JAGG World: Two Roads

Shettleston Road

A9

Two Roads

It’s a hundred and eight miles from Inverness to Perth. Just one straight road heading North. On the fifth of February I was heading back up North from East Glasgow - Shettleston Road - a long linear street, which buzzed with life along its length over thirty years ago - trams, cars and people like bees in and out their hives, tending to business. Now it’s a barren landscape of housing association property sprawled from end to end  with clusters of shops pinned in by cars parked outside their doorways.

I sit here thinking about the visit, wondering why it has had such an impact on me. It did feel like home - an industrial past we all once belonged to - those of us who were working class. A time when culture and work mingled, when going to work also meant you could go out to play and that was just fine. Thirty years has not eased the pain from the sting of loosing everything. Invaded by wasps, the bees had to finally retreat. 

I remember watching a comedian on the television a couple of weeks ago - a working-class man from Liverpool who pointed out that planners seemed to think we the working classes only needed a post office, a betting shop, a chippy and a corner shop and we were content. So the future of Britain was rebuilt - our cultural havens displaced by ‘the shop’.

The road home is all wilderness. Hills and mountains peak through the snow - taking on animal-like features. I was surrounded by wildlife  - giant cheetahs, zebras and bears emerging from the landscape, watching me as I drove past them. Their stripes, spots and fur were strangely comforting even though I knew one bite would kill. Greens and browns caressed the trees, lychen hanging proudly from them in the non-toxic air. I wound down the window so the cool breeze would wake me from the hypnotic journey.

Approaching Inverness, the lights of the Kessock Bridge gave a welcoming sign that I was close to home - a house. But bees are really at home when they are on journeys, gathering pollen to make honey, telling their friends what they did that day, looking forward to the weekend and partying. Home is not a house, home is a life of freedom, play, work, marriage, children. The road gives birth to life, the journey is everything.

Reminiscing

Only one thing mattered during those long summer months whilst growing up (apart from playing), and that was stories. I would walk down to the library in Saltaire and take out six books at a time - whizz through them and go back for more. Another favourite place for books was the small post office which sold cheap hardbacks of Lorna Doone, Treasure Island and Enid Blyton's various collections. There was stationery too. Silvine notebooks in deep red, textured covers with fine lines or squares were my favourite. 

And the pencil case I had was always a wooden box -the kind that had a sliding lid. Then there were my father's old fountain pens -none of them work now, but I would spend up to half a day cleaning them and getting them writing when I was a child. 

My step-sister had a great collection of books, some of them old colonialist tales of hunters in Africa, the Cherry Tree series and Sherlock Holmes. She bought me The Hobbit, To Kill a Mocking Bird, and Moby Dick -keen to encourage my interest in stories - she chose well though I have to confess. I also adored poetry and developed a liking for all kinds of styles.

I was a keen nosie-parker and would watch the world idle by on hot afternoons, whilst sitting on a cushion on the front doorstep, with a notebook and pen. My observations were brief and officer-like and included all kinds of details about neighbours, strangers and animals. I loved the sounds of summer in a town - busy roads, ice cream vans and rollerskates.

Our local police officer  would often stop and talk to me and ask me what I was writing about - and would also make suggestions about the kind of things he thought were useful. This set a precedent, and I and an old friend took to walking up and down local streets noting details of cars, washing on lines and who was out and who was sunbathing in their backyard. 

And so it went on....