Scotland’s 19 universities and 26 colleges are rightly world-renowned for innovation and creativity – and their leadership and willingness to step up is saving lives in the face of the unprecedented challenge we all face.
The UK Government has got itself into a Brexit bind having turned its back on the European Single Market and leaving itself at the mercy of a US trade deal and Donald Trump.
ARCTIC Ocean surf crashes into the sand. The stiff north-easterly feels as cold as the waves. Signs of the old MoD presence are scattered across the landscape, and homes totter on clifftops rather than nestle in bays. The north coast is very different to the west coast, even in geology, with a rare outcrop of limestone giving patches of bright-green turf. I have been travelling for four days on the North Coast 500, trying to get an idea of the economic and social impact of the driving route launched in May 2015. It has since taken off at rocket pace to become known as “Scotland’s answer to Route 66”, a driving “must” touted in glossy magazines. I’m at Durness, where the road turns east for Thurso. Balnakeil craft village at Durness is a former military base, now home to artists and small business owners who have transformed functional 1950s buildings into a cosy clutter. It’s a place selling mainly to visitors, where I would expect folk to be delighted with the NC500. But Anita Wilson, of Cast-off Crafts, says: “They’re not staying long, they want to be served a bit quicker, there’s less time for our pace of life and the talking. This place has its own rhythm and it’s disrupted.” The NC500 does bring business so she doesn’t want to sound churlish, but like many residents she complains about poor driving by those on the route. And a busy day sees the shelves of the shop stripped by 3pm, “like the locusts have been”. The paintings of her neighbour Ishbel MacDonald show local scenes in soft colours. Her customers are usually people who roam the area for a few days then buy pictures that reflect the scenery they enjoy. Not the NC500ers. “It’s quite superficial,” she says. “Because people are zooming through they don’t get to know the landscape, and the pictures don’t mean so much to them. I’m not sure the NC500 helps me.” On the outskirts of Durness is a cluster of campervans – a chance to ask if the folk in the big white boxes are rushing along the road. A sign on Ron and Joan Wood’s van says: “Adventure Before Dementia”. “We want to do the NC500 because we might not get another chance,” laughs Joan, who comes from Yorkshire. They are taking several weeks on the trip, as are their neighbours, fellow retirees Nigel and Lisa Simmons from South Wales. Nigel speaks for all four when he says: “We can stop where we like, for as long as we like. Taking our time: it’s definitely the best way to do it.” Just east of Durness I walk a superb beach enclosed by gnarly cliffs with turf at the back that’s perfect for camping. I feel a twinge of envy for the time-rich pensioners: I have to be in Wick that night.
