I first left the Gàidhealtachd and went to the big city in 1970 and was surprised that everything shut at 5pm. Except for the pubs, which had closed for the afternoon and opened at that time.
This was in Edinburgh, the capital city of Scotland, which then was still a bit douce and couthy, despite the best efforts of Richard Demarco and the Folk Revival and the Festival Fringe and the drugs and free love and loon-pants of the day.
Cafe culture had not yet arrived, and if you wanted to meet up with a friend for coffee, forget it. Maybe a cup of afternoon tea with scones at Crawford’s, if you had the money, but once the bells rang for five, the city put its shutters up, drew the curtains, and if you needed a warm place to chat to that friend, you had little option but to go to one of the darkened, smoky bars. Unfortunately, I did.
Sorry state in capital of the Highlands
Five years later, I made my first visit to the capital of the Highlands, Inverness, and found exactly the same sorry state.
During the day you could get a resounding Scottish breakfast at the famous Castle Snacker but after that the infamous Scottish culinary wilderness hit you full on.
We ended up drinking our tea from a flask in the public car park for a couple of hours.
Sometime through the day you’d be forced into the ultimate choice: the dreaded breaded haddock, or the new-kid-on-the-Highland-block, the meat curry. Remember that? The rice spread in a wee circle round the edge of the dish and a plonk of curried powder in the middle. Try as I did, I never discovered a nice bit of lamb or mutton or anything else worth chewing in the gravy.
Cafe culture was missing in Inverness
I was in Inverness again last week and tried my best to find a nice cafe with outdoor seating which opened after 5pm, because I was then meeting up with a friend. I failed. Some had outside seating, but unfortunately these were closing at 4.30 or 5, so we ended up drinking our tea from a flask in the public car park for a couple of hours. Thankfully, it wasn’t raining.
I know Inverness is not Paris, and that even that great European city is having trouble attracting customers these Covid days, but certainly the last time I was there it still had that sense of vigour and enterprise which seems lacking here. Not to mention New York, where I acted in a play four or five years ago, staying for a month in an apartment in Manhattan.
New York is astonishing. If there’s a corner or an inch of space on any of the streets some bold entrepreneur (or ‘chancer’ as we’d call him here in Inverness) comes along and sets up a wee stall to sell coffee or tea or hot dogs or papers or postcards, or whatever takes your fancy. I’m sure she or he never went to the City Hall for planning permission. Here, I don’t suppose they would ever get past the first council regulation.
I’m not saying that planning and health-and-safety regulations and all the rest of it aren’t important, of course they are. But they must be made fit for purpose, and if the purpose is to serve the public and to be able to adapt quickly to changing circumstances, maybe we need a wee bit more cultural flexibility?
Is it time to open vacant shops at minimal rent to artists, joiners or welders?
Maybe we need a wee bit more equity support, with public bodies and banks much more willing to support risk-taking on the high-street, to support the small entrepreneur, the sole trader who sells coffee or clothing or ceramics or whatever.
Covid has decimated our high streets as much as anything else, and all these empty and boarded-up properties need to be opened up and publicly invested or re-invested in. Surely it’s better to give these vacant shops to a painter or sculptor or piper or welder or painter or joiner or poet or whatever at minimal or zero rent (at least until some profit is made by the trader) rather than seeing them empty and derelict?
A vibrant city centre is as much a social as a financial necessity. And there are ways to turn the overarching cultural ennui around: since we are not Paris in the Spring but Fort William in the Winter, let’s just put up a cover to shelter us from the rain.
It’s been done already in the Fort and good on them. Next thing, hopefully, will be a resident jazz band playing ‘I Love Fort William in the Wintertime’ under that canopy.
Angus Peter Campbell is an award-winning writer and actor from South Uist
