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.