WESTER ROSS is a large and diverse area involving some long distance travel. I seemed to spend half my time in my van driving between different communities and the Highland Festival Office in Inverness. My hand-free telephone set became my most valuable friend, and I developed a fine understanding of the locations where an Orange mobile signal can be found!
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My laptop computer sat permanently on the passenger seat and I would often pull to the side of the road to enter or retrieve some piece of information from my database. We had additional organizations assisting us in our various activities but, with the best will in the world, things get forgotten, and sometimes it felt like swimming through treacle as I attempted to catch up with things that had not gone according to plan.
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These failures were almost all due to breakdowns in communication or an insufficient realization of the under-resourcing problem that is such a constant feature in managing any project in the West Highlands.
As the event itself approached things actually seemed to calm down a little bit. As the timings tighten one finds oneself working to the limits of one’s capacity and so there is no time left for stress!
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Friday 12 September
On a wet and windy night I found myself driving between Kinlochewe and Applecross four times ferrying artists and equipment between the respective locations. We managed to get the lights and sound equipment set up in the Applecross Village Hall about ten minutes before the doors opened!
Later that evening I drove to Kinlochewe Village Hall, where they had had a great night with the Fergie Macdonald Ceilidh Band and Rumba Caliente. There were musicians to drive to Gairloch and door takings to be accounted for. We finally collapsed in a Gairloch hotel apartment at about 3:30am.
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Saturday 13 September
The next morning, I awoke to a full gale together with a fine drizzle beating on the window. For some reason it always seems to be like that on Saturday mornings in Gairloch! I got together some breakfast for the band whose accommodation I was sharing and then got on the road. I needed to get to Poolewe in time for the Eliza Carthy afternoon concert and then on to Ullapool for a street carnival parade and a concert with Mr McFall’s Chamber in the Village Hall. To boost our funds, Wester Ross Events had applied for an occasional alcohol licence, and I needed to buy the booze from the local Safeway.
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I managed to catch the beginning of the parade. With a sultry evening sky and puffs of extremely warm wind buffeting the children, teenagers and adults as they made their way along Shore Street, it really was a stunning audio-visual spectacle. Then it was off to the Village Hall where we needed to set up lighting, stock the bar and set out the seating in time for the beginning of the concert.
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© Tommy Beavitt, 2003 |
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