Aberdeenshire, North East Scotland

Familiar figures whirl around me, their countless shadows sprayed liberally across whitewashed walls. The light comes raining down from two immense candelabras surrounded by red coats of arms, these adorned by more finery in the form of painted wooden spears. Down below the band is about to start again, the musicians trooping back amid socialites crowding the dance floor with their Smalltalk and glasses of Champaign. The great and the good, close friends and acquaintances, hundreds of people fill the “Coo Cathedral”, that grand palace of a barn in rural Aberdeenshire, they fill it with laughter and merriment, gathered here today for the annual Abboyn Ball.

Suddenly as groups of friends eagerly scrawl on dance cards, introduce each other and try to make up for lost time a fiddle is drawn. A single fiddle yet the noise turns to a murmur and from the front comes a calm voice, “Ladies and Gentlemen, please take your places for the reel of the 51st division.”

White Tie and Evening wear, elegant dresses sweeping the ground as their wearers form long lines down the dance floor. Kilts in uncountable tartans and sporrans made out of unidentifiable animal heads with staring glass eyes. Both dresses and kilts move slightly as the men bow and the women curtsy, step forward….

In this last moment I walk quickly through the gathering crowd searching for the partner I have completely lost, a very sweet girl from England who I hope is also trying to find me. As the music starts and with my partner still absent, a wide eyed and slightly unnerving young woman completely unknown to me (who had seconds ago announced herself taken) decides she has been abandoned and I lead her into line.

…..The music starts and years of practice take over:

Forward step, bounce bums with my partner, cast off one (go behind the man next to me) set to my partner and quickly clap my hands before spinning her.

Mental instructions fly though my head as I look at my partner and try to remember her name. Next to me is James and further down Sam, both dancing with glamorous friends of ours clad in pashminas and expensive jewellery. As we spin each other the dancers whoop and stamp, laughter fills everything, more champagne corks are popped and I catch the faint smell of breakfast from somewhere off the dance floor.

Going back to school it is the dances I remember most. Leading girls by the arm, shaking hands and kissing cheeks, Rose’s laugh as the line disintegrates around us and dancers wheel erratically in every direction. James doing press ups in the middle of a circle to the angry stares of the older generation. We dance and flirt, laughing and making the most of this day for there are precious few times when we see each other, the youth of upper-class Aberdeenshire however much we deny it.

This time though, as the final dance ends and God Save the Queen is sung, all is not as jolly inside my head. All that I have just written about, the grandeur and the expensive tickets, it all contradicts with the way I try to live outside the U.K. I guiltily think of what Mama Mendoza in Guatemala would think of all this wasted wealth, money that could go into the community or something useful, or even what my school friends would say if they saw me here. In the end of the day of course, I am not going to renounce this life, these friends and this way of living. Instead I do my service work, visit poor countries, write my blog and keep each contradicting compartment in my life completely separate from the rest.

Corrybrough, Tomatin, Northern Scotland


Back from the highlands, washed, shaved, and reunited with the internet I finally have the opportunity to return to my writing and report on what I have seen. My time up north has left me with an urge to type reams of blog entries about beating, each featuring Dickensian characters living in a highly dramatized and equally stylized world. About the place, the rolling hills I could write much but it was the people who evoked the most emotion in me, the beaters and the keepers that I remember more than anything else.

There were two major factions working on the estates, both of which I had to interact with on a daily basis. Standing on the moors whilst we beaters were eating lunch you could see the presence of these two sides immediately. On the grass banks behind the lunch hut all those that have previously been working together immediately split in half and headed for opposite sides of the hill.

On one side, leaning against pieces of peat, talking loudly and wearing florescent rain gear are the Eastern Europeans. These are migrant workers brought in for £30 a day plus food and board, with no contract or loyalty to the estates. I live with them in an estate bunk house and am technically one of them. The following is a basic description of a average working morning in the granary.


The lower bunk beds are small, barely enough head room to even lie down on, let alone sit on the edge. Under the bunks, belongings are crammed, rumpled fleeces spilling loose change onto the floor as Eve, with her pigtails and prominent mole, yells at the occupants as she tries to hoover. The twelve in the room troop slowly down stairs to join others waiting on the long table marred with grease stains and marks as plates of dripping bacon buns are carried before them. Into such a vivid environment come characters, many straight from the pages of Orwell and Dickens.

Over by the fridge, Karel, a Czech with curly blond hair and a smile like the Joker, studies half eaten salami and bottles of orange juice. Satisfied that everything is in order he grabs a plate of soggy cornflakes and slurps them down noisily.

Sitting in the ripped chairs, Petra and several other Babushka like women are getting into waterproofs, braiding their hair and rolling sandwiches up in blue paper hand towels which they shove into coat pockets.

At the table, “Army boy” dressed in camouflage, and with his binoculars ever ready, quietly in Czech to his girlfriend as he steals orange juice for lunch.
Machek the Pole notices the theft and complains about the lack of juice due to the couple as they walk from the room. Presently a pockmarked Scottish youth with a near-shaven head named Ben comes down the narrow stairs lugging several guns and bandoliers of ammunition which the Czechs eye with worried expressions. Davie is next into the room with Bob the chef, ordering the beaters to “load up” into the backs of several land rovers already half filled with dogs.
Out side at the land rovers, beaters jostle for good position while oblivious dogs slide in between their legs to take up muddy station on the seats. We climb in, slam the doors and are soon being bumped and jolted into the hills and away to work.

Clune, The Highlands, Northern Scotland

Alone on the hill time passes slowly. Harsh winds blow cold and furious, driving thin sheets of rain into the gullies around me. Clumps of purple heather and the brown mess of peat hags carpet the ground, punctuated only by grey scree.

Minutes pass without break and the smallest change in the environment (A spider moving slowly across my leg) becomes immediately apparent. Later a sound, sharp like the crack of a whip (belonging to a waved flag), fills the void of silence and I slowly stand. Following it comes a shouted command, “Come on” rising as I clamber to my feet. Now standing it becomes apparent that I am in a line, small figures extending left and right across my vision, each clutching the plastic flag with its handle of faded wood.

This could be any number of days, the landscape almost indistinguishable from any other on the moors. In rain and sun, with biting winds at my face I have stood in line upon similar hills and waved my flag, sometimes with gusto, usually with deliberate slowness.

Stamping along, avoiding mud and rusted wire, the occasional Grouse is startled upwards into the air. These small brown birds, worth £95 per brace (for two) are our targets. Us in the line, the “beaters”, wave and snap our flags, driving the startled animals over the hills until the noise of firing shotguns looms ahead. Those with the guns have precious few seconds to fire at the frightened birds as they hurry away from the beaters and many birds fly on unhampered.

From my spot on the line I can see the guns firing, the “flankers” and the “Picker-up-ers” working dogs behind those shooting. A bird is hit and seems to freeze in midair before falling earthwards, feathers billowing over the heather. “Get back in line” screams a red faced Davie, “Stop looking at the guns”, his harsh words forcing me from my reveries and back into the monotony of my work.

Nearing the butts (dugouts for the guns to sit in) Davies radio comes alive as somewhere Susan tells the line to “Blow the horns”, signalling the guns to stop firing in front so they don’t hit the approaching beaters. Soon, after we have passed the butts and all shooting as ceased the entire line sinks to the ground and unwraps any food we have been carrying in our packs. We eat hurriedly, knowing that we will have to repeat all I have written of four more times before our daily wages are handed out.

Invernesshire, The Highlands, Northern Scotland

“Next stop Inverness, the line terminates next stop” whispers the tannoy system as the train barrels on through fields and past whiskey distilleries, their mounds of empty barrels sitting outside. Several minutes later the train hisses and stops, the doors open and I am expelled alone onto a chilly platform like some forgotten soldier, dragging my bags behind to the front of the station. I had travelled for three hours, carrying sleeping bag and boots, hats and spare clothes, intent on reaching Inverness and starting my job.

One month ago I had rung up Kallum, the Head Game Keeper of the Corrybrough Estate and asked for a summer job beating. Expecting a long interview I was very happy when after two minutes he said “See you at the estate on the 11th then, hope you don’t mind but everyone else is an Eastern European” and hung up.

It is the 11th of October, the night before the Glorious 12th which is traditionally the start of the grouse shooting season. In big houses across the country guns are laid out in their sleeves, Shoffel and Barber jackets taken off their pegs, cartridge bags filled and electronic earphones loaded with batteries.

On the estates harried keepers race across the moors in Land Rovers, on quads and clinging to the back of Argos, trying to finish last minute preparations. Flags and jugs of juice are loading into vehicles and over at Corrybrough Ben is going over the route for tomorrows drives.

In Inverness, perched like a buzzard upon my bags I catch sight of several Land Rovers parked out front near the old hotel. Taking my bags towards them I can see a large red faced man sitting in the left hand vehicle, dressed in tweeds and looking impatient. Seeing my dishevelled figure he raises one arm in greeting and motions for me to dump my bags in the back of his truck.

Later, from sitting talking with him and listening into others conversations I will learn much more about the countryside than I do about Davie. As we drive towards the estate I gather only that he works on the estate, owns a dog and is disappointed with the awful state of the shooting season. After twenty minutes (Davie being the slowest driver in the North) of uncomfortable silence and stilted conversation we reach Tomatin which I understand will be my local town for a month.

Ten seconds later we are though it, the whole place consisting of a post office, a large pub and twenty houses that leave me disappointed. The pickup truck skirts fields of bored looking sheep, drives under two road bridges and over a rickety wooden one before pulling up in a empty yard. A sign on one of the buildings reads “The Granary-Corrybrough”, and through the lighted windows I see people moving around in a sparsely decorated room. Grabbing my bags I hasten to the door and set my sights on finding a good bed and something to eat, knowing nothing about what’s in store for me over the following weeks.