The Tale of the Lowland Clearances

Pull up a chair, my child, I want to tell you the story of how we happen to be living here, and where we come from. For we are one of the proud families of the inner city, and one of the oldest. Not many people around these parts can claim to be born and bred within the sound of the shipbuilders, we are truly Clydebuilt. And so it has taken us many years to adapt to this Godforsaken wilderness.

No no, don’t touch that chair, that is one of the relics and must never be moved because of its great fragility and, dare I say it, sentimental value. That chair is one of the few objects we managed to bring with us on the great journey north and, sadly, its plastic seat is faded and torn, its metal legs are dented, and so we may not use it any more. But I like to keep it as a reminder of when we had a shared drying green and sat there on chairs like this. Now, of course, we just have miles of wilderness and who could sit outside in this place, with only mountains to look at? That was not how I was brought up. No, I grew up watching the factories and ships of the Clyde. Steam rising through the air like a promise of a better future, and all day long the sounds of hooters and sirens and cars and people shouting. Not like this silent place, so evenly blanketed by fog it feels like a curse on all of us who dared come here.

Take one of those wooden chairs. Yes, one of the many piled in the corner, for there is nothing else to do here but whittle wood from the pine tree plantations we are surrounded by. No other pastime but to steal wood and carve it. Oh God, I’m so bored of carving wood.

Of course our home city was not perfect, and I’m not starry-eyed about it. The city was encrusted black with dirt, and the rubbish was increasing year on year. And yes, the sounds of the shipyards gradually dwindled away even as the rubbish piles grew and grew. We knew there were problems. The rubbish used to be removed and dumped all along the coast, but the city ran out of money to do that. And so we became accustomed to navigating the vast towers of plastic bags and tin cans and layers of cardboard and paper. These mountains were part of our city and some of them were so much part of my daily life when I was younger that to me, even now, when I hear the word ‘mountain’ I think of those great and complex mounds of litter, not the simple, barren rocks hereabouts.

But, even as we shared those city streets with the seagulls and crows who loved to peck at the rubbish, we knew it couldn’t last. The people of the city had adapted, but the city itself had succumbed. The rubbish was so all-encompassing that it stopped the transport systems on the road and we were forced to rely on the river. The city could no longer afford to shelter us and provide us with the advantages that in olden times it had been able to offer. In short, it ran out of money and declared itself broke and bankrupt. And then it was sold to the highest bidder.

I had not known before then that an entire city with all its inhabitants could be bought and sold in such a manner but, seemingly, there was nothing in law to prevent it. And the company that bought this city was called ‘Dolly Enterprises’. A curious name, we all thought. We understood the word ‘Dolly’ to refer to a little girl’s toy or an old country and western singer. We did not know what else it might refer to.

Of course, we were given choices. We could stay, and be required to work for our new owners for free in return for shelter, or we could move and take our liberty with us. My dear papa determined that we would move. The rest of us complained long and hard, but he was deaf to our cries. And so, on that fateful morning, the day we were due to move out, I stood and looked at the landscape for one last time. Our bags were packed, the removals company was about to arrive, but I wanted a last glimpse. Sure, nobody could say it was pretty, but it had been ours.

Listen to me, my child, as I describe to you the way our home city looked on that morning. And stop picking at the splinters on the chair. If your fingers need something to do, take up one of my knives and trim the fat from these lambchops for our dinner. Make sure you trim away every speck of fat, for we cannot eat it. You can see the fat by the way it sparkles, as if it contains glittering metal. As indeed, of course, it does.

Now I shall continue my story. To the south of the city, the high rise blocks rose out of the early morning mist and smog, their wet concrete shining in the weak sun. Four tall buildings, all now to be abandoned and their occupants, hundreds of people, scheduled to move north.

My dear papa had been told that there was housing just waiting for us, although it would need a little attention to bring it up to the standards we were used to. But it was cheap and solid, being made of stone and with many original features. Of course nobody had been able to visit this housing yet, it was too remote and they hadn’t quite finalised the public transport. But my papa had been assured that that was all in hand.

I remember standing there, waiting. I was still a child, although somewhat older than you, my child, and accustomed to the habits of the city which are not the habits of this Godforsaken place. From the age of eight I could navigate through the streets by the smells of the rubbish, the piss-marked stones, the birdshit encrusted buildings. I did not know how different things would be in our new home, of course, none of us did. But I sensed that my carefree childhood was over, and so I stood and waited. And as I waited, I could see a distant van approaching.

I thought at first it was our removal van but as it drew nearer I noticed that the sides of the van were wire mesh and inside it were sheep, all tightly packed in like a woolly jigsaw puzzle. The van slowed down and parked outside our block of flats and the driver got out. There was writing on the side of the van just below the wire mesh, it read ‘Dolly Enterprises.’ This, then, was the company that now owned our home but I could see no signs of children’s toys or hear any country and western music. Just these sheep, now all baa-ing at each other and at the driver. Although I’d hardly ever seen an actual live sheep before, somehow I could tell that they were hungry. It was in the glint of their eyes as they glared at me. And their eyes were all identical, as indeed was the rest of them with their tightly-curled woolly fleeces, their chorus of angry baa-noises and their flashing eyes. I stepped back, well away from the van.

The man looked a bit confused when he saw me standing there, ‘They told me you lot’d be gone by now.’

‘We’re just waiting,’ I told him, ‘won’t be long.’

‘No matter. They don’t care,’ and he gestured to the vans’ occupiers. Then he went around the back and slid back a bolt so that the mesh slowly swung open and a ramp slid down to the road. The sheep nuzzled each other for a bit, as if trying to encourage each other to make the first move. Then one, perhaps the boldest, started down the ramp with a loud clatter. After that, they all followed, about twenty of them.

I was astonished. ‘What are you doing?’ I asked the man, ‘You can’t let sheep loose here, there’s no grass for them.’

But even as I watched, I noticed the first sheep trot over to the nearest mountain of binbags and start to nibble at an opening in the plastic. A gull perched on one of the bags tried to stand its ground, but soon gave up and flew off. The sheep stuck its head right into the bag and I watched as it started chewing the contents. Chip wrappers, Mars bar wrappers, Irn Bru cans, they all disappeared into the sheep’s open mouth, ground up by its capable teeth. Indeed, I noticed that its teeth were extraordinarily large. It was probably a special breed. Again, the other sheep followed and soon they were all standing around quite contentedly eating, the way I’ve often seen farmyard animals tucking into a bale of hay up here in this Godforsaken place.

A few minutes afterwards our own removals van showed up so I couldn’t carry on watching. But later, as we were driven out of the city, I noticed lots of similar vans to the first one, all driving around the otherwise almost empty streets. And distant flocks of sheep, nibbling at chip wrappers and other rubbish strewn on the pavements.

And that, my child, was our last day in the city. Listen carefully, so you can one day tell your children and your children’s children so they may know why we’ve been exiled to this place and just how bad it was when we first arrived here.

And as you listen, you might as well get on with the grinding of the oats so we may have bread tonight. Here, let me pass you the wooden bowl and the pestle. Oh, how I yearn for a slice of white tin!

Our journey up north took longer than expected and when we finally arrived my dear papa was disheartened to see just how much work our future home would need. Why, nobody could have lived here for over a hundred years! The roof had completely caved in and the walls were covered in moss. And there had clearly never been a bathroom. But we’d been allocated a caravan to stay in while we completed the renovations, so we just had to get on with it.

And we had a few packets of seeds to get the vegetable patch going. Oh, it was tough, nothing but home-grown kale and spuds with deliveries of oatmeal and herring from the city to tide us over while we found our feet. My dear papa remembered some recipes from his old granny, and after that we got on a little better. You just have to adapt to your surroundings, he kept telling us, right up until the day he died of a surfeit of porridge.

And now, my child, this Godforsaken place is full of people, all trying to grow their vegetables. We’ve no more contact with the dear green place, apart from the regular parcels of lamb chops and mutton sent to us by the city’s owners. It still tastes a bit metallic, like licking a teaspoon, even after the fat’s trimmed. But I suppose you’ve never known anything different, have you?

The meat’s certainly very cheap. The sheep seem to have settled in quite happily, by all accounts.