A strangers’ guide to the Highland games
June 2007
The Braemar Gathering: The most important job of all is to be the commentator. The main requirement is to like the sound of your own voice – but not too much. photo: Jim Henderson
by Jake Williams
I have no fondness for any other sporting event. Never been to a football match. Can’t see the point of watching people running round a track. So why am I so nuts about highland games?
Mostly because it is not like Wimbledon where you are expected to pay attention to the action from start to finish – there is plenty of scope for wandering about – when you are bored with watching brawny lads chucking cabers you can listen to the pipers, watch the dancers, wander round the trade stands, or ignore the games totally, in the sanctuary of the beer tent. A good day out is guaranteed.
Make a whole day of it: from the start of the solo piping competitions in the early morning, till the last straggler leaves the beer tent. Or just look in for an hour in the middle of the afternoon.
Bring a picnic, or buy from the range of venisonburgers, ice cream, scones in the tea-tent, candyfloss hygienically packed in polythene instead of wrapped on a splintery stick. Buy a souvenir programme. Take some photos. Enter some of the competitions. If you are not an athlete, a piper, or a highland dancer, you can cheer on those who are.
It is a great chance to dress up. Like wearing a fancy hat at a wedding or at Ascot, you can be slightly larger-than-life. The definition of what counts as highland dress has broadened in the last decade or so, possibly helped by the film Braveheart. Anything tweedy or tartan goes. The colours have become more autumnal and less military.
Wear a feather in your woolly bunnet. Carry a knobbly staff with a rams-horn handle. The official over-reaction to knife-crime does not apply (not yet anyway) to skean dubhs worn at highland games. Face-painting allows wee kids to be a different person for the day. A silver hip flask is always an acceptable fashion accessory.
Even if you are too shy to be part of the people show yourself, it is fascinating to watch the ever-changing array of colourful characters on the games circuit…
The athletes, following the dream of making it into the big-time international circuit. Some of them will become champions, then judges, then coaches for the up-and-coming hopefuls. The pipers, both the individuals who compete in the competitions, and the bands. The dancers, mostly young girls, but some boys and a few adults. The dancers’ parents, recognisable by the holdalls in which they carry the girls’ fine costumes. In the last few years, cheap and quickly-erected tents have become available, sold as ‘fishing shelters’, so every dancer can have their own dressingroom, instead of falling over each other in the corner of a marquee.
The stallholders, selling an array of fast food, tartan soft toys, cds, kilts, arts and crafts, t-shirts, postcards, ice-cream, walking sticks, fancy cheeses, antiquarian books. For some it is a full-time job running a stall with thousands of pounds worth of stock; for others it is a once-or-twice-a-year adventure, not exactly a fortune-making enterprise, but more than just a day out with pocket money.
Some I remember, but have not seen for a few years… there was a couple who had retired from running a hardware shop: instead of selling off the last of the stock for pennies to get rid of it, they had filled their shed, then went round the games with a wee stall packed with brass hinges, doormats and shelf-brackets. I suppose they eventually sold the lot, then stopped.
There was a trailer with a giant gimbal that you could be strapped into, then you would rotate in all three dimensions for a few minutes, I always fancied a go, but have not seen it around lately. One lady sold hand-knitted socks and scarves from a frame tent at the Lonach… where are they all now?
It is hard to tell how many highland games and gatherings are in Scotland every year: maybe a hundred? The tourist board website lists 27 games just in the Highlands, 11 more in the North-East, and 20 in Tayside and Perthshire. Glenfiddich whisky distributes a poster every year, listing most of those in the North-East, so check their website.
Then there are some gala days and agricultural shows that include elements of piping, athletics, and highland dancing, but don’t claim to be fully-fledged highland games. So wherever you are in Scotland, there is bound to be something near you, and once you go to one, you will find out when the next one is in the area.
Every highland games has its own character – from the wee, intimate small-town games, to the corporate council-run games in Aberdeen and Inverness. You cannot go to them all, so which are the best?
The serious athletes choose the games that have the best prize-money; the rest of us have different priorities.
If you don’t really like highland games, the best one to go to is Aberlour. They have the best pass-out system, so you can come and go as the mood takes you. Stroll up the main street, or along the bank of the Spey, then back to the games.
Pitlochry has the best seating: the steep south-facing bank is terraced and the earth held back by sleepers into comfortably wide turf benches for sitting or sprawling.
The best games at which to get a hernia is the Atholl & Breadalbane Gathering, where there is a competition to carry the Menzies Stone, a big, round boulder that is hard to get a grip on, even if you have the strength to lift the thing. I have seen big brawny blokes who could not even get the thing off the ground, never mind carry it. The folk who do manage have a technique of sort of rolling it slowly up the front of their body, pausing for breath at critical points, before the next big effort.
Most games have a hill race, the most gruelling of all sports. If you think a marathon sounds like hard work, this is similar except it is up steep hills, and over rough ground. At Dufftown, they race from the games park in the town, to the top of Ben Rinnes, five miles away. If that is not tiring enough, on the way there, they go over the tops of a few wee-er hills. The total climb is the same as climbing Ben Nevis. And they don’t hang around: the record time is just over two hours. That is fast – I take longer than that to walk from the car park at the foot of the hill to the summit.
Which gathering has the most picturesque setting? It is debatable, but Drumtochty Games, just off the Cairn o’ Mount road – south of
Banchory, west of Montrose – is held in a wooded hollow; the mimulus growing in the burn are always in flower at the time of the games, at the end of June. Or what about Strathcarron Games, looking across Loch Carron to the Torridon hills.
In the last couple of years it is become harder to get a really close look at the hammer-throwers and shot-putters, as there are now safety nets to stop a badly-thrown 28lb weight from landing in the crowd. (I believe it has happened in the past).
Some of the events have separate sections for the real, serious heavy athletic competitors, with open competitions for anybody who turns up and wants to enter. In effect, there are two separate circuits, the games that go to great lengths to attract the top athletes, and the amateur circuit. But even the amateurs reckon on winning enough to break even on their day out.
The newly-revived Aviemore Games seems to be aiming for a niche in between the professional circuit and the freak show: their poster last year emphasised their East European athletes, including strong women.
Whatever else you do, go to your local games. Hang about with your neighbours and make some new friends. Like every other human endeavour, there is a whole fringe of unseen culture associated with it, so get involved! I have a general fear and loathing of committees and would not recommend anybody to join one, but there is plenty scope for volunteering in the days and weeks leading up to the games.
All sorts of hardware and equipment must to be checked and painted and repaired. Putting up the signs, taking money at the gate, selling raffle tickets, wearing a ‘high-viz’ vest while directing the car-parking. The event does not just start in the morning and finish that evening; it goes on all year with increasing frenzy in the lead-up to the big day.
The most important job of all is to be the commentator. The main requirement is to like the sound of your own voice – but not too much. You might even get to be the chieftain, a figurehead chosen by some mysterious process: maybe it is hereditary?
Jake Williams has never tossed a caber in his life, in spite of going to lots of Highland Gatherings.
This is an article from the June 2007 edition of Leopard Magazine. To read much more like this every month, see our subscription details.
This article made me smile-thanks for the memories. I had a wonderful day at the Stonehaven games 3 years ago. But, we do have HIghland games here in the US- there’s even a great day out in Mesa, Arizona in the spring. But the pies are no sae guid as them at hame!
— Marjory Cordoza (nee Duthie) 29 June 2007 #