“I to the hills will lift mine eyes……” The airy words of Psalm 121 always lift my spirits and remind me to be calm and put things in perspective. Last weekend I headed for the hills and escaped the temporal world of elections, economic tribulations, Brexit negotiations, independence referendums, class wars, culture wars, sports results and all the paraphernalia of modern life. I went to Knoydart.
This rocky peninsula on the west coast is best accessed by ferry from Mallaig. It consists of three mighty Munros and one of Britain’s most remote communities. High on the ridges of Ladhar Bheinn (pronounced Lar-ven), on a gloriously sunny day, we were treated to the best view this world has to offer……. the Skye Cullins, the islands of Rum and Eigg, and away in the distance the Outer Hebrides, all set in a glistening blue sea. Behind us, the hills and lochs stretched to the horizon.
These hills, I’m told, are 800 million years old and they lie on rocks which are even older, some 3 billion years old. The Skye Cullins are newcomers to this scene, being the result of a rude interruption by a volcano 60 million years ago. Even in our crudest form, we humans have only been here for one-sixtieth of that time. And I have been here for 0.000066 of that one-sixtieth. Now that’s what I call perspective.
When we are dead and gone, indeed when all human kind are dead and gone, these hills will still be here. Maybe the deer will still be here, and the descendants of the raven we saw, and the ptarmigan and the little meadow pipits. Maybe, too, the wild flowers that charmed us on the lower slopes. Compared with these fixtures, we live a precarious life. But one we should be less troubled by.
Down from the mountains, we take ourselves seriously. We make the best of our short-term circumstances. In this case, we eat in a fine restaurant in Inverie and stayed in one of the holiday cottages on the Knoydart Foundation’s 17,200 acre estate. It was bought by the community in 1999 after a series of absentee landowners had neglected it for decades. Since then, buildings and tracks have been restored, businesses started, the water, sewerage and hydro-power systems have been renewed and the population has doubled to over 100.
Coming back from this small Utopia to my more ordinary life in Edinburgh was a bit of a shock. I found that the political landscape had changed as a result of the local council elections. The SNP were now the biggest party in both Edinburgh and Glasgow and in another 14 districts across Scotland.
I was astonished to find that the Conservatives were claiming to be the main opposition to the SNP and that Labour had lost 133 council seats and was down to just 20 per cent of the vote. I was equally astonished to learn that no one was talking about local council issues at all and everyone was going on about “independence” and, to a lesser extent, “Brexit.”
So now we enter the UK General Election campaign proper, with just four weeks till polling day. There is much talk of targeting and tactical voting, with the Greens deciding to stand aside in all but three of the 59 constituencies. SNP grandees Alex Salmond and Angus Robertson are facing the Tory upsurge in the North East. Labour’s only MP in Scotland, Ian Murray in Edinburgh South, is relying on Tories to support him to keep the SNP at bay. The Liberal Democrats are desperately hoping to win back Edinburgh West. And so it goes on.
First Minister’s question time on Thursday was all about education and the National Health Service, despite the fact that these are not matters for the Westminster MPs we are about to elect. But there is sufficient concern about both to make them election issues. A government study has found that only half of pupils in Senior Two classes are performing well in literacy and only 65 per cent are performing well at the end of their primary school career.
Another shift in the Scottish landscape was signaled this week when we found out that North Sea oil and gas produced no tax revenue at all in 2016. In fact, the Treasury lost £338m due to decommissioning and investment subsidies for the industry. You can see why the Scottish Government is moving swiftly away from oil and gas and relying more on renewables. It’s set a new target to meet half our energy requirements from renewables by 2030.
Finally, the Jacobite clans have captured Edinburgh Castle, a feat they failed to achieve in 1745. Some 30 kilted clan chiefs marched up The Royal Mile and through the gates of the castle for the first time in 272 years ……but it was by invitation. The clans are to get a special place at this summer’s Military Tattoo and this week we were given a preview. Bonnie Prince Charlie’s forces captured the rest of the city back in 1745 but the Hanoverian garrison in the castle managed to hold out against them with the aid of some rather large guns.
I never thought I would see such a grand reconciliation as I passed Prince Charlie on his monument at Glenfinnan on the way back from Mallaig. But when you go to the hills you never know what you might see when you get back.
