EACH morning, a fresh mug of tea and a read through The National online introduces the day. In each edition there is invariably something in particular which opens the mind’s relief valve by setting thoughts in print.
On Saturday morning, Kirsty Strickland revived the fury brought on this week by Jacob Rees-Mogg’s outburst against Unicef. On Friday, amid the media images which appeared when I was seeking a new tab, I caught the picture with headline “The Queen decorates outside Christmas tree with mini red crowns.” Alongside was image of a young impoverished boy with the headline “Hope hangs by a thread for many young children this Christmas.”
Perhaps such sets of images are all contrived by someone or other, but who cares, the reality of the social divide could soon be heard here as the double-barrelled brigades set to work in broad daylight and carried on into darkness with the decimation of the flocks of domesticated wildlife polluting rural Scotland. A pre-planned war on purposely reared birds driven to annihilation for the pleasure of it by some wealthy sorts and profit of some landlord or other.
Now here is the thing! Huge estates prevail throughout Scotland, as they do elsewhere on these islands, under the ownership and for the pleasure of a wealthy few families and institutions. The poor are, and have been for centuries, driven to our towns and cities by sheer lack of opportunity to survive in the countryside under control of such estates. Large urban areas of “affordable” rented housing exist in all our towns and cities, where the economic climate dictates the wellbeing of those living there. Heavy industries took a serious hit in the 80s and 90s. Manufacturing and service industries have taken their place, but come and go as globalisation allows.
The latest big hits are in the high streets where electronic purchasing is accelerating, to some extent hastened by the pandemic, and retail is never likely to return as was. Again the flow of urban employment is disturbed, and uncertainty returns to the low-wage sector.
Meanwhile, rural Scotland is in a world of its own. Villages are expanding as local farmers and landowners cash in on the tax-free benefits of selling a field or two, or a plot or two, for housing – none of your low-value stuff mind, but invariably for those who can afford them type of home.
Farm steadings, once centres of work and production, are turned into pockets of middle-class enclaves beyond the financial reach of those who would stay, get their hands dirty and work there given half a chance, ie the generations down the ages from those earlier expelled from the countryside. A huge area of hidden opportunity denied to those who both yearn it, consciously or otherwise, and would thrive on it!
Lose your job in an urban area then you become dependent on handouts. Hundreds of thousands are in this vulnerable position. No property owned – landless, frankly – and totally dependent on others providing employment opportunity or response to their housing and survival needs. Yet what the hell is rural Scotland doing? Playing at bloody war games with supposed wildlife, that’s what! We have a drug problem in Scotland. Is anyone really surprised?
Tom Gray
Braco
I COULDN’T believe the sub-heading on Nan Spowart’s article on the Stone of Destiny (‘Christmas marks 70 years since theft’, December 20). How could it have been stolen? It was recovered, repatriated or whatever words you could use to describe the return of a historical artefact which had been stolen from Scotland.
John Williamson
Musselburgh
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