Analysis: Hope seems to be a stranger in this village of despair

Published on Thursday 24 February 2011 17:06

For a few alarming minutes, it seemed that we might have another Dunblane. "Reports are coming in of a shooting at a school in Scotland …" Auchinleck was no Dunblane. Bad enough - 11 children injured - but no Dunblane.

Still, we should pause to ask what is going on in this Ayrshire town, which was the home, if not the birthplace, of the lawyer, biographer, drinker and womaniser James Boswell. It is barely a fortnight since the notorious "riot" at the grudge match between Auchinleck Talbot and Cumnock Juniors.

Ayrshire, like West Lothian and Lanarkshire, specialises in dark, sullen, near-derelict villages and small towns that Edwin Muir memorably observed as having the quality of an everlasting Sunday. He was writing in the early 1930s at the time of the great depression, when small groups of pallid, shilpit, unemployed men could be found on the street corners. Remarkably little has changed in 80 years. In the Scottish litany of defeated places, Auchinleck is perhaps the most depressing. It is not possible to pass through it without wondering whether the mean little shops and pubs are open or closed, how the people survive the everlasting Sunday, and why there are not more of them running naked down the endless main street, screaming in despair.

I will give two examples of what is wrong. The first involves a confession of my Auchinleck connection. The late Neil Gow once prevailed upon me to become president of the Auchinleck Boswell Society, a scholarly association devoted to the study of the great man's works. I remember thinking how odd and sad it was that the annual dinner was being held in a posh Alloway hotel and not in Auchinleck, where he is buried in the family vault. When I said as much to one of the organisers, he gave me a sardonic look - signifying astonishment at the bizarre notion of having dinner in Auchinleck.

The second example is current. The heir to the throne is building a new village, not far from Auchinleck, in which he will indulge his passion for all things architecturally retro. It is an admirable scheme and should inject new life and energy into a desperately stagnant part of the country. But it is interesting that Prince Charles has taken the less brave route of a greenfield development rather than attempting to facilitate the rejuvenation of an established community.

It is possible there is no way of saving Auchinleck: that it will simply sit there idly and gloomily as long as there remains a Scotland, its torpor interrupted occasionally by the sound of gunfire.

• Kenneth Roy is editor of Scottish Review (www.scottishreview.net).