But John, you don’t understand. Meghan Markle was sent here to destroy the fabric of our society..
Three generations of family benefit from mine extracting precious metal
We’ve all had to take steps to safeguard our mental health during the pandemic, haven’t we? I’ve even started to emulate my mum, a woman who will routinely change the channel or leave the room when the news comes on.
I’ve gone from being a bit of a news addict to more of a casual news user. We used to wake up to BBC Breakfast on the TV and then have Radio 4 on in the kitchen. I’d check breaking news on my various phone apps on-and-off for most of the day and spend the weekend poring over the newspapers.
But these days – when we live in a time where simply thinking that poor people shouldn’t be burned alive in order to fund tax cuts is enough to make you a bit of a lefty – I’ve had to work to reduce it.
You’ll see a headline saying that our Government, who chucked billions to private companies run by their buddies, are only giving a one per cent pay rise to the NHS workers they’ve spent the last year saluting and you think, “Nope, can’t deal with that level of rage today.”
Scrolling through Twitter, you’ll see the latest lunatic thing that’s been said at CPAC – the American far-right convention that just took place – and say to yourself, “Nah, not getting involved. Leave them to it.”
Or you’ll be on Facebook and see that someone you went to school with is now an anti-mask nutcase, ranting about how
Covid is a hoax and Bill Gates will soon control us all. And you’ll quickly shut the laptop.
Like mum, I turn the page or change the channel or scroll on, in an attempt to preserve my sanity.
But, now and then, something reaches a fever pitch in this country where it becomes difficult to ignore. g It’s onn every news channel, it’s on thehe front cover of all the newspapersspapers when you’re tryingng to enjoy a rare visit to thee supermarket. It’s everyy other tweet or Facebookbook posting you comee across. What kind of seismicmic event does this?
Whathat a young married ried couple le choosese to do withwi their life. It has always been the most mind-boggling thing to me that people – grown adults – can holdh furious, vehement opiniopinions about what members of the RRoyal Family get up to. But never in my life have I seen it as crazecrazed as it is when it comes to HarrHarry and Meghan. It gets so bad that yyou even start meeting these peoppeople in real life.
A fewf months back, during one of the bbrief respites in lockdown, I had a rouround of golf with a friend and a couplcouple of his pals, who I did not know. NowNow, one of the vagaries of playing golf is that, now and then, you’ll get partnered up with people who have what we can safely call “odd” views. As a rule, it’s a good idea to avoid politics. Especially down here in the south-east of England, a place rammed with people who affectionately call Johnson “Boris”, who think he’s doing a good job and who would take less pleasure than you or I would from seeing him clapped in the stocks and pelted with rotting fruit. (Or, even better, un-ripe, very hard potatoes. Turnips like rocks.)
Anyway, after a few holes, the name nam “Meghan Markle” came up up. “Ah,” said this guy, “I really ca can’t stand her.” Indeed, he did no not like her. He began to go on at astonishinga length about why and how much he did not like her. He seemed to know an incredible amount of detail about her private life, family history and so on. His vehemence and rage built and built as he fairly worked himself up into a lather. I guess he thought that because of who and where I was – white, middle-aged, on an expensive golf course outside London on a weekday afternoon – I’d be inclined to agree with him that Meghan Markle was indeed Satan sent here to destroy us.
Finally, I turned to him and asked what any sane person would have been dying to ask at this point: “What the hell is wrong with you?”
He looked at me. “Eh? What do you mean? Can you hear yourself?” I said. “You sound like a teenager who’s obsessed with some pop star who has beef with their favourite pop star. You sound absolutely deranged.”
“No, no, you don’t understand what she’s like…”
He was off again. A 50-year-old man on a golf course, ranting and raving about a young woman he does not know. Who he will never meet. Whose life choices impact on his life in no way whatsoever.
Who radicalised this guy, I wondered? Probably the usual combination of the Daily Mail and Piers Morgan, those twin taps of sewage forever pouring into the national consciousness.
I half-listened as he went on (and on) while we walked up the fairway. “And that was how she treated her own father, so can you imagine what she’ll end up doing to Harry? Of course, she just came over here to bag herself a prince. Apparently, when she was on Suits…”
I tuned out until I became aware he had asked me a question, that an actual response was now required. “Sorry?” I said.
“What do you think?” he repeated. I put my hand on his shoulder. “Mate, I think you need to give up golf. Give it up and put every spare penny you have into finding a decent psychiatrist. Because you’ve driven yourself insane. You’ve gone mad, you know? And it’s going to take many, many months, probably years, of therapy for you to get over this.” I walked off.
After the round, in the bar, he said to our mutual friend: “Christ, that John. Bit of a lefty, isn’t he?”
If only you could just change the channel, or scroll on, in real life, eh?
Scotland’s first commercial gold mine is up and running – more than three decades after farmer John Burton told the Sunday Mail he was “sitting on a gold mine”.
The mine, dug into the mountainside on John’s farm at Cononish near Tyndrum, Stirlingshire, is estimated to contain up to 200,000 ounces of gold, worth about £200million at today’s prices.
Located deep inside Beinn Chuirn in Loch Lomond and the Trossachs National Park, it has had a complicated birth, changing hands between investors and potential operators since 1985.
But in November last year, the mine, now owned by Australian firm Scotgold, poured its first bar of molten gold and in the next few weeks the processing plant will swing into action, turning the extracted mineral into sel lable precious metal.
It has been a long process and John, now 83, whose son Davy, 53, and grandson Conor, 20, both work at the mine, is delighted he is still around to see the venture come to fruition. The farmer, whose family’s story features in a new BBC Scotland documentary Gold Town, said: “Today has been a long time in coming. About as early as 1962, there was spots of gold, flakes of gold, in the river but we never, ever thought it would come to anything.
“In 1983, a geologist came to the house and said he represented a firm that would be very interested in drawing up an agreement with me to let them mine on my land.
“He didn’t actually say what minerals he was looking for but it transpired very shortly after that it was gold they were after. This early interest in my land resulted in a gold mine being approved by Stirling Council back in the mid-80s.
“I ended up on the front of the Sunday Mail, which I shared with Joan Collins. There is a picture of me with the headline ‘I found a gold mine’ and just above is a story about Joan and Britain’s bad girls.”
John, who is married to Deirdre, added:
“I don’t own the rights to the gold but the rent I receive from the mining company for use of my land is far higher than what I would get if I let it for agricultural use.
“It’s great to see it up and running. It has become a real family affair. Both my son and grandson work there.”
After getting approval, work on digging the tunnel into the hillside began but when the price of gold dropped dramatically in 1997, the mining company pulled out.
Current owner Scotgold took over the site in 2007 and has spent the years since battling to obtain planning permission to turn it into a working mine.
The green light for developing the mine was rubber stamped by the board of the National Park in 2011 and the company hope to extract £25million worth of gold and silver over the next nine years.
Twenty-five per cent of the gold will be processed on site and wi l l carry a Scottish hallmark – a stag’s head in a triangle, stamped by an assay office in Edinburgh – allowing it to be marketed as Scottish gold.
Crown Estate Scotland owns the rights to naturally occurring minerals in this area of the country, so four per cent of the money made selling the gold will go to the Crown.
The mine has already boosted employment in the farming area and it is hoped the workforce will increase to 70 once the processing plant is in full swing this spring.
The three-part BBC Scotland series, which starts tonight at 9pm, follows the miners in the f raught and problem-laden 18-month run-up to the mine opening.
From planning permission issues and bad weather to injuries and Covid, it has been a difficult and uncertain time for Scotgold, which didn’t make a penny until the first gold was poured on November 30, 2020, despite sinking millions into the project.
John’s son Davy led the team of miners who dug the 16km of shaft tunnels into the Dalradian rock formation and is now maintenance supervisor at the processing plant.
The dad of two said: “It’s been a rocky