Highland Journey (1957)

[Music] [Music] these are the highlands the Scottish Highland a land for wildlife for the D the grouse the hay and in even lonelier places the golden eagle a land of few people but hardly one and whenever you go about the world you will meet folk whose forefathers were men of these mountains and of these Glenny the magic of this their true country always stays with them and calls for their return it calls to to all those who seek a new vision at the edge of a world for all of them the road best to travel is one which goes north and with these are the roads of the Far Horizons the roads that have no way [Music] take any one of half a dozen routes going north out of England and you arrived in Scotland over the border you find yourself first in the lowland Hills and then soon the sickly populated Midland plane with Glasgow in the West and Edinburgh in the east these two cities stand at the entrance to the islands edinburgh zoo commanding position between lowland and highland and a TVC routes to the european continent have made it the center of many past struggles the ancient castle almost Mary Queen of Scots and many more of our sovereigns is built on the rock which has looked down for century after century on the coming and going of adventurers victus tribes Roman Garrison's Danish pirates section kings and normal merchants nowadays it feeds voyagers of a different kind every year now more and more of our excels cross the border and come back visiting along the Highland Road the road upon which they are their ancestors set out in formal days along with them come many who claim no kinship of blood with Scotland but who perhaps have something of the exile in them too [Music] for them it is the beginning of their adventure back along the roads to the hills road tour denote by drovers bringing their cattle to the rich subtle markets roads which have known the march of Scottish army against Scott Scottish army against English and away on the coasts Scottish army against Viking for 200 miles working its way by narrow Glen's and over mountain passes over lonely moles and by rich forests the road strikes through to the Atlantic Ocean to the islands of our north and way [Music] villages of whitewashed houses by a Burnside was the mountains leaning over mark where people have stayed since the first clan tales were told pausing while they refreshed themselves at the gateways to the Highland Castle here at killin travelers have always found hospitality and rest after the climb from the lowland plain [Music] out of Edinburgh even in the first few miles the countryside changes rapidly beyond sterling the mountains rise chakra to form a natural barrier both road and rail push through God is so narrow that it's hardly room for both tracks side by side they run from killing to Gregg Araki where the road goes directly to the west leaving the railway to find a lonely way to the north across the moor of running the most desolate Moor in all Scotland a mysterious place abandoned to the sheep and deer within lock-ins repeating the sky a famous Road clutched it making for the sea by way of Glencoe Glencoe there was a slaughter of innocents here once more than two and a half centuries ago the MacDonalds have never forgotten and the Campbells have never been forgiven but the present adhere to Glencoe village is now best known as a mountaineering centre from here you can set out to climb rock faces like those of buccal lettuce whose 3,000 feet can test even the toughest of Mountaineers although it is not perhaps so much toughness of the body as of the mind and the pleasure that the climber finds is indeed Alumnus with nature and the knowledge of his power over it the feeling shared by the crafter and the fisherman and all others in this country who gained a living in a contest with nature [Music] [Applause] [Music] you reach the summit and a way to the horizon you are challenged again by pique upon peak above all to the North's then nervous with its frequency is Lachlan a rush his mighty sword into the cloud then nebbish got the entrance to the great blend of Scotland a geological crack that cuts the highlands into three locks lie in a chain along the Glen from coast to coast 450 miles from the Atlantic to the North Sea the Great Glen slashes Scotland apart long before history the first men who crossed Scotland came this way through a jungle of forest and profiting their boats between the logs today the Caledonian canal links them together and boats now climb up and down across country from one key to the other coastal fishermen who make up one of our great industries often take this way but it saves them along Wales passage ronk a broth in the north [Music] these are men from the Western Isles now after a season in the North Sea they are on their way west and home going north and west again by land there is a mountain road to the sea out of the great blend into Glengarry over the mountain passes of Cluny and glenn cheales it swoops down to the coast at lookout to the shoals of the Isle of Skye [Music] from Argyll not to here this area was anciently all that the Scots possessed of Scotland in this sparsely peopled land still only a few painfully engineered roads run through the mountains mountains which in their isolation 200 years ago sheltered Bonnie Prince Charlie defeated and deserted a king's ransom on his head for blood money he was never betrayed lonely places nowadays with their folk scattered MacDonald MacLean McLennon [Music] then the hills is out not a little space even for a cross or two and a hardly living to be one from the indifferent earth on the coast a Glen's dipped below the sea to make long fears that stab all the western edge of Scotland here the ocean comes to the door like another highway and men have had to learn to live on terms with both the sea and the land they can take treasure from both if they have patience and the ancient slow skills the salmon passes by here on his way to the mountain rivers even to spot the new demands long experience and to net him is a job for a team that knows how to wait and then to work together [Music] you this land of wind and water of mountain and hard-won pasture the wealth its history has bred of vigorous people where the tides make pattern that they come in past the Isle of Skye men once kept watch for the raiding galleys of the Vikings on the road here you start to smell the tangle of the Isles the sea right drying in the Sun castles built at the water's edge mark the rallying places of the clans during centuries of conjoined invasion for the last few miles the peaks of sky ride out of the king it's the first of all Thousand Island and many say the bay and if you have any McDonald or MacLeod blood in you your heart surely beats a little faster here the road takes to the Fiat a half mile straight of kyle of lochalsh and the mainland of Scotland runs away to what men once thought was the edge of the world no one can reach sky or any of our Western islands without crossing a part of the Atlantic Ocean even cars and but they take ship for the Isles [Music] females go further north to the harbor of port 3 but the Kyle crossing is the chief entry for those who come by Road [Music] hi lucky the first Township of sky is called after the 13th century King Haakon of Norway through here passes all the road traffic coming for the islands capital for three but there's another way there below Pandavas where the road went inland from the Great Glen another route runs towards the western sea it finds a new road to the Atlantic shore we call it the west highland line [Music] you [Music] malee the terminus of the line is a tone which grew up with the railway and has now become the chief herring fishing port of the western islands so the mainland ends again but the traveler can voyage on the far island harbors of Louis VII and rum of a can and Benbecula and nearest but in some ways riches Scott Skai a place of silence and list where Peaks suddenly snide clouds out of nowhere to cover their jagged head and people who live here for a time also learned to sit them to ponder the long secrets but the apartness of the Western Isles has led in the past too much neglect so that Klansmen and great numbers were forced to leave these hills of home and follow strange new roads the ancestors of many a one in America and Canada and elsewhere about the world lie here but the old road still runs welcoming these bays and fields give a ragged edge to the coast ships have to come far inland to port but the harbor was gained is the quieter and the more secure or the travelers it is almost the end of their journey for them and evening arrival with time to think of all the small explorations of tomorrow the places to visit the people to meet and perhaps a new tongue to hear in a friendly land for us of the island it's a great event win the steamer arrives for three at the center of the islands transport and we have an interest in every person and everything that comes off and goes on that boat will know everyone who steps ashore or we can find out about those we don't know there may be some goods we ordered coming to land for some of our produce going aboard there will be males anyway 20 of them for Highland people the scattered folk get letters from their kin in every country things to eat things to wear things to cook with to work with to help make life less primitive the modern world brings slow change to these places and there will be happy changes if the new does not displace the proud old versus whatever improvements come with better transposed electricity and the progress of science life here is simple at the roots a man lives by what his hands can do his teeth partner often his dog away from the broken ground of mountain and bog are rich small fins and it is upon the eaves with good husbandry that the crafter of the Far West makes his living the basis of it all is the sea and the land both sunny shore beasts on the hill our own roots well into the ground and always the hope that the plough will turn a little more than our fathers managed they have the Highlands and the island that the visitor comes to see sky is only the first of the islands the rest lie away yonder to the horizon many more of them and they are easy to reach our old legend tells of an I love you the way beyond the edge of the sea a land of art desire where no one ever grows old it's there to fight [Music] Oh [Music]

Channel: Johnny Cassettes

Views: 176,493

Rating: 4.9199157 out of 5

Keywords: highland journey, btf, highlands, scotland

Id: 3o5-3xtFsH0

Length: 21min 52sec (1312 seconds)

Published: Mon Feb 27 2017