Our history is more than stones

“If the past constrains us, it nevertheless also presents us with a simple choice: to accept or challenge what we have been given by history... we are all caught within the contradictions of an increasingly exploitative and, in too many ways, senseless world.”

From Living the Fishing as quoted by Dan Mackay in “Bleak Portraits of a Declining Culture”, Caithness Courier, June 1.

I ENJOY reading the local papers, especially the essays, and it is a testimony to the vigour of the public and intellectual life of our community that we are still able to sustain two papers.

In a much larger city back in Indiana, the newspaper has literally reduced the size of the paper on which it is printed and more and more editorial content is filled by the expedient of taking the mass-produced news directly off the wire – no local news, no local voices.

Given this backdrop, I was disheartened at first by Dan Mackay’s rather grim assessment of the grey coast but realised that his essay opened the door to a wider conversation about what we want this area to look like, not only now but also in 20 or 30 or more years. It is a much-needed conversation and I welcome it, and think that the local paper provides an ideal forum for asking the questions about how we “accept or challenge what we have been given by history”.

First of all, a revision of the idea of history – history is not what has been given to us; we are our history both in what we do and what we choose to remember. The authors Dan quotes can be forgiven (they were writing in 1983 when we had a different idea of history), but I think that passivity in the face of events is the very thing that both Dan and the authors he cites were decrying. At the heart of any change is a look at the underlying philosophy. If we think history is a thing apart from us, then we are stuck with the stones that languish in the fields or playing a role in historical reconstructions for the tourist season.

If we accept the idea that there is a simple choice – either accept or challenge what history has given us – then I must have come down on the challenge side.

Just as history is not something apart from us, nor is it just the stones or the buildings or even the vagaries of the movement of herring. That physical record is easiest to see (and to sell) but it is only a fragment of the story.

MAKE no mistake about it, nostalgia sells. “Affinity Scots” as VisitScotland refers to those who have no known actual links with this country, love postcards of the tumbledown cottages and the woolly cows and the ruined castles. And the bookstores stock the same authors – admittedly well worth reading and re-reading, but what about contemporary authors? Why not have next to the Neil Gunn classics, the award-winning writing of the biennial Neil Gunn prize?

I have written previously about the dangers of building an economy based on visitors or making decisions on their alleged need for picture postcard landscapes, but it occurs to me that an even greater danger is that we might begin to believe that history as well. That would certainly condemn us to the “grey silence” that Dan offers as a spectre of the ghost of Caithness future.

Having said what history is not, I would like to offer just a glimpse at what history is for those who are lucky enough to be able to do more than look at the tumbledown houses in the fields as the bus or the car drives by.

Perhaps because I am an outsider trying to make sense of this new-to-me part of the world, I have had to work a bit harder at learning the history within and beyond the stones and the signposts. (A note of gratitude here to all those who kindly welcomed my curiosity and worked hard to help me understand. If I get it wrong, I hope they will step in and correct me, and I hope for all our sakes that they continue to welcome curiosity and share their knowledge.)

Embedded in the stones are stories of innovation and resourcefulness that changed the world and embraced the biggest and best ideas from elsewhere.

It is easy to miss the power of the idea that caused Bremner to build a harbour with stones upright rather than flat, as in the Castletown harbour. The harbour lasts, but the idea and the man are lost to the casual observer. In Wick harbour, a telltale infusion of fresh water remains as testament that the last of Telford’s drainage ditches is still working long after the story of his incredible feat of engineering is relegated to academic or specialist knowledge.

It is our job to look out for these stories and to tell them. If we do not tell our own stories, then we are relegated to the passive view of commoditised history.

A RECENT trip to New Lanark reminded me of the power of history more fully told. I was afraid that New Lanark might be a packaged experience. The ride through the centre might be a step too far for some, but I was relieved to find that between and among the postcard-pamphletised nostalgia is a living, working, sustainable organisation that epitomizes the hard-working innovativeness that is the heart of Robert Owen’s ideas and ideals.

The current Dunnet kirk, just a short step from the highway, has been a church site since pre-Reformation times. References to St Mary’s parish church date from the 13th century. Archaeology suggests that, as with so many other sites, it was built on the remains of an even earlier site.

In the wall of the church is a memorial to Timothy Pont, famous now for his cartography, who was minister there in 1610. While I find this ancient history and a climb up the stairs into the bell tower interesting, the best part of the kirk for me is that, like New Lanark, it is an ongoing testimony to its own history as a living breathing sanctuary from what Dan Mackay rightly dubbed a sometimes “senseless world”.

In this vein I hope that everyone will take advantage of the opportunity to have a look inside the church when it opens on July 8, from 8pm until 8am, for NiteKirk.

The idea for NiteKirk began two years ago when a friend and I had the opportunity to visit Greyfriars Kirk in the middle of a bustling summer-busy Edinburgh for its NiteKirk.

The music and the serenity of the church against the backdrop of the hustle and bustle of the city provided a great time to sit and reflect on the kinds of big ideas that too often pass us by in the day-to-day routine of our lives.

Moreover, having seen the idea and taken it up here also typifies the best part of our history. Our history is not the stones: it is what we have done and, more importantly, continue to do with them.