YOUR VIEWS: TV producer has his say on stick for shinty documentary
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I WISH to respond to the criticisms levelled at my documentary ‘Giving it Stick’ by Rachael Borthwick in last week’s letters in the Strathy.
I did film with the women’s team and was keen to include them. In doing so I was going beyond the remit of the commission to follow Kingussie and Newtonmore that year but regardless I wanted to see if I could include women’s shinty in a way that was powerful and worked in storytelling terms.
I was due to follow the women’s team to a game in Skye which would have given the interviews I did the narrative structure needed to make the storyline powerful enough to sit alongside the drama the Kingussie run had to the final.
Sadly this game was cancelled due to The Queen’s death and no other games were to be played.
This was unfortunate and left me wishing I had covered an earlier game of theirs but as I say the priority was the Camanachd Cup run.
The footage I was left with was weaker and as it was beyond the remit, it would have tokenism to include it as it would looked like the lesser game.
I felt the women’s team deserved better than that so I decided not to include it.
I do believe women’s shinty deserves a documentary all on its own so that in can be the main focus.
This is something hopefully the success of this documentary can bring about; it would be richly deserved.
However, as shinty is unknown or little known to many in Scotland the attention was naturally drawn to the biggest games including the Camanachd Final and Big Fling in order that I could showcase the sport’s biggest spectacle to an audience that question its relevance to them.
As such I was looking for universal stories irrespective of gender or team.
Similarly Newwtonmore became less of a focus as the Kingussie run became stronger.
However, I felt like stories like James Falconer’s fighting back from injury to triumph for the pride of his team and family tradition is a story universal that reflects all shinty players regardless of gender and team loyalty, and that by focusing on this it would be the strongest way available of showcasing the game to a wider audience
In showing the passion drama and excitement of stories like his I hoped it would personalise shinty and draw people to a sport that for too long has been overlooked and ignored in Scotland.
As a documentary filmmaker I am committed to showing stories ‘as it is’ and not how people ‘wish it was’.
And I am delighted at the amount of people who have never watched shinty who contacted me raving about the sport.
Shinty may have been traditionally a ‘man’s’ game but it is a fantastic game that can be played and enjoyed by all.
Greg Clark
Address supplied.
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Destruction by the Lily Loch is heart-breaking
While I applaud Rothiemurchus’ carbon-capture project (‘Historic estate with new ideas, Strathspey and Badenoch Herald, January 26), why does it at the same time have to destroy the unsurpassed beauty of woodland around our beloved Lily Loch (Lochan Mor), cutting down hundreds of trees in its wake.
Why in the name of progress does it have to rip up acres of natural bush and scrubland on what were magical pathways to and from this perfect little loch?
With one hand Rothiemurchus claims to be increasing biodiversity, and with the other hand it is tearing down the natural habitat of countless red squirrels, insects and other wildlife.
Surely this is not the type of project that the Cairngorms National Park Authority should be funding?
What used to be unique pathways with exquisite ancient overhanging trees and wild bilberries and raspberries all along its borders has now been flattened into yet another woodland ‘motorway’ devoid of all of its natural charm.
I would like to know exactly how many trees have been ripped up, and where and when that number will be re-planted to compensate for this distressing destruction.
Judith Marten,
Aviemore.
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‘Giving it Stick’ was missed opportunity for game
I have much sympathy with Rachael Borthwick’s criticism of the ‘Giving it Stick’ TV programme (Strathy, letters, January 26) as showing too much of an unpleasant masculine culture in shinty and treating women as little more than than the supporters of the men’s game.
It was a good advert for the Kingussie community and the shinty was great but the sustained meaningless swearing from players and managers was as unnecessary as it was offensive.
What ought to have been a film which could be shown widely to young and old, boosting the attractions of Badenoch and of shinty, is instead one for limited circulation only.
What a contrast with the Darvel football club’s manager’s televised talk to his team in the dressing room before they beat Aberdeen in the Scottish Cup.
He managed to motivate without a single swear word – and was no less manly as a result.
I never thought that shinty could learn from football and not just for the way it has embraced the women’s game.
Peter Mackay
Dunachton Road
Kincraig.
Fuel poverty in 21st Century is a scandal
As the cost of living crisis deepens Alex Salmond commented in Aberdeen: “One third of households are being plunged into fuel poverty in the oil energy capital of Europe. This is a national scandal.”
Although energy bills may be dictated by world pricing, the reality is that because Scotland is not an independent country its resources are controlled and mismanaged by Westminster.
While in an energy rich independent Scotland we would produce all our own electricity needs from renewable sources and still be self-sufficient in oil and gas.
The Office of National Statistics (ONS) in London has stated recently: “Scotland is one of the most productive areas in the UK, second only to London and the South East”.
With all this in mind, it is little wonder that Westminster is desperate to hang on to Scotland.
To reach its full potential as a successful European nation, Scotland must have control of all the economic powers of an independent country and leave this broken Union and shameful Brexit Britain.
Grant Frazer
Newtonmore.
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Even the economy of Russia is doing better
It is no coincidence that the International Monetary Fund report noting the UK economy will perform worse than all other advanced and emerging economies, was published on the three-year anniversary of the UK leaving the EU.
Our economy is set to contract by 0.6 per cent in 2023, worse than other economies including sanction-hit Russia. One contributory factor in this is of course Brexit.
We have witnessed the damaging economic impact of leaving the EU, with the UK set to be 4 per cent poorer than if it had stayed in it, according to the independent Office for Budget Responsibility.
This is set to knock £80bn off the UK’s gross domestic product and about £40bn off exchequer receipts.
Further evidence, if any were needed, is the recent research by the Centre for Business Prosperity at Aston University.
This has found that withdrawal from the EU and the introduction of the EU-UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement has resulted in a 22.9 per cent slump in UK exports.
This considerable contraction of the UK trade capacity signifies some serious long-term concerns about the UK’s future exporting and productivity.
Brexit has raised food prices by 6 per cent and drained the workforce.
This is one of the greatest acts of economic self-harm by a nation, and the figures from the IMF are evidence of the UK reaping what it has sown.
Alex Orr
Edinburgh.
