neighbourhoods

I must admit that while I am not fond of the whole of Aberdeen, I do very much like my neighbourhood -- Old Aberdeen (once a burgh unto itself!). Still a little grey, still definitely made of granite, but with a little more variation in colour. Moss saturates the stone walls, & old trees twist around the buildings on campus... It's not quite so harsh and monolithic as downtown. (Bad Aberdeen joke #1: A dark grey square labeled 'downtown Aberdeen on a sunny day'.) But here in the Auld Toon, even the standard flats have a little more character, it seems. Above is King's College -- the chapel with its crown tower and golden Latin inscriptions (see below) which is attached to the college proper, where I attend my Anthropology of the North seminar. The lawn is ever green, and overgrown seagulls patrol the quad for leftover lunches, strutting about the statue of Bishop Elphinstone, the founder of the University (1495), on his pall.

All of these pictures are taken on the High Street, which runs right through the middle of campus. I live one street over, on Elphinstone Road... I really should take some pictures there. My building of flats is much newer, and is pink & brown, but not as unpleasant as that sounds. However (for multiple reasons) I would be rather happy to live in one of the delightful cottages nearby. I covet these spaces rather dearly. A friend in my program lives in a little flat that's actually a converted garden shed building, with a wide window that looking onto a rather spacious garden & the hutch of his rabbit. He has bunk beds & a stray piano, that came with the room = envy. Then there's my favourite flat of all, the one with the stone owls in the window, that looks onto a courtyard with a reflecting pool, & a wall with climbing red-leafed vines & an iridescent mosaic.

Contrary to bad Aberdeen joke #2 ("Why do you have to wear a spacesuit in Aberdeen? Because there's no atmosphere!") I find my neighbourhood at least to be rather cozy & full of character. It feels rich, steeped in knowledge & traditions of learning. There's a sense of history, of the town's importance in political, religious & educational matters for the last 800 years. It's calm, even as people mill about all day, as buses clunk along the cobblestones. Chapel bells ring every hour, & ceilidhs are held in Elphinstone Hall (part of the old college building) nearly every weekend evening, so there is always music, singing, & (often kilted) people wandering about. Tiny little shops are scattered along the High Street in between University offices: the St. Machar Bar (which is old & traditional & unfortunately very tiny & slightly claustrophobia-inducing) & Blackwells' books, a bakery, a coffeeshop, a bank, a newsstand.

There's the rain-pool portal to the puddle-universe version of the Powis gates... through them lies more residences, as well as Zeste, the little café-bistro. (Delightful paninis, e.g. brie + green onions + pear chutney) Keep on going southward past the gates up High Street & you'll arrive at Spital Walk, and the Old Aberdeen Bookstore, which is probably my favourite used bookshop ever. I think there are bookshelves in there, but really it's just like stepping into pillars of floor-to-ceiling books. Books are nestled on top of more books, behind & around & under & through... & if you look behind a row of books, you often find another row hidden in behind... Amazing anthropology/cultural history section... naturalist books... decent modern, mostly British fiction, too, & language books a-plenty. Past a mosque, glorious old stone houses, the green-tinted gates of a classic cemetery... & then at the top of the hill is Khyber Pass. (Mattar paneer. Vegetable korma. Garlic naan. Nom.) If you come visit me, I'll take you on a tour of the whole neighbourhood, from the River Don and the Brig O' Balgownie through to the edge at Mounthooly and downtown, and you won't even have to pay me 6 pounds 50.

Looking south down High Street on campus, late Sunday afternoon last week. Note the uneven ankle-spraining cobblestones of doom.

Adjacent to the Old Aberdeen/University area is the Tillydrone (from 'tulach droigne', a knoll of thorn trees in Gaelic) neighbourhood... Ironically located just over the railway tracks, it's the place where I was told quite early on to avoid -- the typical 'don't go there after dark, no, don't go there ever, those are the Tillydrone Towers, crack heroin meth, don't go down that road, even taxi drivers won't go down that road, stabbings gangs brothels ghetto granite tenements of doom', etc. (It's the place that due to its perceived high drug use and preponderance of speakers of Doric dialect of Scots, gives rise to Bad Aberdeen joke #3: What's an Aberdonian's favourite drug? Ken fit a' mean!*)

*Doric for 'Know what I mean?', oft-repeated conversational phrase: Ken = know, fit = what (generally in Doric the wh turns to f), a' = I, etc.

Aberdeen's always been an industrial port city... dependent on fishing, mining of granite from the quarries -- oil's just more of the same. It's hurt a lot of people, though, bringing the stresses of rapid growth on the city... The influx of North Sea oil rig workers with disposable income for alcohol & hard drugs, a penchant for prostitution & assault (echoes of Fort McMurray...) combined with the desperation of locals trying to find space to carve out a life leads to a harsh atmosphere. (It often inspires me to create snarky rejoinders in my head to the many people who've told me not to go to places in Northern Canada, because they're 'too depressing, so poor & full of alcohol & drug abuse etc etc' but gotten all sparkly-eyed & supportive of me going to the lovely/romantic/quaint/glorious dear auld sod of Scotland)

It's easy to get caught in that dichotomy if you don't look much beyond the surface, focusing on the sordid tales of exploitation & desolation. But, as in many places that are stigmatized and scapegoated by outsiders, Tillydrone, and other neighbourhoods like Northfield and Torry nurture very vibrant communities as well -- this book of interviews and oral histories, a little mini-ethnography, was created by an artist working for the local Peacock Visual Arts collective. Tillydrone's one of seven neighbourhoods that have been designated a 'regeneration area' by the city of Aberdeen, but this book is more about the internal regeneration by the citizens themselves. People are forming communities & belongings everywhere, warm & persistent & tenacious, & home.