Each month I share stories from a week of roving.
Monday 7th April
Ardmore Point, Loch Lomond and The Trossachs National Park, Scotland
A border crossing from England to Scotland: leaving Sinderhope, near Allendale, and sweeping west to the coast, motoring through Glasgow, and tracking the River Clyde to the wide stretch where it meets the Firth of Clyde.
Over the level crossing towards the shore is a nib of foreland called Ardmore Point above which the sun is rising in an unblemished blue sky. It’s not cold, and there is no wind. A parcel of oystercatchers is making a racket. Calming curlew returns their calls. A skein of thirty geese goes north while a single heron flies south. On the sand near the water ducks are fussing. Two magpies mingle. Fast little sparrows dart and dash. Youngest, North, models his new shorts.
A journey up the west coast of Scotland beckons. Many a visitor has gone before us, drawn to the majesty of the scenery: mountains, lochs, castles, and the islands of the Hebrides.
Numbers have increased in recent years because of the dreaded North Coast 500 road route, which has carved out a busy tourist corridor through a remote and once tranquil landscape. People who use the route (visitors and locals) spoil the natural beauty surrounding it and carelessly disrupt communities adjacent to it.
I want to see the glory of Scotland’s west coast, but don’t want to stoke more resentment or add to the turmoil. I am not on holiday so I’m keen not to be lumped in with the sightseers I despise, but there’s no escaping the fact that I am an interloper. I don’t belong in the west of Scotland: I’m a visiting stranger, an uninvited guest.
Going from place to place living in a van, rather than living in a house in one location, puts me outside of conventional categories. If not a tourist, I am a traveller, a word that carries a cartload of baggage going back centuries.
Some of the oldest travellers are the Romani people.1 We used to call them gypsies.2 They have the dubious honour of being the most well-known (and well-persecuted) of all nomadic itinerants through the ages. Their ancient ancestors began to leave South Asia in a series of westward waves as early as the fifth century.
Closer to home, Irish travellers and indigenous Scottish Highland travellers, what we used to call tinkers, are often lumped in with Romani Gypsies, but are quite distinct from the Roma, and each other.
Scottish Highland travellers, called Ceardannan, which means craftsperson or smith in Gaelic, are either survivors of the Highland potato famine, refugees of the Norman Invasion, or descendants of the Picts, depending on your historical preference. Group members testify to being part of Highland and Scottish history for thousands of years. They were known as Black Tinkers because they were excellent tinsmiths. The moniker Black was a fearful projection by outsiders who looked upon them as dark and demonic. They gained notoriety for kidnapping a four-year-old Adam Smith, who grew up to be the economist and philosopher regarded as the father of economics and capitalism. If only they’d kept him, how things might be different.
Irish travellers are Roman Catholics who survived the Cromwellian conquest of Ireland in the seventeenth century. Cromwell, a depressive and a sadist, was a radical puritan who hated the Catholics. Irish travellers went on the road to escape Cromwell’s tactics of mass slaughter, execution of prisoners, wholesale burning of crops, and forced population movement, which killed two-hundred-thousand people in Ireland, mostly civilians.
In Germany, the Yenish emerged as a distinct indigenous traveller group in the nineteenth century. Yenish derives from the name for a cant or dialect used by thieves, beggars, and hustlers. They gave rise to an array of other roving bands including Woonwagenbewoners (indigenous Dutch travellers), Voyageurs (indigenous Flemish travellers), and Skøyere or Fantefolk (indigenous Norwegian travellers).
The lives of these people are a far cry from my own. I’m not a refugee on the run from war, famine, or violent fundamentalist despots trying to destroy my way of life (unless you count neoliberal capitalists), nor am I a hustler, beggar, or thief - not all the time anyway.
More comparable are the bargees who live on canals and waterways, a lifestyle we considered before opting for the van. Working boatmen started to bring their families on to the boats to live and act as crew in the 1800s when the newly-built railways of the Industrial Revolution forced economic competition on canal carriers. In recent years the numbers of liveaboards (people who live on boats) has surged.
Closer still are lifestyle travellers such as New Age travellers who trace their roots back to the countercultural hippie movement. They travelled between free music festivals and fairs in the 1960s and 1970s living in old vans, trucks and buses.
In the 1980s they started to gather in convoys, much to the displeasure of Thatcher’s Conservative Government, the mainstream media, and well-to-do conventional folk across the land, who regarded them with suspicion.
Largely inoffensive, young, and idealistic, they made themselves easy targets3 because many took the dole, rather than supporting themselves financially with work - a morally questionable life choice and a surefire way to draw the ire of the Little Englander.
In the summer of 1985 the New Age travellers fell victim to the hardheartedness of Margaret Thatcher, who sent in the police to crush them, teach them a lesson they wouldn’t forget, and send a clear message to anyone considering an alternative lifestyle that challenged the status quo of rugged-individualist, greed-is-good, there’s-no-such-thing-as-society, Tory Britain.
The Battle of the Beanfield, as the ambush came to be known, saw Wiltshire Constabulary’s finest, helmeted and armed with shields and truncheons, launch a violent attack on the hapless hippies, after cornering them in a field of beans. They had angered the police by trying to get around roadblocks on their way to Stonehenge Free Festival and then further enraged them when they cut through a farmer’s fence to escape after being hemmed in. Panic-stricken and terrified, the travellers drove round the field in circles in a desperate attempt to avoid police officers intent on doing them harm. When the boys in blue eventually caught up they smashed vehicles and skulls with equal enthusiasm. Watch for yourself.
Thatcher’s actions had a chilling effect on the scene and although the convoys didn’t disappear they were severely curtailed. There seems to have been a brief resurgence during the early 1990s when New Age travellers mixed with the rave music movement. This came to a head at the Castlemorton Common Festival in 1992, which drew negative attention from the media and public. This time the Government used legislation to attack the disobedient masses: the infamously-worded Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994, which bizarrely made a specific style of music illegal.4
In its attempt to eradicate this alternative way of living, mainstream society has dealt a series of heavy-handed blows, but has ultimately failed to see it off. These days, new nomads, digital nomads, van-dwellers, or those living vanlife are the latest iteration of the age-old roving itinerant.
Bristol’s leafy streets are today sprawling with van-dwellers, much to the chagrin of local residents and homeowners who have had their pleasant view of The Downs, a common green space, blocked by long lines of vans and caravans parked bumper to bumper.
My place in this multi-faceted historical travelling convoy is uncertain, but whatever the origin-story of someone who travels, the worries of conventional people who encounter them are partly justified, and not only because of the natural primal fear of the stranger.
The fact is some travellers are disruptive, and anyone rolling into town in a home on wheels should not be surprised if they are initially met with suspicion.
Historically, Europeans considered Romani people dirty, deceitful, too lazy to work and prone to steal. They were suspected of sorcery, witchcraft, child stealing and spying. Romani people were also said to be noisy, immoral and asocial.
Marauding gangs of Irish travellers often bring misery and despair to the places they visit. In the town where I used to live I was once surrounded by Irish traveller kids who were trying to steal my bike while I was sitting on it. They also used to ruin the middle-class ambience of the local outdoor swimming club every year: descending in mobs in the summer months, intimidating people sitting by the river, stealing ice creams from the snack van, drinking heavily, dropping litter, and once washing an injured and bleeding dog on the steps leading into the water.
Some Irish travellers cause trouble and when confronted become deceptive, abusive, evasive, elusive, tricksy, menacing, confrontational, tribal and volatile. They quickly unite as one (against you), seem to swell in numbers in moments, and openly threaten violence.
Then again, they have been on the receiving end of hatred and savagery from all quarters for nearly four centuries (since being displaced by Cromwell) so it is no surprise they behave the way they do: they are survivors, defending themselves and each other, fighting for their very existence.
Maybe we’re all survivors, fighting to exist in a threatening world. Certainly we were all travellers once, before the fall,5 the abandonment of our natural nomadism, and the widespread settling that we have come to regard as normal.
Tuesday 8th April
Ardgartan Forest, Loch Long, Scotland
Song thrush serenades and the distant surface of Loch Long shimmers in the morning sunlight. This vantage point, a long way up a logging track in Ardgartan Forest, affords broad views over the loch and the eastern shore beyond, where The Royal Navy has a large depot,6 with stores for weapons and ammunition, including nuclear warheads, and a dedicated branch line for transportation. Throughout the day I watch the train moving to and fro, shifting god knows what to who knows where.
Nearby, the copper-black water of Coilessan Burn is falling down the hillside, over and around misplaced boulders and big slabs of pale rock. From the bridge, my eleven-year-old, Oak, and six-year-old, North, slip and slide down the path, then jump from rock to rock following the streams and waterfalls.
They cup hands and taste the water. There is talk of bathing. We sit on a rock in the sun and settle into a collective reverie, entranced by the burn’s chatter.
Later, armed with towels, a flask of tea, and biscuits, I lead a bathing party downstream to some pools for our first family dip of the year. The wind has dropped and the sun is shining but the water is going to be cold. We all get in, eventually. Tara watches me and the children strip off and dunk in a natural pool fed by the burn. It’s parky. She wanders further down to seek out a more discreet bathing place. Afterwards, I brush her hair as she lays on the rocks.
In the evening me and Oak explore upstream where terraced waterfalls rise up the mountain slope. The last of the day’s sunlight filters through the branches of the trees and glimmers as it bounces off the water. Sitting with my son at the centre of this soothing splendour, it feels eternal.
Wednesday 9th April
Old Military Road, River Aray, west coast of Scotland
A cold cloudy morning. Large skeins of geese follow each other north.
For the first time since we set out on the road, we consider the possibility of not moving around so much. The conversation covers uncertain ground: belonging, settling, and home. We leave it wide open.
Later, parked in a small pull-off by the Old Military Road, we thread our way between small crooked trees to the River Aray to sit in the sunshine with a clutch of Fyne Ales.7
The opposite bank looks more inviting but, in getting across, various children get wet feet and start grumbling. Eventually everyone calms down and there is some peace and quiet by the burn. That is until we get a long angry beep from a passing driver before dinner.
Thursday 10th April
Loch Creran, west coast of Scotland
It’s cold at dawn. There is frost on the brown grass beneath the gnarled willow trees. Beside one trunk lies a pile of small animal bones. The burn flows gently and quietly, unnoticed by the drivers of logging trucks speeding past. From the ridge above, two birdwatchers scan the area, ruining any chance of a private morning communion.
In the evening, at calm Loch Creran, a tiger sunset illuminates plum purple clouds crossing the skies like slow-going sail-ships. Jupiter is visible, alongside a swelling moon. A heron stalks the shallows.
Friday 11th April
Loch Creran, west coast of Scotland
This morning the loch is concentrated and still. On the far side, larch, birch, and ash climb up the mountainside. Between the trees, soft green moss spreads far and wide. Here and there new shoots push through. Bees buzz past. Woodpecker drills. Birds sing a gentle dawn chorus. Is that a willow warbler? The sun appears in the crease between two mountain slopes and its watery twin shimmers on the surface of the lock, shining a blinding light. The soft sound of cuckoo (this year’s first), the mew of buzzard. All is calm.
Then the cat arrives, prompting stuttering alarm calls and evasive manoeuvres. Morning communion is disturbed for the second day running. It first appeared last night, approaching confidently while uttering a stream of assertive miaows. From the tag on the collar, we learn its name: Blue.
The children get out of bed when they hear Blue is back. He’s made an impression. They follow him around and he slips naturally into leadership. He catches a mouse in the undergrowth beside the loch and eats the whole thing while the children watch.
A big black rock by the loch, put there by a giant, offers excellent reading and dozing opportunities. During the day it is in turn bathed by sun, freshened by breeze and lapped at by loch water. Oak joins me from time to time. Lunch is eaten on the rock, ale is supped. In the van, Tara files our tax return. Blue sits by her side, curled up, purring. While eating dinner on the rock, a scuba diver’s head breaks the surface of the water then disappears below. Just before bed, owl pipes up from the distant shore. Blue tries to settle in at the bottom of Oak’s bed before being turfed out.
Saturday 12th April
Loch Creran, west coast of Scotland
Blue arrives bright and early, disturbing the dawn chorus.
The sun peeks out from behind the mountains, bright and warm. The clear blue water has risen right up to the rock again. A moon jellyfish pulses past, seaweed floats on the surface, and bubbles rise up from beneath a submerged rock: a small black crab scuttles into view. The loch water shifts, seeming to turn with one huge collective intent to flow inland, away from the sea.
Sunday 13th April
Loch Creran, west coast of Scotland
Today Blue went back to his owners. A man (friendly, relaxed, jolly) and his wife (nervous, anxious) arrive to fetch him after we called the number on his collar. They explain that we are not the first to be charmed: he has made friends with many before us. Blue has a huge range and wanders miles from home. When they took him to the vet to see if there was a reason for his roaming, something to do with food perhaps, they were told he was fine, and was in fact close to being overweight.
Blue used to live on Coll, an island in the Hebrides, where he ranged freely, slaughtering nesting birds, hence his removal. His fierce independence troubles his owners, particularly the impatient woman, who seems exasperated by his disappearances and asks us if we’d like to take him on. Before the children can express an opinion I decline the offer. He is put in the car to be driven back home and it’s goodbye to Blue. We all miss him after he’s gone; up to a point.
Monday 14th April
Lochan Doire a Bhraghaid, near Glencoe, west coast of Scotland
Passing through the deep valley and imposing mountains of Glencoe on the way to the Corran Ferry crossing, a resplendent natural palette colours the landscape, refracted through sunlight and rain.
The village is overrun by tourists and visitors; our presence only increases the load. As well as being a magnet for outdoor types seeking action-packed weekend breaks, this area was used as a location for the 2012 James Bond film Skyfall. Links to Hollywood entertainment almost always guarantees a slow sullying by sightseers. Tourism kills what it comes to enjoy.
‘…think of Old Earth dying for no reason, to think of the dolphins, their gray flesh drying and rotting in the sun, to see – as I have seen – the motile isles with no place to wander, their feeding grounds destroyed, the Equatorial Shallows scabbed with drilling platforms, the islands themselves burdened with shouting, trammeling tourists smelling of UV lotion and cannabis.’8
Leaving the tourists behind, we continue our travels.
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Romani: lower-caste person working as a wandering musician; a caste of acrobats, jugglers, and clowns.
Mistakenly as it turns out: gypsy owes its existence to the belief, common in the Middle Ages, that the Roma were itinerant Egyptians.
Some of them were also encrusted with dirt, as a deliberate embrace of grotesquerie, a statement of resistance against society, and proof of nomadic hardship, which earned them the nickname crusties.
‘Sounds wholly or predominantly characterised by the emission of a succession of repetitive beats.’ - The Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994.
‘THE FALL
For countless millennia - for most of human pre-history - men and women enjoyed rich, varied, playful and meaningful lives, lived in socially and sexually egalitarian societies, were exceptionally healthy and well-nourished, never went to war, didn't need money, didn't do what we would understand as alienating WORK, were at ease with life, fearless before death and were able to craft, commune and improvise with miraculous presence and sensitivity.
Around 12,000 years ago, somewhere in what is now the Middle East and Central Asia, the self-a tool for abstracting, imagining and projecting into the past and the future —grew, through over-use, beyond its UTILITY TIPPING POINT and began to usurp conscious experience. Self, in other words, became EGO; a parasitic thinking-emoting, and self-informed (as opposed to context-informed) entity (see SELF and UTP).
Ego, faced with the unknowable —with experience which cannot be apprehended or grasped by ego (named, counted, owned, controlled, understood or emotionally experienced) - began to experience PRIMAL FEAR. Darkness, femininity, the innocence of children and animals, extreme ['altered] psychological states, NATURE, selfless LOVE and DEATH became EXISTENTIALLY THREATENING, and the living character of plants, animals and natural forces, with which man once selflessly perceived he shared reality, hardened into emotionally focused conceptions of gods, ghosts and ancestors with which ego, perceiving them as fundamentally separate entities, was forced to negotiate, appease and pray to (the beginning of SUPERSTITION and the degraded sense of the sacred we call PAGANISM).
To allay its PRIMAL ANXIETY ego began to dominate plants and animals (through excessively exploitative agriculture and DOMESTICATION), other groups of human beings (through hier-archy, debt, slavery and war), children (through cruelty and education', women (through patriarchically-managed marriage, violence and the threat of desertion) nature (through over-control, over-use and, eventually, SCIENCE), and, through an egoically-filtered experience of the present moment, reality itself.
This change in man's relationship with reality is reflected in the ubiquitous myth of a fall, from the GARDEN.’
The Apocalypedia by Darren Allen (2023).
Coulport Armament depot, part of Defence Munitions Glen Douglas.
Bought from a family-owned farm brewery called Fyne Ales on the River Fyne, at Achadunan. The water is drawn from the hills and the beer brewed in converted farm buildings.
Hyperion by Dan Simmons (1989).