Am Bratach No. 197
Writers and artists explore Strathbrora “Unfolding Land: impressions of Strathbrora”. Edited by Wendy Sutherland. Published by Clyne Heritage Society. Colour, 38 pages. ISBN 0-9538642-2-7. Price: £8.50. Thumbing through this booklet, some will ask why it has been published by a heritage society when the first impressions are of a work not obviously concerned with the past. Further examination reveals it has been compiled by artists, photographers and poets, rather than historians and genealogists. Indeed, the editor, Wendy Sutherland, is a distinguished young artist who spent her early years, if not in Strathbrora itself, then in the better known and well populated village to be found at the estuary of the river that bears the same name. Heritage, though, is not really about delving into the past; it is about appreciating what has survived from the past. And Wendy Sutherland, in returning to her home country, has found much inspiration in her surroundings as can be seen from the fine renditions of her paintings contained in this volume. She is one of nineteen contributors to the publication, a number of whom live in the Brora district itself. Four, including another visual artist, Sue Jane Taylor — well known in Skerray — live in Dornoch. To an outsider, like your reviewer, they are the typical mixture of the native born and those who live in North West Scotland by choice. So what’s inside these pages? There’s prose and poetry, photography, and various forms of visual art. It’s very well reproduced, too, by a Lochaber company now in trouble, though not for the quality of their work. The dark green soft cover is embossed, the inside pages of fine quality gloss paper. The illustration, “Crook”, refers to the detail from a series of three glass panels by Sue Jane Taylor of a shepherd’s crook. The panels provide the backdrop for a stage show in which they are assembled in a staggered line and illuminated, overlain with images and Gaelic text, although the excerpt shown is an English translation. The whole is described as a “contemporary lament for singer and string ensemble” and was commissioned by the Scottish Chamber Orchestra from the composer Dee Isaacs and the Skye-born Gaelic poet, Aonghas MacNeacail. There is no indication that this work draws directly on Strathbrora, past or present, but it may well do so through a history of droving in the Highlands and Australia written by the outstanding Gaelic scholar, Dr John MacInnes, referred to in the text. Indeed, Coffin Road, shown above, was a drove road and is still known as such. From an interview with Gordonbush landowner Angela Tyser, to a record of the ironworks found in Clynekirkton cemetery and an intriguing reference to flax growing, to beautiful photographs of the flora and fauna and an impressive long poem asking whether the emptiness of the strath is permanent or is merely a pause in the unfolding life of the place (see column one for excerpt), this is a beautiful work of many facets. — DMM
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