Hello, and welcome to a sweltering July issue of the Voice!
The political events in June have been heating up too and we have witnessed over the last month, and perhaps particularly over the last week, some baffling decisions by those in power. A couple of the articles we have, one by Mike Small and another by Janet Fenton consider the issues of Heathrow expansion and de-nuclearisation respectively. Amid these towering problems are the grassroots actions and protests by people trying to make sense of such incomprehensible situations.
So during the voting at Westminster last Tuesday night on the expansion of Heathrow, protesters staged a ‘lie-in’ in Parliament. Their message was clear – ‘we can’t tackle huge environmental issues and build a third runway’. Two days later the parliamentary Committee for Climate Change published its annual report which declared the UK was not on course to meet its carbon targets. Even without airport expansion this was going to be tricky.
Alongside the Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un summit, and the British government declaring they will need to spend extra billions on the defence budget to keep up with the threat posed by Russia, at the beginning of last week more than 40 campaigners under the banner of Trident Ploughshares, chained themselves to the railings outside the Houses of Parliament in London. They demanded that the UK Government sign the nuclear ban treaty to get rid of “these horrific weapons” and “denuclearise the world”. And in the last few days hundreds of protesters have gathered at the Undersea Defence Technology conference taking place in Glasgow. Glasgow council has now apparently declared they will never host an Arms Fair in the city again.
Some smaller but no less significant campaign successes are seen in this issue with the news from John Kinsman that Cal Mac are taking their plastic reduction further and will no longer stock disposable plastic cups, individual milk portions or sauce sachets. The company had already stopped supplying plastic straws earlier in the year. The new walkway and automatic door system may not work very often but there is tangible joy to be had at least in pouring milk into your tea from the big stainless steel jugs they now provide! Anyway we hope you enjoy the mixture of news, reviews and previews in this issue, among the problematic political mysteries taking place in the world, and have a good July too!
An article by Mike Small, writing in Bella Caledonia, on the recent vote by MPs in Westminster to expand Heathrow airport, a decision with enormous implications for the government's commitment to cutting carbon emissions and for the
This isn’t really about Boris, who we know is a liar and a hypocrite and a coward. This is a multi-party failure, a generational disgrace and a deluded fantastical boost to the hyper-capitalism that is destroying our planet. The vote for Heathrow Expansion is a travesty but it is a revealing one about our cultural and institutional failure. The emissions figures are staggering and I will trot them out again shortly, but the lack of innovation, foresight or ambition is possibly more so, and the realisation that as a society – and as individuals – we are just locked into a set of beliefs which will destroy us.
A recent report from the Zero Waste Scotland website, explaining the new technologies and methods utilised at one recycling plant in Perthshire and which may pave the way to resolving Scotland's plastic recycling problems...
Project Beacon is lighting the way to a circular world of complete plastics recycling thanks to new technologies and an innovative integrative approach.
There’s no one alive today who can remember Leo Baekeland unveiling the first fully synthetic plastic, Bakelite. But we’re surrounded by the consequences of his work. Bakelite was a pioneering material that used nothing organic, was heat resistant and could be moulded into thousands of shapes. It heralded the era of modern synthetic plastics that are now everywhere in our lives – as toys, sticky tape, vacuum cleaners, plane and car interiors, chopping boards, the ubiquitous food packaging and a whole lot more.
Launch of the Film "Shore" by Invisible Dust - Free Screenings!
On Friday, July 20, 2018 at 01:00 pm and Friday, July 27, 2018 at 04:00 pm
Shore – an ambitious multi-arts and science project reflecting Scotland's coastal communities’ responses to Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) - will launch in Brodick on the Isle of Arran in the Screen Machine mobile cinema on Friday 20th July. Produced by Invisible Dust, Shore aims to spark Scotland-wide conversations about “how we see the sea” and the role of MPAs in preserving or ‘shoring up’ our endangered aquatic worlds. The launch event in Brodick takes place in partnership with COAST (Community of Arran Seabed Trust)...
New lesson available for schools & training for volunteer speakers
We are delighted to announce a new lesson for schools entitled "Survivors' Stories". This will run between end of August and end of October and will be available to secondary schools and other groups & organisations in Scotland.
The talk will include video testimonies from Hibakusha and nuclear testing survivors as well as general information on nuclear weapons and their effects.
We are inviting members and supporters to approach school teachers to book a talk in their schools after the holidays (History, Modern Studies, Moral Education) to mark the International Day of Peace and the Hiroshima/Nagasaki Anniversary.
Writing for Bella Caledonia on the eve of the historic summit between Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un on 11th June in Singapore, Janet Fenton, SCND and ICAN peace activist and campaigner, considers the possibilities for global peace. While the summit was primarily focused on North Korea denuclearizing, the responsibility is upon all the nuclear nations to follow the UN Treaty for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW), which was ratified last year.
On Saturday the 30th June, Arran Coastal Rowing Club rowed a relay around Arran in the St Ayles skiff Seabhag. Starting in Lamlash at 5:30am and returning just before 8:25pm, there were crew changes in Kildonan, Blackwaterfoot, Dougarie, Lochranza & Sannox.
With news that the distillery at Lagg will be opening next spring, local historian Jim Henderson sent the Voice an historical account of the illicit distilling industry in Arran in the early 19th Century.
The website for the new distillery says that the Parish of Kilmory and the surrounding area of the island was a hotbed of whisky production, both legal and illicit, during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. This social history of the new distillery will inform the style of whisky that will be produced at Lagg. The distillery says that the single malt will be heavily-peated in a style reminiscent of the original Arran whiskies and quite distinctive from The Arran Malt produced at the distillery in Lochranza.
CALEDONIAN MACBRAYNE TO REDUCE ITS PLASTIC WASTE FURTHER
A ferry operator is to stop using plastic cups, individual milk portions and sauce sachets to reduce the waste in produces. Caledonian MacBrayne announced earlier this year it was replacing plastic straws with paper ones on all its sailings. Replacing the other items with reusable cups, jugs of milk and sauce dispensers is a further step in waste reduction. The company's decision on plastic straws followed it signing up to the #Naestrawataw campaign launched by Glasgow's Sunnyside Primary School.
The following article is Part One, from a recent blog series from Open Seas, a charitable organisation which campaigns for sustainable practices in Scottish seas and the marine environment.
Scotland’s seas are packed full of amazing life – the basking sharks that migrate to our west coast each summer are the world’s second largest fish, the Bass Rock is the world’s largest gannet colony and the cold water coral gardens on the Hebridean Slope hold some of the oldest living creatures on the planet.
Some of the species that live in our seas are not just important in themselves; just like the redwood forests of the Pacific Northwest or the heather of our own peat bogs, they create and maintain the structure of our interconnected marine habitats. The latest blog series from Open Seas looks at where those species live, where they used to live and understand what the future may hold for them…
With the ongoing community campaigns against salmon farming expansion in Scotland, here is some useful information for consumers on Scottish Salmon certification from the Best Fishes website, a project set up by Fidra, an environmental charity based in East Lothian. Their aim is to help consumers make more sustainable decisions regarding the salmon we eat, by providing us with information regarding certification labels and publishing which retailers sell certified salmon. See their website for more information about this. Below is a table showing the current certification schemes. With thanks to Sue Weaver for pointing the Voice in the direction of the work of Fidra.
"Jean, my elder sister has died after a difficult six months for her and her children. At her funeral last week in Devon, Amanda, her eldest, my niece and goddaughter read the following poems. They are quite beautiful and profound for us all in our own lives, as we live each day.” Sally Campbell
IF –
I should live a long, long time, and hold honesty of conscience above honesty of purse;
And turn aside without ostentation to aid the weak;
And treasure ideals more than ambitions;
And track no man to his undeserved hurt;
And pursue no woman to her tears;
And love the beauty of mist-veiled mountains – blossoming valleys - winding rivers – and azure seas;
And when swinging in the topmost branches of lofty trees –
See visions of beautiful things.
COAST and TAP Arran got together to show this stunning film, by Chris Jordan, screened on 23rd June at the Arran High School.
The film highlights the lives and deaths of the huge numbers of albatross breeding on Midway Island in the North Pacific. The film maker came to prominence when he published shocking photographs of the contents of the stomachs of many baby albatross from 2009. He was then drawn back again and again to make this 90 minute documentary.
There Will Be Blood (USA 2007 Directed by Paul Anderson 158 mins Cert 15) will be shown at the Corrie Film club on Sunday 8th July.
A powerful drama featuring a riveting performance by Daniel Day-Lewis, the movie tells the story of a silver miner turned oilman during the Southern Californian oil boom of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
There Will Be Blood is Paul Anderson's loose adaptation of the novel Oil! by Upton Sinclair, and it focuses its attentions on Daniel Plainview (Daniel Day-Lewis), a miner who happens upon black gold during a disastrous excavation that ends in a broken leg. Pulling himself up from the bowels of the earth, both literally and metaphorically, Plainview embarks on a systematic and steadfast approach to mastering the oil business.
Join author and cultural historian Lynn Holden for an informal evening of ghost stories and other-worldly tales. Lynn will read extracts from her current work-in-progress, A Cultural History of Ghost Stories. She will be exploring, in particular, ghost stories in Jewish folklore such as that of the dybbuk, as well as looking at various other mythologies that have existed in different cultures throughout history.
You'll be able to share your experiences and stories, and learn to use them to inspire your own vivid ghost story during the writing workshop that Lynn Holden will lead.
Shutters, broken,
firewood, a rake, a wrought-
iron bed, the torch-lit
rafters of the lumber-room,
you showing me
one bird tucked in a home-
made bracket of spittle
and earth, while its mate slept
perched on the rim, at an angle
exact as a raised latch.
by Kathleen Jamie
Kathleen Jamie was born in Renfrewshire in 1962 and is widely admired as one of Scotland’s foremost poets. As well as a poet she is an essayist and travel writer and in books like her genre-breaking prose collection’Findings’ her talent for precise observation has found a wider audience. ‘The Swallow’s Nest’ is taken from her collection ‘The Tree House’ (Picador 2004). Words and poem selected by David Underdown.
The sun shone down on a friendly bunch of musicians on Arran last weekend, as the annual Folk festival once again played out in Brodick. Open music sessions at the Douglas were packed with both musicians and listeners alike. Our very own 'Uncle' Keith Robertson was the MC adding his own injection of humor and fun to the afternoons and making sure that everyone got a shot.
The lovely Tim Pomeroy played melodic songs, singing beautifully as always with harmonies provided by local carer 'Lou'. Lou also sang a wee set of songs with potter Simon Thorburn producing a great sound together. There were guitarists, banjo players, flutists and whistles and of course fiddlers as well as singers, including Al Paul and his son Mungo as well as the super talented Bethany Walsh who brought two of her musical friends from Edinburgh with her.
