Apr 202017
 

With thanks to Emma Brown.

Today sees the launch of a stunning new photo book showcasing one of Britain’s favourite mammals and at the same time making the case for the expansion of its native woodland home.

The Red Squirrel: A future in the forest features jaw-dropping imagery by award-winning wildlife photographer Neil McIntyre, who has spent the last 20 years documenting the lives of the red squirrels near his home in the Cairngorms National Park.

Neil’s astonishing portfolio of images, captured deep in the heart of one of Scotland’s largest remaining fragments of Caledonian Pine Forest, is accompanied by insightful and evocative words from celebrated writer Polly Pullar, to create a beautiful and thought-provoking book which aims to raise awareness of the plight of the red squirrel.

With native woodland covering just 2% of Scotland’s land area, red squirrel populations are fragmented on isolated islands of trees and their long-term future remains uncertain.

Conservation photographer and Director of SCOTLAND: The Big Picture, the book’s publisher, Peter Cairns said:

“Neil’s beautiful images shine a unique light on one of Scotland’s best-loved mammals, but squirrels need forests just as much as forests need squirrels. I hope this book will ignite fresh conversations about that crucial link.”

The publication of The Red Squirrel: A future in the forest follows a successful crowdfunding campaign, which ran throughout November 2016 and was supported by over 500 backers.
It is the first in a series of stunning conservation books from SCOTLAND: The Big Picture, a project which works to amplify the case for a wilder Scotland.

The Red Squirrel: A future in the forest is available now from www.scotlandbigpicture.com.

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Mar 192017
 

By Red Fin Hall.

The match against ‘they who were once contenders’ before Robbie Neilson jumped ship to go to MK. Dons and the young statistician took over, was a game where nothing short of a Dons win would suffice; not just to make it nine home wins in a row, but to rectify a poor recent record of results versus Hearts.

Aberdeen reverted back to the usual suspects in the team fielded, with Mark Reynolds still out injured, Anthony O’Connor retaining his place, and Jayden Stockley back on the bench.

It was a fine but sunny-ish day, with the rain, thankfully, staying off. Hearts won the toss, and decided to kick off towards the Merkland Stand. The match referee was Steven McLean.

The Dons started off in a positive manner, winning two corner kicks in the first minute. Hearts got theirs five minutes in when O’Connor and Esmael Goncalves were involved in the first real tackle of the game.

8 minutes in the home team were awarded their 2nd free kick, a pattern which was set for the whole of the game.

Kenny McLean continued on from the last game, being involved in almost everything that happened on every part of the field. However, he was an unwilling participant in the first booking of the game, when he was chopped down by Alexander Tziolis.

Aberdeen were well at the top of their game, and even this early in the proceedings there was some pretty fine football being played. But, Hearts being Hearts, they interspersed trying to make a game of it with their trademark fouling.

Aberdeen were nearly hit with a sucker punch as the visitors progressed upfield, but some calm defending meant that the shot from Arnaud Djoum never troubled Joe Lewis, and the ball sailed over the bar for a goal kick.
 
Leonard Sowah was the next player to concede a free kick for a foul on Ryan Jack.

With 23 minutes elapsed we saw the best move of the game when Andrew Considine and Niall McGinn showed some skill in passing and possession, with the latter firing a perfect cross from the left side into the 18 yard area to find Shay Logan running across the front of goal and heading the ball into the back of the net.

1-0

McGinn was the executor of the next chance a mere 4 minutes later when he fired a good ball in for Adam Rooney. Rooney couldn’t quite make contact with it and it fell perfectly for Graeme Shinnie. Alas, the best we could get was a corner, which, when taken was too long for anybody.

Next, left back Considine passed forward an almost perfect ball for Hayes, but he wasn’t expecting it and failed to control it.

Hearts found themselves having the ball for a good bit of play until their work was broken up by McLean, who was then fouled for his trouble.

within the first 2 minutes Rooney had the ball in the net

Playing to his usual high standard, Shinnie collected the ball on the edge of the opposition box, turned swiftly and chipped the ball in.

It went over the bar though.

The Dons were a joy to watch, and the goal had obviously knocked the stuffing out of the men from Edinburgh, with Goncalves seemingly giving up on chasing loose balls down to easily.

Meanwhile, McGinn showed again why there may be top clubs after him in the summer, when he aimed for Rooney with a superb ball in from the sideline. The Irish striker was just unable to reach it. Still looking dangerous though.

Sam Nicholson, despite not having a game of the standard you might expect from him, tried running at the Dons defence looking for an equaliser before half time, but his finish was poor and the ball was inches away from clearing the roof of The Merkland Stand.

Just on half time Hearts had another possible goal failing by poor shooting, this time by Goncalves. It wouldn’t have mattered anyway, as the player was adjudged to be offside, although he didn’t know it at the time.

Half time 1-0.
 
The second half kicked off with The Dons attacking, and within the first 2 minutes Rooney had the ball in the net, but the whistle had been blown for offside.
 
57 minutes had passed when Logan took a throw in to Hayes, who passed to McLean who is not shot shy, but couldn’t find the second goal.

Don Cowie, the Hearts captain was booked for a foul on McLean. The free kick went no further than the wall though.

There next followed a catalogue of errors by Hearts starting off when McLean stole the ball off a Hearts player in midfield, but then after getting it back, the Dons forced a slack pass back from Anastasios Avlonitis. Before Hearts’ keeper Jack Hamilton could get to the ball, Jonny Hayes nipped in and collected it.

The keeper made a timing error when he dived at the feet of the onrushing Hayes, missing both the ball and the attacker, making it easy for him to kick the ball into an empty net.

2-0.

The second half continued in such a fashion, with the Dons pushing high upfield and Hearts fouling, mainly McLean, with Jamie Walker getting a yellow card for doing so just after 80 minutes had passed.

Just before that, however, Rooney was substituted and Jayden Stockley came on. The tall forward is more often than not, proven to have a crucial effect on games when he comes off the bench. Today was no different, but time it wasn’t so good. The Hearts players couldn’t quite handle him, and as he tried to break upfield with minutes left to play Krystian Novak, in an attempt to stop him, was pulling him back.

None of the officials saw this, but they did see Stockley foolishly react by swiping back at the player with his hand, making contact with Novak’s face. The Hearts player, unsurprisingly, went down over dramatically. The Dons player was correctly shown a straight red card for his part in the incident.

Dying the time that Novak was being treated for the gentle tap on the face he received, both Shinnie and Hearts substitute, Malaury Martin, were yellow carded for pushing and shoving like petulant schoolboys.

Ryan Christie and Frank Ross both got very minimal run-outs in the last few minutes. The fourth official indicated that three minutes stoppage time would be played, which passed without further incident. The full time whistle went, and Man Of The Match, Kenny McLean must continue to ponder what he has to do to get back into the Scotland squad.

Full time 2-0

Next game is away to Dundee on the last day of the month, before Inverness Caledonian Thistle pay a visit on 4th April.

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Sep 162016
 

image1aBy Fin Hall aka The Man In Red.

Some time ago I wrote about the fanzine, The Red Final. First published in May 1996 on the opening of The Richard Donald Stand at Pittodrie.
Now as the club stands on the verge of moving to to Kingswells, and the new Kingsford Stadium, the fanzine, stands on the precipice of disappearing from existence.

The publication which has been run wholly on a voluntary and non profit basis for the whole of its lifespan has, in all that time, had only two editors. the first being Chris Gavin.

Known by many as Old Beach Ender, or OBE, Chris could always be seen sporting his well worn, brown leather jacket as he stood outside the football stadium, selling the latest issue of the fanzine he started, for only £1.

When he was offered a position as a non-executive director on the board of Aberdeen Football Club, and the fans’ representative therein, he relinquished his editorial position to a younger and very keen contributor, Chris Crighton – aka ‘Merkie’.

The moving of OBE onto the board was a sign that fanzines were valuable voices of the fans, and were to be taken into consideration.

Merkie has taken this acceptance a step closer. He has a column in Aberdeen’s award winning matchday programme, and writes a post match opinion piece in the Press and Journal also.

Some of the contributors have been with the Red Final since it’s early days, and even contributed to it’s predecessor, The Northern Light which is still fondly remembered by those of us of a certain vintage.

Twitter, Facebook, and online Blogs may have given the fans more options on voicing their opinions, but this has not had too much of an direct impact on sales. It still sells around 2,500 copies when it hits the streets, which in itself is reasonable enough readership.

It has also been available for years via subscription and, more recently, online as a download. After all these intervening years it still sells for the same price – £1.

No, the problem comes not with sales nor with articles, although the editor’s inbox is never as full as it used to be, or as he would like; but with actually getting it onto the streets and into the hands of the ever keen public.

As I stated previously, some of the contributors have been with it since the nineties, and are not getting any younger. Ill health as well as age keeps some of them off the street corners, although with this latest issue, number 125, some have come back out to lend a hand.

Not all of the writers live in the city. The Editor himself, who usually has much more than one item in, lives in the central belt. I know, I know, we feel sorry for him, but it’s his choice. One even lives in Germany. So it has been down to just two sellers in recent times.

Despite numerous, pleading requests from Merkie via the aforementioned online vehicles, no fresh blood has volunteered to get down Pittodrie way on match days to help sell it.

When the move to Kingswood comes about, it would seem the logistics of distribution may well be impossible. It’s difficult enough at times as it is.

It may well be that when the remaining copies go on sale at the St Johnstone cup game next week, and the first ever game against The Rangers on the 25th, (if there are any left) it will be for the last time ever.

The final decision has yet to be ascertained. It is Scotland’s longest running fanzine, and, as far as I am aware, the only one in the country still going – but not for long. I personally will mourn it’s loss, being one of the older writers on it.

Sad days indeed.

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Aug 272013
 

In August 2013 a momentous milestone in the history of local publications was reached. Sadly, it went unnoticed by all local media. No flags were waved and no bunting displayed, unless we lay claim to the bunting already in place in Union Street. Alas, no, Aberdeen City Council is not that foresighted. No TV crews sought sound-bite quotes and no fuss was made, apart from mutual backslapping by the editor and several of the contributors, reports Fin Hall.

RedFinalFootballRattleNow this publication may have passed many of you by, but the Aberdeen FC fanzine, The Red Final, is celebrating twenty years of existence. Before the home match against Glasgow Celtic on 17 August, Issue 108 hit the streets and was sold out within fifteen minutes of kick off.
This itself was a bit of a record, allowing vendors, for once, to get into the ground well before the referee blew his whistle to start proceedings.

Perhaps I should explain to the uninitiated what a fanzine actually is, and a bit about their history.

Their roots can be traced back to the heady days of punk when one Mark Perry, not the ex-Aberdeen defender, published a monthly fanzine Sniffin’ Glue. It only lasted a year, was generally badly-written with atrocious grammar, but the energy was there, and over the years fanzines generally moved away from music and popular culture into the realms of football.

Nearly every club’s fans have produced a fanzine at some point, but few have survived. The ethos of a fanzine, a magazine for and, more importantly, by the fans, is to say and report what in many cases the regular papers and magazines don’t print. In the case of a football fanzine, it is without fail an irreverent alternative to match programmes and officially-sanctioned club magazines sold before games.

This is not to say that all programmes are poor, in fact our own local club’s effort is regularly voted Programme of the Year. It really is an informative and excellent read. The Red Final editor contributes a regular column and also writes a Fans View after each game in The Press & Journal, but we don’t hold the latter against him.

Suffice to say, the language and criticism in football fanzines can be ripe and sometimes extremely harsh. But as yet, none has ever been sued or shut down. This is probably due to the fact that its readers are generally in agreement with much, if not all, of the content. Also the people that may be the target of fanzine contributors, are probably unaware of their existence.

The subject of this article, The Red Final incorporating The Granite Kipper, to give it its full and proper title, was born way back in the mists of time, on 18 August 1993, at the club’s friendly match against FC Hamburg, on the occasion of the official opening of the Richard Donald Stand, the huge, overbearing edifice which replaced the well-loved Beach End.

Hamburg’s an important club in the annals of AFC, as the Dons beat them over two legs to win the European Super Cup, which isn’t a cup, but a plaque, of course, ten years before the birth of the fanzine.

TRF was not the first fanzine produced by fans of the club

TRF was originally helmed by Chris Gavin, or Old Beach Ender (OBE), who would be seen sporting his trusty, well-worn, brown leather jacket whilst selling said publication outside Pittodrie. He continued in this role until he became a club director in 2001.

Although no longer on the board, he can still be still found at the club fulfilling either his fans’ liaison role, or as one of the Aberdeen FC Heritage Trust’s mainstays, the charity whose purpose is to collect club items of historical interest and set up a permanent museum in the new stadium, wherever and whenever that may be.

TRF was not the first fanzine produced by fans of the club. It was preceded in December 1987 by The Northern Light, which ran to 22 issues, before completing its run in October 1992. This came about after conversations between Chris and a certain Dave Watt. An A4 format was chosen and the contents were often, allegedly, printed out, page by page, on their workplace Xerox machines. They adopted a sheep motif dubbed Flossie.

TRF’s format remains the same, but printing is done more professionally by outsourcing. The front cover nowadays is usually in colour, red and white naturally, featuring a cartoon by either Gordon Reid or Gareth Giles, and a quote from history re-interpreted to match the current state of affairs at the club.

Inside the front page one will find the editorial, The Editor’s Bleat. Another nod to Flossie the Sheep.

Thereafter follow contributions of various lengths styles from writers with one thing in common, that they are fervent fans of Aberdeen FC, even if not all still reside in the NE.

As is the wont of such publications, real names are rarely, if ever, used although by-lines are a requirement on submission of articles. The Shepherd, Fray Bentos, Neptune Lodger and The Man In Red, are just some of the regulars who feature.

you can now purchase the latest issue online

Two further Dons’ fanzines have been published during the years of TRF’s existence – The Paper Tiger, published twelve issues from May 1993, ten years after AFC beat Real Madrid to win the European Cup-Winners Cup, until December 1996, and 10 Men Went To Mow, which appeared sporadically in the mid-90s.

Although there is no strict timetable for publication and sale, there tends to be an issue at the beginning of the season, one near the end and one or two during the season. Since the demise of regular, loyal stockist One Up Records last February, TRF has been looking for another similar outlet.

This search has been in vain, and moving with the times, you can now purchase the latest issue online. The intention is to get as many back issues up online, but to date the only one available is number 107. TRF can also be followed on Twitter.

The cover price, quite remarkably in modern times, remains static at £1, the same as it always has been during its twenty year history.

Breaking with tradition though, when the first issue hit the streets two decades ago, it did so, with the giveaway Issue 0. So in reality, the anniversary publication is Issue 109, but let’s not be pedantic whilst celebrating the fact that, although relatively un-noticed The Red Final has surpassed all other fanzines in the country and reached this landmark.

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Mar 192012
 

A proposal to build a road through woodland in Ellon has come under fire from a group set up to support the management of the area. The intended purpose of  road is to provide access for the development of 250 new homes. Those opposed to the plan believe the road is unnecessary, destructive, and in contravention of a Blench Charter. Friends of McDonald Park founder member Lynn Gilbert brings Voice readers the story.

The plan is being opposed by Friends of McDonald Park, a group set up by Aberdeenshire Council in 1990 when the Council bought the superiority of the Park from the charity Barnardos.
The aim of the group is to support the management of McDonald Park for the benefit of the community. We have done this by planting bulbs, trees and a hedge as well as regularly clearing litter from the ground and from the Modley Burn.

The Park was given to the Burgh of Ellon in 1928 by Sir James McDonald and is governed by a Blench Charter.

The terms of the Charter state that the Park should be used for recreational purposes only, that nothing should be done which is detrimental to the Park and that its area is not to be reduced in any way.

In 1996, we successfully opposed a plan by Aberdeenshire Council to use part of Caroline’s Well Wood, the east section of McDonald Park, as a bus park for Ellon Academy. On that occasion we raised the terms of the Blench Charter and an alternative solution was found without destroying any of the Park.

In 2010, builders Barratt East Scotland and Scotia Homes were given Council permission to construct 250 houses in Ellon’s Castle Meadows but it was only when marks appeared on trees in the east section of the Park, that it became apparent that the plan was to construct a road through it, from the development site to Golf Road. I made enquiries on behalf of the Friends and was told that the road had been approved by councillors.

In August 2011, the Friends were informed in a Council Estates Department letter that an S75 Legal Agreement for the application had still to be signed, and were asked for their views on the proposed access. The same letter stated that legal advice given to the Council was that:

“vehicular access must facilitate/improve public access to the park and cannot be granted purely to allow development”.

The Friends voiced total opposition to a road through the Park, stating that it would be in contravention of the Blench Charter since it would not improve public access to the Park, but was solely for the development. It would also involve the felling of a large number of mature trees in an area inhabited by red squirrels, bats and spring/early summer migrating birds.

It would seem that councillors were not satisfied with the legal opinion offered and they sought further advice several times from Sir Steven Stuart QC. This was given in a privately-heard report presented at a Formartine Area Committee (FAC) meeting on 6 December last year. It suggested that temporary construction access could possibly be granted, subject to a number of safeguards and agreements being in place.

  The Friends and many others have lodged objections to the planning application

On 17 January, a report to the FAC, again heard in private, proposed a temporary five year construction access which would become a pedestrian and cycle path once the five years had elapsed. This temporary access would be a tarred road with lighting and other services and which would involve the felling of at least 99 mature trees.

It would take a fifteen metre slice of the woodland at the Golf Road end, this increasing to nearer thirty metres at the top, a significant area of the Park.

It seems that when councillors first approved this access, they were not aware that they themselves were in fact Trustees of McDonald Park. It was in this capacity that councillors had to consider the application at their 28 February meeting, and as Trustees they rejected it.

This application is to be considered at a Planning meeting on Tues 20 March.

The Friends and many others have lodged objections to the planning application, and I have asked to speak at the meeting should it be heard there. Quite apart from the effect of this road on the woodland, a precious asset to Ellon, there is another matter to be considered.

Construction traffic using Golf Road would access the Park at the rear of Ellon Academy, an area used by a large number of Academy pupils and mothers with buggies walking into Ellon. There are two other access roads to the development, but some residents along these routes would rather see part of McDonald Park destroyed than have traffic pass their homes.

Interestingly, the site of this proposed access is given as ‘Castle Meadows’ on the planning application, when in fact it is McDonald Park. This makes it easy to overlook the reality of the situation.

Further info: Save McDonald’s Park Caroline’s Well Wood Ellon : Facebook Page
Image credit: Ian Jukes 

Jan 192012
 

We continue our serialisation of David Innes’ interview with author Maggie Craig. Her two books on the Jacobite Rebellion, the evocatively-titled ‘Damn’ Rebel Bitches: The Women of the ‘45’, and ‘Bare-Arsed Banditti: The Men of the ‘45’ are critically-lauded. She explains why she looks at that fractious period of our heritage from a different angle to that usually taken by historians.

You’ve written two books on the Jacobites – where did that inspiration come from?

That came from a novel called The Flight of the Heron by DK Broster which an uncle gave to me. I loved it, and it’s my Fahrenheit 451 book, the one I’d save from the flames.

But like an awful lot of Scots, what I knew about the Jacobites is from that novel, a high romance about friendship and so on.

And although the folk songs are great, they sometimes get things a bit mixed up. Then, when it was the 250th anniversary of Culloden in 1995, I’d started to write a novel set in that period and I needed a baddie, so I went looking for a Campbell. I found a Macdonald saying, “We’ll surrender, but only to a Campbell”.

That was a light bulb moment when you think, “History’s not as simple as you’re taught it is”. Why were they prepared to surrender to a Campbell? They must have respected that guy or thought that he’d give them a better deal, so I started researching it and I got interested in the women because, well, Flora bloody Macdonald is all you’re presented with. I didn’t try to debunk her but she’s such an unacceptable kind of female, standing there while the Prince kisses her hand and I think, “Nah, there must have been women doing different things from that” so I went looking for the women first of all.

They’re attached to their men, of course, so you get a lot of stories about the men too, including the Jacobites of Aberdeenshire and Banffshire. There was a huge amount of Jacobite support in this area. They called them the Lowland regiments, but there were a lot of Episcopalians in Aberdeenshire who would tend to fight for the Jacobites because they were persecuted for supporting the Stuart cause. They couldn’t meet for a proper service, only in twos or threes.

There was a lot going on around Banff and Duff House. The Duffs, of course, were on whichever side was winning as they’ve tended to be. You can’t blame those who hedged their bets. If you had a farm or an estate and you had tenants, and there would have been people who cared about their tenants, you had to be cagey because you didn’t know which way it was going to go – and the consequences of failure were horrendous.

About eighty people were hanged. A lot of Aberdeenshire was laid waste. I’ve quoted that, “the people of Strathbogie were back in their fields but they’re as inclined to rebellion as ever”. I thought “Wow”. You don’t get that impression nowadays, where people keep their heads down and don’t say much about getting involved in politics.

Although when I went to speak to kids in Ellon about ‘When The Clyde Ran Red’,  I said, “It’s harder to be a radical on a farm, isn’t it?”. When you’re working for a farmer and you don’t have your comrades about you then it’s harder to stand up and say, “I don’t think this is right”.

I think there’s a kind of hidden history of Aberdeenshire. The anniversary of the Battle of Harlaw was a huge missed opportunity to help tell it.

So you feel that Jacobitism and the Rebellion needs to be re-evaluated as a radical movement.

It’s said that history is written by the winners, but to a large extent that history has been written by the losers and the greatest losers, you could say, have been the West Highlands. That’s fair enough – the devastation, the burnings, the rapes, the murders, shooting the boys and shooting the old men and all that stuff, but I think that has skewed our vision of it. It’s dangerous, because you always see it through your own perspective.

I’m a Scottish nationalist (with a small n) and having read a lot about the Rebellion, I think a huge amount of it was about wanting to reverse the Act of Union. There was no democracy in those days and the only focus for discontent was Charlie, so he funnelled in a lot of different people.

There was a lot of criticism of him because he could be very high-handed, but he was the only way they were going to get regime change, so my take on it is that it was a kind of Rainbow Coalition. It brought in a lot of people and it was kind of before its time. We’ve got the Enlightenment in Glasgow and Edinburgh and probably Aberdeen – I don’t know and it’s something people need to research – but this was still pre-Industrial Revolution where the weavers and the like became radicalised. I think if it had happened fifty years later, things could have turned out differently.

When you read about the eighteenth century, you always hear about the power of the mob which would gather together in whatever town. I think that’s radicalism, but they’re always presented as a bunch of drunken yobs. If you look at the 1730s Porteous Riot about the Malt Tax, people are asking, “Why is London taxing us and why are they taxing us so severely?” After the ’45 they didn’t try any of the leaders in Scotland because they didn’t think a Scottish jury would convict. I think because the whole North British project took off after that.

 people say that it’s sentimentality. It’s not. It’s love. It’s death and feeling.

There couldn’t be a rocking of the boat in North Britain and some Scots became very successful. I see someone like Andrew Marr as being very like an eighteenth century Scot – he’s gone to London and sort of sold out, hasn’t he? I like his programmes, but he’s sold out his Scottishness.

We can get caught both ways. If you say that the Scots have always had a great sense of justice you’re told that you’re just being sentimental, or that you’re looking at the world through rose-coloured spectacles, but then there’s the ‘Jock Tamson’s bairns’ thing which does unite us. I think there’s almost a natural democracy, a collective “That’s no fair, you’ve got to do something about it” attitude that unites us, and it’s not a bad battle cry!

My daughter and I came back from Switzerland via Paris a couple of weeks ago and there were eight London lawyers, all about 40, on the Eurostar. Now there’s nothing wrong with having a wee refreshment but they got more and more offensive about the working classes who “couldn’t get up off their arses and do anything” and they said, “Let’s get some fizz” and bought three bottles of champagne and they got worse and worse. Of course the rest of us just sat and did nothing, but they were such a stereotype of that ‘I’m alright Jack’ attitude. One said, “Why should we care about healthcare for poor people?”

We Scots can be our own worst enemies, though. We’ve got someone like Robert Burns, who’s world class and who unites the North East and Ayrshire, but people say that it’s sentimentality. It’s not. It’s love. It’s death and feeling.

A local Rotary Club thought it was being radical when I was the first woman to propose the Immortal Memory at their Burns Supper. I said that Burns slept around and that if I’d been married to him I’d have slapped him into the middle of next week. Even saying that raised a few eyebrows. I wasn’t saying anything that isn’t known and I still admire him for his humanity. We need to reclaim him for the radical he was.

I looked briefly at Thomas Muir of Huntershill, a radical. We don’t look back to the friends of the people. In the 1790s these men and girls were totally admirable and put their lives on the line to say that workers ought to have rights. There’s so much of our history that we aren’t taught.

I was delighted to see that Red Clydeside is now in the Higher curriculum but in history classes the ’45 is viewed as a crowd of misguided romantic people. That’s a very narrow point of view and it’s time we opened it up. Sometimes the way they treat Red Clydeside is as dry as dust. The history’s got to be about the people and those people were fallible, they made mistakes – and sometimes you point out that someone regarded as a hero was rotten to his wife.

That’s where we leave this part of the interview, but of course this led to discussion of the current political situation, which we’ll carry in the next issue.

Those of you who want to meet Maggie and hear a bit more about her influences have the opportunity on Saturday 21 January when she and fellow writer Kenneth Steven will be at The Central Library, Aberdeen at 11.00 to talk about their love of books.

 

 

 

Jan 192012
 

Foiled by Jock Frost, David Innes got his weekly fitba fix last weekend at Pittodrie. Paying more than three times the cost for about a tenth of the entertainment he relishes in the proper mannies’ fitba Highland League environment is an indicator of why attendances might be falling. He’s thawed out, and here are his thoughts.

We Dons fans have learned to be canny, although air-headed, cliché-addicted professional sports commentators still accuse us of living in the 1980s. Only my fashion sense, Chick.

So, when the pre-match talk centred on the potential for the Reds to achieve top 6 SPL status, we backed off. We’ve been down in the gutter this season already, and believe me, we were looking at few stars.

We know better than to hope.

And it’s a good job that we’ve gone from Real Madrid to realism. We created fewer chances in 90 minutes of honest, earnest endeavour than in almost any match I’ve seen at Pittodrie in my 46 years of attendance.

Our squad is solid. Even the loss of Richard Foster has had little obvious effect as Clark Robertson, surely a future star, calmly did the left back stuff and on-loan Mark Reynolds looks skilful on the ball, able in the centre of defence and comfortable wearing The Sacred Red. Apart from a late slip which Jason Brown rescued, Andy Considine is an effective centre half. He must surely get his ability from his ma.

Upfront, Mohamed Chalali opened brightly but faded after sustaining an injury. Scott Vernon, though, is suffering from not getting the service he needs from midfield and often finds himself dropping back to pick up balls which he would prefer to see served to him in the box. That’s where he’s at his best. He’s the most effective and consistent penalty area centre forward we’ve had since Arild Stavrum’s departure for Istanbul left linesmen with curiously well-developed flag arms.

Our problem is between defence and attack, in the bit where we should be making chances for the strikers. So Milsom who gives us some width on the left was missing but there seem to be few alternatives when he’s missing. Neither Ryan Jack, who proved his youthful fallibility by having a poor game by his own standards, nor Chris Clark who was, well, he was Chris Clark, were able to make much of things on the wings. I’ve seen more width on a Mod’s lapels.

As it turned out, Rory McArdle, a solid centre half was played at right back. He didn’t do much wrong, but hearty and committed though he is, a right winger he isn’t. For his endeavour and his determination to keep overlapping when it patently isn’t his strength yet always being back in position to repel the few Kilmarnock attacks of any note, he was my man of the match.

We have twelve days to try to add a creative edge to our satisfying solidity before the transfer window closes – or “slams shut” as cliché demands. We seem to have sorted out the issues which saw us go on that scary losing streak in October and November, but it’s still not pretty to watch and victories will be scrambled and nervous single goal affairs rather than comfortable, carefree, toorie-at-a-jaunty-angle net-bulging festivals.

Without the creativity of wide players or a wily tricky schemer to take on a couple of defenders and deliver a decent standard of final ball to the strikers, we’ll struggle to make the split in the top 6 and falter in the Cup after we complete unfinished business against Queen of the South.

Over to you Broon and Knoxy mins.

Jan 122012
 

Voice reviewed ‘When The Clyde Ran Red’ a few weeks ago. So impressed was David Innes with Maggie Craig’s excellent take on a vital part of Scottish history, that he spent an afternoon in her cosy kitchen on the wrong side of the Balloch, discussing the book’s background, her passion for the subject, and much more besides. Here is Part One of that interview.

How much of your background is in ‘When The Clyde Ran Red’?

A lot of my background. My dad was very involved with Labour politics and was an Inverness town councillor in the 1940s. He moved to Glasgow and became election agent for Cyril Bence, the Labour MP for Dunbartonshire East after Davie Kirkwood, in the early 1950s.

My dad was born in Coatbridge in 1913, so grew up during the Depression. We were told stories about them going over the farmer’s dyke to nick a few neeps and the farmer turning a blind eye because he knew everyone was really hungry.

In fact my dad’s in the book. I discovered a big pile of my dad’s papers which showed he’d written to the Commissioner of Distressed Areas about the Scottish Allotments Scheme for the Unemployed. He was a great gardener and a railwayman and you know how these two things go together.

People say, “Let’s not talk about politics”, and you think, “If you ignore politics it won’t ignore you”. It was my dad’s lifeblood. I remember him crying about a neighbour’s baby who’d died and they’d no money even for a coffin. This would have been, I suppose, in the early 1930s. They wrapped the baby up in brown paper, and he said, “Tied up like a bloody parcel”, because nobody had any money.

There was always the big hoose and the mine owners. He went apoplectic about Sir Alec Douglas Home, who they were working for at one point, because they were living in the lap of luxury when their workers were living in poverty.

My dad was one of about ten and they were really a bright, clever family, and there was this idea that girls who were clever were going to work in factories at 14 and the boys didn’t get a chance either. It was such a waste of potential.

I remember my aunt telling me about how the doctor would come out. It cost five shillings, but they’d a good doctor who’d say, “I’ll get it next time, Liz”. My aunt says they were on first name terms with the doctor, who must have been an idealistic man who saw himself on the same level as the miners he was treating. When you think of some doctors now who insist on their status, it’s an interesting turnaround.

You grew up in the Glasgow area?

I grew up in Clydebank. My dad then got a job as station master which moved us from Clydebank to Bearsden, quite an interesting culture shock! My mother had come from a farm, and the station house we lived in came with a third of an acre of ground which my dad was proud of. It was semi-rural. He came from Carnwath and loved being in the country.

If you go there now the industry’s gone and it’s back to being a rural area. A lot of these Clydeside places were. There were shipyards and tenements, but you went up to the farm to buy eggs. I think there was a love of the land even in industrial areas.

My mother’s from Barthol Chapel on the Haddo House Estate and she used to talk about Lord and Lady Aberdeen. I don’t think her family was as poor as my dad’s, but she told me that her mother sometimes had to sell their butter and buy margarine. That really hit me – the one benefit of being on the land is that your children are going to have healthy food, but that wasn’t always the case.

I think their rural background helped them speak fantastic Scots. There are words my mother used that we still use, like “fair forfochen”. Because my dad came from what he called the Upper Ward of Lanarkshire he had that rich Scots and that’s all running through the book too.

I think there’s an obvious really good prose rhythm in the book, and that possibly explains it, but it’s your passion for the subject that really shines through.

I grew up with it and thought a couple of years ago that it was time I wrote another non-fiction book. I thought, “What do I feel passionately about?” and the book’s the answer.

I went and looked at some of the other books and some of them are pretty dreadful. The Legend of Red Clydeside is hard going, and you come up against the party line quite often. The Marx Memorial Library gave me permission to quote from Helen Crawford which a lot of people said they wouldn’t allow.

You also have to make a judgement about what’s been written and have to say to yourself when reading some of the memoirs, “You’re presenting yourself in a bit of a heroic light here”. I love the wee vignettes, and I don’t think they’re frivolous. Like when James Maxton gives Davie Kirkwood a clean hanky when he gets arrested because he always liked to have one. Somehow you think, “Well, that’s true!”

I think I had a passion to write about it because it seems to have been forgotten. People are talking about austerity nowadays, and I think, “Not yet”. We’re not at the level of poverty where people couldn’t go to work because they didn’t have a pair of shoes, or they had to share a pair of shoes with their sister.

We’re now seeing the prospect of our children doing less well than we did, which is very hard because you want your children to do better than you’ve done. Both my husband and myself are working class kids who’ve made good but you feel as though you’re almost being hit for that – the idea that if you can afford to send your kids to university, you have to bear this cost. This is fine, but you don’t have the cushion that someone like David Cameron has. I had to have a full grant to go to university otherwise I couldn’t have gone.

Next week: The author speaks about her books on the Jacobites, ‘Bare-Arsed Banditti: The Men of the ‘45’ and ‘Damn Rebel Bitches; The Women of the ‘45’, and how this period of Scottish history is misunderstood and worthy of re-evaluation.

Those of you who want to meet Maggie and hear a bit more about her influences have the opportunity on Saturday 21 January when she and fellow writer Kenneth Steven will be at The Central Library, Aberdeen at 11.00 to talk about their love of books.

Dec 152011
 

With thanks to Dave Macdermid. 

This weekend will see Westburn Tennis centre host the annual North County Inter District Red, Orange and Green (ROGY) competition, between the 4 districts in the North County.

This event, now in its 2nd year, was set up by North East District Coach Vikki Paterson

Vikki commented:

 “I am heavily involved in the running of the North County Cup teams from Under 10’s  through to Under 18’s and this is a great way to see the younger players coming through for the years ahead. It is a great opportunity for the players to play in a team and represent their district.”

On Sunday 18th of December the finals of the North East Red and Orange tour will take place, involving the top 8 boys and top 4 girls at Under 8 and Under 9.

This year the ROGY Tour events have recorded over 800 matches, a substantial increase on the previous year, much to Vikki’s delight.

“This year NESTLA was granted funding from Awards For All, and this has allowed me to put on more events, including indoors ones too. We have had really good support from the local players and Sunday should provide some great tennis.”

 

Taking part are:

Under 8 Boys
Cameron Jappy (Westhill)
Ewan Smith  (Alford/ Westhill)
Finlay Smith (Westhill)
Alex Grant (Westburn)
Harrsha Pradeep Kumar (Dls)
Ross Grant (Westhill)
Benjamin Hine (Westhill)
Todd Blacklaw (Rubislaw)

Under 8 Girls
Varada Kamte (Cults)
Abigail Doran (Stonehaven)
Rosie Sterk (Stonehaven)
Caitlin Fraser (Tarland)

Under 9 Boys
Greg Smith (Alford/Westhill)
Ewan Smith (Alford/Westhill)
Cameron Jappy (Westhill)
Angus Edward (Cults)
Jamie Connel (Rubislaw/DL’s)
Hauoorn Arsher (David L’s)
Angus Harold (Grant on Spey moray)
Harrsha Pradeep Kumar (David L’s)

U9 Girls
Jodie Harris (Stonehaven)
Rosie Sterk (Stonehaven)
Varda Kamate (Cults)
Caitlin Fraser (Tarland)

For further information contact  – Dave Macdermid – dave.macdermid@bigpartnership.co.uk

 


Nov 282011
 

This match really underlined how the sport of football can toy with the emotions of its followers. At half time Dunfermline would have bitten off hands for a point, but in the end it was Aberdeen who felt relieved to snatch a share – and yet, both teams will feel as if they could or should have won the game. Philip Sim reports.

The Dons undoubtedly controlled more of the match and created a greater quantity and quality of chances, but it was the home side who somehow found themselves 3-1 ahead – and indeed, it could have been 4-1 if not for a terrific save from visiting keeper David Gonzalez.

Ten minutes of madness at the back soured what had been developing into a decent Aberdeen performance.
It’s little consolation that the Dons have now quadrupled their away goals tally for the season, as they remain rooted second-bottom of the SPL.

Aberdeen’s back line will come in for some deserved criticism after an all-too familiar second-half collapse, but special mention once again has to go to Andrew Considine, arguably his team’s most effective performer this season. The centre half has looked solid in defence and has popped up with vital goals several times already this term, and it was hardly a surprise that he broke the deadlock.

The fact a defender can be so lauded in a team which is shipping so many goals speaks to the nature of this match – while undoubtedly an entertaining affair, it was as laden with negatives as positives. While Aberdeen found themselves trailing 3-1 to a team who haven’t won a home match all season, they then showed great character and resolve to come back and tie the match, and came within inches of a winner in the final seconds.

Craig Brown will again point to his side’s statistical superiority, and while it’s true that the Dons largely bossed the first half, made plenty of chances and won endless corners, all too often they showed profligacy in front of goal. Josh Magennis was the main offender, missing four good chances including an open goal before he finally netted the late equaliser.

A cutting edge up front has been Aberdeen’s key failing this season, and a quick glance at the SPL’s top scorers confirms this – Scott Vernon just makes it the top 15, while Inverness, the only team separating the Dons from bottom of the league, have both Andrew Shinnie and Gregory Tade.

Beyond the striking issues and occasional defensive standstill, the result points out how fragile Aberdeen are, looking distinctly makeshift after losing just a few players to injury. Kari Arnason would be badly missed from any midfield in the country, but really it was Scott Vernon’s absence that hurt the Dons here.

With Rory Fallon withdrawn presumably due to injury after an anonymous first half and Mo Chalali off on international duty – still the only situation where he has actually scored a goal – the absence of Vernon leaves Aberdeen with a front duo of Magennis and Darren Mackie. This is not a pairing which will strike fear into the hearts of many SPL defenders, especially given the scant service they tend to receive – Richard Foster remains the team’s only source of width, given the uninspiring form of eternal substitute Peter Pawlett.

Brown and indeed many of the supporters might be looking forward to the January transfer window and a strengthening of the squad, but there are six more games to be negotiated before then.

Depending on whether your glass is half full or half empty (discounting the rather vocal minority of fans who broke their glass and went home in a huff at 3-1) these six are all winnable games in a league as evenly balanced as the SPL outside of the Old Firm. On the empty-glass relegation-dogfight hand, maybe a point away from home against a fellow struggler is a decent result – but this was the type of game that Aberdeen really need to look to win if they are going to build a move up the table.