I WAS much taken on Monday morning by the fine piece of writing by David C Weinczok reflecting upon the way that history is so often captured by the roads that we build and that, as we travel miles physically, the roads carry us too back into history (From the old to the new to the old-new..., Apr 10).
David quoted the words of Neil Munro and I felt as I read them that a fuller quotation might have added to the strength of his discussion.
The words were from The New Road and this was Munro’s last and arguably his greatest historical novel. It is a shame that nowadays if ever we hear of Munro it is likely to be with reference to his Para Handy stories. His historical novels were fine works of literature but are now largely forgotten – along with the works of the other great Neil, Neil Gunn.
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Neil Munro was reflecting upon the fact that the General Wade road, which was the New Road referred to, replaced the much older Drove Roads. In other words, the road that the older generation cursed so much in the 1950 and 60s for its poor surface and many passing places was once the lovely new road that 18th-century travellers appreciated!
In Munro’s The New Road, after the breaking of an axle the travellers are forced to sit by the wayside for many hours until a blacksmith arrives. It is then that the conversation takes place between Janet and Aeneas:
“From where they sat they could perceive down to the south the wrecks of Comyn fortresses; the road still red and new was like a raw wound on the heather, ugly to the gaze, although it took them home. Apart from it, and higher on the slope, a drove track ran, bright green, with here and there on it bleached stones worn by the feet of by-past generations. They saw them both, the Old Road and the New – twine far down through the valley into Badenoch, and melt into the vapours of the noon. And something in the prospect brought the tears to Janet’s eyes.
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‘For why should I be sad?’ she asked him suddenly, ‘to see that old track of the people and the herd and this new highway boasting – boasting – ?’
She could not utter more, she was so shaken.
‘I think I know’, said Aeneas, sharing in her spirit. ‘I could weep myself to think our past is there. Where men have walked and always left the shades of them – their spirits lingering. To your eyes and to mine is nothing on the old drove road but grass and boulder but if there is aught of the immortal in men’s souls, there is the immortal likewise in their earthly acts. Our folk are on the old drove road – the ghosts of them, the hunters and the tribes long perished to the eye, “daoine’ -uasail” and broken men. It’s history!’
‘That’s just it!’ she cried, ‘and I hate the New Road – hate it! – hate it!’
‘There is something in me, too, that little likes it. It means the end of many things, I doubt, not all to be despised – the last stand of Scotland, and she destroyed. And yet – and yet, this New Road will some day be the Old Road, too, with ghosts on it and memories. In a thousand years will you and I be sitting by Loch Inch –.’
He broke off with a smile.
‘Indeed that would be a dreich sit!’ she said, half mocking, but it was to hide her deeper feelings.”
Peter MacKenzie
Longniddry
IS it not time that Monica Lennon in particular and Pauline MacNeill, Labour MSPs, came over to the SNP or were asked to? Both have always had a respectful attitude and relationship with Nicola Sturgeon and the SNP as they seem to share more values with what the SNP stand for rather than what Labour used to!
Steve Cunningham
Aberdeen
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