St. Andrews is also known as the home of golf and the 700-year cathedral (started building in the late 800s, Reformation got it in the early 1500s.) As Jack's and my home in Scotland was only 10 minutes from St. Andrews, it was one of my favorite places for soul-calming walks and cups of tea in sidewalk cafes. So I oriented the students, as Colin navigated the 12' high bus under an 11'6" archway, and turned them loose. It was heartening to walk past historic sites and see them studying plaques, photographing stones, and laughing. Below are the ruins of the requisite palace and cathedral. I did not photograph the martyrdom site of George Wishart, a Protestant pastor betrayed during the Reformation by a Catholic pal. It just wasn't a good time to make anyone mad, then. As the stone above Abbot House said, subtly poking reproach at James V and Mary of Guise, Since Word is Thrall, and Thought is Free, Keep Well Thy Tongue I Counsel Thee. Quiet people live longer, but what world will the meek inherit?
A charity shop whirlwind tour later--what on earth does an American tourist want with secondhand egg cups and a toast rack, one could see the Barnados clerk wondering--I entered one of my favorite secondhand bookstores at the end of the High street to find three of my crew chatting with the proprietor. Colin had just (thoughtfully) bought me a volume of Scottish fairy tales, which I already had. On learning this,Travis plucked it from his hand and gave him three pounds with a gleeful smile. A polite kid, he was too nice to say he'd wanted it when Colin spotted it. We snared Colin a history of his native Aberdeen, and I found Jack a nice volume of Scots humor, so everyone scored.
Back at the cathedral, we took what became known as the Zombie series. It's Pavlovian; once students--from anywhere--see those open graves, they just have to get in them. And since UVA Wise, the home university for my crew, is having a Zombie exhibit over Halloween, well, the Scots zombie team will be well-represented. Another of my favorite photos is of my crew chatting happily as they head straight a bottle dungeon, or oubliette--one of those prisons where they throw you in and don't worry too much about getting you out again.
From Falkland we went to Anstruther for the world-famous Fish-n-Chips and a tour of the Lifeboat shop. I didn't make too much mandatory this trip, but everyone was required to visit the Lifeboat station for a brief talk. One of the best examples of Scottish character is that the lifeboats that cover the fishing towns are completely funded by the towns themselves. It wasn't always that way. While many in the UK refer to living in a "Nanny State" where taxes actually pay for services, there are some things the government is basically no longer allowed to handle.
In 1988, the Piper Alpha, an oil drilling station off the coast of Aberdeen, exploded (around 9 p.m. on July 6, to be precise-ish). By just after midnight, the whole platform was gone, as flames up to 100 feet in height shot skyward. The ruin would continue burning for three weeks.
Just before this disaster, the company OPCAL had done away with keeping emergency helicopters on the rigs themselves, arguing that it was too expensive and that the choppers were in harm's way on the stations; this had been sanctioned by the ministry overseeing safety. Instead, the copters would be called if needed, from nearby safe locations. Rescue boats were still on hand, but the sea around the platform was also burning--largely because the nearby rigs that pumped oil to the Piper hadn't shut off their pumps. They hadn't been ordered to. (Dear God help us all; 100 foot flames and you're waiting for a bloody order?!)
More than 200 men worked on this platform; 159 were killed. Of these, 30 bodies were never recovered. While some 70 were killed in the initial blast, most of the rest had to choose between staying on the platform and burning, or jumping 80 or so feet into the sea and praying the impact killed them, since the sea was burning, too.
A rescue helicopter did come, but could do nothing because the flames had gotten so high so quickly in the wind. Had it been there from the get-go, perhaps things might have turned out different. Perhaps not. In addition to the many crew lost, two rescue workers from a three-man boat died.
In the aftermath, inquiries and accusations flew. Nancy Nicholson, a respected Scottish songwriter, wrote the poignant "Who Will Pay the Piper?" asking questions about cost of money versus cost of life. And women up and down the fishing villages took comfort in their foresight. For the safety of their fishing fleet communities, they'd held bake sales and harvest dinners and other ingenious activities, to fund their own, independently owned and operated lifeboats. (They also wrote some pretty hefty grants.) Their brothers, husbands, sons and fathers would not be the victims of the lowest successful bid--or of someone far away refusing to give an order or pay for a safety net.
The Anstruther lifeboat is a thing of beauty in and of itself, but also because of what it and its sisters stand for: a group of ordinary citizens who gave their own Declaration of Arbroath to the government. "We understand your authority, and we hope you understand ours, because this is where their boundaries meet." The Arbroath document says no man loses his freedom except he lose his honor first; the lifeboats say that women know how to take care of what's theirs.
I didn't photograph the lifeboat. You can see it here. http://www.visitdunkeld.com/anstruther.htm
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| They look happy, don't they? From Left, Travis, Amber, Brie, Jordan, MK and Jeremy |
While the students shopped and stared, I met my old friend Bun Brough, a veteran crafter and longtime storyteller. We closed down Kind Kyttock's tearoom, sharing more millionaire shortbread than could be weighed on a scale, and enough tea to leave us sloshing. Bun was on the creative team for Scotland's first storytelling yurt, a felted and portable Mongolian traditional dwelling. She and I had done everything there was to do in the story world, twice, and she was board chair for the non-profit Storytelling Unplugged when I was its executive director.
The students enjoyed her tour of Falkland, showing them the marriage stones at door lentils, the crow-step gables and thatching stones, the haunted houses and the plastic bag factory--a painful reminder that Falkland's most powerful days may lay behind it, as this is the biggest employer in the town now. That evening we herded the students into the Stag Inn for a traditional music session. High Speed Grass has been playing since 1969, and may not sound traditional, but they've done every TMSA (Traditional Music and Song Association) festival in Scotland.
The funny part was, as they began to play some Scottish music for my students, the kids said, "Oh, bluegrass." It's a small world. When Jack first moved to the States the oldtime community was astonished at how many American tunes he knew. He gave up trying to explain that American root music is actually the wings of Scottish roots. It's just more fun to let people think he's a jam session genius.
My friend Linda, from New Gilston, managed to join Bun and me for part of the evening. There's nothing like three old friends in a pub. Ah, sweetness of life unrivaled by pear cider. And so, to bed, with fiddle tunes echoing in our brains.
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