Highland Lives 3

6 Dec 2007 in Heritage, Highland, Visual Arts & Crafts

A Slice of Highland Life

JOHN BURNS concludes his series on participating in BBC Scotland’s Highland Lives project

IF YOU could cut a slice of Highland life what would it look like? Who would be in it? As BBC Scotland’s Highland Lives project draws to a close there is a chance to take a look at a remarkable cross section of Highland life.

From the fishermen of Mallaig to the Frisbee throwers of Dingwall, from life on the streets with the Highland capital’s homeless to puppeteers in Ross-shire, the video productions of Highland Lives reflect the enormous variety of people’s lives across the Highlands.

“It’s been a fascinating journey,” explains Ameneh Enayat, project director of Highland Lives. “We started in Inverness and then travelled North and West. Right now we are in Badenoch and Strathspey with our last showcase about to take place.

“What has struck me about the stories Highland people have produced is just how much their stories relate to the landscape in which they live. Storytellers constantly told us how they were inspired by the openness, the sense of freedom and the sheer drama of the scenery in which they live.”

Colin Plowman’s audio slide show about his twenty years work maintaining and developing the path that runs beside the Big Burn in Brora demonstrates this relationship with the land.

“There are waterfalls, small pools and rocky outcrops,” explains Colin talking about the burn beside which he has spent almost twenty years of his life. “The old bridge was falling into decay,” he tells us, “so Forestry Commission engineers replaced it and they named it after me. So now it’s Colin’s Bridge,” he says with obvious pride.

What shines through his piece, Big Burn, more than the satisfaction he has derived from his work, is his love of the place where he and his wife have walked countless times.

One of the great thing things that Highland Lives has achieved is that it has allowed us to see the Highlands through the eyes of others. In Anya’s Story Polish student, Anya Onadeko, talks about her experience of coming to study in the Highlands and compares the Highland countryside to her native Poland.

“Everywhere is so green,” she exclaims, “and the air and the water are clean and healthy.” In her audio slide show she talks about her work with the Polish association and how she tries to help different communities integrate with each other. Despite her obvious affinity with the Highlands it is clear that she also misses her homeland and all things Polish.

“I saw a car with a Polish number plate and I just hugged it and kissed it, shouting out that here was something from Poland.” Anya’s show pointed out that, beneath the surface, Scotland and Poland show far greater similarities than the differences that appear on the surface. Perhaps the croft has more in common with the farms of Poland than we think.

Fishing Days are Gone? Is a superbly shot video by west coast fishermen Mark MacLean and Frank Stride. The simple question asked by the video is in it’s title. The two men talk about the death of the fishing industry and what it might mean to the small coastal communities of the west coast.

“If you want cheap fish then you have to have the big boats but if you want the skills and knowledge of the fishing industry to survive then you need small family owned boats,” explains one fisherman. Small boats are no longer economically viable and will soon become a symbol of the past just as sailing ships are images of a bygone era today, the fishermen argue. As the small boats vanish so will the skills to sail them and to catch fish and once lost these skills will not return.

Again this short video reflects the relationship between Highland people and the landscape they inhabit. In this video the mountains are the waves cast up by the sea in whose valleys bob the boats of the fishing fleet perhaps approaching harbour for the last time.

In Thurso the wind scours the treeless landscape unfettered by hills or natural barriers. In Caithness they have found a unique solution to building fences around their fields and providing shelter. In Waltzing the Stone Hector Sutherland, now in his eighties, gives a fascinating insight into his craft of building stone fences.

The video (produced by Dorcas Sinclair) shows him cutting flagstones, using the natural lines of rock strata to produce the flagstones he uses to create a kind of stone fence around farmland. Too heavy to lift, the flagstones are rocked from corner to corner into position. This is known locally as waltzing, hence the title of the short film. In this unpretentious piece of video the simplicity of Hector’s life is moving and his love of the texture and lines of the rock he works with emerges clearly.

The relatively new medium of digital technology has made Highland Lives possible, yet what has been recorded will perhaps remain a snapshot of lives in the Highlands produced by the people who lived them. The equipment used in the making of Highland Lives, and just as importantly some of the skills, is now available for everyone to use. So if you have a story to tell, video cameras, digital cameras and high quality sound recording equipment are available from various learning centres across the Highlands.

To find out where you can get your hands on the kit just contact Elizabeth Dumbell, Learning Development Officer (01343 862 896) and start telling stories.

Twelve of the short films and audio slide shows produced by people from across the Highlands are to be aired by BBC Two Scotland on 12 December (10.30pm).

© John Burns, 2007

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