The Courier & Advertiser (Fife Edition)
Nature lifts a sombre mood
Abonny riverside walk along the bank of the River South Esk, starting opposite Cortachy Castle’s gates, through an arboretum established around 1850, takes you to Dykehead at the junction of Glen Clova and Glen Prosen. Earlier, the Doyenne took an executive decision and we jumped in the car and headed for Kirriemuir.
Throughout the north-east, indeed Scotland as a whole, we have benefited from the influence of progressive 18th Century agricultural improvers who brought about a land revolution. They had the vision to plant out vast arboretums with species of exotic and specimen trees to enhance their home policies, knowing they would not live to see the glory of their foresight but content that succeeding generations would.
We should be mindful of the legacy our forebears passed to us to hold and pass on to succeeding generations – we owe our thanks to their enterprise. They could see in their mind’s eye the mature trees occupying their place in the landscape. I remember saying as much to another dog walker I once met in the woods at The Burn, near Edzell. Her reply was that “they knew what it meant to lift the soul just by looking at nature”. It’s the sort of remark you wish you’d made yourself.
At this time of year the arboretum, which is laid out with stands of ornamental conifers, is a riot of colour of yellow, bright orange, deep red and pink azaleas and rhododendrons all in full bloom.
The first sight of it is a high bank of fizzing colour. The well maintained track winds between the noble trees and at each turn you’re faced with yet more banks of colour. Some go down to the riverside, others are vivid blocks of what a reader described as romantic heaven.
Like its namesake the North Esk, the river level was very low but the washed out remains of a stone bridge showed how wild it can get in spate conditions.
A dipper perched on a rock midstream. They have waterproof feathers and are our only aquatic songbird, walking along river bottoms in their search for food. They are entertaining little birds with dark plumage and a white bib, like plump music hall head waiters. Their call is a sweet, thin whistle – tszit-tszit-tszit – and it dipped and curtseyed to us before remembering something important and flying off downstream with rapid beats of its short wings.
Dying words
Still awash with romantic heaven we took a look round the Cortachy Parish Church graveyard, presided over by ancient yew trees. The red sandstone church stands on a promontory overlooking the river and was completed in 1828 by the 7th Earl of Airlie. A plaque at the rear of the church records it replaced an earlier building built in 1614.
Churchyards are archives of fascinating and social comment whose silent, graven memorials rarely dwell on the deceased’s frailties or flaws. The expressions of immortality represented on some of the more ambitious headstones, statuary obelisks – mausoleums even for the great and good – tell how the living wished their departed to be remembered.
Many of the headstones are old and so covered in lichen it’s hard to read their dedications but one dated 1815 caught my eye – the year of the Battle of Waterloo. On the reverse side of another, marking the grave of an old farmer, is inscribed a cautionary admonition.
“Remember man as you pass by, / As you are now so once was I, / As I am now so you must be, / Prepare thyself to follow me.”
The Doyenne noticed the description of “relict” on another stone. I explained that the deceased had been the widow of a predeceasing husband. She – the Doyenne, that is – said she’d rather not be a relict – which was a generous thought, but it left me in a bit of a pickle. I realised I’d have to learn to iron my own shirts. I’m not sure I’m prepared for such grown-up living.
A couple of gravestones are carved with skull and crossbones, symbolic of death and mortality, which has its roots in early religious tradition. As every schoolboy knows it was adopted by pirates as a symbol on their black flags – the Jolly Roger. Nothing very jolly about it as the pirates ran it up their masts to strike fear into their victims when they were about to attack them and make them walk the plank.
Not so well known is the connection with the Crusades, the 12th and 13th Century religious wars between Christians and Muslims. When a knight died in battle attacking the walls of Jerusalem, his body could not be returned to his family for burial in the family vault. His skull and thigh bones had the flesh boiled off them and were sent home to represent the whole cadaver for interment.
The Doyenne says I’ve been rather sombre this week. I tell her sombre times occasion sombre responses.
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At this time of year...the arboretum is a riot of colour of yellow, bright orange, deep red and pink azaleas and rhododendrons all in full bloom