tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2429560125838989988.post3600023858300905437..comments2024-03-26T23:41:10.319+00:00Comments on Authors Electric: History, change, and renewal: a weekend in Scotland, with Ali BaconKatherine Robertshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17196712319655603442noreply@blogger.comBlogger8125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2429560125838989988.post-14308257257168643082015-09-23T16:14:50.900+01:002015-09-23T16:14:50.900+01:00Interesting post, Ali (have only just got back onl...Interesting post, Ali (have only just got back online, so am reading what I've missed!) Our nearby small town of Maybole was once a thriving manufacturing centre - boots and shoes mostly and I once wrote a trilogy of radio plays about it - but when that industry and everything related to it collapsed, the town never quite recovered, and seems to have been sliding slowly downhill ever since. The town once contained all the historic town houses of the local 'gentry'. But at some point in the 1950s and 60s, a great many of the surviving mediaeval buildings were demolished - there's a tragic booklet showing exactly what the town lost including one of the finest and most spectacular carved stone fireplaces in Scotland. There were so many buildings that would have made it a real attraction for the tourists that pass through on the way to the Irish ferries - but they've almost all gone. Only two or three years ago, the planners allowed developers to demolish the last surviving and rather beautiful mill building so that they could replace it with a few blocks of 'luxury flats'. (Are there any bog standard flats, these days, I wonder?) They have been promised a bypass for some 45 years ... you'd have thought the Scottish government might have got round to it by now! But of course, we're a long way from Edinburgh. The town has a fascinating history and a flourishing local history group - but you have to dig to find out more. Catherine Czerkawskahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14554969254207924049noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2429560125838989988.post-39494791370138758812015-09-23T10:19:18.008+01:002015-09-23T10:19:18.008+01:00thanks Lydia - :)thanks Lydia - :)AliBhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09611113709872287863noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2429560125838989988.post-38989027885865125582015-09-22T19:10:31.142+01:002015-09-22T19:10:31.142+01:00I live now where, and very near where, I grew up a...I live now where, and very near where, I grew up and went to school and was a teen and so on, it's typical of the north east - my roots are strong here though I love to travel. When I'm out I can often 'see' ghosts of myself at younger ages, rockpooling with my father and brother, climbing trees, underage drinking, driving my kids to millions of hobbies and classes... interesting meditation on 'going back' Ali. Nostalgia and nostalgia misplaced are both very important in life and lit. Lydia Bennethttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09328239009863878547noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2429560125838989988.post-18600571733406878142015-09-22T16:50:01.952+01:002015-09-22T16:50:01.952+01:00Hi Elizabeth - interesting isn't it? I did use...Hi Elizabeth - interesting isn't it? I did used to feel a sense of coming home to where I was brought up but I think that has gone now: too many years, too many changes, not just in the town but in me and my family and friends. It felt a bit alien last time I was there. I did used to feel quite emotional just going back to SCotland, but having done a few trips in recent years, that has become familiar again, but in a different way. AliBhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09611113709872287863noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2429560125838989988.post-74792778779017847122015-09-22T15:45:05.081+01:002015-09-22T15:45:05.081+01:00When I was at art school, many decades ago, we wer...When I was at art school, many decades ago, we were asked, if possible, to go back to where we grew up, and to see at what stage we felt we'd 'come home'. I grew up in Hornsey, North London, which I remember as unremittingly grey and smokey and nothing but concrete - apart from the churchyard, where I broke my arm having autumn leaves thrown at me. To my surprise, it was a lot greener and nicer than I recalled. Presumably the Clean Air Act, and the removal of bomb sites had a lot to do with it. We moved there when I was three, so there aren't any ancestral memories. But I do remember the racing cars practising up and down the road outside, and the flags that were all over the station yard where the vehicles were built when one of them won its first race. It was a Lotus. But I never felt at any stage that I'd come home. Elizabeth Kayhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16773078844943829786noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2429560125838989988.post-87040585412105498112015-09-22T11:52:01.200+01:002015-09-22T11:52:01.200+01:00Most small towns are much the same nowadays, Ali, ...Most small towns are much the same nowadays, Ali, although I think Montrose is not quite so far down as Brechin. Most people head for Dundee or Aberdeen to do their shopping, or even further afield to Edinburgh or Glasgow. And I'm as guilty as anyone. Probably the only thing shopped for locally is groceries, except for bits and pieces from local shops. However, I do use a couple of local clothing shops in Montrose. Neither of them on the High Street, so I suppose you have to know where to look. I think the difference between Montrose and Brechin is that most shops are in the centre of Brechin, whereas you will find shops in the streets leading off from the town centre in Montrose.Chris Longmuirhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02488093821886798927noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2429560125838989988.post-80481481009189382002015-09-22T11:24:44.139+01:002015-09-22T11:24:44.139+01:00Hi Chris - yes, there was very little in the way o...Hi Chris - yes, there was very little in the way of shops, although I didn't get the feeling there was a lot more in Montrose where we ventured one evening. So where is the nearest shopping place - Arbroath? Forfar? - we missed both of them. As for the picture house, yes, an awful looking place now. A close family friend worked there when it was in its heyday.<br />Now funny you should say that re the cathedral, because I was aghast when Pointless did not allow Brechin as a city - using some new criteria I suppose!AliBhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09611113709872287863noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2429560125838989988.post-71235510411162337952015-09-22T10:56:20.518+01:002015-09-22T10:56:20.518+01:00I live only 8 miles from Brechin, and over the yea...I live only 8 miles from Brechin, and over the years the town seems to have lost a lot of its oomph. It once hosted Flicks, a nightclub which took over one of the cinemas (Brechin had two) after the cinemas died the death that most small town cinemas did. Flicks was hugely popular in its day and many people travelled for hundreds of miles to attend its lively sessions. Alas, Flicks went the same way as the cinemas before it, and is now an ugly shell of a building. I modelled my nightclub, Teasers, in the Dundee Crime Series, on Flicks, although I transported it to Dundee in the process. I can't help thinking that Brechin, like a lot of small towns, is dying as a shopping centre, maybe the result of its inhabitants travelling further afield for their needs. What price progress?<br /><br />Good post Ali, it brought back memories of Brechin when it was a thriving small town, although I should actually say'city' because it is a Cathedral City.Chris Longmuirhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02488093821886798927noreply@blogger.com