Hydro Electric Power in the Scottish Highlands

the West window stick medieval with [Music] like thoughts follow me [Music] and so were you the BI I [Music] Giroud McGregor song coach even is a kind of anthem to the days when Highland hydroelectricity was one of Europe's biggest post-war construction projects hard to believe they viewed a hill walker today the work that's under your boots but joined together all the tunnels that were driven through the hills to bring water to the dams and power stations and then stretch from Inverness to Glasgow [Music] let's go I've got familiar smell this place it really has even but it must be my imagination you know playing on me just now because I can smell diesel and especially there a gel ignite smell it may sound funny pipes through the men who built the dams and drove the tunnels were from Poland and the Ukraine egg soldiers sailors and displaced persons they were from the islands brought up in hardship and proud of their hardness and of all they were from Ireland they worked to the exacting vision of some of Scotland's finest engineering brains they changed the very look at the Highland Hills and Glen's the dream I came to Scotland Foster was only about 17 and a half to tell you the truth I had to earn my own fair over it by making cradles cotton rods and makin cleans and plantain cabbage plants and selling them and that was the way I got enough money gather from the late spring game I just had it off for Glasgow we looked up one pool one days for his own protection actually and he had a bunk book in his possession and he had 7,000 pounds plus on this bank book which would have bought to split new three bedroom houses these days believe it or not there would be cues and Furies of men passing the hatch and you'd see the hands come out deep the fleet and a lot of fun with her fingers missing and then you gradually got to know the people and then they would all sit down at the long comfy in tables and they would have their dinner so-called and then they would go off and they go up to the vans with usually a few vans lined up outside and there they would buy something decent and they'd go and make their own do this in missin tots it was an exciting time and I just loved it here the scale of things that were going on at that time were pretty amazing because there weren't many private cars around and just to see all these buses and products trucks with railway lines on the back of the Mia carrying huge loads of witnesses were over teal and there was bulldozers and the big lonely noises it was just a boy's dream the year was 1948 there were about eight or ten of us all engineers at Malaga and practically everybody apart from myself had been commissioned during the war so they had served their war service they had all sort of had an experience that they never talked of but I benefited greatly as a young man from the judgments that they were they had acquired and I think it was one of the best times of my life I really I really enjoyed it high above kinloch leavin them to the east of the Glencoe Hills blackwater the first major hydroelectric dam in the highlands was built in the early 1900s to provide the immense amount of water power that the bright new industry of aluminium smelting required with the network of English railways and canals almost completed Irish navigators or navies flocked in their thousands to the jobs of Blackwater in order to get to the village in those days the quickest way was to come up over the mountain and we heard stories that Tim when they were coming over the mountain that they had a very hazardous time for example they had it was said that some people perished in the snow coming over the devil staircase over to the dam and some of the people who came and found them there they observed that had a good pair of boots so they took the boots off and put it on themselves and continued on to Kindle even there was nothing at home for these men from Donegal and elsewhere in Ireland little more to keep their head Rodian cousins on their crops if in these days an American letter home meant one with money in it a Scottish letter home from King Loch Leven might well have meant the same and more half a century on brothers Vince and Jimmy Campbell would consciously be part of an Irish migrant tradition whose bard and chronicler have come from their own village to work on the Blackwater Dam out of Patrick Miguel's experiences kin his masterpiece the novel children of the dead end and the Nadi's elegy bury him deep in the red red muck and piled the clay on his breast for all that he needs for his years of toil our years of unbroken rest and who has mothered this kindless one why should we want to know as we hide his face from the eyes of men and his flesh from the hooded crow and he a sweetheart to wait for him with a kiss for his toil worn face it doesn't matter or here or there another can fill his place the tents and shanties have gone the gravestones remain at Blackwater dam itself a grim faced servant to a technology in use since the first water mills ground the first years of corn the more water and the further and faster its flow downhill the more power power for the turbines to turn into electricity I understand that when the electricity was supplied to the houses in the first instance the people didn't pay for it it was included in the rent of the houses can local even became a Highland boomtown as world demand for aluminium grew with the inventions and Wars of the 20th century they had more than 5 football teams representing the various departments in the factory and the cinema was in the village hall we had talked he's a chemical even before many other towns and talkies it was said at one time that him the electric supply was switched on it cannot leave in an in use a long time before Buckingham Palace had it the 20s and 30s saw more downs for the aluminium industry and 15 miles of tunnel travel through been nervous to a second power station at Fort William farther east lonely Lock addict was dammed in an early harnessing for general supply purposes but it was to take a second world war the shortages had created and the disciplines had imposed before hydroelectricity came into its own Julie gave us Mary hell across the desert and when you've chased him up a few more flagpole you buy to be coming home looking for job hi not me I'm for the colony there's nothing in island for a man to come back to this 1943 government film unblushing Lee and unrelentingly propagandist Antonio was scripted by no lesser Highlander the novelist Neal Gummer I went that's 20 years ago and learn to be an engineer now I'm coming back you know if I see that spate of water that's power and we bore of that water in the highlands than anywhere else in Britain [Music] 1943 the blackish period in the war incredible and here a bill was presented to Parliament with development of water power in the highlands he seems screwy Scotland must have more control over our own affair that if you screw eNOS was the acute political judgment and determination of one man Tom Johnson socialist historian and journalist and Churchill's wartime Secretary of State for Scotland well Tom Johnson for many many years before the Second World War he always felt that the waters of the Highlands should be developed for public use now in those days in the 20s and 30s there was a handful of men in Glasgow civil engineers who went for long weekend walks often dragging their pool waves whistle and these men went round the hills nothing on the backs of in Hawke's catchment areas streams further running so there was a considerable body of material ready and of course when Johnson became Secretary of State he saw this as the great opportunity to do what he had always dreamed of doing hello neighbor this is sure a swell country to be lost in but we if Roosevelt had his new deal for the USA hydroelectricity was Johnson's new deal for the highlands it sure a beautiful country you'll have here yeah it's a lot like my home back in the highlands of tennessee but before the TVA it was Asgard forsaken and wasted as around here what TVA anyway well it's a set up of the United States government TVA Tennessee Valley Authority they developed the whole Tennessee Valley grandiose comparisons with America the promise of local industry and prosperity even it has been said hints at a strategic value in developing the atom bomb Johnson used everything available to promote his vision wideout the whole of Europe chief - there's work and a good living for everybody so long neighbor and he could be that the war in his own way was replacing ice wireless hydropower which concerned Kaji it gave them the chance pre-war surveys had identified lakhs LOI in the Erica Hills West of Loch Lomond as providing an ideal combination of rainfall water catchment height above sea level and proximity to Central Scotland legislation was rushed through a bullied and distracted Parliament the north of Scotland hydroelectric board established and the slowest scheme given the go-ahead what some saw as the Johnston juggernaut was on its way on June the 11th 1945 an 8 million pound project started on the banks of Loch Lomond mr. Tom Johnson began a job that will take a generation mr. Johnston croctopus' sod of the slow project the first of a hundred new generating stations to be built in 20 years dreams have become plans approach roads first then the dam and the network of tunnels aqueducts pipes and dye versions that would gather the waters of the erica hills into the lock and hold them there like a miser holding gold nature was the spendthrift in the first three years of slow construction there will be only as many weeks without rain in the Lee of war machinery and materials will in short supply the right kind of men were scarce enough to I worked in here for Advan metal tons in 1948 until 1950 this is my first time after years time and it brings a lot of memories I was looking for work I was fed up with the army life the opportunity arose tunneling big big money so we were sent over to Johnson castle and Renfrewshire got them up there taken by a lorry to Dumbarton police station registered there one day and two days later we're where an inverter glass NORTHCOM I was like home from home we met the same people same faces same same language same everything they felt of themselves as tunnel Tigers tearing at the living rock that team worked generating a team spirit necessary in such difficult and dangerous conditions safety did not exist we didn't have the heart heart that's what I'm wearing now in those days the only hats we wore were our demo soft hearts which served their purpose because had stopped water from the him down our backs there you are there is a typical typical fault very dangerous and whenever we came across them very very wary because it was always some loose stones coming down with the water per me thing you know so it always there is 101 loose you can see it although it's small but a few he got hit with it on the head without the helmet you know felt that well if it was ten times the size of it Kelvin a well indeed men killed it's Loy 21 of them like himself and a lucky escape the previous day I had a small accident those as a back blow for one of the machines and I got a lot of great and dirt in my ear so the company said you're not going to work for three days and the very next day there was a an explosion and I found that I should have been working the huge bun and people that stood in one corner on this you're all shocked but they survived it had so many my countrymen will four or five skilled among them I was the main tunnel was a big huge man you know across all back to earth and started you know being more careful and I'm thinking that but that all went by the wayside you know within a week everything was forgot news back to the to the usual grind you know just work and work and work work work work five long years of work to my pipes like a triumphant army could plate the prize of water down Ben to the turbines on Loch Lomond site was a a very close-knit community was like being in a in the Army was a very high price to be 21 men I'm sure I knew most of them besides by new two of them I would jam or tech see no luck personally we should never forget that this was the price paid to make life a bit easier for everybody else and Scotland hard on the heels of sly came an even more ambitious plan to develop the potential of the Tamil Valley in northern path show Parliament had to approve and Tom Johnston and the north of Scotland hydroelectric board had a fight on their hands no ash lie was West Coast lush lie was Glasgow wash Lloyd and anyway matter when the board turned his eyes to the Tamil Wally then the whole scenario changed Johnston had found the board's first chairman at the opposite end of the social spectrum from his own David 12th Earl of early my father spoken house Lords that time in favor Lee and I think this probably surprised quite a lot of number of the many numbers of the peers there at that time because quite a number of landowners amongst others really had quite serious objection to this whole idea so they were quite surprised that he being a landowner himself actually within favor ahlian one of the tunnel valley landowners must be mentally opposed to the hydro board's plans was George Freeland barber my father's reaction was very much colored by the fact that he was desperately fond of this area the family have been here for many hundreds of years and he was very knowledgeable both about the history and the natural history like the wildlife and so on so he immediately thought that there was a big threat to the landscape and I think felt that he must get all the assistance he could in building up resistance to the scheme he decided to get in touch to the National Trust in the hope that they would help in the cause and as a result of that he gave land along the the river sidewalks along the river Gary for the fall of tunnel to the National Trust and I think that was a very well worthwhile thing to do all these forces and others came together and formed really very very considerable opposition and that opposition became really quite unpleasant from time to time and it was quite upsetting I think for my father personally the cause in a sense he was a sort of lightning conductor he was the figure that if order in heaven have a go ahead he really might the great might of the landed gentry that I period honors the House of Lords and he was at that point that Johnson realized that airlie was no bit much for the coming battle I was serving in Germany at the time in 1945 in Scots Guards and I got a letter from My Father then he distressed to tell me that he had put me up to be a member of the Perth Hunt Club and I had been blackballed and I had been blackballed by a few individuals who had taken great exception to what was happening to them and the way that they were being affected by the tunnel Gary scheme so lord airlie was I deuce deezen we mind that the sensible thing fell on his sword and Johnston became a chairman something he had never wanted to do [Music] with former Secretary of State Johnston at the hydro helm the impetus became irresistible propaganda had done its job now it was the other lights and slide rules and the eyes and brains that used them and we know we can do it already these great them supply the neurons with their heart now we're planning to Harnish the rivers and lots of the Raylan behind the trumpeting 's and get up and go excitement of half a century ago lay one basic difficulty believe it or not Scotland is not ideal hydro country it's not wet enough in the hills aren't high enough the average hydro station in Scotland only runs for a third of the tank there's not enough water fact they run for the beste thing if you can feel hydro in Scotland - hydro in other countries like Norway Sweden Canada the the hydrogen in these other countries tend to be supplied by glaciers melting glaciers and the machines run from 90% of the time whereas in Scotland will rely purely on rainfall and stirring the water the reservoirs are average load factors only 33 percent of thing water water everywhere but not enough of it to satisfy the visionaries thirst a river that had flowed to the Atlantic since the Ice Age would be diverted into lock Lyon and thence to the North Sea from slow and tunnel construction moved west and north to Shilla in Argyll and pred Alban in Persia beyond the great plan lay the resources of Glengarry Glen Morriston and plan a flick and further north yet strat fara McCallum Valley and lost shim the big wheel from for in evil [Music] tired of one scheme or maybe sacked from it a man could simply move on to another hard graft and wretched living conditions meant a high turnover among the labor force but there were always plenty of new recruits well I was 18 at a time how'd I remember all the ones wrote a roofless were we and a hey those were Scotland coming home with loads of money new suits brand new cars with the Mariah are they had all the girls it'll end so I've got a wee bit jealous so one night I was coming home from a dance with my cousin I was sat on a bridge and saved my home just was about three or four in the morning and my cousin says such a man his name was Tommy camp of them relation has gone back to the high dose just Courtland on Wednesday I we should go so I said after you go I'll call when I came here there was nothing and there were only about three of us who had come initially and we went to live in Cossack lunch witches just about a quarter of a mile down from the present down the site Kozak Lodge was a long shooting Lodge that had been used by the royal family of Luxembourg during the war as a kind of retreat it was a very happy retreat I could see Vickers but when we opened a stable door outside we were nearly killed by a fall of bottles empty bottles brandy bottles of wine bottles so they've been a good war for if empty bottles nearly killed engineer Bob cement melodic a couple of full one's got join ovens Campbell a started Glen lion but Bobby said to me you buy a bottle of dark rum and I'll buy of one of the first and he knew well that the man that was the fourth shop for one was very fond of dark room when he was Willie Armstrong and there was another London the general occur he was both shield and he was fond of a mosquito so we came into the camp and of Bobby's haircut with being a little person and glowed in the dark room and the bottle of us and there was no world of us leavened this capital kid my job we had a job straight away 1956 I was earning up to 26 27 pound and then you'll get what you call the ghost are the ghost er was your worker shaft and then the four men would from around here and even wants to work tonight again that was a ghost now of course the higher up the rank he went I suppose they got bigger cut of the cake you know so the the bosses and the tunnel bosses you know they were always there saying come on boys you another so many feet to do and you'll get that much extra everybody would to get extra money so you worked all night and then you had to go back in your seems that's 30 success back on the same shaft the payment system was basic but there was a certain limit footage per week if you achieved that at the end of the week your weekly pay doubled and if you broker a British record or a world record which we did few times well obviously there was added bonuses something where there is situation you know very welcome to teams of tunnel tigers are rushing together a friendly but hard rivalry develops between opposing team I was section engineer on a tunnel and we came on very soft material as we were driving and it was agreed that it would be a very good idea to try and go for a world record and we did in fact by running 24 hour shifts drill and construct 557 feet of tunnel in a week which beat an American record by about 30 or 40 feet good for the wallets good for morale and good for the profits of the contractors breaking through as Tunnel drive met Tunnel drive ahead of schedule the bonus system and breaking records weren't so good so far as safety was concerned this a non-western Irishman he was a man there we were like to have a drink known again and often him know then again but at the same time he we signed for no nonsense whatsoever and as much as other men were phone under there but he soon put them enough with one other chap who was out for the play player and he liked today a junk of metal it's pellets and you see was in the tunnel where we had silver lamps but when the power was switched off and he used to empty we Josh met with Spiritist after he was about the nuisance [Music] [Music] when he did get what whether it was really boys on one occasion old man was at the very end of the road terrible deed will a blizzard Blewett and within the aluminium shell toes a big fire gone when somebody on the door through him and when when and whether by the way when the shell left eekum caused himself tell the menu they disrupt top stood so bolts and away and family some play must find it in on been more so well in fairchild course a wasn't that would be maybe we do enough beam Wildwood [Music] everybody had to wear well in terms and socks wouldn't are still alone and produced so we are that time what the call to likes have you ever heard the word toe like and what that was you cut a piece square piece of your blanket on your bed and you wrapped it around and you put the end of it over your toes I slipped it into your intense and then when you come back at night that wasn't a very nice scene in the camp all the still stone were to rags iron dragon for the next morning one late I was nearly gone on that damn we went out and it was only one plank on the catwalk and it was under dark came to because he had very little laid out there these it was late at the dam itself but there wasn't Shane over the shuttles too well so I was loosen away and I didn't look but wasn't the end of the plank or not far more than together or a little bracket that was although under panic rose that wasn't even bolted they were supposed to be well bolted and they were just gone for a caucus bracket and a PL that mate I would say I would have fallen about 73 to me I was punished I wouldn't be here today I was working on survey work when Saturday morning I was the only engineer on site at the time and busy reading angles for the two wings of the dam and there was a small squad building a road just below me and maybe a quarter of a mile away and I could hear the drills and see them all working then I heard this dead silence and they all vanished so I thought they're due to blast them told me I think I'll get out of here so I went down to the other end of the road and stood at the top of a rock embankment watching the end of the dam to see the explosion going off make sure it was quite safe and I looked down and to my horror I saw there were about twenty or 30 wires leading into detonators and explosive in the ground under my feet and in fact half the squad had been drilling and the other half had been charging this place where I sleep I was petrified for a moment but I've belted up the hillside but never moved too fast my life and in fact I only got a short way up when it went off lumps of rock passed clean over my head and I managed to survive those local Moto's and then out first of all the diesel reach out to them was terrible my school on a mile with no bond no light at all just drivin away in the dark those who knew clouds random I what the vibration sometimes the clumps used to shake off and throw them in across the wall of the tower a night ano off tonight our sense we're very lucky to be alive one day for instance I had three killed in one incident they were blasting a shaft up the way and the sent three men one after the other up to see of the fumes had cleared of the gellick main and one by one they fell the under feet down the shock and were killed so of course every time there was a idea that worked like that had to be a Fiat Lux enquiry and to support this Fiat Lux and Kweli you had to have a post-mortem so the problem was to get the bodies to Inverness for a post-mortem that's made sound quite simple but you weren't allowed to hire here the local authority wouldn't be for it you weren't allowed to use the ambulance because the ambulance wouldn't transport dead bodies and there's no suitable vehicle so cruelly Gump although Mitchell's were very supportive the only thing they would give you as her body so that day I had to wrap these three bodies and blankets throw them onto the back of her to open Lori and get them taken to Inverness but at that time see that's the money we were thinking about he earning the money and we weren't thinkin I never thought I was on safe at all I didn't see it the dangers whatsoever under but we got a river to thank goodness the work camps sometimes cannibalized item abandoned military installations were temporary villages the villagers Irishman central Europeans and Highlanders alike on a prime source of stories and Psalms for a folklorist and collector Helen Fullerton I got don't refrain side just outside Inverrary and that's that's Glynn tear there's a big country huge one of the biggest of the Hydra scheme council do you not like phone to order somebody and feel they would like a job was on a job in the canteen you know cook cows they call it a cook case and it so happened that do the lasses had just left that day they'd have a fallout with a good and they'd walked off and so they took me on straightaway I was just a good seen conditions of the sugar camp were to lead Helen Fulton in to protest and confrontation with Carmichael's the site contractors they also inspired her to compose a bold and bitter dog ibly proud ballot later sent to music by Judy McIntyre Lord Carmichael's we have the breakfast and then they were given three sandwiches on his fan one of that robbery cheese and when a jam and the fries was spam and jam don't mean down if they got buried that day of like your face it's party I'll tape you pray John Howland Ray's gettin the hell your fire but if your face was amazing it worth the winter through and what you'd marked in the wind and rain yet Melton the men were so fed up with the rotten food and everything that they decided that they would have a strike and they caused strike until conditions in the in the cooked rice and improved so they all down twos and they had a straight meeting from Michael came to a meeting you go up on a chair and he said there's no barbed wire around this place you don't have to you don't have to work here you can walk away but on the other hand for the next day after that they got I think they got chicken and the next day they got that I need and then the next day they Carmichael sacked the ringleaders of the strike a spokesman and they never got a job in here again and they were blacklisted or over the seams but this one it still cries on la can do under fee go on I'm the taillights and clock in life are falling madly bashira hits up bonnie down nothing more amazed when the life to kind of build in heart I could be are the safety standards improved through the 50s and with them living conditions in the camps company stores provided little more than basics and the bulging wallets and bigger appetites of the workers were a strong incentive to local enterprise we'd afford tim's van which only had one cheering it for the driver once seated and I sat in a biscuit tin accretion on it on top of a metal floor so one minute my nose was pressed against the glass the next minute I was in the back in among the bread and the rolls and pork chops and things like that suppose fresh fruit was in short supply and to this one Polish gentleman who asked my father to bring him a red apples never mind the cost I was big red apples one chap who's crazy Richie was a very good he asked dad to bring him some sticks and dad asked him did he have anything that he could give a security and a well he didn't have a watch he didn't of you know the wallet our Father so dad asked him to give him his teeth I said yup just how you how am I going to eat the steak you know without any teeth well that's it that's your answer camp cinemas were a good deal less smoke-free and depicted in this 1956 company record film but entertainments there were four men who played hard as well as worked hard and for whom a dance was more a matter of red-blooded masseur than whatever the company tried to do it in the calm of riders and is the bus young ladies from Dumbarton and later even as far as do rock in Greenock how they came over were serviced by balsam and then buses you know it was quite quiet and establish was hard by everybody [Music] as far as we were concerned dances weren't really done to the toe they were just fights and riots we attended the dances as often as we could because when you find that we didn't attend them would be called there eventually anyway I used to enjoy dancing because it was much the same as the kyani dancing that we just at home so that took the most out of what the law of Minnesota would hear dizzy I took a photo with me and I had the paddle on to the bed that time after leaving home when yo it was all Gaelic I had seen and I was afraid to have a conversation with anybody in English do I understood it well and speak a little but I wasn't very good at it and every Friday night we used to gather go to the web campaign and everybody was a bit lonely all right you know and we were only young and we'd have a few bottles and that time a very common to make sure were fearful to call this blue top to a big bottle of pint bottle with a screw top on we take a carry over them into the hot and we sat at the end of the bed and would start there we sat there I'm going to scoot up and played and sang intervene earlier was the war and that's how we passed the weekend we were trying to make a home away from home and that's what we made and very well with Hawaii likewise today unplaced farewell to my comrades all who do well on my sainted crime before can it ever be for me alright to have money in store I'll come back on our word the weevil a CI a-- left one hadith greens from row as well as the songs of home the fiddles the darts and the dominoes there were other less innocent pastimes yeah gambling was the being of our life at times they had so much money to spend and so little sense to manage their money that a game of cars and they might lose older P before the 13/8 was out but the main gambling stations was the Cronin anchor it was I don't know the actual rules of the game although I shooed their dealt with it awfully now that they had a board and whatever it was on this board they put bets on it these kronor none could be though double you know and this this was a very very fast game that game was designed to grab all the money out of you ask us as you here good and what happens every if I didn't go to glass guys stunned and make sure I had a lot of change to shilling and half crowds in my pocket cuz that's how the game started you know and the bankers never had enough change to pay out so I had pockets full of mana and they knew that I was changing they were giving me pound notes and I was giving them for every pound note I was giving them eighteen shillings towards the end of the game I was giving the foul notes and they were giving me change but they were giving me 22 shillings for her so nothing is so I gained four shillings on every transaction over a fever Oh went well until somebody started losing money and the money was on the board and somebody would just tip the board up because they were losing money and of course then the fight would start you could get 60 men and a hat playing Colonel Anka at one time and we used to go in and break out the Kremlin Ankerberg disappears if by magic that you don't know where it went it just disappeared but then you would get sort of missiles thrown at you like cups and shoes and wellington boots and eggs and things like this you know and come out of the dark you'll never see whose ruler you turn round of course nobody there [Music] we can scoop we will go down to Glasgow it was a great time for dances and then we would go and get a measurement for a suit and barking the alternate you wouldn't buy nothing of the regular time Tamil Tigers that was our trademark you know very good quality clothes you know Jackson tailor and things like that American ties come into vogue you know a very extravagant Tyson I remember she walk into Locarno rather a dance hold you know and when they looked at all my guests all the Canaries we have 30 a morning - very good switch a little well dressed and everything because of you weren't dressed as they call that modestly dressed that meant you had to have a collar and a on you wouldn't get in and even even shopkeepers just to say oh my god Tamil Tigers with tuxedos oh that's a fact a bowler hats in every no real allows that the entity we worked very hard and played hard it wasn't just the Hydra workers who worked hard played hard and some of them who prospered Neil MacDonald's father had progressed from driving a van to running a hotel the busiest morning would be when the camp had their annual holidays because it didn't of staggered working in these days they actually closed to come for giving so whatever it was in the summer time and the train would come to the station and think it was about half us one or two o'clock and of course that the boys would have been in the bar since it opened at 11:00 all dressed up with their suits and their suitcases on and then the train would come and first ones would leave and these the stragglers was still having a quick bite while the train was actually sitting in the station but they knew that the train was still there so I would be gone on board sometimes they would be there for over 10 minutes with an amazing sight hundreds of people with colors and tightened suitcases and then just absolute silence when you're going to be as dams were completed and the scheme's became operational tom Johnston's bargained with the Highlands the people of the Highlands as well as those who owned them was fulfilled if hydroelectricity was to be exported south for the growing needs of post-war industry the farms and crops of the glens would be supplied as well and with no connection charges levied it was an exciting time fish are all looking forward to this connect and up there was no shortage of work I'll tell you what cat love basil and Liberace can hear when he covered to me tomorrow maybe Oh Isis what happened next we cannot the depletion so he hit Detroit keep ahead he sent over formulas the job was completed and returned a coupla days maybe the linesman comment and connected them up PC and I absolutely like it and it was a great exciting time because they were were can tell a lump sum summer at our craft a thorough they weren't even working away so we can register quadrants in all fashion loves most quadrant p.m. said he'd tell alums at worse that the teller lumps of hellish I remember going to one of my neighbors and saying to him this electrics a great thing what do you appreciate most about it not having to go out to the wire in the morning with an old oil lamp and he gave me a lot and the old fashioned look and he said man the electric black it's a wonderful thing mr. mrs. McClelland of Cuyler choosing a new electric cooker they all get that power cheap from the profit the board makes selling current to the grid if all the plants were complete and working today 1/7 of all the power of the people of Britain neat would flow from north of Scotland hydroelectric generating stations the drumbeat of the propagandists had never quite silenced those who had opposed Johnston's vision but as vision became a literally concrete reality the fears that had so loudly been expressed needed somewhat sadly my father died long before the scheme even started so he never saw any of the effects of it but I'm sure he would be gracious enough to accept that it hadn't done very much harm to the the local scenery and in fact in some parts of Scotland it's almost enhanced it environmental concerns especially with regard to fish movement and stocks could never be ignored and the north of Scotland hydroelectric board in its heyday made much of its own sensitivity a calculation of the environmental balance sheet has become tighter over the years perceptions ever more critical and for some the sense of loss will never be wiped away by whatever profit in terms of material comfort and convenience this so few folk living up here now the Hydra schemes finished off but their last cleaners have started it hardly takes a poet to see the tangled roots of a drowned trout exposed Caledonian pine as a metaphor for highland clearance but for a man who saw his own childhood home drowned with the damming of Loch Mona the pain has really not the severe came up props in 1948 a steed with us.this ddr4 with a month surveying everything and ticking levels are not under to litter plans and that was the start of our troubles the end of their life neglect rusts we knew that that it was a bit sad leaving you knowing you weren't to see anything against alga be underwater and my father mother were due to retire in anywhere but they were a bit upset and they were taken back for a couple of days or a week to work later on and then the ballot and they're pulling down our old home enough and the burning star war and my mother was most assured she wish she hadn't gone back she's in people feel how beautiful this is timmy is not beautiful it's it's terrible compared to what it was 40 50 years ago because even raising a long 10 feet with of Udo lost everything the Eiger Churchill and the strong decided reversion loss and all this was gone with a dam even a small down Ian McKay's personal verdict would be not so much contradicted as obliterated by the 1960s dream of a white heat of technology even as advanced pumped storage schemes like crew hung underground and what became known as the hollow mountain and fires on Loch Ness were getting underway a New Jerusalem of nuclear electricity to cheap demeter that a domestic level was being preached other forces were gathering to my mail were still about to be one day and among the mail was a letter from Amos of Industry now coming from away from four years of active politics I knew straight away who these people well many for would believe in nowadays but here was a body set up solely for the destruction of maximization no other purpose and Sharia from a small beginning that mounted the enormous whale I'm behind a wall Coulomb jewel in the crown of Hyderabad achievement was also the end of an era for the rest of the 20th century hydroelectricity almost as easy to turn on and off as a kitchen tap to Kanna largely strategic reserve role good for TV sets and World Cup halftime kettles while coal and later Nazi oil and gas did the UK's donkey work and the Highland dams became part of the landscape [Music] but today belief in the white heat of technology has cooled to a reality of global warming and hydroelectricity renewable and non pollutant has once again a future plans and surveys of half a century ago are being dusted down Hydra days may come again though maybe not the way things were the deal Durbar had a counter which is marble-topped and every tooth the marble top with us which was in three sections so one one was broken in transit and I have the other one another one there's a house over at home inventory the other one interesting enough was made into a tombstone by my cousin who's a monumental sculptor the de tungsten is erected nodes and Clemens Chuck's in Rhode Island Harris admired by many but they don't know that it's they it sizes of pints of beer crossed at an Irish Elvis of the leaning on that but maybe you do know [Music] great plan [Music] hello then I sight [Music] again and might hardly with a double my I well mine [Music]

Channel: Golspie & surrounding area footage

Views: 2,514

Rating: 5 out of 5

Keywords: scottish hydro, scottish highlands, hydro electric, post war scotland, building dams

Id: __ufcvh_aR8

Length: 58min 53sec (3533 seconds)

Published: Fri Jul 12 2019