Much has been made of the Abermoaners of late… and the debate has thrown up equal criticism of those who apparently see the Granite City through perpetually rose-tinted glasses, the “Aberdeluded” if you will.
The thing is, the arguments at play are not binary. It’s not black and white. It’s not Aberdeen is a pile of keech … oh no it isn’t, like some pantomime skit played on a citywide stage.
And in between the two extremes sit the vast majority of ordinary people who just want to see the city they love, and for many the place where they grew up, be better and they would really like someone to make that happen.
This isn’t some airy-fairy concept but the reality for so many folk – like the lovely couple I met in The Grill last Friday. I was in for a cheeky hauf ‘n’ hauf and a read of my book, they were in for a wee livener before going to see Peat and Diesel at the Music Hall.
We ended up sharing a table (place was rammed) and having a good blether. These days any chit chat invariably comes round to the state of Aberdeen.
Bus gates? Infernal devices that are killing businesses. Agreed.
Union Terrace Gardens was better before it was revamped. Beg to differ.
Pubs like The Grill are some of the many things Aberdeen has going for it
City on its uppers… now this was where the chat got interesting. Because it turned out we found common ground, and eventually enthusiastically so, on what Aberdeen does have going for it.
Like the Music Hall where they were about to be thoroughly entertained, His Majesty’s that hosts West End shows on a regular basis, the award-winning gallery, the great pubs like the one we were sitting nattering in.
The Tall Ships coming, Aberdeen Restaurant Weeks being on, the busy Union Square.
And we got on to the potential in store, like the new market finally creating a sensible link and flow through from Union Square to Union Street and the arrival of the Tall Ships and how exciting that would be.
The thing I came away with from our really nice wee chinwag was just how much they wanted to see Aberdeen thrive, prosper and be full of people again.
It struck me that they were mercifully free of being in the bubble some of us exist in, concerned-getting-on-obsessed with the Machiavellian machinations of the council, taking in the bile-filled burblings of the online Our Punters Of Perpetual Misery.
This pleasant couple see the good and the bad, side by side, but just want the best for Aberdeen and the people who live here. Like them.
They are the silent majority and I suspect most folk reading these words (he said, flattering himself) fall into that camp too.
These are the people the movers and shakers should be reaching out to. The ones those with their hands of the levers of power need to listen to, to harness that passion and pride for place and people.
They are not Abermoaners, they are not Aberdeluded. They are Aberdonians and they are the ones that really count.
Scott Begbie is a journalist and editor, as well as PR and comms manager for Aberdeen Inspired.
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