Wildlife

Looking forward to the official opening of Moffat's new Community Wildlife Centre . Will there be frogs? Time will tell. If an index of spring is children playing out in the park opposite my house after school, then it was in full swing today, bikes with multiple riders and trees being climbed. I was struggling with a cardboard robot kit misguidedly ordered from the internet while Harry aged 5 was writing 'Golden Apple Awards' in readiness for his school film night (for Apple read Oscar). I detect signs of pre-award night nerves - he is short-listed for 'Best supporting Actor'. In true Oscar tradition, the role he is nominated for (by his peers) is not, in my opinion, his best which is 'grumpy man' in School of Pop, the season's blockbuster. All the shorts made by his school, Applegarth near Lockerbie will soon be available on DVD so you can judge for yourselves. In honour of the last days of winter, yesterday I made boiled beef and carrots, a nostalgic dish I shared with daughter Elly. After lunch we discovered a tin of Quality Street left over from Christmas, with all my favourites (orange and strawberry creams)still intact. I opened Niall Fergusson's 'Civilization - The West and the Rest' before bed, the second historical blockbuster I have attempted recently. Discussing theoretical holiday destinations with Elly, I am uneasily aware that flying across the Mediterranean to - say - Greece may be unwise with the battle for Libya raging and other signs of civil unrest (not to say revolution) from Syria to Yemen. One day historians may record the self-immolation of a disgruntled street fruitseller in Morocco which sparked off this latest round of uprisings on the Arab street as akin to the 'shot that rang round the world' in Sarajevo in 1914. Like the Japanese tsunami, this great wave may sweep everything away leaving an unrecognisable landscape behind and one thing is certain: the aftershocks will be felt even as far away as Moffat. With which gloomy thought I return to the anticipation of seeing newts in the pond.

Hollywood, D&G

Book things to look forward to: The Bicycle Book by Bella Bathhurst, out next week from Harper Collins; The Possessed, not the one by Dostoevsky but the very funny uncategorisable American best-seller by Elif Batuman, subtitled Adventures with Russian Books and the People Who Read Them. This is a book I would love to have, perhaps should have, written. Every day brings ideas and situations that cry out to be lightly fictionalised: like the cover story of this month's Dumfries & Galloway Life magazine, telling the story of how a woman film maker in Los Angeles Googles 'secondhandbookshops by the sea' and comes up with Wigtown, D&G (Scotland's booktown for readers overseas), gets on a flight, meets Princess Anne and falls in love with the bookseller she rents a room from. Hollywood! Are you hearing this!!

Japanese disaster

A question: if there were a similar earthquake and tsunami in any part of the British Isles, would people on Day 8 be reported to be dying from cold and lack of food? A friend answered this question by reminding me that people in New Orleans were reported to feel themselves - and indeed to be - 'forgotten' and neglected by their government. The USA has the complication of state and federal government. But still, the film of elderly people apparently dying in Japanese shelters from the cold and lack of food and water only 150km from Tokyo is both distressing and puzzling. Answers welcome.

Japan

We have a Japanese friend, Kyoko who used to teach Abi & Elly piano, and once gave a piano recital at my mother's house in Kent. She gave up her concert career when she married, then got divorced and went to work for the head of the Japanese state steel corporation as his personal interpreter. She and her parents came to visit us at Crookedstane in the mid 1990's. She lives just south of Tokyo. I sent her a card of sympathy after the earthquake and suggested she came to stay for a while. Maybe now she will.The illustration (left)is a Moffat artist's impression of a nuclear reactor by Harry Hurren, aged 5.

St Patrick and Moffat

From today's Scottish Review: Recently in a Radio Scotland programme, 'The Scots: A Genetic Journey', Alistair Moffat revealed evidence of a connection between St Patrick and King Coroticus, ruler of Alcluid (Strathclyde), about the evils of slavery and persecution.
Dumbarton is the ancient capital of Alcluid and King Coroticus lived at Dumbarton Rock about a mile from which, at Dunglass by Bowling in Old Kilpatrick, Patrick is said to have been kidnapped while fishing from rocks with a friend and sold into slavery in Ireland at Slemish mountain in Armagh.
It is not difficult to understand why Patrick is generally claimed to have been born in Wales. Apart from the phonetic similarity between Clwyd in Wales and Al Cluid in Scotland, which would have caused confusion, there is the fact that Scots in Strathclyde at that time spoke what is now known by historians as 'Old Welsh', which became the Welsh language of today. Additionally, a River Clwyd – again similar to River Cluid or Clyde - runs through the county.
It goes without saying, then, that any place with such strong historical links to one of the world’s best known saints – Patrick is up there with Valentine and Nicholas – would want to take some commercial advantage of this. But there is not even talk of a visitor centre in West Dunbartonshire, an area which is low on job opportunities and high in deprivation. Perhaps the time has come for this to change?

Bill Heaney

A Different Perspective on Moffat

I am reading The Birth of Modern Britain by Francis Pryor, whose face will be well known to fans of BBCTV's Time Team. In a section on 'polite landscapes' - the creation of parks and planned villages, Moffat is mentioned alongside Glencaple as one of 500 Scottish planned villages founded between 1730 and 1855 - in our case as a 'designer spa'using hydrotherapy, or water cure still widely used on continental Europe in France,Germany, Switzerland, Austria and the Czech and Slovak lands. In my view, it is high time we revisited this aspect of our wellbeing profile here in Moffat. Readers are also walkers - we will benefit from working together.

Sponsor robbed

Our sponsor, Forestry Purposes/Zacharry's spruce products suffered a raid over Thursday night. The thieves cleaned out the shed, taking the quad bike, power tools and other equipment used for managing the forest. Apparently there have been a lot of similar thefts in the area. You have been warned.