Nice piece. Edinburgh's cutting off its sea front is endlessly frustrating though I like Newhaven, and then you can walk mostly on beaches from Portobello to North Berwick, just Edinburgh that's the problem!
Great post thanks. I love the poem. I have never been a big poetry person (I blame the comprehensive institution for young learners and hooligans that I attended under the auspices of education in the 70s) but when written in Scots it just seems to connect with me somehow.
I was also struck by the passage aboot yer Grannie: "recalling her shock at seeing them rise and realising there were no windows on the seaside. She just couldn’t understand why an architect would do that" .
I am beginning to realise just how many professionals who make decisions about how people should live are doing so whilst viewing the world from a middle class enclave. 'These are poor people and they can't possibly care about the view' Same with immigration .... lets treat them as 'subhuman' then we can pay them pennies when they work 12 hours a day delivering pizzas and picking raspberries. Politicians are 'appalled' of course, but live comfortably far away from city centres, in their very white community and their lovely semi rural detached house.
I am also guilty of stereotyping the poor, sometimes. I was travelling home on the bus yesterday and a young girl, perhaps 16 or 17 was sitting in front of me. She had a young baby, newly born on her arm. Her Mum was close by. She looked so young I wondered what were her circumstances... no Dad possibly and obviously no car? But then, just as the sun broke through the clouds and lit up the Ochils she raised her head and smiled, gazed at the hills for a long time, obviously enchanted and also, perhaps, with yearning? As I did. I grew up in a council house in Alva that also faced away from Ochils.
One the greatest crimes against humanity and one being played out at increasing pace in this country but around the world is the theft of the view, the theft of the land from us, the people. The 19th Century Clearances were just one aspect: building High Rise flats, with no thought for the view, another. In many parts of the world corporations are paying families $500 for their traditional home, farm and livelihood so that they can emigrate to some urban ghetto - the land is turned into a plantation and the people are turned into consumers of crap food and cheap alcohol. The 'lucky' ones can perhaps afford a Netflix subscription!
The land, its beauty and its benefits are for the rich, to create lakes, pagodas and boat houses. Ironically they are working so hard to acquire even more millions they don't even have the time to sit on a bus and admire the view. Scone 'Palace' built for the view, required the demolition of the old village. Some American tech billionaire currently stealing water in southern England, where there is a drought, to fill his new lake has probably never lived there. It is is happening everywhere driven by gross inequalities in wealth and facilitated and encouraged by Governments.
That’s a lovely comment - almost a post in its own right. But yes - in Helen Crummy’s book Let the People Sing about the Craigmillar Festival there’s a moving story about taking disabled people from Craigmillar to the sea - they’d never seen the sea before
London architecture also for many years turned its back to the water, along the River Lea, the canal system etc. They were seen as dark and dangerous places to be ignored and walled or fenced off. In recent decades this has changed, with waterfront views now seen as a plus.
The long standing planning requirement for redevelopment along both sides of the Thames to enable the overdue linking of Thames Path has also slowly led to an ability to walk along both sides and enjoy one of the city’s largest open skies. Work in progress…
Thanks for that. Very interesting. There is quite a lot of Dickens about the Thames isn’t there - Lizzie in Our Mutual Friend is a scavenger of dead bodies in the river. That tidal swamp in Great expectations. I guess Canary Wharf is an example of reclaiming the former industrial area - people do swim there I believe. By the way I’d love to visit you in Weymouth and I will do at some point.
Nice piece. Edinburgh's cutting off its sea front is endlessly frustrating though I like Newhaven, and then you can walk mostly on beaches from Portobello to North Berwick, just Edinburgh that's the problem!
Great post thanks. I love the poem. I have never been a big poetry person (I blame the comprehensive institution for young learners and hooligans that I attended under the auspices of education in the 70s) but when written in Scots it just seems to connect with me somehow.
I was also struck by the passage aboot yer Grannie: "recalling her shock at seeing them rise and realising there were no windows on the seaside. She just couldn’t understand why an architect would do that" .
I am beginning to realise just how many professionals who make decisions about how people should live are doing so whilst viewing the world from a middle class enclave. 'These are poor people and they can't possibly care about the view' Same with immigration .... lets treat them as 'subhuman' then we can pay them pennies when they work 12 hours a day delivering pizzas and picking raspberries. Politicians are 'appalled' of course, but live comfortably far away from city centres, in their very white community and their lovely semi rural detached house.
I am also guilty of stereotyping the poor, sometimes. I was travelling home on the bus yesterday and a young girl, perhaps 16 or 17 was sitting in front of me. She had a young baby, newly born on her arm. Her Mum was close by. She looked so young I wondered what were her circumstances... no Dad possibly and obviously no car? But then, just as the sun broke through the clouds and lit up the Ochils she raised her head and smiled, gazed at the hills for a long time, obviously enchanted and also, perhaps, with yearning? As I did. I grew up in a council house in Alva that also faced away from Ochils.
One the greatest crimes against humanity and one being played out at increasing pace in this country but around the world is the theft of the view, the theft of the land from us, the people. The 19th Century Clearances were just one aspect: building High Rise flats, with no thought for the view, another. In many parts of the world corporations are paying families $500 for their traditional home, farm and livelihood so that they can emigrate to some urban ghetto - the land is turned into a plantation and the people are turned into consumers of crap food and cheap alcohol. The 'lucky' ones can perhaps afford a Netflix subscription!
The land, its beauty and its benefits are for the rich, to create lakes, pagodas and boat houses. Ironically they are working so hard to acquire even more millions they don't even have the time to sit on a bus and admire the view. Scone 'Palace' built for the view, required the demolition of the old village. Some American tech billionaire currently stealing water in southern England, where there is a drought, to fill his new lake has probably never lived there. It is is happening everywhere driven by gross inequalities in wealth and facilitated and encouraged by Governments.
That’s a lovely comment - almost a post in its own right. But yes - in Helen Crummy’s book Let the People Sing about the Craigmillar Festival there’s a moving story about taking disabled people from Craigmillar to the sea - they’d never seen the sea before
Apologies for the length of the post but you inspired me to ponder 🤔 😊
London architecture also for many years turned its back to the water, along the River Lea, the canal system etc. They were seen as dark and dangerous places to be ignored and walled or fenced off. In recent decades this has changed, with waterfront views now seen as a plus.
The long standing planning requirement for redevelopment along both sides of the Thames to enable the overdue linking of Thames Path has also slowly led to an ability to walk along both sides and enjoy one of the city’s largest open skies. Work in progress…
Thanks for that. Very interesting. There is quite a lot of Dickens about the Thames isn’t there - Lizzie in Our Mutual Friend is a scavenger of dead bodies in the river. That tidal swamp in Great expectations. I guess Canary Wharf is an example of reclaiming the former industrial area - people do swim there I believe. By the way I’d love to visit you in Weymouth and I will do at some point.
Please do come, we’d love to see you and have you sample the sea swimming here!