Scotland Archives - Page 25 of 28

Trump Film To Screen Again At Belmont

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

Jun 222011

By Fred Wilkinson, with thanks to Tripping Up Trump.

Due to “unprecedented demand”, Aberdeen’s Belmont Picturehouse have shaken up their schedule in order to host a further 3 screenings of Antony Baxter’s controversial documentary film You’ve Been Trumped.
Donald Trump has publicly expressed that Anthony Baxter is a “fraud”, and that the film is “boring”, but that does not appear to resonate with those who have actually viewed the film.

Mr Trump it would appear, despite currently on a visit to the North-east to examine the “worlds greatest golf course”, will not be available to attend the additional screenings.

However, Mr Trump has been invited to a special US preview of the film 7 July in New York.

“If Mr Trump can’t stay in Aberdeen then we are happy to invite him to the screening in New York,” said Director Anthony Baxter.

According to Emily Richardson, Film Programmer for Picturehouse Cinemas:

“Following the unprecedented demand for tickets for the sell out Green Carpet Premiere and the follow up screening, The Belmont is delighted to be holding three further screenings of You’ve Been Trumped. We have been delighted with the amazing response to this very topical film and are very pleased to have been able to bring the film to the Aberdeen audience,”

The additional screenings will be held:-

Friday 24 June at 6.30pm
Saturday 25 June at 1.45pm
Sunday 26 June at 6.30pm

For more info, see: youvebeentrumped.com

Other Links …..

Trump film wins festival prize.

Voice’s ‘poetry mannie’ Bob Smith reviews YBT … ( See ‘The cafe 2’ column. )

Belmont_Picturehouse – Youve_Been Trumped

Aberdeen Voice Article – March 2011

Peter Williamson – Aberdeen Child Slave Part 5

Aberdeen City, Articles, Community, Featured, History, Information No Responses »

Jun 182011

With thanks to Mike Shepherd.

Peter Williamson was kidnapped as a child in Aberdeen harbour and taken to the American Colonies where he was sold as a slave.

On gaining his freedom, he was kidnapped by the Indians, living with them and eventually escaping from them. He then spent three years in the British Army fighting against the French and the Indians, only to be captured again, this time by the French.

As part of a prisoner exchange he was repatriated to Britain in 1757.

In Plymouth he was released from the army with a purse of six shillings. This was enough to get to him to York, by which time he was penniless.

He managed to persuade some local businessmen to publish his book, titled The Life and Curious Adventures of Peter Williamson, Who was Carried off from Aberdeen and Sold for a Slave. This sold very well and gave him enough money to return to Aberdeen in June 1758, fifteen years after being kidnapped.

He had several hundred copies of his book with him, some of which he managed to sell on the streets of Aberdeen. The book eventually came to the notice of Councillors and merchantmen in the city, and although nobody was named, they did not like what they read. The Procurator Fiscal lodged a complaint with the Provost and Magistrates, stating:

“that by this scurrilous and infamous libel … the corporation of the City of Aberdeen, and whole members whereof, were highly hurt and prejudged; and therefore that the Pursuer (Peter Williamson) ought to be exemplary punished in his person and goods; and that the said pamphlet, and whole copies thereof, ought to be seized and publicly burnt.”

A warrant was issued for his arrest. He was taken from his lodgings and brought before a Magistrate at the courthouse. Peter was asked to repudiate publicly everything he had said concerning the merchants of Aberdeen. Until he agreed, he was to be imprisoned and his books seized. After a short time in the Tolbooth (a jail in the Aberdeen Town House), he was bailed and stood for trial. On being found guilty, he was told to lodge a document with the court confessing to the falsity of the book and to pay a ten shilling fine, otherwise he would be imprisoned. This he reluctantly agreed to, leaving Aberdeen and moving to Edinburgh.

In a ceremony watched by the Dean of the Guild, the Town Clerk, the Procurator Fiscal and the Baillies, the offending pages were sliced from 350 of Williamson’s books and publicly burnt at the Mercat Cross by the town hangman. The remaining pages were never returned.

In Edinburgh, Peter contacted a lawyer and started planning for a legal challenge. He opened a coffee shop which became frequented by the Edinburgh legal fraternity and he started to teach himself Scots law. The year 1760 saw the start of an extended phase of courtroom battles against his persecutors in Aberdeen. In 1762, he was successful in getting the result of the Aberdeen trial reversed and was awarded costs and a £100 in damages.

The results of his investigations had revealed the names of the businessmen behind his kidnapping. These were Captain Robert Ragg, Walter Cochrane (the Aberdeen Town Clerk Depute), Baillie William Fordyce, Baillie William Smith, Baillie Alexander Mitchell, and Alexander Gordon, all local merchants with a share in the ship, Planter.

Further litigation ensued. Witnesses were found and they were mainly men who as boys had managed to escape kidnapping. The father of a boy who had sailed with Peter Williamson to the Americas testified. He said that while the Planter had been moored at Torry, his son had returned to him and refused to go back. He claimed that Captain Ragg and others involved had spoken again and again with him in the street, warning him that he would be sent to the Tolbooth if he didn’t send his son back to the ship. The boy went back.

The main incriminating evidence was the so-called “kidnapping book”. This was a ledger detailing all the expenses of the slave-ship venture. It mentioned Peter Williamson by name and included entries such as:

“To one pair of stockings to Peter Williamson, six pence; To five days of diet, one shilling and three pence.”

One entry read:

“To the man who brought Peter Williamson, one shilling and six pence.”

Eventually in 1768 the case was proved. Peter was awarded damages of £200 plus 100 guineas costs.

Child slavery was endemic in Aberdeen and elsewhere in the 1700s. The plantations in the American colonies were desperate for labour. The Book of Bon Accord (Robertson 1839) records that:

“The inhabitants of the neighbourhood dared not send their children into town, and even trembled lest they should be snatched away from their homes. For in all parts of the country emissaries were abroad, in the dead of night children were taken by force from the beds where they slept; and the remote valleys of the Highlands, fifty miles distant from the city, were infested by ruffians who hunted their prey as beasts of the chase.”

Skelton (2004) mentions that it was estimated that 600 boys and girls were abducted and sold for slavery between 1740 and 1760 in Aberdeen and the North-east. On the voyage alone that took Peter Williamson, there were 69 youngsters on board.

A BBC website accompanying a radio series on the history of the British Empire fills in some background from the period:

“Most accounts of British slaving date from the 16th century with the shipping of Africans to the Spanish Main. But less discussed is what happened to English and Scots eight, nine and ten year-olds in places like Aberdeen, London and Bristol. Many from those places were sold for forced labour in the colonies.

London gangs would capture youngsters, put them in the hold of a ship moored in the Thames and when the hold was full, set sail for America. Many authorities encouraged the trade. In the early 17th century authorities wanted rid of the waifs, strays, young thieves and vandals in their towns and cities. The British were starting to settle in Virginia. So that’s where the children went.

This was a time when it was common enough in Britain to have small children as cheap, or unpaid labour. In 1618 one hundred children were officially transported to Virginia. So pleased were the planters with the young labour that the then Lord Mayor, Sir William Cockayne, received an immediate order from the colony “to send another ship load.”
See: http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/history/empire/episodes/episode_36.shtml

Sources:

*Joseph Robertson: “The Book of Bon Accord”. Aberdeen 1839.
*Douglas Skelton: “Indian Peter. The extraordinary life and adventures of Peter Williamson”. Edinburgh, 2004.
*Peter Williamson “The Life and Curious Adventures of Peter Williamson, Who was Carried off from Aberdeen and Sold for a Slave”. York, 1757.

Read the full story here: The Life and Curious Adventures of Peter Williamson

Nuclear Power And The Future Of Delivering Energy

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

Jun 182011

Nuclear Power has always been a contentious issue. There have always been advocates for and against. International concerns about Climate Change, an impending energy crisis and the nuclear accident in Japan have highlighted the issues concerned. Jonathan Hamilton Russell writes.

For CND there has always been the concern of the link between the technology of Nuclear Power and Nuclear Weapons. The Sustainable Development Commission chaired, at the time by Jonathon Porrit in 2006, produced a report for the then Labour Government stating unanimously that, following a detailed analysis of sustainable development factors, that Nuclear was not the preferred option.

This followed a Government White Paper in 2003 which had concluded that Nuclear Power was not an Economic Option. Several days after the Sustainable Development Commission reported, Tony Blair announced that Nuclear Power was to be an essential component of our future Energy Provision.

Recently high profile environmentalists James Lovelock and George Monbiot have been converts to Nuclear Power given their concerns about Climate Change and the resulting requirements to cut back on Carbon omissions.

The SNP have long championed alternative energy and have been against Nuclear Power, as have the Scottish and English Green Parties, Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth. Jonathon Porritt, who was sacked as the chair of the Sustainable Development commission still sees alternative energy and energy conservation as the way forward.

We have had until recently a bonanza of cheap energy in Scotland and the UK and the public has become used to cheap energy and the ability to regularly drive, fly and live and work in centrally heated buildings. This situation will soon end. The reality of peak oil and the need to import Russian Gas have yet to be admitted to the public by most politicians, and the expectations of the general public is that the status quo remains. Whatever decisions are made, there will be inevitable opposition to both nuclear power and alternative energy. Climate Change has already gone down the political agenda.

We have failed to invest and research sufficiently, concentrating our efforts on oil, gas and also nuclear

The costs of producing both Nuclear Power and Alternative Energy will be much higher than present costs and will require both increased public subsidy and will mean rising costs for the consumer. The costs are likely to reduce as we become more expert at production of nuclear or its alternatives.

The costs of South Korea’s Nuclear Reactors went down by 28% by the time they produced their 7th and 8th Reactors.

Safety measures have improved – the Reactors in Japan are 40 years old – and the safety technology no longer requires power from outside. However, the risk of human error intentional or otherwise and unknown hazards still exist. The costs of insurance are high and do not include de-commissioning. The potential hazards of storage of spent Uranium still remain to be seen. Only three councils have agreed to storage underground – all three being in Cumbria.

There is however still uncertainty of risk in relation to this method of storage. Storage and waste costs still have to be borne by government. Increased use of Uranium will lead to shortages as estimates are that about 100 Years worth still remain, and when it runs out what will happen?

There are concerns and restrictions in many countries regarding the mining of Uranium, and Kazakhstan – a Muslim country on Iran’s border – has the main stocks. The costs of Uranium are likely to increase if there is more demand. There has historically been considerable contamination of local communities when mining has taken place, and even with greater safety measures some risks will remain.

The alternative is increased energy conservation and the use of renewables. As identified by the Sustainable Development Commission the UK – and in particular Scotland – has the potential with tidal energy, wind power, carbon capture, waste and power, and solar developments to cover our energy needs.

However there are challenges. We have failed to invest and research sufficiently, concentrating our efforts on oil, gas and also nuclear. There would have to be significant resources put into research and design, and if we were also putting our efforts into nuclear then opportunities with renewable would be lost.

The recession will mean there is less money to invest. A much better use than cutting the cost of petrol in the long term would have been to use the money from taxing oil companies to pay for the development of renewable energy resources.

There would be problems both with nuclear and renewable as to where to place energy resources.

There has been significant public opposition both to nuclear and wind developments. The Crown Estate commission has powers in relation to developing resources at sea which would have to be overcome.

The North-East of Scotland has a huge potential for the development of renewable energy and the area would benefit from more focus on its development. The main problem I would suggest in relation to our future energy provision, is public expectations and politicians needs in terms of re-election. People have become used to private transport and cheap central heating and whichever way we go will be unpopular.

My own conclusion is, that spending on Nuclear Energy developments will divert money that could be spent on energy efficiency and renewable energy. There is a challenge in relation to needs in terms of peak usage – such as before Christmas – but these could be overcome by us linking into a European network of energy.

In historical terms Nuclear Power is just another short term fix whilst the opportunity of renewable energy will always be with us. In some countries which are landlocked, Nuclear may be the only possible route but given what has happened in Japan potential risks of location would have to be taken into account.

Pictures: © Mark Rasmussen | Dreamstime.com, © Devy | Dreamstime.com

Contact The Elderly Extends ‘Lifeline Of Friendship’

Aberdeen City, Articles, Charity, Community, Information, News No Responses »

Jun 102011

With thanks to Morna O’May.

Contact the Elderly, the charity solely dedicated to tackling loneliness and isolation among older people, is delighted to announce the launch of a new friendship group in Aberdeen.

The charity, which aims to relieve the acute loneliness and isolation of people over the age of 75, organises monthly Sunday tea parties for small groups and volunteers within their local community.

Each older person is collected from their home by a volunteer driver and taken to a volunteer host’s home for the afternoon. The group is warmly welcomed by a different host each month, but the drivers remain the same, that means that over the months and years, acquaintances turn into friends and loneliness is replaced by companionship.

The older members of the new Aberdeen group enjoyed their first tea party at new volunteer host Esther Milne’s home in Aberdeen on Sunday 27th March and volunteer group co-coordinator John Gall, hailed the outing to be a great success:

“The launch of this new group is not just a success – it is an amazingly wonderful success! I’m just not sure who got more out of it – the older guests or us volunteers!”

New research released earlier this year has highlighted the link between loneliness and ill health in later life, including depression, certain heart conditions and even Alzheimer’s disease. Contact the Elderly remains steadfast in its belief that its monthly Sunday tea parties, which offer a regular and vital friendship link every month, exist as one of the most effective preventative measures of tackling this growing issue.

Contact the Elderly’s Development Officer for East Scotland, Morna O’May, said:

“The new research out this month highlights just how damaging and depressing being lonely in later life can be, but happily the new tea party group in Aberdeen can go some way towards tackling this issue locally and on a practical level.

“Anyone interested in either volunteering for, or joining this new group, or one of the other 18 Contact the Elderly groups across the East of Scotland, please do get in touch with me.”

Aberdeen residents interested in volunteering for Contact the Elderly, or people over the age of 75 who would like to find out more about joining one of the charity’s local tea party groups, can contact Morna on 01786 871264 or email morna.omay@contact-the-elderly.org.uk

Web: www.contact-the-elderly.org.uk

Footnote:
Contact the Elderly is a national charity, founded in 1965, which aims to relieve the acute loneliness and isolation of very elderly people throughout Britain who live alone, without family, friends or other support networks nearby.

The Contact the Elderly model is based on a simple yet very effective concept – that of monthly tea parties for small groups of older people and other volunteers within their community – which brings people of all ages together, develops fulfilling friendships and support networks, and gives everyone something to look forward to.

Hypnagocic, Shoebox Memories – CD Reviews

Articles, Community, Information, Opinion No Responses »

Jun 102011

From time to time, CDs released by artists from the local area well worth a listen. Our David Innes contributes regularly to R2, a publication we like and recommend. The editor, Sean McGhee, all-round good guy and punctuation expert, has kindly agreed to allow Voice to reprint two reviews of local interest from the latest R2, dated May/June 2011. More on R2 here
http://www.rock-n-reel.co.uk

First up, The Moonzie Allstars, from somewhere near Brechin, it seems, with ‘Hypnagocic’ (SKELPAIG MUSIC) www.moonzieallstars.com.
Moonzies’ pipes and whistles man David Adam claims Hypnagogic is, “a bit schizophrenic, but there might be something for everyone”, and he’s right.

The opening ‘Hypophant’ is structurally and tonally African, but the pipes add a Celtic element to both feel and melody.

Hotfoot behind is ‘Hey Mr Bongo’, the Moonzies again raiding the dark continent’s melodic and rhythmic jauntiness, but with its Caledonian tongue firmly in cheek as deadpan raffle announcements and appallingly obvious rhymes show what happens, as Adam says, “when you let the drummer loose with guitar and mic”.

Hypnagogic has gone some way to curing me of my fusion aversion. Despite my addiction to genre-defying southern soul stews, country-gospel or other labels applied to those delicious Tennessee grooves, less natural, ‘manufactured fusions’ have always left me suspicious. I’m sure Bitches Brew is to blame because it isn’t Kind of Blue.

The musicianship is outstanding and the production flawless. Overt Eastern and jazz influences bubble up and vie for space with potential movie scores; there are delights galore in the more traditional Celtic vein. If that’s a Frank Zappa t-shirt being proudly worn by an Allstar on the sleeve, he’d have approved, I’m certain.

From the Hebrides, but becoming well-known around the city, ‘Shoebox Memories’ (SELF-RELEASED) www.arkpr.com is Fiona Mackenzie’s impressive debut effort…

On paper sometimes, there are collaborations that one would expect not to work too well. That was my initial thought about Shoebox Memories when I read its background press release.

In NE Scotland, guitarist Graeme ‘Bug’ Stephen is a revered jazz guitarist. Fiona ‘Bosie’ Mackenzie is not yet as well-known, but given her Hebridean background, it is easy, not to mention lazy, to categorise her immediately as a Celtic artist. Not so, and for making that assumption, I apologise.

Shoebox Memories works, and it works because Mackenzie has taken a range of influences to craft songs which are pleasingly unclassifiable and sung in her own way, with fleeting nods to Eddi Reader and Suzanne Vega.

It works also because, as Fiona notes on the sleeve, the musicians have “breathed life into my wee songs”, none more so than Stephen who gives a masterclass in understated chromatic accompaniment and subtle soloing, never better illustrated than in the guitar/strings interplay on ‘In Your Hands’ and ‘Dress Me Up In Blue’.

Offering thirteen tracks, Shoebox Memories may be on the long side, but credited to Bosie (a hug in the local patois), it is akin to being enclosed in a warm, comforting melodic cuddle.

© The foregoing reviews are copyright R2 May/June 2011. Thanks again to Sean for allowing us to use them.

Peter Williamson – Aberdeen Child Slave Part 4

Aberdeen City, Articles, Community, Featured, History, Information No Responses »

Jun 102011

With thanks to Mike Shepherd.

Peter Williamson was kidnapped from Aberdeen harbour in 1743 and shipped as a child slave to the American colonies. Following the death of his master, he married into a wealthy family and set up a farmstead on the frontiers of the province of Pennsylvania.

On the 2nd of October 1754 his farm was raided by Indians, set ablaze and Peter was captured and used as a slave by the Indians to help carry booty from their raiding expeditions.

After two months in the winter camp, the Indians set off with Peter on a new raiding campaign.

“I began to meditate on my escape; and though I knew the country round extremely well, having been often thereabouts with my companions, hunting deer and other beasts, yet was I very cautious of giving the least suspicion of such my intention. However, my keepers thought proper to visit the mountains in search of game for their sustenance, leaving me bound in such a manner that I could not escape. At night, when they returned, having unbound me, we all sat down together to supper on two polecats, being what they had killed, and soon after (being greatly fatigued with their day’s excursion) they composed themselves to rest as usual.

Observing them to be in that somniferous state, I tried various ways to see whether it was a scheme to prove my intentions or not; but after making a noise and walking about, sometimes touching them with my feet, I found there was no fallacy. My heart then exulted with joy at seeing a time come that I might in all probability be delivered from my captivity, but the joy was soon damped by the dread of being discovered by them, or taken by any straggling parties. To prevent which, I resolved, if possible to get one of their guns, and if discovered die in my defence rather than be taken. For that purpose, I made various efforts to get one from under their heads (where they usually secured them) but in vain.

Frustrated in this my first essay regarding liberty, I dreaded the thoughts of carrying my new design into execution; yet after a little consideration, and trusting myself to divine protection, I set forward, naked and defenceless as I was. A rash and dangerous enterprise!

Such was my terror, however, that in going from them I halted and paused every four or five yards, looking fearfully towards the spot where I had left them, lest they should awake and miss me; but when I was about two hundred yards from them I mended my pace, and made as much haste as I could to the foot of the mountains, when on a sudden I was struck with the greatest terror and amaze at hearing the wood-cry, as it is called, and may be expressed – Jo hau! Jo hau! – which the savages I had left were making, accompanied with the most hideous cries and howling they could utter.

The bellowing of lions, the shrieks of hyenas, or the roarings of tigers, would have been music to my ears in comparison to the sounds that then saluted them.

They now having missed their charge, I concluded that they would soon separate themselves and hie in quest of me. The more my terror increased, the faster did I push on; and scarce knowing where I trod, drove through the woods with the utmost precipitation, sometimes falling and bruising myself, cutting my feet and legs against the stones in a miserable manner, but though faint and maimed, I continued my flight until break of day, when, without having anything to sustain nature but a little corn, I crept into a hollow tree, in which I lay very snug and made thanks to the Divine Being.

But my repose was in a few hours destroyed at hearing the voices of savages near the place where I was hid, threatening how they would use me if they got me again. However, they at last left the spot where I had heard them, and I remained in my circular asylum all that day without further molestation.

At night I ventured forward again, frightened and trembling at every bush I passed, thinking each twig that touched me to be a savage.”

After three days on the run he spotted what looked to be a white plantation.

“In the morning, as soon as I awoke, I continued my journey towards the nearest cleared lands I had seen the day before, and about four o’clock in the afternoon arrived at the house of John Bell, an old acquaintance, where knocking at the door, his wife who opened it, seeing me in such a frightful condition, flew from me like lightning, screaming into the house.

This alarmed the whole family, who immediately fled to their arms, and I was soon accosted by the master with his gun in his hand. But on my assuring him of my innocence as to any wicked intentions, and making myself known (for he took me to be an Indian), he immediately caressed me, as did all his family, with a deal of friendship, at finding me alive, they having all informed of my being murdered by the savages some months before.

They for two or three nights very affectionately supplied me with all necessaries, and carefully attended me until my spirits and limbs were pretty well recruited, and I thought myself able to ride, when I borrowed of these good people a horse and some clothes, and set forward for my father-in-law’s house in Chester county, about 140 miles from thence, where I arrived on the fourth day of January, 1755.

Now returned, and once more at liberty to pursue my own inclinations, I was persuaded by my father-in-law and friends to follow some employment or other; but the plantation from whence I was taken, though an exceeding good one, could not tempt me to settle on it again. And their being at this time a necessity for raising men to check those barbarians in their ravaging depredations, I enlisted myself as one, with the greatest alacrity and most determined resolution to exert the utmost of my power in being revenged on the hellish authors of my ruin.

General Shirley, governor of New England, and commander-in-chief of his Majesty’s land forces in North America, was pitched upon to direct the operations of war in that part of the world.

Into a regiment immediately under the command of this general, was it my lot to be placed for three years. The regiment was intended for the frontiers, to destroy the forts erected by the French.”

From: Peter Williamson “The Life and Curious Adventures of Peter Williamson, Who was Carried off from Aberdeen and Sold for a Slave”. York, 1757.

To be continued.

Failed Tree Planting Costs City Council ‘Deer’

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

Jun 082011

Aberdeen Council “could be liable for a reclaim of up to £120,333.91” if trees to be planted fail according to Forestry Commission Scotland. The entire ‘tree for every citizen’ scheme is now mired down in controversy, misinformation, mismanagement and cost implications says campaigner Suzanne Kelly as she urges councillors to stop the cull plans and get the facts right.

One Persons Beautiful Landscape Is Anothers Development Opportunity

Aberdeen City launched a scheme to plant a tree for every citizen. This was, in Aileen Malone’s words (at the 26 May Cults community Council meeting) a “Liberal Democrat election promise”.
This ‘Tree for Every Citizen’ scheme had attached to it a cull of deer living on Tullos Hill. This cull was planned as long ago as November 2010, but the City did not put it in the consultation for Phase 2, which closed at the end of January.

The Torry Community Council was likewise not consulted over any cull, and voted unanimously to condemn it.

Other community councils followed suit, protestors in their thousands registered their disapproval, and the council remained unrepentant and unwilling to consider any changes or compromise to their scheme.

I launched a formal protest following my researches. I found no fewer than 10 main points, which I felt the Council should be called to account on.
See: https://aberdeenvoice.com/2010/12/10-more-reasons-to-call-off-the-deer-cull/

On 6 June I received Aberdeen City’s Chief Executive Valerie Watt’s response to this complaint (her letter was dated 2 June). Perhaps the City thought this reply was going to be swallowed whole without question.

My formal reply will be sent to her shortly.

While drafting my reply to Ms Watts, one of the thousands of cull opponents came up with a startling letter from the Forestry Commission to The City: it discredits claims the City has put in writing. I subsequently spoke to the author who confirmed the letter and who had some other interesting points.

This article examines the controversy and contradiction surrounding only the first two points of my complaint: there will be subsequent coverage of the remaining issues in the near future.

Did Aberdeen City Council owe money for a previous failed tree planting? This was the first of the ten points making up my formal complaint (The document, with responses from Aberdeen City Council Chief Exec. Valerie Watts can be viewed here: https://aberdeenvoice.com/?p=8978 )

My question:

“I would like to ask: is it true that the Council owes a sum for previous, failed planting? I was told that £44,000 approximately is owed by the City in this regard – please clarify.”

Council Response:

“Aberdeen City Council does not owe any amount to any organisation relating to a previous failed planting scheme.”

Forestry Commission Letter:

“ Tullos Community Woodland

“This is a failed WGS planting scheme. The scheme failed due to inadequate protection from deer and weeds. On the 4th November 2010 we issued Aberdeen City Council with an invoice for £43,831.90 – the reclaim of monies paid out under the above contract. This invoice was to be paid within 30 days. The monies have not been received. This invoice is now accruing interest and has led to a payment ban being put in place over your Business Reference Number.”

The invoice per the letter writer was paid on 15 March 2011. The argument could be made that Ms Watts was being truthful: after all, no money was still owed when I made my complaint. However – I specifically asked for clarification. Do we really believe that the City’s answer to me was an honest clarification?

The letter from FCS can be viewed here: failed-tree-planting

The second point I raised in my letter of complaint concerned the ‘invitation’ for those concerned to raise £225,000 for alternative measures. Why ask the public to come up with a quarter of a million pounds within some 11 weeks if, as we now know, a cull was still going to be ‘required’?

My question:

“Despite the demand for £225,000, Pete Leonard, Head of Housing and Environment has written to say a cull would still be required. In an email to Suzanne Kelly, Pete Leonard has stated it is SNH’s position that a cull would still be required. Therefore, the demand for money made by a committee to its electorate is shown to be completely misleading.”

Council Response:

“The £225,000 was for alternative means of planting the trees (not just for fencing) from deer damage. To quote from the Committee minute for the Housing and Environment Committee of 1^st March 2011, the additional recommendation stated

‘(in relation to Tullos Hill) that an invitation be extended to the individuals and organisations who have objected to these deer control measures to raise the sums necessary to provide and maintain alternative measures, including fencing and rehousing of deer by no later than 10 May 2011 (the sum to be approximately £225,000).’

“Also as stated in the minute of this meeting that prior to the division

‘The Head of Environmental Services highlighted to the Committee paragraph 3.2 of the report which advised that the progression of option four (tree planting within smaller deer fenced enclosures surrounding individual planting blocks) would not mitigate culling on Tullos Hill altogether, as a reduction cull of deer locally due to loss of habitat from approx 60 hectares of this site would still be required, in the view of SNH.’

“The whole Tree for Every Citizen Project is being funded from grants and contributions from businesses. As the majority of this funding is from the Scottish Rural Development Programme which is public money from the European Union, the EU require that best practice and best value methodologies are used. The grant rates available are based on these terms. For a tree-planting scheme on the scale of that proposed for Tullos Hill, the use of individual tree shelters or deer fencing (which still requires a deer cull to reduce the population) does not represent best value or best practice. To spend money on these alternative means would require funding that was not from the public purse.”

Ms Watts’ reply also contradicts itself in terms of the money demanded by the public to save the deer: they were always going to kill deer anyway – whether or not the public paid up. I can find no instance of the City counteracting the many press articles and media stories that their demand was in order to save the deer: they had a chance to say that some killing would still be required. They did not take this chance as far as I can see.

From beginning to end the proposed tree planting and resultant Tullos Hill Roe deer cull plan has been plagued by misinformation and lack of consultation.

These have been highlighted in Aberdeen Voice (“shhh! don’t mention the secret deer cull” and other articles) and by the BBC, STV, local radio Northsound and SHMU, and so on. The biggest mystery remains why they will not consider any compromises. A Forestry spokesperson confirms that our Council can plant elsewhere if they want to.

Perhaps it is time for them to consider a plantation that is not in an arson hotspot where deer currently live?

More on this issue to follow…

Menie March Again, City Screening For Trump Film

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

Jun 032011

With thanks to Tripping Up Trump.

In March 2009 the Trump Organisation asked Aberdeenshire Council to use Compulsory Purchase Orders to remove local residents from their homes.

Earlier this year, after almost two years of this threat, the Trump Organisation announced that they would no longer seek the use of these powers, while continuing to deny that they had made the original request.

To celebrate the withdrawal of the Compulsory Purchase threat to the homeowners at Menie, Tripping Up Trump have decided to hold a second March of Menie on Sunday the 5th of June 2011.

Similar to the first, very successful, March that took place in October of 2010, it will involve people gathering at the Balmedie Country Park Visitor Centre at 12 noon and walking through the dunes to The Bunker (a site of multiple ownership) where there will be a number of attractions provided for people of all ages.

Information will be available to educate those who are not impressed with the propaganda and misinformation put out by the Trump Organisation.

For those of you unfamiliar with the forthcoming movie You’ve Been Trumped, Here is the trailer once again.

The first screening of You’ve Been Trumped will take place at the Belmont Cinema in Aberdeen at 8.30pm on Friday 17 June.
More Info … https://www.facebook.com/pages/Youve-Been-Trumped/187472834621346

Tripping Up Trump is a campaigning organisation based in the North-East of Scotland, formed to fight the environmental destruction being carried out by the Trump Organisation and support the Menie residents whose homes and land have been threatened with Compulsory Purchase and continue to be intimidated and bullied by the Trump Organisation.

Writer and researcher, Andy Wightman, has recently compiled a report on Trump’s Ego Trip at Menie. Andy will be one of the speakers .

Some fascinating insights to be shared for sure.

Peter Williamson – Aberdeen Child Slave Part 3

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Jun 032011

With thanks to Mike Shepherd.

This was never going to be the cross-culture-bonding-with-the-native-Americans epic beloved of modern Hollywood films, but something more prosaic. Peter was captured as a slave to help carry booty for the Indians from their raiding parties on frontier farms. His experiences during this time were brutal. Once the summer raiding season had ended, the Indians returned to their winter camp.

“A great snow now falling, the barbarians were a little fearful lest the white people should, by their traces, find out their skulking retreats, which obliged them to make the best of their way to their winter quarters, about two hundred miles farther from any plantations or inhabitants; where, after a long and tedious journey, being almost starved, I arrived with the infernal crew.

The place where we were to rest, in their tongue, is called Alamingo. There were found a number of wigwams full of their women and children. Dancing, shooting and shouting were their general amusements; and in all their festivals and dances they relate what successes they have had, and what damages they have sustained in their expeditions, in which I came part of the theme. The severity of the cold increasing, they stripped me of my clothes for their own use, and gave me such as they usually wore themselves, being a piece of blanket, a pair of moccasins, with a yard of coarse cloth to put round me instead of breeches.

They in general wear a white blanket, which in war time, they paint with various figures, but particularly the leaves of trees, in order to deceive their enemies in the woods. Their moccasins are made of deer skins, and the best sort have them bound round the edges with little beads and ribbons.

On their legs they wear pieces of blue cloth for their stockings, they reach higher than the knee, but not lower than their ankles. They esteem them easy to run in. Breeches they never wear, but instead thereof, two pieces of linen, one before and one behind. They are very proud, and take great delight in wearing trinkets, such as silver plates round their wrists and necks, with several strings of wampum (which is made of cotton, interwoven with pebbles, cockle-shells, etc) down to their breasts; and from their ears and noses they have rings and beads which hang dangling an inch or two.

The females are very chaste and constant to their husbands, and if any young maiden should happen to have a child before marriage, she is never esteemed afterwards. As for their food they get it chiefly by hunting and shooting, and boil or roast all the meat they can eat. Their standing dish consists of Indian corn soaked, then bruised and boiled over a gentle fire for ten or twelve hours. Their bread is likewise made of wild oats or sunflower seeds.

Scalping knife, powder and shot, are all they have to carry with them in time of war – bows and arrows are seldom used. They generally in war decline open engagements; bush fighting or skulking is their discipline; and they are brave when engaged, having great fortitude in enduring tortures or death. No people have a greater love of liberty or affection for their neighbours; but are the most implacably vindictive people upon the earth; for they revenge the death of any relation, or any great affront, whenever occasion presents, let the distance or time be so remote. To all which I may add they are inhumanly cruel.

At Alamingo I was kept for near two months until the snow was off the ground. A long time to be amongst such creatures and naked as I almost was. Whatever thoughts I might have of making my escape, to carry them into execution was impractical, being so far from any plantations or white people and the severe weather rendering my limbs in a manner quite stiff and motionless. However, I contrived to defend myself against the weather as well as I could by making a wigwam, with the bark of the trees, covering the same with earth, which made it resemble a cave, and keeping a good fire near the door.

At length the time arrived when they were preparing themselves for another expedition against the planters and white people; but before they set out they were joined by many other Indians from Fort Du Quesne, well stored with powder and ball they had received from the French.

We arrived at the Blue Hills where we encamped for three days. A council of war was held, when it was agreed to divide themselves into companies of about twenty men each; I was left behind with ten Indians. Here being left I began to meditate on my escape. “

From: Peter Williamson “The Life and Curious Adventures of Peter Williamson, Who was Carried off from Aberdeen and Sold for a Slave”. York, 1757. To be continued.

Scotland’s National Anthem

Articles, Community, Information, Opinion, Satire and Humour No Responses »

May 272011

News that our great nation is urgently in need of a national anthem has struck a chord amongst the staff and assorted literary aficionados at Aberdeen Voice, with many perceptive and pertinent suggestions put forward to replace our present national dirge. Dave Watt chairs the adjudication panel

Charlie Abel of Iron Broo www.ironbroo.co.uk

Suggestions have varied from such musical phenomena as Hoots Mon, There’s a Moose Loose Aboot This Hoose by Lord Rockingham’s XI to Tang Dynasty’s heavy rock version of The Internationale.

The suggestion that the country might be represented by Frank Zappa’s Brown Shoes Don’t Make It, which contains the stirring lines –

I’d like to make her do a nasty
On the White House lawn,
Smother my daughter in chocolate syrup
And boogie ’till the cows come home

– was probably a bridge too far, as well as not being likely to do very much for international relations. Mind you, hearing 60,000 people singing it at Hampden would be quite a mind-bending experience.

An alternative Corries’ song, Scotland Will Flourish, looks to be a good front runner with First Minister Eck quoting from it in a couple of his speeches lately. At least it’s a bit livelier than the dirge-like Flower of Scotland, which I suspect will be another contender.

Another possibility is Hamish Henderson’s 1960 song, Freedom Come All Ye, which is quite a nice tune but is done in such broad Scots as to be almost unintelligible. That is to say, despite having been born here and living in the bloody place for over half a century, there are still words in it I need subtitles for.

A definite non-front runner is the even-more-dirge-like-than-Flower of Scotland, God Save The Queen which apparently is still the official anthem. God Save The Queen was originally German – a bit like the Royal family really – the tune being sung as the Prussian Heil Dir Im Seigerkranz until the catchy present Jock-bashing version was rush-released on the Cumberland label after Culloden.

It was played before Scottish rugby matches until the mid-seventies and, football-wise, some grovelling gong hunters at the SFA kept it going until the eighties, despite the crescendo of booing at Hampden reaching ear-splitting proportions. Its last materialisation was possibly before Scotland’s 3-1 humping by Argentina at Hampden in June 1979. Its only competitor in the unpopularity stakes I can remember was in Edinburgh during the height of the anti-Poll Tax campaign when a visiting orchestra at the Festival thought they would please their hosts by a spirited rendition of Land of Hope and Glory. By the time Sandra and I left, chairs were being thrown on the stage.

The final front runner, Scotland the Brave – words by Cliff Hanley – replaced God Save The Queen in time for the World Cup Finals in 1982, despite some heavy duty mumping by Thatcher and the Daily Mail who referred to our dumping it as ‘an insult to the monarchy’ -obviously unaware that the whole notion of monarchy is an insult to human intelligence.

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