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.