Monday 31 May 2021

Edinburgh festivals RETURNS 2021!



We’ve had tough times, so hard for many. What will all the costs be?

One thing for sure is that the arts will be essential for our recovery. 

 

Scottish Festivals ... Seek to engage, challenge, entertain and to ensure quality of standard, musicianship, writing, diversity, colour and more.

Every August is a highlight to venture on Edinburgh’s historic streets and to culturally recharge my batteries at the world’s largest arts festival. There’s a special freedom of creativity, where nearly anything goes – a vast melting pot of colour, comedy, dance, song. 

 

August means Edinburgh and in particular its International book festival. I grew up in this northern capital, dominated by its castle, Arthur seat and historic Royal mile. I have been taking photos at the Edinburgh Festival since 2007. 


This is a year to renew our attitudes and ideas or make a change of direction: this is much needed reflections and contemplations.

 



**EDINBURGH FESTIVALS 2021 will be happening on a smaller scale.

Last year 2020 the festivals, for the first time had to be cancelled since 1947, due to the worldwide Covid pandemic. I visited the high street, it was very odd. 

 

This year the festival is planning 3 large outdoor marquees. While the fringe may take over some of the newly empty shops in town. Edinburgh is also planning to pedestrianise George street. Stars such as Alan Cumming and violinist Nicola Benedetti.


Edinburgh festival is the world largest arts festival, begun in 1945 to bring rejuvenation after the devastation of war. 

There is the main international festival along side the Fringe comedy: plus dance, opera, musicals, drama, concerts, mime, art, debates, books and of course the performers in the high street..

There’s also the high water marks of the main festival – with opera, classical, ballet, drama, and more. .


TICKETS NOW ON SALE - https://www.eif.co.uk

 Edinburgh FRINGE - https://www.edfringe.com


The Edinburgh festival has been taking place each August since 1947. After the devastation of war Austrian Rudolf Bing, decided Europe could be brought together to heal by a large scale cultural festival. He decided on Edina, as it reminded him of Salzburg, and it became the worlds biggest cultural arts event. 2020 was the first year for 73 years the Edinburgh festival has not been held.

Edinburgh is ideal to see on foot with the Royal mile, the Mound and over to the new town.

 

Art is crucial

Art is how we move forward, broaden horizons, question and exchange ideas, culture and heritage ultimately matters more – more than any political rhetoric! 


Rewilding Scotland: How can we recover


Empty & Haunting Glencoe

Our hills are bare

How can we  restore, recover our wetlands, our forests,

Our hedgehogs, our eagles , our bears

Our winding rivers to the seas..

The silence… 

- Only 2% of Scotland has trees, it’s the least wooded country in Europe. 37% is Europe’s average. 

- 25% of Scotland’s land is for grouse shooting and open hill deer stalking with little revenue. There is an urgent need for talks with all involved. 


Our hills are bare, with burnt heathers, triangles of unnatural pines with no undergrowth, wild salmon under threat by lice-infected farmed salmon. Victorians tamed our hills to empty glens for grouse shooting. 

Our forests were cut down for the trenches in world war one and sent over to Belgium and France and our land depleted by clearances of people, to prioritise sheep and grouse shooting exploitation. Scotland needs the powers to protect our natural resources and a greener future. Scotland has unnatural, empty landscapes, devoid of people or trees – 

 

I remember my first visit to Glencoe and Rannoch moor, as a young student and I was so struck by the vast emptiness amid the towering, imposing, snow capped mountains. The winds seemed to howl of the past tragedies and violence ..the Glencoe massacre of the MacDonalds.

 In America there are wondrous natural forests, that are multi-coloured, from soft yellows, dark greens, blue greens, in the Fall are such a glorious show of reds, oranges and browns. 

 

Scotland is one of the most nature ruined countries – exploited by polices of grouse shooting, heather burning moors, culling hares, wildlife, removing natural predators and people in favour of sheep and deer herds. Images of Norway show diverse, natural forests and people living on the land – unlike Scotland’s empty glens. 

 

The okra whales of our western waters, are now perhaps infertile. They can live 90 years and only 8 adults now remain. Are those awful nuclear subs that patrol the western seas, confusing  these magnificent animals with their sonar sounds? Most Scots want the removal of these ugly, monstrous subs. 

 

The silence…

 

“….absence of birdsong or wolf howl,. We were persuaded to let the soils wash into the sea, the few remaining predators to be trapped or shot, the land tamed, and the life drained away. 

the taming of the Scottish highlands has not tamed wildlife. “


Wetlands & marsh
***How can we Restore?

Restoration is supported by 75% of Scots

Positives moves – UN Decade of Habitat restoration; re-introduction of natural ecosystems and natural biodiversity; beavers brought back to build dams which restore wetlands and temperate rainforests; osprey and white-tailed eagles brought back. Restoring nature to our quiet glens. 


Re-wilding projects Scotland a re-wilding; mountain hare culls have stopped. And Wildlife bridges for animals rather than small pockets – Perth to Inverness, wetlands, natural forest, habitat re-connectivity. 

Huge costs. Scotland has many alien species, rural economy development, greener habitat, plus money to remove the awful scourge of Rhododendrons.  

Bio-diversity of the future.  

 

‘young forests are on the march for the first time in generations,  peat lands are being restored, natural processes are being allowed to shape and govern our landscapes. “

River restoration systems were allowed burns straightened out a century ago, to meander again,  reconnecting to their floodplains and leading to more trees, more flowers, more insects, more fish, cleaner waters, less flooding. 

 

Scotland’s beautiful landscapes, some of the best in the world, have been exploited, ruined and laid bare by foreigners intent on fast money. Indy Scotland needs the powers to protect our resources – now a theme park for global elites. 


@Peter Cairns

**Scottish Rewilding Alliance

 

**I attended an online 

Talk by wildlife photographer Peter Cairns

Cairns spoke of his motivations with his photography. 

Conservation works, we need more of it. Wanderlust, always looking over the horizon or beyond doorways: asking questions about myself and why I’m motivated to do something. He considered Wildlife management, conservation and ecology. He spoke of our relationship with animals and with predators such as wolves, to reintroduced them and to bring back the natural environment.  

 

Cairns spoke of photography as a language and the power of the visceral image. Its power as a visual communicator, storytelling, informs, inspires and influences change. The human world view – hunters, ranchers, our set of values.  

 https://www.petercairnsphotography.com


Loch Ardinny &Campsies


 **ISSUES we must urgently address

Economic growth vs well being?

Green bridge Aberdeen. 

Grouse moors are legal, moor burns are a problem, but we must work together to find solutions.

 

**BOOKS

*Tooth and Claw with Mark Hamblin: changing our relationship with wildlife. We have complex, contradictory values. Endangered species. The wildcat – highland tiger.

 

*Wild Wonders of Europe: top 70 nature photographers, explore sustainability. 

*2020 Vision (20 British photographers) he feels more at home in Scotland and to tell the story properly, it needs to be under your skin. Protecting species and nature reserves. Think bigger and longer term.  

 

BOOK Regeneration, Andrew Panting.  

https://www.petercairnsphotography.com

 

Elizabeth Barrett Browning (EBB)


 “After the first Anglo-Sikh war in India, one of these days our great Indian empire, will stand up on its own legs and make use of our own rope to scourge us. … what right has England to an Indian empire?

No more than the Duke of Sutherland to his broad estate, wait  a little, we shall see it all arranged, according to a better justice, on the small scale and the large”  

 

Her family made its money on the sugar planation of Jamaica

 

Elizabeth Barrett Browning     (1806 –  1861) 

was an English poet of the Victorian era popular in Britain and the United States during her lifetime. Born in Count Durham, the eldest of 11 children, Elizabeth Barrett wrote poetry from the age of eleven.  At 15 she became ill, suffering intense head and spinal pain for the rest of her life. 

In the 1840s Elizabeth was introduced to literary society through her cousin, John Kenyon. Her first adult collection of poems was published in 1838 and she wrote prolifically between 1841 and 1844, producing poetry, translation and prose. She campaigned for the abolition of slavery and her work helped influence reform in the child labour legislation. Her prolific output made her a rival to Tennyson as a candidate for poet laureate on the death of Wordsworth. 

She was married to Robert Browning. Elizabeth's work had a major influence on prominent writers of the day, including the American poets Edgar Allan Poe and Emily Dickinson. She is remembered for such poems as “How Do I Love Thee” (Sonnet 43, 1845) and "Aurora Leigh" (1858). 



700th Anniversary Declaration of Arbroath 1320

Arbroath Abbey


 The auld song is still being sung

 “”...for, as long as but a hundred of us remain alive, never will we on any conditions be brought under English rule. It is in truth not for glory, nor riches, nor honours that we are fighting, but for freedom – for that alone, which no honest man gives up but with life itself.”

The STONE OF DESTINY was returned. It may be, it just may be, that on Christmas Day 1950 four young people wrote a new verse to that old song. Whatever we did, the song is still being sung.' 


On a drive up to Dundee I picked up a small book on Scots hero William Wallace.  Our national bard Robert Burns was inspired by Wallace and he visited the Leglan woods near Ayr where Wallace once hid. He later wrote his famous poem 'Scots Wa Hae wi Wallace bled' for all freedom fighters, after democracy reformer Thomas Muir of Huntershill was imprisoned

 It is strange how one journey leads us on to another. There I was on the road to Arbroath abbey, which we found was an imposing, red sandstone building steeped in Scottish history and built by William I of Scotland in 1178. Here men spoke of their cherished freedom back in 1320,  and here Glasgow students in 1950 returned the Stone of Destiny, on which Scottish kings had been crowned for 450 years at Scone Abbey near Perth. 


This was the place that the Arbroath Declaration of Independence was signed by lords, commons and the clergy of Scotland in 1320.  In it they had affirmed our right to be free to live our own lives in our own way.  

 

Declaration of Arbroath British museum

The Stone of Destiny

 In 1950 a group of Scottish students stole the Stone, led by Ian Hamilton. The Stone was returned to Edinburgh in 1997 with the setting up of the Scottish Parliament. Was this the real stone - the stone is a symbol of Scotland's long and unique history and identity.  

There is a clip of Ian Hamilton who led the students at the Arbroath visitors centre, speaking of his quest to awaken Scotland from its long slumber, his voice chokes as he speaks..  “...for, as long as but a hundred of us remain alive, never will we on any conditions be brought under English rule. It is in truth not for glory, nor riches, nor honours that we are fighting, but for freedom – for that alone, which no honest man gives up but with life itself.”

 

I bought Hamilton's book THE STONE OF DESTINY, "On the morning of 11 April 1951, I left Glasgow with Bill Craig. At Stirling Bridge we thumbed a lift from a car driven by Councillor Gray, which contained the Stone of Destiny, now carefully repaired. At midday we carried it down the grass-floored nave of the abbey and left it at the high alter. It was a crucifixion.

“When we turned away and stood for a minute at the gate, and looked down the long nave flanked by the blood-red sandstone of the walls to the alter where the Stone lay under the blue and white of a Satire. I heard the voice of Scotland speak as clearly as it spoke in 1320. “ 

 

I continue my journey learning Scots history and considering it is so interesting, it’s a dreadful loss

that it practically died out in schools after the great war. Then we had to aspire to being second rate, when the Scots language was beaten out of us and learn English history - The Tudors, Wordsworth and Shakespeare etc. at Secondary school in Edinburgh. I was fortunate though that at my Primary school I had a Mr MacDonald from the Hebrides, a tall man who often wore a blue kilt, for my headmaster and we learnt a Burns poem every year and sang Burns songs with our school choir. I have such fond and vivid memoirs of this.  It is wonderful to note that today things have changed somewhat and Scottish school children do now learn about their own country's past.  (I hope!)



 A Short history.

During Alexander II's reign things were stable in Scotland. He was married to the daughter of the English king and his daughter married the King of Norway. Sadly his two sons died and his daughter died too giving birth to a daughter (who later died). Storm clouds were brewing and Alexander had no heir. Disaster was predicted and when he suddenly died and the Scottish Wars of Independence began. There was no clear line of succession. When Edward Longshanks, the Hammer of the Scots, paraded north, he stole the Stone of Destiny from Perth and put it under a new Coronation throne in Westminster. Scottish kings had been crowned on the stone for 450 years.  After Robert the Bruce and the Battle of Bannockburn, Edward II agreed to return the stone to Scotland in 1328 – but did not. 


Hamilton writes –

"The symbol of her liberty had come back to Scotland, and we felt that some sort of rude ceremony was needed to mark the return of the Lia Fail to the custody of its own people.

We stopped and drew the coat back and exposed the Stone to the air of Scotland for the first time in 600 years. From the provision basket we produced the gill of whisky, and poured a libation over the stone's roughness. thus, quietly, with little fuss, with no army, with no burning of houses or killing people, and for the expenditure of less than £1000, we brought Scotland back the Stone of Destiny." 

'When on 25 march 1707 James Ogilvie, Earl of Seafield, Chancellor of Scotland, signed the Act of Union, ending Scotland's ancient independence, and merging the two parliaments of Scotland and England into the United Kingdom Parliament, he threw down the quill with these words: 'Now there's the end of an auld sang.'   


It may be, it just may be, that on Christmas Day 1950 four young people wrote a new verse to that old song. Whatever we did, the song is still being sung.'