On my wall I have a postcard which shows a red piece of cardboard tied to a fence and little more. What a world those words conjure up. Even in territory swamped by some of the money of oil, and discovered by people from distant places, the old geography holds sway. Look at these pictures and you will see that after you leave Dundee and plunge into the great red-soiled land of the Mearns, running north to Aberdeen, there's a character in the landscape and in the towns that's consistent. The stone is grey, enough of the people have that squarish face with the broad smile to convince you that they're still in charge of their native patch, and the scene seems familiar all the way.
Painters speak about how a special light is characteristic of a certain place.
In the north-east I think you see it best in the early evening. On the good days the landscape is washed in a steely, cobalt blue - not the fierce light of sunnier places and not the dreich greyness you often find to the west. This is a rich palette of grey-blue sky, sparkling granite and green fields, splashed with yellow broom and the satisfying warmth of newly ploughed earth. This is the country where Lewis Grassic Gibbon imagined Sunset Song and where the life of the old farm towns, the little communities gathered round the farmhouse, is recent enough to be still a culture that's cherished, and for its oral tradition to survive and flourish. - as their pillars, were drawn together by hard taskmasters. The black-clad group at the door of the kirk on Sunday morning wasn't looking grim by accident.