NEW BEGINNINGS

Alexander McCall Smith feels uplifted by one Highland community’s efforts to revitalise the area for youngsters

McCall Smith sees a glimmer of hope for youngsters in Morvern

Morvern is one of those parts of the Highlands where the blight of excessive tourism – the thing reducing Edinburgh to a tawdry theme park – has not been felt. Tobermory and other parts of Mull may be awash in the summer with tourists but Morvern, a large peninsula that even many Scots may be hard pressed to locate on the map, is still a real place. It has its visitors, but they tend to stay for at least a week, engage in wildlife-spotting and walking, and are accommodated by estates such as remote Rahoy or Ardtornish, a model provider of integrated hospitality.

Visitors to Morvern tend to wear green, are aware of the midge issue, and do not look aggrieved when it rains. Some of them, I believe, actually come for the rain.

But, as we all know, Highland communities cannot survive on scenery, and Morvern, like all such places off the beaten track, battles to survive as a viable place for younger people to make their life. When we first came here over a decade ago, there was a rather forlorn feeling to the place.

There were a few enterprises, Glensanda Quarry – a major exporter of stone – being the largest, and a sand mine at Lochaline, which produces a high quality sand used in the optical industry. Apart from that there was not much. There was an excellent local store; there was the ferry to Fishnish, on Mull, which provided a handful of jobs; there was the Forestry Commission, which often used contractors from elsewhere; and there were a few estates.

There were one or two other small concerns – a dive centre, for instance – but any business trying to establish itself was faced with a major logistics issue: Morvern is far from any market for any products or services.

Then something seemed to change. The mine eventually found new owners and was reinvigorated, once again providing jobs for truck drivers and other operators of machinery. A large hydro-power scheme was opened at Ardtornish, enabling the estate to diversify its activities and invest. Pontoons were built on Loch Aline, attracting yachts in the summer, and offering cruising yachtsmen much-needed showers.

In the village of Lochaline, the Whitehouse Restaurant opened, concentrated on locally-sourced food, and promptly started to win every available award, year after year. Then, up at the end of the Drimnin Road, a new whisky distillery started to distil, joining the other new distillery in the area, on the other shore of Loch Sunart. Drimnin Estate also started to support the arts, holding regular concerts of classical music in its restored chapel.

There was building too – of both affordable and unaffordable houses. An imaginative and inspirational architect, Roderick James, who lives in Morvern, enthused others to build sensitively. Roderick then started constructing futuristic space pods in which people could come and stay if they so desired. They did. And the community at large joined in, creating woodland facilities and planning a major community hydroelectric scheme. And in the meantime, the historian Iain Thornber continued to entertain his readers in the Oban Times with stories of Morvern’s past.

But did this tiny, unsung Scottish renaissance have any effect on younger people? Well, here’s a good story, and it features an enterprising young man, the son of the keeper at Ardtornish.

Jamie Boult was brought up here and wants to stay. He went off to Napier University in Edinburgh, where he studied product design. While he was at Napier, he decided to join an expedition to climb Kilimanjaro.

That is always a good sign, I think. If somebody wants to climb Kilimanjaro and then actually does it – and we all talk about climbing Kilimanjaro and never do so – then that indicates that he or she is going to make a success of life. Jamie went off and climbed Kilimanjaro and then climbed down again.

After that he graduated and to his great credit returned to Morvern. It would have been easy enough, I imagine, to slip into a job in a large city somewhere – product designers are, after all, sought after.

Jamie is a keeper’s son in a part of Scotland known for its deer and would therefore be expected to have seen his share of antlers and empty cartridges. It occurred to him these things might be put to good use – in particular by being made into gifts for men. Jamie sat down and designed a whole range of cuff links, key fobs, belts, and kilt pins using antlers, slate, and metal cartridge bases. He also designed earrings and kilt pins for women.

The story might have had a disappointing ending. So many small businesses fail, but Jamie and his partner, India, have gone from strength to strength and this small business, located in a backyard workshop overlooking the Sound of Mull, sells its Scottish products in over 150 stores.

I find Jamie’s story heartening. There are still ways in which people can make a living in the Highlands without over-reliance on tourism. Such businesses are tender flowers, but they can work. In Morvern there is a tiny renaissance going on.

“We all know Highland communities cannot survive on scenery