A Shining City by the Sea

ROBERT DAVIDSON proposes a new vision of Inverness as an exciting, cosmopolitan City of the Highlands for the 21st century.

When Highland Councillors of rural wards, having divined the mood of their electorate, ask why their hard earned money should go towards static arts establishments such as Eden Court Theatre, they have a point.  Rarely are their people able to attend performances and, when they can, the demands of transport and time act almost as an additional tax.

Movable feasts such as those delivered by the Highland Festival, and those parachuted in by such as Scottish Opera, are often brilliant but have no audience development capability.  Increasing numbers, interest and appreciation takes time and determination.

The City of Inverness seems to get it all and what goes elsewhere can look like crumbs fallen from the table.  Divisions between us are making themselves felt in ways that are not entirely positive and the Council’s slow retreat from the Highland Festival will, at least in part, be one of them.  However, if resentments exist there must be reasons, symptoms perhaps of some wider disaffection.  Changes have happened under our noses over such a period of time they have hardly been noticed.  Notice, in fact, has been avoided because it involves the intangible and difficult, sensitive matter of identity.  This is where to look.

When local government was reorganised most of Scotland went the way of the District Councils, they being sensibly sized areas with strong regional identities.  At the same time the cities, I mean the real cities, became autonomous.  In Highland though, the notions of head count and tax base prevailed and we became a sparsely populated region larger than some countries.  Put another way, the urban-rural divide was ignored.  Later Inverness was made a city but this was recognition, surely, rather than creation.

What was not recognised though, was that the boundary of Inverness by no means contains Scotland’s newest, fastest growing, most dynamic and interactive community.  For many years working people have been jumping in their cars and travelling to the hub, to the office, the factory, the studio.  Others have been moving in the opposite direction to industrial units located in Dingwall, in Alness, in Nairn.

Here lies the first recognition.  The ideas of Nairn-shire, Ross-shire, Inverness-shire, are not what they were and hold their power mostly by a form of nostalgia.  The second recognition is that the single community that is dispersed around the Inner Moray Firth in historic towns and villages is as ill served by present arrangements as the genuinely rural areas.  The reality of the new City is that it is much larger than the old Burgh of Inverness.  That being so, what are its real boundaries?

The geography includes the Cromarty Firth from Invergordon through to Dingwall, Muir of Ord to Beauly and all of the Black Isle, from Beauly through Inverness and on to Nairn.  There is a county boundary between Beauly and the Muir; so what?  Nairn is the capital of an ancient County?  Not any more.  Not really.  There is more green than you can imagine in any city, much of it active working farmland?  That is to the good.  The 21st century environment must be cleaner than any since the Industrial revolution.

Water is everywhere in the new City, not just in the River Ness and the Beauly Firth, but also in the Cromarty Firth and rivers such as the Conon and the Alness.  The new City’s eastern boundary, its immense coastline, looks towards Scandinavia, Poland, the Baltic States.  These are auld acquaintances all; natural places to seek economic and cultural partners.

Tom Nairn once opined that the European future might reside in the return of the City State.  He may have been correct, but even if he was not and we remain within the British State, or proceed to independence, the five great Scottish Cities must have the maximum amount of power devolved to them.  Their civic leaderships must be mindful to accept maximum responsibility for economic matters – meaning the creation of wealth and attention to the poor, and civic matters – meaning infrastructure, if they are to become economic and cultural powerhouses strong enough to resist global standardisation.

For the City of the Highlands the basics are already in place.  We have a raw water supply that equals even Glasgow’s and over the last twenty or so years sewage disposal has been brought to an almost fit condition.  Certainly there is no comparison now with what used to be pumped, dumped and forgotten in the Cromarty Firth.  These things, clean water in – dirty water out, are essential.  Roads have also improved beyond recognition.  The connecting bridges are in place.  Broadband is with us.

We have two fine football clubs.  This is not a trivial point.  Most great cities have rival clubs that act as lightning rods for the more stubborn antipathies.  We have a great rugby club; sufficient for present needs and with the potential for much more, as Highland RFC have amply proved in the past.  The athletes are catered for, so are the rowers and sailors.  All will say they need more, that with more they can achieve more, but that is the subject of this article.

After acknowledgment of what is there comes the re-imagining of what could be.  There are many things still missing.  I almost began that sentence with ‘against the above’ but of course these are to be considered with all that, built on that foundation.  In these new creations lies the excitement of our time and place.

This new City of ours needs the stamp of a great architect.  The incorporation of Leonie Gibbs’s statue, ‘The Falcon Returns’ in the new Eastgate Centre, and Gerald Laing’s Falcon Square monolith, looks like a positive start.  Perhaps the architect responsible for locating good public art in the world of public commerce will step forward, ready and able to operate on a larger scale.  The challenge is considerable but achievable; new design that accommodates the vernaculars of Dingwall, Nairn, Inverness, most of all Cromarty, design consonant with energy conservation and other ecological concerns, design that places the built environment safely within the most beautiful natural environment in the world.

The Highland style must impose itself on the more or less piecemeal development that goes on in the countryside now.  Enforcement legislation is not required.  What is required is that the style is good enough.

We need a repertory company comparable to Dundee’s, with a dedicated venue to perform in and there build its audience.  This venue will not be Eden Court but a relatively small theatre similar to Glasgow’s Citizens or The Byre in St Andrews.  Eden Court already accommodates the big touring companies.  Actually there are suitable buildings all over our area but the commitment to single use remains wanting.  This is a pity in a number of ways.  The economic impact of a rehearsing company with its regular theatregoing audience could be considerable in towns like Beauly and Alness.

We need a first rate professional orchestra permanently based at Eden Court.  The Highland Chamber Orchestra could be its foundation but, better still, lets bring the Scottish Symphony Orchestra north.

What’s that?  They have to be close to BBC broadcasting facilities?  No problem; bring them north as well.  HBC, I like the sound of that.  Let them play 21st century music too, the people of the Highlands can immerse themselves in the new as well as anyone.  If the same persistence is shown in this field as Eden Court bravely showed with mainstream classical music it will have even greater success.

But – hold on!  The most developed musical form in our area is termed traditional.  Again no problem; there is little so progressive in the north as the music that is being composed and played on traditional instruments, or their marriage with the digital era.  The two sets of musicians, the indigent and the incomers, will spark off each other to great effect.  The meeting of composers promises to be seismic.

Of course we need a great arts magazine.  Actually, we have that already but too few know about it.  We also need a publishing house and record company and, to return to the beginning, we very much need a broadly based cultural festival located in the City.  In addition to the Highland-made, this Festival should provide the world’s best as a duty to the population, to provide economic activity and stimulation, and to remind us all what the best actually is.  It should have an organised fringe for all the same reasons and as a pretension-popping counter.

The rural Highlands should also have their festivals but they should be locally inspired and locally organised and, yes, Highland Festival events should go out there.  Not though, as occasional drop-ins that dazzle and depart but to sit with independently developing local cultures and interact with them.

Edinburgh is often referred to as the Athens of the North but the city we can be most like is Barcelona.  Highland attracts great artists, as does Catalonia.  We too have an ancient, still living, native language; the gateway to a parallel culture that must be allowed to play its full part.  We have a vibrant young generation, always.  Our attitude to sexuality generally is improving although, frankly, it still stinks.  Gifted homosexual men and women flee this place, and no wonder, so rooted are we in our Judeo-Christian-Socialist fear of difference.  When they start to rush in, to express their talents and make their careers here, we’ll know we’re getting somewhere.

The modern world shares and strives against such prejudices as well as the problems of illiteracy, poverty, drugs, sexually transmitted disease and the threat of war.  We must be prepared to participate and must create wealth to do so.  We cannot let the heritage hoarders or those still rattling the chains of 19th century ideologies anchor us to the past.  Lives have to be lived to the full.  There is a great city to be made, a shining City by the Sea.  This is our joint project.

Someday visitors will argue about the best way to arrive, the best way to approach the City of the Highlands for the first time.  Would that be by air or by sea?  Many will ache to look down on the legendary ‘Horseshoe of Light’; but those who see dawn break on the Souters of Cromarty will know the sea road is the best road.  The beauty of the north is not less than the beauty of the south.

Population in the area I have described is increasing rapidly and so are expressions of wealth such as consumer visibility and rising house prices.  The differences between the rural Highlands and the City of the Highlands grow wider and administrative unity must already be masking the problems of poverty in genuinely rural areas.  We are ready now for change, for the organisation of the Greater City, but what I am calling for first of all is a change in the way we see ourselves.

Of course we must welcome those who join us from elsewhere, whether it be Germany, America or England; we are cosmopolitan although still disturbingly white.  What I am really looking for though, is a greater integration and unity of purpose within the City, a more wholehearted commitment to the future.

The step after that is to formally recognise the City of the Highlands as a socio-political entity; and to give the rural areas direct access to the Scottish Executive.  Present circumstances though, demand a quick advance with economy and culture travelling together.  Economic advance in itself will not be sufficient.  We have a duty to the past we stand on to extend our heritage by any means we can.  The future will look to our literature, as well as to contemporary music and visual art for the signature of an era.

Robert Davidson is the editor of Northwords magazine.