Aberdeen: City of dreams

‘I came to hate Aberdeen more than any place I saw." These words were not uttered by Martin Amis, who this week enraged residents of the Silver City by describing their home town as "one of the darkest places imaginable - like Iceland," but by the writer Paul Theroux. While researching a chapter on Aberdeen, Theroux came to stay in the uncompromising city and worked hard at reaching a truce with the place.

Amis, it seems, did not tarry long enough to appreciate its finer points. He did not wander down Union Street at first light, marvelling at the sparkling granite architecture and shops as plentiful as Oxford Street. Had he done so he may have stumbled upon the Selfridges of Aberdeen, Esslemont and Macintosh, where he could have indulged all manner of retail cravings. Perhaps he left at lunchtime, frustrated at the lack of an Ivy restaurant? He should have sauntered down to the harbour, to Pocra Quay and the exemplary Silver Darlings for a dish of herring. Had he visited on a Saturday he could have enjoyed at match at Pittodrie, which, unlike Wembley, is still functioning while the football club build new premises and has the added benefit of bracing sea air.

And the city may not have a Darcey Bussell, but local boy Michael Clark, punk’s answer to modern dance, has filled theatres the world over. At the end of this long day Mr Amis could do worse than pay a visit to the Priory. Not the famous celebrity rehab clinic, but the trendiest nightclub in town, where he could shake his stuff to a mix of old school house, R&B and pop cheese.

Had Amis stayed for just a day he could have sampled all of this and come, perhaps, to like the Granite City, as Theroux finally did in The Kingdom by the Sea: "What I liked in Aberdeen was what I liked generally in Britain: the bread, the fish, the cheese, the flower gardens ... the modesty and truthfulness of people. And I liked the way Aberdeen’s streets were frequently full of seagulls."

THE BUTTERIE

It’s not just the Aberdonian accent which seems almost continental, this city is home to one of the baking world’s most glamorous delicacies. Forget the tattie scone, the butterie is the pastry of choice for the discerning Aberdonian. The most obvious comparison is with the croissant - but the rowie, as the locals fondly refer to them, has all of the style with none of the pretensions.

Notions of healthy eating have not interfered with the bastion of buttery goodness, and combined with a fine cup of coffee you can close your eyes and imagine yourself sitting by the Seine. Despite years of searching, the origins of the butterie have never been verified, although legend points to a discerning fisherman who had become tired with hard biscuits and struck a pact with a local baker to create a more refined form of sustenance. Thus the light and crispy snack was born, and its popularity spread through the local populace like wildfire.

THE GRANITE

The gleaming metropolis of Aberdeen, one of Scotland’s most striking skylines, visibly shimmers and sparkles in the sunlight after a bout of heavy rain, which regularly rinses clean the city’s granite architecture. Affectionately dubbed the "silver city", Aberdeen’s rich source of granite lies in the hill of Rubislaw, two miles north of the Bridge of Dee; a quarry described as the biggest granite hole in Europe that has provided the city with its supply of granite for over 200 years.

This dazzling collection of immense granite buildings, ancient silvery castles and shining pavements forms an historic vista of record-breaking proportions. Aberdeen’s Union Bridge, for example, is the largest single-span granite bridge in the world. The hustle and bustle of Union Street, meanwhile, is supported on huge granite arches that spread from Castlegate to Crown Street.

The city’s university, which dates from 1495 and ranks as one of the oldest in Britain, can also lay claim to granite fame, for the awe-inspiring Marischal College is the second largest granite building in the world. Its imposing nature was noted by Thomas Hardy when he came to receive his first honorary degree from Aberdeen in 1905. Clearly impressed by his visit to the city, Hardy consequently paid tribute to the "radiant" granite in his poem Aberdeen.

THE LITERATURE

Few places on earth have same kind of literary connections as Aberdeen. Once a year it has its own literary festival devoted to the man who, more than any other writer, put it on the map.

True, Frank L Baum, creator of the Wizard of Oz, only lived here for three years (1888-91), but that’s enough for Aberdonians to organise Toto lookalike dog contests and various other events for the annual Oz Festival. Last year, they even had a visit from the 1939 MGM movie munchkin Margaret Pellegrini.

That Aberdeen, unfortunately, is in South Dakota. The Scottish Aberdeen isn’t quite as blessed in the literary stakes. No writer of any consequence seems to have stayed there for as long as three years, although plenty have passed through en route to altogether starrier literary places. James Leslie Mitchell, for example, did some hack work on the Aberdeen Press and Journal when he was fresh out of school at Stonehaven and hadn’t even begun to turn himself into Lewis Grassic Gibbon.

Plenty of other figures from the world of literature have passed through Aberdeen. Lord Byron lost his virginity there when he was an 11-year-old schoolboy at Aberdeen Grammar School, but despite the best efforts of Aberdeen University, which organises the biannual Word Festival and this year had the wisdom to appoint Alan Spence as its professor of creative writing, it is probably the closest the city has come to having literary greatness thrust upon it.

THE OIL

Aberdeen’s location might easily have made it an isolated and insular outpost of the European Union, but the North Sea oil boom which hit the city in the early 1970s has made it a cosmopolitan melting pot to rival any continental city.

You are just as likely to see a Stetson strolling along the city’s streets as you are to see a tam o’shanter, as our Texan cousins continue to extract barrels of oil from the UK continental shelf. There’s also a good tranche of English, French, Italians and any other number of nationalities who want to profit from black gold.

Aberdonians now enjoy unprecedented standards of living, thanks to high-paying jobs on the rigs or in the offices of some of the world’s richest companies.

Others enjoy the challenge of communicating with the suave and sophisticated international clientele which frequent the city’s hotel and restaurant sector. Of course high wages mean high house prices, still, locals lucky enough to buy before the oil and subsequent property boom are not complaining.

Cassandras have long warned that along with the rest of the world, Aberdeen is fiddling while its North Sea oil reserves run dry. But while 29 billion barrels have already been extracted from the North Sea, experts believe there are at least 29 billion more barrels yet to be brought up. So don’t sell your granite pile just yet.

THE CRIME

In his sixth novel, London Fields, Martin Amis quotes Saul Bellow’s claim that America is where the "real modern action" is, and then muses: "That’s true, but England also feels like it’s at the forefront of something, the elegiac side of things, perhaps." If Amis, who clearly also finds his home country a bit boring, is still looking for "real modern action" he could do worse than look to Aberdeen, the very city he has labelled "dull". Not for nothing is Aberdeen’s football team nicknamed, "The Dons". In 1989 one of the city’s top restaurateurs, Antonia Le Torre, was jailed in Italy for two years after Italian investigators accused him of being a high-ranking member of the Cammora family - the Neapolitan equivalent of the Sicilian mafia. La Torre, who owned the Sorrento restaurant in Aberdeen city centre, was arrested after a confidential document leaked to the Italian press highlighted the expansion of Mafia-related activities throughout Europe. In 1990 the Granite city was also the setting for one of the most audacious fraud attempts in Scottish criminal history when Aberdeen accountant Royston Allen, 45, and his mistress, Alison Anders, hatched a plan to defraud oil giants Britoil of 23 million. Their plan was foiled and Anders was later arrested by the FBI in Oregon, where she had gone into hiding.

THE FISH

The glamour of the fishing industry is not obvious, especially when you consider the temperature of the North Sea. But the humble herring, as fished by the fleets of Aberdeen, is as sexy as aquatic animals get, as far as the scientific community is concerned.

Herring and mackerel are treasure troves of the Omega 3 fatty acids which medics believe play a key part in maintaining a healthy heart.

Aberdeen’s fleet remains one of the biggest in the UK. If you are still not convinced that living in Aberdeen will be good for your corporal or mental health, the city’s fishing industry is bound to appeal to your tastebuds. Fresh fish, just hours out of the sea, minutes off the boat, is the right of every Aberdonian. The humble fish supper has been elevated to gourmet status by the fry shops of Aberdeen, which offer pommes frites with almost any poisson to be found in the North Sea.

THE BEEF

Aberdeen Angus - the world’s most famous breed of quality beef cattle - will evoke nods of enthusiastic recognition across the globe. From farm to fork, the handsome black cattle have gained international recognition and today, nothing could be finer than tucking into a melt-in-your-mouth roast rib of the pedigree beef.

The breed evolved during the early 19th century from the black hornless cattle which populated north east Scotland, whose flavoursome hides were discovered to be particularly succulent. Thereafter, its success in the industry was unparalleled. The cattle soon won the ultimate accolade - the beef cattle championship of the world, at the Paris Exhibition in 1878, and the breed’s faithful following was secured.

THE SPARKLE

While everyone and anyone might refer to Aberdeen as the Granite City, those in the know prefer the more poetic title, Silver City by the Golden Sands. For this is a city which sparkles. Who minds the rain when it causes those very granite creations which some would deride as gloomy to actually glitter magically in the sunlight? And daylight is something you’ll find plenty of in summer - up to 18 hours of glorious light, staving off Seasonal Affective Disorder and keeping vitamin D stores high. In winter some might say the city becomes darker than the devil’s armpit, but take comfort in the Northern Lights - the real thing that is, not the dreadful song. The abundance of light is matched by a wealth of scenery to heighten your artistic sensibilities.

THE PEOPLE

Lord Byron is supposed to have had it away with the chamber maids in his lodgings in Broad Street, Edwardian opera diva Mary Garden was the composer Debussy’s mistress, scriptwriter Lorna Moon from Strichen got up to all sorts of jiggery pokery in 1920s Hollywood and James Keith, Frederick the Great’s field marshal, was lusted after by a Russian Empress. When it comes to sex the Aberdonian, and the natives of its natural hinterland, can be as lusty as any libidinous Latin.

But on the whole Aberdonians can appear rather worthy, reticent and cautious on first meeting in a 21st century which demands instant gratification. Scratch the granite surface and there’s a heart of carefully accumulated gold and an attractive self mocking irony. They know who they are. And never call them mean. "We’re canny". And how. The clipper ships they built were among the fastest in the world (the bow design was a brilliant tax dodge). Thomas Blake Glover was a founding father of Japan. Had he not built the original Mitsubishi shipyard Nagasaki might have escaped the A-bomb. Another Aberdeen first. Current great(ish), Aberdonians: musician Annie Lennox, percussionist Evelyn Glennie and the one who didn’t get away, Sir Ian Wood.

Reporting by Dan McDougall, Tracey Lawson, David Robinson, Sally Raikes, Louisa Pearson, Alastair Robertson