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Old Susannah No. 48 – Never A Dull Moment In The ‘Deen

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Aug 182011

Old Susannah looks back at the week that was and wonders who’s up to what and why. By Suzanne Kelly.

The leak’s leaked. Those nice people at Shell seem to have been economical with the truth about their North Sea oil spill; they say they have been completely open and honest. However, some half a dozen environmental/animal groups do not think so.

I know whom I am tempted to believe. I hope Shell can do for us what it has done for Nigeria, farmers in Northern Ireland, etc. etc. If nothing else, it is good to know Shell has gone into public relations overdrive and is pouring oil on troubled waters.

Back on dry land, it is hard to know where to start doing a round-up of this past week’s events in the ‘Deen and the wider world. The Road Sense AWPR appeal has failed. Helpfully, Kate Dean posted on a Facebook discussion thread (you see – she is down with the kids for definite) stating:

“I’m amazed that this topical community hasn’t seen fit to discuss today’s Court of Session ruling on the Aberdeen Western Peripheral Route.”

I told our Katie:

“To Ms Dean – nice to see you weighing in. I think you will find this ‘topical community’ and the Aberdeen Voice have historically dealt with both sides of the AWPR story. As the Voice is a weekly publication, no doubt some contributors will send in relevant items for next week’s issue. You would be welcome to write a piece as well”.

Alas! Kate relied:

“I don’t think it would be appropriate for me to contribute to a publication which habitually refers to me in such a derogatory and insulting fashion”

I tried to explain that my writings are ‘satire’ (well, for the most part). Of course there is not much tradition of important politicians being satirised in Great Britain – well, only since the time of King John, and more recently Hogarth, Spitting Image and Private Eye. (I would have also replied: “XXXX XXX XXX XXX XXX XXXXX”, but I could not figure out how to do redacted text on FB). Perhaps I just do not know the meaning of the word ‘appropriate’ – time to see what can be learnt from Kate’s examples (see definitions).

Perhaps Kate thinks that is the end of the AWPR matter, and the necessary, environmentally-friendly, economical road will go ahead. Well, we will see. PS – my Facebook Home page tells me to suggest friends for Kate. Any ideas?

And we have another nursing scandal; this time at Woolmanhill.

A nurse has allegedly been over-drugging patients, and gave a person a salt-cellar instead of their inhaler. We are getting close to a medical scandal a week. I wonder if all the cutbacks to frontline services might be related to frontline services going down the pan.

Old Susannah’s had a senior moment; I remembered writing about the brilliant designs shortlisted for the gardens, and thought I had done so in a column. Turns out I had only done so on Facebook. While trying to find what I did write, I googled my way upon this quotation:

“The gardens have the potential to be transformed in to a popular, attractive and vibrant green space in the heart of the city. The gardens have come under increasing pressure in recent years, with various schemes put forward to raise their level and develop them as a leisure facility. Care must be taken not to over-develop the space and potentially risk losing its essential drama and historical landform”.

– 2007, AberdeenCityCouncil Report

The above was the conclusion the City came to in (yet another expensive) report in 2007. Since then a few things have changed, and commonsense has prevailed: the only thing wrong with Aberdeen is that UTG is not vibrant and dynamic. This is why we are all going broke, crime is shooting up, the independent shops are closing, and the streets are filthy: it is the gardens – they are not used enough and are in a valley!

We may or may not get a vote on the Gardens’ future – but we have lined up five designers who have form when it comes to doubling and trebling their budgets. I guess if you want something as beautiful, as functional and elegant as the Diana Memorial Fountain in Hyde Park, it’s going to cost. Then again, an inflatable Jacuzzi (on sale via ‘Groupon’) would have been as pretty and functional – and costs a few million less.

I’m sure it’s because I didn’t study architecture in great depth, but at first glance I thought the shortlist was the most predictable collection of expensive hacks to ever build boring and unsuitable creations, obviously my mistake.

Still, the Diana Memorial Fountain designer is one of our fine finalists! I hope you are as excited as I am. Since I did not go into detail about the talented designers Malcolm Reading has lined up to fix our city’s problems and how much it is likely to cost and since I cannot find my writings on the matter to begin with, (but I did mention some of the references rxpell uses), here is a good article from rxpell that sums things up nicely:
http://rxpell.wordpress.com/2011/08/16/a-look-at-the-city-square-short-leet/

This article will help you decide which of our five finalists to vote for. If you get a vote. We do not know for sure, even though HoMalone’s promised us a vote, which would include leaving the gardens as they are. But this is Aberdeen, and the government’s position changes more often than the weather.

(I would love to say I have been out at nice dinners and working my way through the ever-changing Brewdog menu, but for the time being my doctors have me on lockdown, and am forced to live off rice, tofu and yoghurt drinks. Somehow this does not really suit me. Still, I will be back doing the rounds as soon as I can). But now for some definitions.

Appropriate:

1. (adjective) fitting, proper, suitable, in accord with acceptable norms.
Am I ever embarrassed by Kate’s telling me that it ‘is not appropriate’ for her to write in the Voice, as we are derogatory about her. Shame-faced, I asked myself what can I learn from her example of what is appropriate behaviour? I came up with a few examples.

What is appropriate:

To be a supporter of the Cove Rangers, to be the president of its fan club, have a husband who is a Scottish Football Association referee, and to be administrator of the family plumbing business (Brian J Dean) which sponsors the club – and to endorse plans to build it a new stadium without any qualms or conflict
To make comments to the media about how wonderful a new stadium for the Cove Rangers team would be, yet to sit as convener of the Loirston Loch hearing (despite opposition from community councillors) which is tied to Cove Rangers’ future
To comment to the Loirston Loch hearing that you attended a meeting where virtually all present voted against the stadium going ahead, but that you were sure a man there wanted to vote in favour of the stadium – but was afraid to (mind-reading is a skill every councillor should have)
When implementing swingeing budget cuts (and having thousands of people march against them calling for your resignation) to reply ‘I was elected to do a job and I am going to do it’
To accept dozens of tickets to concerts and events at the AECC in a single year, despite guidelines suggesting this might not be ‘appropriate’

Thank you Ms Dean – I will indeed learn much from you, and will continue my studies.

And to whom but Aberdeen’s first citizen should I next turn towards to learn about appropriate behaviour: Mr Milne has it nailed. Out of the goodness of his heart, he allowed people to actually comment on his stylish plan for Triple Kirks (the Press & Journal obligingly called the area an ‘eyesore’ in an article. There goes that bothersome blurring of ‘editorial’ and ‘article’ again, which of course is not appropriate).

Those who did comment on the Triple Kirks plans marvelled at the giant glass boxes (never mind the peregrines). At least Milne said as much, claiming the majority loved his ground-breaking design.

(Hmm, if only there were some nearby, empty space that could be converted to parking, the scheme would be even easier to approve – if they could come up with some kind of a plan…). Anyway, those few who objected and left email addresses got a very appropriate follow-up email from a Milne company, which reads along the lines of:

“From: “sales@stewartmilne.com”

“Many thanks for your enquiry. We will forward details and information to you shortly. We’re here to ensure that buying your new home is easy and enjoyable, so if we can help any further, just let us know. Sell Your Home in 5 Days”

Now if I were a sceptical, cynical person, I would ask myself: is writing to people who opposed your plans and offering to get them a new home in an ‘easy and enjoyable’ manner something that could be construed as a bribe? Well, the City says everything is fine, so I guess it is all appropriate. I have dismissed the idea that offering sales help to people who were against you is at all wrong.

I hope this has cleared up what is appropriate and what is not.

Appropriate:

2. (verb) – to take by deceit or force that which belongs to another.
See: Union Terrace Gardens, City Garden Project, ACSEF, Donald Trump, Compulsory Purchase Orders.

Tradition:

(noun) custom or activity rooted in the past.
People are funny about their traditions. We are being told by the City Council that painting the Lord Provost’s portrait – and celebrating the glorious event with an expensive party is OK – as it is tradition.

Foxhunting (no, not with golf clubs and tame foxes, Mr Forbes) was a United Kingdom tradition going back hundreds of years; it was deemed cruel and barbaric, and therefore has been made illegal. The Catalonia area of Spain has recently given bullfighting the coup de grace – it is hard to imagine anything more barbaric than bullfighting masquerading as a ‘sport’.

I came under criticism (on Facebook again – I really must stay away from that thing) for saying Spain should consider doing away with bullfighting. (PS – if you really think the bull has a chance, and there is no prolonged torture or pain, and it is a brave matador that fights a bull with only a cape to protect himself, then think again – PETA will put you right).

Someone said I was showing ignorance of Spanish culture and tradition. Their point was that tradition was more important than the animal issues. I say “bull”.

The city could not afford to replace broken windows in schools only a few years ago, but wants to shell out on canapés for its elected officials and the usual suspects to celebrate the fact that its Provost is an oil painting. Too right. Without these traditions, we would start moving forward. And the future is uncertain. It is best to cling to what previous generations did – it is safe (well, maybe).

If we always paid for a portrait, then we had better keep paying for a portrait. We might have to cut a few services, but let us stick to whatever was the more traditional course of action. It is important to bear in mind that all traditions are equal in value and all are good. Perhaps we could bring back ducking witches in the loch? Yes, to question traditions is to question culture and nationalism – and where would be without nationalism?

In my world, it is the 21st Century. The whole world is under different pressures than it was when these wonderful traditions came about. There should be more enlightenment and compassion than brutality and superstition; we have run out of excuses. But then I turn on the news, and realise that I have got it wrong again.

Old Susannah is now out to catch something for dinner, and possibly bash a few enemies over the head with my wooden club. Now where did I leave my bow and arrows?

Next week: hopefully some FOI news, more definitions, and a back-to-school special look at education.

Blood Feud – Part 3

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Aug 042011

Continuing on from Part Two of Blood Feud, Voice’s Alex Mitchell offers the final tranche of his account of Scotland’s troubled and violent history. Last week Alex looked at how the fortunes of Clan Gordon changed in the turbulent times of Mary, Queen of Scots. In the concluding part religious and political tensions erupt, James succeeds Mary, and the ancient clan feuds continue.

Lord James Stewart, Earl of Moray, became the first of four Reformation Regents. He later became known as the “Good Regent Moray”, not least in contrast with his successors. He was much better equipped for the responsibilities of kingship than was Mary Stuart, but, being of illegitimate birth, was ruled out of the succession.

He could attain kingly power only by becoming Regent for the infant James VI, which meant that Mary had to be removed, one way or another; and Mary, now widely denounced as an adulteress, a French/Papist whore and a husband-killer, had already self-destructed.

But Moray himself was assassinated in Linlithgow in January 1570, aged 39, having been Regent for less than three years.

Normal hostilities were resumed. An attempt had been made to end the ancient feud between the Gordons and the Forbeses by means of a marriage between the Master of Forbes and Lady Margaret Gordon, sister to the 5th Earl Huntly. But the union was a failure, ending in divorce, and relations were more embittered than ever. Following a running fight at Tillyangus near Alford in 1571, the Master of Forbes went south to look for allies.

Whilst he was away, the troops of Sir Adam Gordon, the victor of Tillyangus, attacked Corgarff Castle with the intention of claiming it for the deposed Queen of Scots. Meeting with firm resistance, Gordon set the castle ablaze, and Margaret Forbes, being the wife of Forbes of Towie, and her children and servants, amounting to 24 persons, all perished in the flames. This was a conspicuously dreadful deed, even by the standards of those times.

Infuriated to the point of madness by the cruelty of this act, the Master of Forbes lost no time in pursuit of his enemy. He now had the support of the new Regent, the Earl of Mar.

Forbes advanced northwards to Aberdeen.

The Burgh was occupied by the Gordons, who received intelligence of Forbes’ approach and positioned themselves near what is now the top of the Hardgate, where it crosses Bon-Accord Terrace, whilst a party of musketeers were hidden in the hollow a little further west, now called Union Glen. These last were instructed to wait until battle commenced, then to attack the Forbeses from the rear.

The conflict, since known as the Battle of the Crabstane, on 20 November 1571, lasted about an hour. Finding themselves under attack from both front and rear, the Forbeses were thrown into confusion and were forced to withdraw, defeated, leaving some 60 persons dead and the Master of Forbes a prisoner of the Gordons of Huntly.

For the next 18 months,Aberdeenwas the base of Sir Adam Gordon’s operations in support of the captive Mary Stuart, held prisoner by her cousin Elizabeth Tudor for some twenty years until her (Mary’s) execution in 1587.

the last of the four Reformation Regents, the Earl of Morton, took a hostile attitude to the citizens of Aberdeen

Sir Adam Gordon subsequently fled toFrance, but only narrowly escaped an assassination attempt by the Forbeses whilst in Paris. Gordon had been given 600 merks to leave Aberdeen, which was by now shifting away from its traditional reliance on the (Catholic) Earls of Huntly in favour of the (Protestant) Earls Marischal, to whose stronghold at Dunnottar Castle the Burgh’s title-deeds were sent for safe keeping in 1572.

But the last of the four Reformation Regents, the Earl of Morton, took a hostile attitude to the citizens of Aberdeen, whom he regarded as “art and part” of both the Gordon Rising and the Battle of the Crabstane. In 1574, he imposed a fine of 4,000 merks on the Burgh and demanded assurances that, henceforward, the Burgh would be ruled by sincere adherents of the Reformed faith, which, in principle, would have ruled out both the Gordons and their long-standing associates, the Menzies family of Pitfodels.

The Battle of the Crabstane was so-called because there lay nearby a large stone, irregularly square in shape, known as the Crab Stane, which relates to an Aberdeen mercantile family descended from John Crab, a 14th Century baillie of Flemish origin. Not far off was a longer, more slender stone, appropriately named the Lang Stane. The two stones may have been march-stones (or boundary stones) from their Crabstone Croft. It may be that the stones were once part of a stone circle.

They provided the names for two streets now in the neighbourhood, Langstane Place and Craibstone Street. The Lang Stane may be seen at the east end of Langstane Place, i.e., at the south-east corner of the first house in Dee Street. The Crab Stone abuts upon the pavement on the south side of the Hardgate near where it crosses Bon-Accord Terrace, close to where the battle between the Gordons and Forbeses took place in 1571.

the-6th-earl-of-huntly-presumed-murderer-of-moray

The ongoing feud between the Gordons and the Stewarts flared up again in 1592 with the sensationally brutal murder at his mother’s house at Donnibristle near Culross of James Stewart, the 2nd Earl of Moray, son-in-law of the late Regent Moray, by George Gordon (1562-1636), the 6th Earl of Huntly.

Moray’s mother had a portrait painted of her son’s mutilated body, the famous ‘Death Portrait’, which depicts the ‘Bonny Earl o’ Moray’ as having been shot several times, hacked about the body and slashed twice across the face by sword. The situation was that King James VI had asked Huntly to arrest the troublesome 5th Earl of Bothwell (nephew of Mary Stuart’s Bothwell) and his associates, of whom Moray was one.

There was some evidence of a ‘hit-list’ of the King’s enemies. Certainly the King took no action against Huntly, who was never brought to trial, and in fact received a Royal Pardon a week after the murder.

However, after Huntly and his ally Francis Hay, the 9th Earl of Erroll, attempted a Catholic rebellion in 1594, King James felt obliged, for the sake of appearances, to have their castles at Strathbogie and (Old) Slains blown up; and Huntly and Erroll were forced to depart Scotland for France. But they were soon pardoned and back home, and in 1599 King James promoted George Gordon to the rank of 1st Marquess of Huntly and the major responsibility of Lieutenant of the North.

Unlike his mother, Mary Stuart, King James knew who his real friends were, and kept them close, to the occasional extent of letting them get away with murder. The Gordons had come through ‘interesting times’ and had survived, but they were never again to be as ‘gey’ as in the glory days of George Gordon, the 4th Earl of Huntly.

Contributed by Alex Mitchell.

Blood Feud – Part 2

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Jul 292011

Continuing on from Part One of Blood Feud, Voice’s Alex Mitchell offers up yet another slice of Scotland’s troubled and violent history. Last week Alex looked at The Gordon, Forbes and Stewart Families in the Time of Mary Queen of Scots and King James VI This week we see how the fortunes of Clan Gordon changes in the turbulent times of Mary, Queen of Scots.

The Gordons, for their part, held back until the Earl of Huntly was ‘put to the horn’ or outlawed and rendered fugitive on a trumped-up charge of refusing to answer a summons from the Protestant-dominated Privy Council, of which he was still a member.

Huntly marched towards Aberdeenwith a force of about 1,000 men, almost all of them Gordon kinsfolk and dependents; no other gentry families joined his campaign to ‘rescue’ the Queen.

He mistakenly believed that many of the Queen’s troops would join his side.

He took up a commanding position on the Hill of Fare, near Banchory, but his men melted away. His troops, now reduced to about 500, were assailed by some 2,000 men under the command of the Earls of Moray, Morton and Athole, and were forced down on to the swampy field next to the Corrichie Burn.
The Earl of Huntly, aged 50, corpulent and in poor health, and suffocated by his heavy armour, suffered a heart attack or stroke, and dropped down off his horse, dead.

Huntly’s body was thrown over a pony and taken to Aberdeen, where it was put in the Tolbooth and gutted, salted and pickled. The body was then taken by sea to Edinburgh, where it was given a more comprehensive embalming. After lying unburied in the Abbey of Holyrood for some six months, the mummified corpse of the one-time Cock o’ the North was brought in its coffin before the Scottish Parliament on29 May 1563 on a charge of High Treason.

The coffin was opened and propped up on end so that the deceased Earl could stand trial and ‘hear’ the charges against him.

Those present included the Queen and Huntly’s eldest son George, himself under sentence of death, later repealed. A sentence of forfeiture was passed, stripping the Gordons of all their lands and possessions, which reverted to the Crown and were redistributed amongst favourites, not least the Earl of Moray.

The Gordon armorial bearings were struck from the Herald’s Roll and the once-great dynasty was reduced to “insignificance and beggary”. Huntly’s body lay unburied in Holyrood for another three years until21 April 1566, when it was finally returned to Strathbogie and interred at Elgin Cathedral.

It has to be said that Mary’s behaviour at this time makes little sense.

Two days after the Battle of Corrichie, Huntly’s son, young Sir John Gordon, aged 24, was ineptly beheaded in front of the Tolbooth inAberdeen, to the visible distress of Queen Mary, who was in residence just across the Castlegate and was seen to observe the proceedings from an upstairs window.

It had been rumoured that the Queen and Sir John Gordon were lovers, although this is unlikely given that Mary was constantly under the guard of the Protestant Lords. They had achieved their twin purposes of destroying the Gordons of Huntly, the leading Catholic family inScotland, and of reassuring those Protestant Reformers suspicious of the Queen’s own Catholic leanings.

It has to be said that Mary’s behaviour at this time makes little sense. She was a devout and observing Catholic herself, yet she acquiesced in the legalised persecution of fellow-Catholics and the forfeiture and redistribution of their land and property.

The assumption has to be that she was not in control of events, partly because she was young and inexperienced and was disorientated by her return to Scotland, a country she had departed for France at the age of five; but also because she was fatally uninterested in the processes and responsibilities of government, seldom attending meetings of her own Privy Council at Holyrood. The judicial destruction of the Gordons of Huntly meant that Mary Stuart had lost her most substantial and dependable base of support, and put her thereafter in the grip of her political and religious enemies.

414px-james_i_of_england_by_daniel_mytens

Mary Queen of Scots was made, probably unlawfully, to abdicate her throne on 24 July 1567, in favour of her infant son James, born 19 June 1566, by her second husband (and cousin) Henry Stewart, Lord Darnley, from whom she was already irretrievably estranged. Mary’s effective reign had lasted just six years, and was over before she reached the age of 25.

The birth of a male heir to the throne meant that she had served her purpose, was now surplus to requirements and was in any case by this time dangerously out of control, having fallen under the destructive influence of James Hepburn (1535-78), the widely-detested 4th Earl of Bothwell, a Protestant, but intensely hostile to England.

The Queen’s remaining authority was destroyed by the sensational murder of her husband Darnley, not yet 22 years of age, at Kirk o’ Field on10 February 1567. Bothwell was instantly identified as prime suspect and the Queen as obviously complicit, an accessory, having gone to great lengths to seduce Darnley away from the protection of his Lennox Stewart relations in Glasgow and back to Edinburgh.

But how much did Mary really know? She would not have stayed overnight in the house at Kirk o’ Field, just inside the Edinburgh city walls, only two miles from Holyrood, if she had known that its foundations were being stuffed with gunpowder. To the end of her life, Mary Stuart was convinced that the plot had been to blow up her and Darnley together. This is unlikely, given that the explosion, which literally blew the house sky-high, took place after Mary had left Kirk o’ Field for Holyrood, which most people took to mean that Mary must have been party to the plot to murder Darnley.

But was she? And which plot? Or whose plot?

No-one as unpopular as Darnley was going to survive very long in 16th centuryScotland; but why murder him in such a sensational, attention-grabbing manner, when he could have been quietly dispatched back at Holyrood? Whatever the case, the ensuing scandal was hugely compounded by Mary’s subsequent marriage to Bothwell (in a Protestant church) on 15 May 1567.

Prior to all this, on 8 October 1565, Mary had restored George Gordon, the eldest surviving son of the 4th Earl of Huntly, to most of his father’s titles, including that of Lord High Chancellor, and some part of his former lands and property. This was little more than two years after the deceased 4th Earl had been found guilty of High Treason, his son George imprisoned and put under sentence of death, and his entire family reduced to “insignificance and beggary”.

Mary was presumably trying to rebuild her support in the North-East, but it was too little, too late. On top of everything else, the 5th Earl’s sister, Lady Jean Gordon, had made the mistake of marrying the Earl of Bothwell at Holyrood on24 February 1566. She was cruelly thrown aside and divorced within the year in order that Bothwell could marry his Queen.

Coming in Part 3: Alex Mitchell analyzes the changes sweeping through all aspects of Scottish life – dynasties rise and fall, clans battle for power and dominance, and religious conflicts dominate.

Blood Feud – Part 1

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Jul 222011

Voice’s Alex Mitchell offers up yet another slice of Scotland’s troubled and violent history in the first part of Blood Feud: The Gordon, Forbes and Stewart Families in the Time of Mary Queen of Scots and King James VI

Following the death of her first husband, King Francis II of France in December 1560, the young Mary Queen of Scots, born 8 December 1542, resolved to return to Scotland.

Whilst still in France, she was visited by a deputation of Scottish Catholics, headed by her cousin, George Gordon, the 4th Earl of Huntly (1514-62). They entreated her to land at Aberdeen, where she was promised an army of 20,000 men under the leadership of Huntly himself, ready to protect her and convey her in triumph to Edinburgh. This would almost certainly have led to civil war between Catholic and Protestant factions in Scotland.

Instead, Mary chose to take the advice of her post-Reformation Parliament. She landed at Leith on 19 August 1561, and thereafter depended on the support and advice of her half-brother Lord James Stewart (1531-70), the illegitimate son of King James V and Margaret Erskine.

His two fixed principles were his support of, firstly, the Protestant Reformation of 1560, which sought to displace and abolish the Catholic religion, and secondly, closer relations with England rather than with England’s enemies France and Spain.

To these ends, Lord James insisted that Mary, herself a devout Catholic, should respect the Reformation and defer to ‘moderate’ Protestant opinion rather than that of Catholic Earls, such as Huntly and Erroll. In return, Lord James would use his contacts in England to secure from Queen Elizabeth recognition of Mary’s claim to be her legitimate successor. Mary was a grand-daughter of Margaret Tudor, elder sister to King Henry VIII, whose six wives between them produced only three surviving children, Mary, Elizabeth and Edward, none of whom had any children of their own.

Lord James Stewart favoured a middle way in religious matters, acceptable to mainstream opinion in England.

He tried to fend off the more radical Presbyterian reformers like John Knox, who intimidated the Episcopal Church of England. Similarly, he set out to crush unrepentant Catholics like the powerful George Gordon, 4th Earl Huntly, The Cock o’ the North, whose opposition was substantially based on his justified resentment of Lord James himself.

Mary’s elevation of Lord James to the vacant earldom of Mar in 1562, which he then resigned in favour of the earldom of Moray in 1563, both of which had been effectively under the control of the Gordons of Huntly, obviously threatened that family’s long-standing domination of North East Scotland. Moray then, of course, was a much larger territory than it is now. Lord James, for his part, was fearful of the stated intention of Sir John Gordon, Huntly’s violent and unstable third son, to marry the 19 year-old Queen Mary. That he was already married seemed not to concern him.

Aberdeen regularly paid the more powerful and aggressive of the local gentry families large sums of money

The Gordons had ruled the North East like provincial kings for about 250 years, having been granted the lands of Strathbogie by Robert the Bruce in 1307. They were an enormous kindred, with cadet branches throughout the North East, and prolific; George, the 4th Earl, had nine sons and three daughters.

The original expression the Gey Gordons (note spelling) is a reference to this sense of the House of Gordon as being literally overwhelming, unforgiving and dangerous. They were also rich, and lived like princes; the 4th Earl rebuilt Huntly Castle as a splendid Renaissance palace. He had been created Lord High Chancellor in 1546, being a trusted supporter of Mary’s redoubtable French mother, Mary of Guise, who ruled Scotland as Queen-Regent from sometime after the death of her husband King James V in 1542, until her own death in 1560.

At a time when Aberdeen regularly paid the more powerful and aggressive of the local gentry families large sums of money in the hope that they might then leave the Burgh alone, the Gordons were undoubtedly the family to have on your side – rich, numerous, widespread, possessed of great political influence and close to the Throne. Hence the close relationship between the (burgess) Menzies family of Aberdeen and the (gentry) Gordons of Huntly, to the occasional extent of inter-marriage. In fact, in 1545, Thomas Menzies resigned as Provost to allow George Gordon, 4th Earl Huntly, to succeed him, albeit for a period of only two years. George Gordon was the only Peer of the Realm ever to be Provost of Aberdeen.

There was intense hostility between the Gordon and Forbes families and their respective allies, the feud extending over some 200 years.

The Forbeses, as one of the few authentically Celtic of the twelve main land-owning families in Aberdeenshire, resented Norman-French incomers such as the Gordons, Hays, Burnets, Bissets, Frasers and Keiths.

They were now Protestant, and allied to the Ogilvies, with whom the Gordons were in a separate dispute. These were violent times.

In 1527, Alexander Seton of Meldrum, an ally of the Gordons, was murdered by the Master of Forbes in Provost Menzies’ house in the Castlegate. A Commission was appointed, but it reached no conclusion.

As described, Huntly and his allies had expected the young Queen’s support for their proposed Catholic uprising against the Reformation, to commence in Aberdeen. He and Mary were cousins, both being grandchildren of King James IV. But the Queen withheld her support.

In August 1562, Mary toured the North East in the safe keeping of the Protestant Lords of Moray, Morton and Maitland. They went out of their way to insult and provoke the Gordons, snubbing their invitation to visit Huntly Castle. The Royal party feared, with some reason, that the Gordons planned to capture the Queen, murder her Protestant minders and forcibly marry Mary to young Sir John Gordon.

On 27 August, the Queen’s party, returning from Inverness, reached the Kirktoun of Aberdon, lodging at the Bishop’s Palace in the Chanonry – the Bishop of Aberdeen remained in post for a good twenty years after the Reformation. In Aberdeen itself, the Queen was warmly received by Provost Thomas Menzies but, perhaps significantly, was accommodated in Earl Marischal’s Hall on the south side of the Castlegate, and not in the adjacent Pitfodel’s Lodging. Around this time, Lord James Stewart married Agnes Keith, daughter of the Protestant 1st Earl Marischal.

Alex’s insight to those turbulent times and bitter familial relationships will continue in future editions of Aberdeen Voice.

The Battle Of Harlaw – 600th Anniversary

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Jul 202011

monument-to-the-battle-built-on-its-500th-anniversary-300x400

By Gordon Casely.

Where will you be in July? I hope to be at the Harlaw Monument on Sunday, 24 July 2011, to recall the 600th anniversary of one of Scotland’s more important encounters.
Essentially the battle was a contest between a Macdonald and a Stewart over an earldom far away from each. The day-long battle was fought two miles west of Inverurie, somewhere north-west from the monument. Yet the way in which Harlaw altered Scotland’s cultural imprint is recognisable to this day.

As a battle however, Harlaw was indecisive. Both sides fought each other to a standstill, bloody and unbowed, and each claimed victory. But under cover of darkness on that warm July evening six centuries ago, both sides retreated.

“Reid Harlaw” and “the sair field o Harlaw” are thoroughly represented in ballad, song, story and legend. Good modern accounts are contained in such books as Peter Marren’s Grampian Battlefields and Raymond Campbell Paterson’s The Lords of the Isles. Lt-General Sir Peter Graham, one-time CO of the Gordons and latterly GOC Scotland, gives a splendid presentation from a military standpoint, describing the forces and the terrain, measuring their qualities, and relating how the command structures might have operated.

The impression Sir Peter conveys is of a hand-to-hand battle that became increasingly desperate as the day wore, on, each side becoming more and more tired, each increasingly weary army hurling bodies at the other, looking for the tiniest advantage to turn the tide. Finally, with one final heave, the forces of one caused the other to step back. But the apparent victors no longer possessed the strength either to deliver the killer blow, or to undertake wholesale pursuit.

The prize of the earldom of Ross created the battle, and in the struggle over power and land, Donald, Lord of the Isles and Alexander Stewart, Earl of Mar, emerged as champions of each side. Whoever controlled Ross, territory stretching from Inverness to Skye, controlled northern Scotland, and held a considerable key in manipulating the rest of Scotland down to the Tay.

On one side was Alexander Stewart, thuggish son of the highly unpleasant Wolf of Badenoch, who gained the earldom of Mar through the murder of the incumbent earl, then forcibly marrying his widow. On the other was Donald, 2nd Lord of the Isles, head of what was a maritime kingdom almost in its own right, and whose forces had by now entered the lands of Ross.

If the intended conquest of Ross was to be made secure, then Donald would have to take out Mar’s forces by a pre-emptive strike. Thus did Harlaw occur.

Ensuing centuries create a David-and-Goliath picture – the chivalrous Stewart, noble Earl of Mar, against the wicked Donald of the Isles. Mar is aided only by minor levies from Aberdeenshire, the Mearns and Angus plus gallant burghers of Aberdeen under Provost Robert Davidson, while the scheming Donald heads 10,000 rapacious caterans. A spin-doctoral touch ensures that the event goes down in history as Highlander versus Lowlander.

the actuality is that he headed some three dozen merchants anxious to protect their business investments.

A glance at the cultural composition of the armies indicates that beyond a small professional core in each, both sides were made up of loons and callants whose commitment to campaign did not extend beyond getting the harvest in. The actual battle possessed neither subtlety nor tactics, with military strategy such as it was confined to a series of heroic encounters.

If the event was portrayed as “Highlander against Lowlander”, then it was mis-cast in the same way as the Jacobite Risings are. There were folk of each persuasion on each side. Mar’s army would have contained a plethora of Gaelic speakers, while the educated in Donald’s forces would have spoken the same languages as Mar’s chief officers.

Among the casualties were Hector Maclean of Duart, Sir Alexander Irvine of Drum and Provost Davidson of Aberdeen. Davidson’s name is the product of more legend. Legend has it that he rode out from Aberdeen heading “a citizen army”; the actuality is that he headed some three dozen merchants anxious to protect their business investments.

The inscription carved by the architect Dr William Kelly on the Harlaw monument refers to “…Davidson and the [36] Burgesses of Aberdeen who fell [at Harlaw]….”. In the great hall of Trinity Hall in Aberdeen are displayed the remains of two banners said to have been carried by members of the Weavers at Harlaw, along with the provost’s sword.

Under his direction, a relic of Harlaw survives to this day

Yet it’s worth asking the question: what would have happened if the pyrrhic victory of the Lord of the Isles had been transformed into actual conquest? What would have been achieved by Highlanders rampaging south from Aberdeen to the Tay? How much of today’s lost Celtic culture would have been restored? And how?

Any answer would have depended on Donald’s Highlanders and Islesmen becoming true regular soldiers, enforcing a conquest, using their talents as an army of occupation to rebuild the countryside in the mould they envisaged, and where Gaelic displaced Scots as the lingua franca. Compare the picture as occurred under the Allies in post-war Europe, and where history has been written by the victors.

Instead, the withdrawal of Donald’s influence in central and eastern Scotland began the gnawing at the strength of the Lordship of the Isles and the natural authority exerted through the clan system. Slowly the wane of each began. The Lordship of the Isles was forfeited in 1493, with the title surviving to be borne by the eldest son of the monarch, as Prince Charles holds now. In Harlaw began the inexorable downfall of the clan system that was dealt a mortal blow at Culloden three centuries later.

Meanwhile, post-Harlaw Aberdeen reacted swiftly to prevent the city ever being threatened again. In 1412, the safekeeping of the town was placed in the hands of……Alexander Stewart, Earl of Mar, who for the next 23 years became Captain and Governor of Aberdeen. Under his direction, a relic of Harlaw survives to this day, for his magistrates quartered the city into municipal wards. From these first four divisions came the electoral wards of today. Harlaw today lives on in balladry, pipe tunes, street names, a school, a room in Aberdeen Town House and as the monicker of a council works depot.

his body was borne back to Aberdeen to be given an honoured burial in the Kirk of St Nicholas.

Harlaw changed for ever the cultural and linguistic face of Scotland. It showed that the power of the Lordship of the Isles was no longer invincible; it proved the start of the end for the clan system; and it gave impetus for the Scots and English languages to prosper at the expense of Gaelic.

Who was Robert Davidson?

Robert Davidson has become something of a cult figure down the years, the only civic head of Aberdeen ever to lead the citizenry into battle, and who six centuries after his death is still revered as a hero.

Yet what do we really know of him? Flora Davidson and Nick Hide, researchers to Clan Davidson, state firmly that he was “a wealthy merchant, an innkeeper, wine importer, customs inspector, provost and pirate”, going on to point out that after the dreadful confrontation, his body was borne back to Aberdeen to be given an honoured burial in the Kirk of St Nicholas.

But there remain puzzles about Davidson the man. His colourful career carries respectability as a merchant, but hardly to the level where he would merit a knighthood. Yet on the ceiling of the St Nicholas Room in the Town House of Aberdeen, he is portrayed as “Sir R Davidson”, with a coat-of-arms best described as putative rather than actually belonging to him.

Equally, there is dubiety whether he was provost at the time of Harlaw. According to data of Clan Davidson, he was provost in 1408.

So where is proof of Davidson’s greatness? My guess is that the answer lies in two points: the first is that he was interred in the Mither Kirk, a resting place reserved only for our most revered citizens. The second is that folk memory, a powerful tool in history, maintains a legend that would be very difficult to disprove.

The bottom line is: why would we want to disprove it anyway? What a magnificent story to relate down the centuries – how a hero provost placed himself at the head of an armed contingent and gave his life in defence of the town he led and loved. Here is a role model readied to be copied by anyone today.

Contributed by Gordon Casely.

Wise Up, City Fathers

Aberdeen City, Articles, Community, Environment, Featured, Information, Opinion No Responses »

Apr 252011

By John Aberdein.

The Council leadership has got itself into a fankle. Schemes for the future of Aberdeen city centre have now got more sticky holes than a spider’s web. It is time the Council leadership either extricated itself – or demitted office.
The task of a council is to regulate the city on behalf of the public good, the good of all its citizens.

If it spurns that duty, and thinks it exists to promote the projects of the big business minority, then it has to be replaced.

If the bleakest, most expensive, utterly illogical, and environmentally crass scheme were to be implemented for, say, the top of the Broad Hill, for the width of the Castlegate, or for the area between Denburn Viaduct and Union Bridge, then the construction industry would stand to make a hefty profit. And if it had all to be restored – assuming it was still possible to be restored – then the reconstruction industry would stand to make another whopping killing. It can be seen immediately that big business has no interest in things remaining the same: there is no profit in that. So big business – and its tame political followers – have to create the conditions for constant change: by decrying the status quo.

Big business says the city centre is a disgrace, that they cannot take visitors there. And to an extent that is true: the state of Aberdeen’s main street is a disgrace, with many a shabby shopfront and with weeds hanging off ledges. But it is not actually Union Street that big business and its political servants want to change: it is the beautiful bit, the secluded haven, the sunken Victorian garden with its intense vivacity and charm.

When a council leader can allow himself to be quoted as saying that Union Terrace Gardens is only grass and a few trees, we would remind him that by such definition a human being is only some chemicals and a few gallons of water.

When a council deputy leader says that Peacock could not go ahead because there was a funding gap (of around £3.5 million), yet is prepared to give a fair wind to an enormous project with a gargantuan funding gap (£70 million and seriously upwards), then we suggest he check his sums.

Big business has no business case – that’s how much of a bad joke this scheme has become.

When a Lord Provost says that the Council is obliged to take a £50 million-with-strings offer because he is afraid of being laughed at in the world outside, then he deserves to be pitied. That is not true civic leadership, not in a thousand years.

The reason that so many people are entirely wary of the City Square project as it now stands, is that it is a very unusual beast: a chameleon with three wooden legs. Is there to be a double-storey car park? We hear changing stories about that. Why? Is there to be a retail presence? No. Yes. If yes, why? How would that help an already retail-denuded Union Street? Is there to be an underground art gallery, an entombed conference centre? Point: we already have an art gallery and a conference centre, above ground, in the light.

And the three wooden legs?

1. The misleading description.

2. The duff funding method.

3. The failure of vision.

The description first of all: The existing gardens are to be raised. No, very largely they will be razed to the bare earth, and anything placed atop the new decking will have to be shallow-rooted. Strangely, 140-year-old elms cannot be grown in pots.

The funding-method: The funding gap will be met by TIF. TIF is for brownfield sites. Union Terrace Gardens is not a brownfield site. No business case has been presented. Big business has no business case – that’s how much of a bad joke this scheme has become. The real risk is that the massive funding requirement – unless it can be laid on some magic new volume of city centre trade – will absolutely hammer ordinary ratepayers and council taxpayers.

The failure of vision: Union Terrace Gardens, as noted above, is a secluded haven, a sunken Victorian garden of intense vivacity and charm. Most flat or flattish cities would give a lot to have one. Plazas and piazzas are two-a-penny worldwide in comparison.

There are countless appreciative minds and hearts, and rich imaginations, in the city

Melbourne’s Federation Square was the exemplar held up by ACSEF in their presentation at Cults Academy on 12th May last year. Well, no, actually, ACSEF, I don’t really think so. Melbourne’s Federation Square (built over old railway yards, not over an elegant garden) is 8 acres, whereas the proposed Aberdeen City Square is 6.

But metropolitan Melbourne has a population of 4 million. So the city of Aberdeen – with a population a little over 5% of Melbourne’s – suddenly needs a City Square 75% as big? The casual numerical incompetence of the thinking here almost beggars belief.

As we know, there are many achievable schemes to improve Union Terrace Gardens and the Denburn Valley. They are schemes which start by looking at what already exists, appreciating what is there, and pondering how it can be enhanced. There are countless appreciative minds and hearts, and rich imaginations, in the city.

Taking the area as a whole, I have seen drafts and sketches for pleasurable fountains and waterways, for smooth cylindrical lifts, for tubular pedestrian connection to the station, for an airy bridge to Belmont Street – yea, and for restored toilets and giant draughts, for sculpture and a bandstand! No doubt many more joyful and stately ideas can be brought to the democratic table. Joyful and stately both: for Union Terrace Gardens is Aberdeen’s Xanadu.

So, improve the Gardens and their wider setting and their facilities and their accessibility and their connectivity – by such affordable and imaginative means as the people collectively will.

An international design competition – to one man’s parameters? Destroy what exists with money you do not have? The Council leadership may have lost the plot, but the people, it is extremely likely to find, have not lost their senses.

Parking Space – The Final Frontier

Articles, Creative Writing, Featured, Satire and Humour No Responses »

Apr 222011

Aberdeen Voice is proud to present the following comic strip originally created by local artists Dave Smith and Graham Murdoch. The cartoon strip first appeared in an issue of the sorely missed Keltik Komix in the late 1980s. However, readers will find the subject matter not only topical, but uncannily familiar. It is very likely that the particular issue of Keltix Komix in question was funded by Aberdeen City Council – for which we are extremely grateful.

Lament Fer The Northeast

Aberdeen City, Articles, Creative Writing, Opinion No Responses »

Apr 072011

By Bob Smith.

Faar’s the likes o Tammy Mitchell
A provost wi nae falderals
Nae cavortin wi Acsef types
Or big lood moo’d Yankee pals

Provost Mitchell he spak the lingo
O the local North East lan
Ye aye kent fit wis fit
Fin Tammy shook yer haun

Nae mair chiels like Bob Boothby
Or mannies like yon Robert Hughes
Ye micht nae agreed wi their politicks
Be ye kent they’d peyed life’s dues

Jist mealie-mou’d gabbin gadgies
In the political scene the noo
Maist o oor Scottish MSPs
Shud bi on the bliddy Broo

Nae worthies in oor local council
Like Dick Gallagher or Alex Collie
Jist a bunch o maistly fearty fowk
An we greet at aa their folly

Nae muckle fish landed at Aiberdeen
Since the discovery o aa the ile
Nae mony fish market porters
Hiv ye seen noo fer a fyle

Nae chatter o riveters haimmers
Or the soond o tackety boots
Jist the noise o fower bi fowers
Driven bi billies in Armani suits

The young in oor wee villages
Canna afford ti buy a hoose
The reason is ower plain ti see
Incomers hiv bin lit loose

Fowk faa wark miles awa
In the toon o Aiberdeen
Hiv snaffled aa the village hooses
Or as holiday hames they’re teen

Nae mony local shops o ony note
Cos they’ve aa gin ti the wa
Nae langer a leevel playin field
Supermarkets hiv pinched the ba

We eesed ti hae a gweed paper
The P&J wis aye breezy an bright
It’s nae langer kent as impartial
The pages are noo fu o shite

Nae chunce o mince an skirlie
At some funcy restaurant placies
The chef wid look doon his nose
An pull affa funny facies

The reason he wid gie ye
As he whisks up his blancmange
Is ye canna serve up skirlie
Wi a dish o Duck a l’orange

At Pittodrie I watched gweed fitba
Faar players talents war set free
Noo it’s aa blackboard tactics
Wi systems 4-5-1 an 4-3-3

N.E. culture some say is wanein
Bit the Doric it still huds fast
An as lang as we aye spik it
It’ll nae bi in the past

I’m sure ye’ll bi noo hae gethered
I’m haein a wee rant an rail
An if a happen ti lan in jile
Wull somebody please pey ma bail

Bob Smith “The Poetry Mannie” 2011

No Democracy At Shire Council – Unnecessary School Cuts Forced Through

Aberdeenshire, Articles, Community, Information, Opinion No Responses »

Feb 112011

By Cllr Martin Ford, Aberdeenshire Council.

I said last week I did not expect Aberdeenshire Council’s budget setting meeting, which took place yesterday (10 February), to be either lengthy or out of the ordinary (see: Aberdeenshire Budget Day Looms, Aberdeen Voice 4 February 2011).

I was only half right. The meeting lasted less than two hours.

Normally, budget meetings are extremely predictable. The Council’s ruling administration proposes its budget. The opposition parties each propose an alternative package of measures.

There is a debate in which speakers from each party say why they believe what their party has put forward should be supported. There is a vote in which each party votes for its own set of proposals. The administration’s budget receives the most votes and thus becomes the Council’s budget.

Yesterday’s budget meeting was different in one key respect. The Democratic Independent group of councillors, of which I am a member, was not allowed to put forward its alternative to the administration’s budget.

As reported in previous articles, Aberdeenshire Council’s Liberal Democrat/Conservative administration, with SNP support, voted through nearly £27 million of cuts and savings at the full council meeting on 25 November.

At yesterday’s budget meeting, further savings of £1.461 million had to be approved to balance the Council’s revenue budget for 2011/12. As expected, the Liberal Democrat/Conservative administration accepted the recommendation from Council officers to close the budget gap by bringing forward planned cuts and savings from 2012/13 into 2011/12.

So, for example, the administration proposed changing the cut in spending on Community School Networks it had decided in November, increasing it from £107,000 to £137,000 in 2011/12 by bringing forward some of the cut planned for 2012/13.

Council officers advised that it was not competent to propose no cut to these staff, even though we had put forward an alternative

Amongst the accelerated cuts in education spending proposed by the administration was an increase in the cut for 2011/12 to spending on primary school classroom assistants, from £88,000 to £100,000.

In their budget proposals, the SNP councillors left unchanged the planned £88,000 cut in the 2011/12 budget for primary school classroom assistants.

This year it fell to me to formally move the Democratic Independent group’s budget proposals. We saw it as a priority to maintain spending on primary school classroom assistants and visiting specialist teachers – so we proposed making no cut to either in 2011/12. We proposed making a saving instead by cutting the budget allocated to repairing unadopted roads, as these roads are not, by definition, a Council responsibility and the budget for repairing them has mostly not been spent.

Once it became clear I was proposing no cut to primary school classroom assistants or visiting specialists, I was stopped from speaking by the provost. Council officers advised that it was not competent to propose no cut to these staff, even though we had put forward an alternative way of balancing the budget.

The Council operates a general policy that it cannot reconsider its decisions within six months, unless there is a two-thirds majority in favour of doing so. But when the administration, and then the SNP councillors, proposed increased spending cuts in 2011/12, by bringing forward cuts from 2012/13, it was ruled this did not constitute a change to a previous decision, so the two-thirds rule did not apply.

But when I proposed the opposite, not to proceed with cuts, this was deemed a change that could only be debated if a two-thirds majority agreed.

A show of hands was called by the provost. Just six councillors voted to allow us to put forward our budget proposals.

The provost ruled the Democratic Independent group budget proposals out of order.

Faced with a debate between the administration’s and the SNP’s very similar budget proposals, both of which opted for staff cuts in primary schools, there was no point in staying. None of the Democratic Independent group councillors was going to vote for either of the proposals we had to choose from. We all walked out in protest.

I have never walked out of a Council meeting before. It is not something I would normally consider and not something to do without very good reason.

I did it yesterday because the budget debate had become pointless, and because of the manifestly unfair way the meeting was being conducted. It was not that our proposals were voted down – it was that we were not even allowed to put them forward for consideration and debate. That is undemocratic and wrong.

I am appalled at the Council’s refusal to allow open debate. Apparently it is perfectly acceptable to propose further cuts in classroom assistants – but seeking to stop the cuts is not allowed.

That is completely one-sided.

The two budget proposals that were voted on by Aberdeenshire councillors yesterday both accepted the primary school staff cuts the Democratic Independent group had sought to avert.

It was, of course, the administration’s budget proposals that were approved. The cuts to classroom assistants and visiting specialist teachers – and many others – will go ahead.

The Burning Of The Clavie

Articles, Community, Events, Featured, Information No Responses »

Jan 072011

By Fred Wilkinson.

Like many of our readers I’m sure, it is with mixed feelings that I take down the tree and pack away the baubles and tinsel. The old year is out, and the new one is suddenly almost a week in the making. For better or worse, normality returns and all the fuss is over for another year. Or is it?

In the Northeast village of Burghead in Moray, residents are looking forward with anticipation to their own unique annual Hogmanay celebration. Condemned in the 18th century by the church as “an abominable, heathenish practice”, the Burning Of The Clavie is surely one of Scotland’s most bizarre and spectacular events.

The event takes place on 11th of January every year – or the 10th should the 11th fall on a Sunday – in correspondence with what was the last day of the year before our calendars were changed in 1660.

To summarise the event as simply the carrying of a burning barrel through the town fails to convey the deep-rooted and elaborate nature of the ceremony.

Fire has strong associations with Hogmanay.

From the symbolism of a single lump of coal as a first footing gift to wish comfort, health, and/or luck – or in other words the wish that the recipients ‘lum may aye reek’ – to the extravagance of the Edinburgh Fireworks display, The Burning Of The Clavie has more in common with the former, but with detail, ambition and meaning more in common with the procession of the Olympic flame.

The ceremony commences on the night with the clavie itself – a half barrel full of woodshavings and tar, which is nailed to a post. It is believed by some that the same nail is used every year. It is carried, borne on the shoulders of a single male resident to the home of the Burghead provost so that he can light the clavie with embers from his own fire. The flaming barrel is carried in turn by around 10 men, clockwise around the town, and embers from the barrel are presented to homes/households of significance.

The clavie is then carried to the ‘clavie stone’ – believed to be the altar of and old fort on Doorie Hill, where it is set down, and more fuel is added until the whole hillside is set ablaze.

The ceremony, in a manner similar to many rituals around the world, across faiths, and throughout the ages, is completed as attendees take away embers from the fire to light their own home fires on ‘New Years Day’ symbolising perhaps the cycle of life, renewal, the passing of cold winter and the promise of spring, or simply as the tradition dictates – for good luck.

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