Folk say there’s ayeways a time and a place, well ah’m the place. The spirit o’ the place if you like.
Naebody kens wit name they first cried me. But aince ah wis the edge ay the civilised world. They built a great muckle wa’ right through me, the Romans that is. They came, they saw, and weel, a’ suppose they jist decided to go nae further. They were here that short a time ye could ca’ them tourists, though they clearly didnae see ma future tourism potential.
After that it becomes a bit mair foggy. Ma memory isnae great and naebody thought tae write this bit doon. At some point though they built a church and, ane thing led tae anither and a got ma name. An Eaglais Bhreac. No bad ay? Ye see the church wis made out these stanes that were sortay speckled, ye ken, so it was cawed the Speckled Kirk. Efter a while it became the Faw Kirk. Maist folk here still ca’ me that but ower time it got a bit lost in translation. Ye see, some smairtie saw it written doon and thought “well these barbarians must mean faw as in fall, like the dreadful way they say baw instead of ball”. So noo if ye see me on the news I’ll usually be Falkirk as in Falmouth. Baws tae that.
Folk, like the Romans, they’ve come and gone but names though, names stick. Schools are rebuilt, streets become shoappin centres and ferms become the “new hooses” but the names stick. That’s the hing about the future, we’re ayeways rebuilding the past. Take ma Steeple. It’s been their fir donkeys, its bong kept folk on time, it’s jayl took care of ma criminals and folk gaithered roon it at Hogmanay. Thing is though, it was demolished in 1803 and rebuilt. It wis struck bi’ lightning in the 1920s asweel and the tap wis rebuilt. Wit a day that wis, the thing kilt a horse pulling the Barr’s Irn Bru cart.
Dae ye ever really look at a building though and wonder, wit it wis built for? I mean, wis it a shoap or a bank or a hame? Each building tells a story, that o’wer time folk forget. Sometimes, they have a brief moment of fame or infamy, like that shoap on the High Street that Burns apparently stayed in one night. He went tae visit the Carron Irons Works anaw, one ay the biggest iron works in Europe, wrote a poem aboot it tae. It’s shuddered noo, dilapidated, deed. Wi’ remember these things but naebody remembers the ordinary folk that lived and died here.
Dinnae get me wrong, they remember some of them. They build statues for you if you die in a war and auld big nose, Wellington, he’s goat a statue tae. They’re maistly men though. I remember them aw, men and wimmin, I mean maist ay them are still here. I ken exactly how many ay them are deed in ma seemetries - aw ay them, he he. Seriously though, ye widnae believe the number ay graves that naebody visits ony mair, aw covered in moss, thir names worn away. It’s no jist that. There wis a hail battle in 1298, 4,000 men were kilt and William Wallace hud taw make a sharp exit but naebody even kens whaur it wis!
People are ayeways going on aboot the future, promising it to each other. The future though, its jist the past reimagined, rebuilt, monitised. Canals built for industry become tourist attractions, concrete works become retail parks, cinemas become nightclubs and banks become bookies. We talk aboot the future but the past is ayeways there, in the bricks ay the buildings and under oor feet. The past isnae anothir country, it’s here, right whaur we live.
The future? Ach weil, it’s no really ma place tae say.