19th May at Skipness: When Somerset took his leave of the lively school at Rhunahaorine (above) he wheeled off to Skipness School in the community around Skipness Castle, pictured below, facing the cliff-locked village of Lochranza across the water on the north west shore of the Isle of Arran.
Skipness Castlw is a 12th-13th centiury establishment, ready for possible aggressive approach but with no great history of major conflict, as we understand it. The Skipness website had some excellent photographs of the castle and its interior spaces.
Every rural primary school in Argyll and Bute is a physical connection to the history of its area. Closing these schools and setting their communities on the road to depopulation is no less than the destruction of a living connection to where Argyll and Scotland has come from.
That evening Skipness School had its formal consultation meeting and the village hall was filled.
The whole community came out and spoke, politely, about the school’s importance to the community. A report we’ve had says that the first comments made were that the community was not notified of the meeting. Susan Tyre frm the council said that notice was sent to all the ‘stakeholders’ (GAWD). The community disagreed. A senior manager at Highlands and Islands Enterprise rubbished the council’s population projections – as, regularly, has the Scottish Rural Schools Network.
An interesting insight into how the council manages such meetings is that it sends out the bridge staff on the Starship Enterprise against tiny communities. This is Avatar for real – the machine world, equipped to kill, setting out to destroy the gentle organisms of the natural world.
On the control deck were Clelland Sneddon (Education Director); Carol Walker (Head of Education); Ian Ross (described as a ‘very robust chairman’); Councillor Ellen Morton, Education Spokesperson who has described the current closure proposals as ‘her list’; Kath Wilkie one of the joke QIOs (Quality Improvement Officers); Don McAllister, another of the said QIOs; Malcolm McFadyen, Facilities, Chris Dalgarno-Platt, Finance and Susan Tyre, Education. Quite an intimidating array for a small community. We understand that Councillor Ellen Morton didn’t say much, explaining that this was because ARSN had complained about her.
This is the world Somerset’s odyssey is connecting with. Tomorrow he is off to North Bute School at Port Bannatyne on Bute – via two ferries; and on Saturday he’s being collected from Bute by boat and taken over to land at south Cowal, near Toward School.
After that early meeting, he has another two ferries to take to get to Helensurgh, from where he’ll cycle through to Loch Lomond to his final school on the shores of that legendary loch – Luss. We gather there’s a party waiting.
The full itinerary for Somerset’s ride is here.
The photograph above of Skipness Castle is by Patrick Mackie and is reproduced here under the Creative Commons licence.
