On Treacherous Terrain in a Seaside Town

A walk into town reveals layers upon layers of history, only some are mine

The haar, a cold fog that rolls in from the sea and flattens everything to a muted dove gray, has finally lifted. The skylight by my bed faces south and I see the treetops in the park across the road, poked awake by a finger of rosy light from the east. My two Bichon roommates aren’t quite ready to start the day and bury noses into paws with sideways glances to see if I’ve taken the hint.

With the girls fed and settled into their first nap of the day, I set out on a longer walk than the elderly dogs would enjoy. From the comfortable homes that crown the hill, the road slopes steeply down towards the center of town. Mature trees rise above high granite walls on both sides of the street; sturdy oaks, modest and compact, dowager beeches with dark copper leaves, and tall larches in gray chiffon scarves point fingers at the regal Scots pines with dark furs arranged about elegant limbs.

School is in session, people are at work, or they’ve retired behind their walls and well-tended hedges to attend to their own business—there’s no one around. Yesterday, walking the dogs in the park across the street, I met a youngish Black man with a middle-aged Rottweiler on a long leash. He was a good-looking guy with a hip beard and an afro shaved close up the sides to a tall, hat-like puck.

The man was stiff with a habitual wariness that immediately revealed itself in actions intended to prove that he wasn’t a threat. He reined in his dog, shrinking himself into the margins of the path, eyes expressionless and fixed on the ground. He jumped a little when I said, Hello.

A Familiar Refrain

The man had a London accent, and it turned out that his mother came from Camberwell, where I worked as a nurse in the 1980s. I hear that part of London is now fashionable and pricey, but back in the day, it was staunchly working class. It was home to many immigrant families from Caribbean and African Commonwealth countries, and I loved exploring the greengrocers and trying to cook tropical produce I had never seen before.

“Don’t see many Black or brown people around here”, I said. He laughed,
“Nah, man, not many of us round ‘ere.”

Conspiracy established, I walked on wondering why I hadn’t noticed earlier. It dawned on me that people had ‘noticed’ me—the little boy staring in the cereal aisle and the way his Mum turned her back on me, the sullen unhelpfulness of the bus driver. An elderly busker had a happy wink for others who put money in his hat but when I did the same, he frowned into his harmonica as if his dog’s life depended on him getting the notes right.

The best way I can describe it is indifference with hostile intent.

Echoes of memory from my childhood had been hiding in those and similar interactions, although I hadn’t surfaced them for inspection. And that reaction is also a holdover from childhood, and an age when it wasn’t polite to question how your elders and betters behaved.

It’s curious how racism hits me differently here than in the States, it feels more personal. In a way, it makes sense; I’m not from America so I can sidestep accusations that I don’t belong. But in Scotland, where I was born and raised, the implications and alienation of ‘go back where you came from’ are unavoidable.

Holes in the Walls

The sun feels warm on my face as I walk downhill. At intervals, gateways in the walls allow glimpses of fine sandstone houses and pretty gardens, the town below and the sea beyond. These must have been the McMansions of their day; grand houses built in the 19th century for upper management types looking for a pleasant view and an easy commute.

I think of William Blake’s 1810 poem, Jerusalem —

And did the Countenance Divine,
Shine forth upon our clouded hills?
And was Jerusalem builded here,
Among these dark Satanic Mills?

In Dundee, five miles away, the textile mills spun jute from India into burlap and sailcloth and choked the air with coal smoke and poverty. The fresh sea air blowing ashore here would have been welcome.

At the bottom of the hill, I cross a broad sward of green parkland lined with pretty stone villas and duck under a single-track railway bridge that looks as though it belongs in a hobbyist’s collection. Beyond, a row of seafront cottages crouches into the prevailing wind and overlooks the newest stretch of the Scottish Coastal Way, a walking and biking trail that will eventually go all around the coastline of mainland Scotland.

With the rise in sea levels and extreme weather events, this section of the coastal trail has been incorporated into the town’s flood protection scheme. Thick steel gates loiter against the long stone wall, ready to repel the next unwelcome storm surge.

On Defense

At the end of a gorgeous sweep of pale sand beach, Broughty Castle anchors the southwest corner of town. As Scottish castles go, this one looks unremarkable with its rusting iron cannons and cheaply renovated drawbridge. Still, it has guarded the entrance to the Firth of Tay since the 15th century and troops were stationed here to provide artillery defense as recently as the Second World War.

Scotland is peppered with military installations, ancient and less so. I was born barely 16 years after the war ended and its shadow lingered. Growing up through the sixties, the remnants of sea defenses littered the beaches and we played in deserted pillbox bunkers. Seafront promenades had huge anti-submarine mines that had been dredged up, disarmed, and made into collection boxes—I remember being lifted up to drop pennies into the slot for wounded veterans’ charities.

Future Histories

I’m currently working on a war story of sorts, it’s about a Scots woman who spied for Germany between the World Wars. As the Nazis were busy cranking out new fighter planes for the Luftwaffe, a Dundee hairdresser called Jessie Jordan scoped out military installations as future targets for them. Jessie had pulled herself out of poverty to build a successful business, though she proved to be an ineffective spy. Her two marriages, both to German Jews, make her an unlikely Nazi sympathizer and I’m intrigued about her motivations.

Looking along the firth from the outer reaches of the town, the water seems calm, and Dundee looks harmless in the distance. The city is attempting another renaissance with a new university offering courses in tech and entrepreneurship. Industrial warehouses and enormous white wind turbine masts awaiting shipment block the view of new developments on the waterfront, including the award-winning architecture of the Victoria and Albert Museum.

Maybe I should give Dundee another chance but for now, I’m headed across the firth to Fife on my way to Edinburgh and my next pet family.

Farewell My Broughty Ferry Ladies

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Broughty Castle and the Tay Firth