more flexible delivery. I came to enjoy teaching the new CfE Higher, but the positive student engagement was not consistently matched by favourable exam outcomes. Constructive participation in the weekly class discussion and activities was not always  enough to raise the standard of the project submitted for assessment and performance in the end of course grade examination.  There was no place for the highly commended I would have liked to award many of these students who were left with nothing for their commitment. 

I retired at the beginning of the pandemic and don’t know what has happened to the CfE in the meantime. Technology has moved on a great deal since it was introduced in 2010. So much now can be learnt independently online, whether it’s how to fix your mower with a YouTube video presented by someone in the USA or Bulgaria, or learning a language with Duolingo or a podcast. And now AI is about to further upturn the apple-cart. If I’d had ChatGPT when I was in school, I’d have been using it to do my maths problems and write my essays – more time for football don’t you know!  Let’s face it. The role of the teacher as we knew it in those days, before a fully developed Internet and the arrival of Artificial Intelligence, is gone.

I stand by my enthusiasm for the Curriculum for Excellence but the time has now come, in the light of these new tools, to completely rethink education, particularly so, in the secondary and further education sectors. 

Endnotes

Featured image generated with WordPress AI.

BBC News Industrial action threat over school’s ‘toxic culture’

Curriculum for Excellence https://education.gov.scot/curriculum-for-excellence/

Billy Dodds

Billy Dodds is always chattering

About the folk that he’s been battering

He would give a hen a kicking

Just to prove he isna chicken.

Verse written about a pupil in Elmbank, Lovers Walk, Dumfries, when I was a special needs auxilliary there back in the late 1980s. Elmbank took in excluded pupils from a number of secondary schools in Dumfries and Galloway. Billy Dodds is not the real name of the pupil who was this inspiration for this verse.

Here’s a verse, written in less than 10 seconds, by CHATGPT, to the instruction: Write a four line verse about a teenager who boasts about his fighting abilities. I think mine’s better by the way, but that’s not quite the point.

In the alley shadows, he struts with pride,
Claims he’s a champ, never backs down from a fight.
With fists like thunder, he’s quick to ignite,
But deep down, he knows it’s just talk in the night

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Nate’s Forge

Posted on October 20, 2024 by Stephen Shellard

Thornhill was busy today, and my usual parking spot near the Drumlanrig Cafe was unavailable. By chance, I found a space at the Old School, located behind Nate’s forge. Frequent visitors to Thornhill will likely know of the giant fork leaning against the two-storey sandstone villa that stands at the top of the driveway leading to the forge. If you’re unfamiliar with Thornhill and would like to see this unusual piece of art, turn east in the town centre and head towards the hills. Soon, you’ll come to a divide in the road marked by a statue of the explorer Joseph Thomson. Take the left turn and, just beyond the rows of cars awaiting service, you’ll see the giant table fork up the driveway on your right. Having been here before, it wasn’t too much of a surprise to look over the wall round the back of the forge and catch sight of a giant cat stretching up into the branches of what could have been an apple tree, a scene perhaps out of Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland. But it was just Nate up to his tricks. The cat is an eye catching departure from his trademark blacksmithing. Dinosaurs form a conspicuous part of his work, but beautifully wrought highland cattle, sheep, goats and birds all emerge from the modest space of his workshop, a restored single-storey sandstone outbuilding tucked round the back of the house with the fork.

I returned to my car a little later in the day and this time there was a living and breathing cat sitting on the wall, black and white and bearing a striking resemblance to the giant in the background. In that serendipitous moment, Nate himself appeared from the back door of his forge and stopped for a chat. He was happy to confirm my surmise that I was now in the presence of the model and inspiration for his creation. With a little coaxing, the cat obliged by turning towards the camera for a photo. “So what?” it seemed to say.

Nate’s Forge https://www.natesforge.uk/

Old School Thornhill https://www.oldschoolthornhill.com/

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In the Eyrie

Posted on October 6, 2024 by Stephen Shellard

What a pleasure it was to participate in the Wigtown Book Festival Southlight Launch which took place in the eyrie of the Nature Room, perched on the top floor of the County Buildings. It’s definitely the best Southlight Event I’ve been to yet, everything from the latecomers crashing in from the pub, through Angus’s assault on the bagpipes and including a range of newcomers and old hands. Sometimes I’ve struggled to hear at these events, something to do with my own auditory failings, no doubt, but also related to big airy venues with  difficult acoustics or amplification that has seemed more of a problem than a solution; but this time, all was well, and the quality of the readings came through. I dare say there is much bad poetry being written but what is remarkable is just how much good work there is being wrung out in obscure corners by writers who deserve to be heard. I am sure every part of the country has its work-shopped output of verse and writers who fall short, at least for now, of whatever mysterious ingredient it takes to achieve a national profile; but they can be a speciality of the region, as much as the local cheese or beer or bread or landscape or dialect or history. Robin Leiper for example, with his take on the Raeburn exhibition at Kirkcudbright Gallery in August just past, which, by the way, I enjoyed very much, but I do get it when he says;

 I recognise it 

all too well: that sense of smugness

settling like smog upon the spirit

the smirk, a seasoning of the sentimental.

The background photoshopped to black

obliterates the source of the cash.

And then there was  Lesley Buchan Donald’s poem, Chat’s Willie.  I can struggle with Scots writing but this seemed uncompromising yet accessible. 

Chat’s Wullie

Feet plantit he stauns as if still on deck

squintin intil the sun

Skin daurkent by years at the fishin

Cou’s lick o snaw white hair an Desperate Dan chin

Ane haund in his pooch

Weel worn weskit an knittit tie

Lang drawers keekin abuin the waistbaund o his breeks

Wearin his echty odd years lichtly

The accompanying photo of Chat’s Wullie was definitely a help to this listener, and a striking image in its own right.

Drunk Muse Press, with its publication of often neglected writers, deserves mention in this celebration of the local, but there are plenty of other gems in Southlight 36.  To order a copy, go to http://www.southlight.ukwriters.net/bookshop.html 

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