In the pedestrian-only shopping street of Inverness last Saturday, a
flame-thrower gave an impromptu performance for a crowd which consisted
of two mildly interested children. A few yards away, Militant Labour had
set up a stall.
I have no idea what fresh injustice the keepers of the socialist flame
were protesting against. Militant 1 was played by a podgy, disaffected
youth, Militant 2 by a scruffy girl with ear-rings piercing her small,
revolutionary nose. Central Casting could not have done a better job.
Further south, such a scene would have been more familiar. The
dispossessed communities of the post-industrial Central Belt have come
to wear a more or less permanent air of improvised carnival, as Big
Ishoo hawkers, amateur fiddlers, opportunistic beggars, alcoholics,
comic singers, and other clients of the DSS demand the attention and
loose change of shifty consumers.
When these towns had work, they also had a sense of purpose and a
reason for existence. Now, in the absence of anything you could call a
viable local economy, all that is left is the weekend circus in some
traffic-free ghetto between Burger King and the Pancake Place, a
recreational zone for show-offs with a bunnet.
As an opponent of the car, I never dreamed that I would have to admit
this: pedestrianisation -- horrible word -- is turning out to be a town
planning disaster.
The removal of vehicles from the main streets of our cities and towns
has underlined the poverty of modern existence: not the material poverty
of the sub-class, which the Saturday- morning bohemians and
exhibitionists claim to represent, but poverty of a more disfiguring
nature.
Now that the cars have disappeared, the streets, buildings and people
are cruelly exposed. The destruction of Scotland's civic pride and
dignity is much more visible than it ever was when we were too
distracted by the fumes and noise to notice what was going on around us
in the name of
local democracy.
It is a cause for genuine sorrow that Inverness, once a handsome and
educated town, is as shabby as the rest. The degraded values of the
disposable culture have descended even on it. It has become the
Kilmarnock of the north.
Fine shops of distinctive character have been replaced by a nasty
desert of chain stores and hamburger joints, a commercial environment in
which the punters are expected to buy the same disgusting food, read the
same low newspapers, and rent the same sordid videos as everywhere else.
One of its few restaurants of any charm has been converted into an
''over-25s nitespot''. This change of use is almost comically symbolic
of Inverness's new ethos.
Outside the Station Hotel, which used to boast the patronage of the
''nobility of Europe'', there are ugly notices in a handwritten scrawl
advertising cheap bar lunches. Ask inside for a slice of buttered toast
and you will be met with a curt refusal by a surly waiter behind a
self-service counter.
When it was a town with its own identity, not just another outpost of
Rupert Murdoch's global village, I remember Inverness as a place of
kilted Highlanders -- not the weedy football supporters and hairy
thumpers of drums who masquerade as kilted Highlanders in Buchanan
Street, Glasgow, but the genuine articles who might have marched with
Bonnie Prince Charlie and whose ancestors probably did.
I wonder what has happened to these impressive figures. The streets
have been made fit for pedestrians, but the only pedestrians above
ground seem to be professional scroungers and angry women with holes in
their nose. Perhaps the real locals stay indoors, mortified by what has
happened to their town.
But there is one thing in favour of Inverness: the physical grace of
its setting. Unless they drain the river, concrete it over and allow
McChukemup & Co to erect the Young Pretender shopping precinct, it will
probably still be recognisable in the year 2094. If only other Scottish
towns were so naturally blessed.
A few weeks ago I travelled in a bus across central Scotland. It was a
rickety old thing driven by a grumpy old thing, and by the time it
reached the tatty conservation village of Culross I was in no mood for a
plaque announcing that Smugnus Smugnusson, quizmaster and custodian of
our architectural heritage, had been there before us.
I confess that I would gladly sacrifice most of the jewels in the
National Trust's crown in exchange for modern towns designed with some
imagination and panache. What matters urgently is how we live now and we
are not living well. We are living in towns and villages close to the
sea, but which have a feeling of dusty insularity as if they have never
been touched by a wave and never will be.
Of course there are signs of improvement: the wrong sort of
improvement. I saw a bus near Kirkintilloch with
Laburnum Grove as its destination. What is more serious, I can imagine
much of Scotland becoming one vast Laburnum Grove -- a bland, Identikit
suburban estate serviced by a bland, Identikit pedestrian precinct.
Where, in this new and sanitised country, are the quirky tearooms, the
neighbourhood bookshops, the theatres, the privately-owned shops
offering a decent service and an individual touch? Where are those
sources of light and hope which any town of reasonable size ought to be
able to offer its citizens?
Yet we seem content enough. Man cannot live by Tandoori takeaways
alone, but the modern Scot seems to be having a pretty good try. Perhaps
we are too sunk in lethargy, too far gone in civic indifference, to
notice that our towns are not what they should be and not what they
were. Perhaps we are too busy parking our car.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article