Banking on the climb up a childhood mountain in Troon

The Ballast Bank is my favourite walk in the world, and not just because Troon’s legendary harbourside fish and chip shop, the Wee Hurrie, huddles next to the fishmarket at one end. Though the thought of what deep-fried delights may be waiting for you certainly incentivises what can be a windy, giddy waltz, 10 metres high, some 650 metres long, above the Glennon Brothers sawmill. Into the past.

Troon in Ayrshire is where, from seven to 17, I lived and breathed and had my becoming. Where childhood happened, and teenagedom took hold on bad motorcycles, cheap golf courses and in tedious, sometimes scary, sometimes hilarious Gospel meetings. I’ve never regarded the place with the same nostalgic affection as my two sisters; from 17 to 21 I was at university and after dad and mum moved along the seashore to Ayr I rarely returned to Troon

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Shiona and Ruthie, exiles in France and Devon, have always had flatted footholds in the town, but with Shiona consolidating in England her wee apartment became available. It’s become our redoubt, retreat and mainland HQ. 

The Ballast Bank is a long artificial hill, built in the 19th Century by the Duke of Portland  from the shingle and stone ballast ships dumped before loading with Ayrshire coal at Troon Harbour. The idea was to protect the port from the prevailing south-westerly wind. It’s easy to forget how busy and industrial Troon once was. Even in the 1960s, when our family moved from Pollokshaws in Glasgow, there was the Barassie rail works, a shipbuilders and shipbreakers, Hillhouse Quarry and Dundonald Camp Junior Tradesman’s Regiment, though the harbour was heading for dereliction as the mines began to close. Nowadays it’s tourism, especially golf, commuting, the sawmill and the marina, with a small fishing fleet and temporary status as the ferry terminal  for Arran soon, while Ardrossan is upgraded. Hillhouse is still active. I had a summer job there once during which a former fellow Marr college pupil  tried to dynamite several co-workers

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The Bank is short, plain, low, groomed by lawnmowers. It’s not as if I’m a stranger to spectacular walks. From the West Highland Way and associated detours (Ben Nevis in fog: a mistake) to Shetland’s myriad and wonderful coastal perambulations, without leaving Scotland I have glimpsed topographical heaven and beyond, with all kinds of culinary delights included (St Magnus Bay Hotel sticky toffee pudding, Frankies’ fish and chips, the Crannog in Fort William).

But the Ballast Bank is childhood, simple, straightforward. This is where we would walk in our Sunday best on a Sabbath afternoon, the only permitted Brethren exercise of that holy day. Shoes would be scuffed on the rocks, running up the strangely-cobbled ramp to the top was an explosion of energy after hours of imposed worship. And looping back along the seawall sometimes involved an hilarious series of escapes from incoming waves. We would gaze at The Painted Lady, the figurehead of a ship called the Port Stanley, broken up in Troon in the 1920s. She didn’t look like a member of the Brethren

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I have strange dreams in Troon. One recent example: I was at a residential training camp for comedians, and everyone had to perform a routine based on a selection of buffet party snacks they’d created. Awake at 5.00am, I began working on this. It would be called Comedy Capers: is An Olive Just A Vegan Whelk? I was thinking about a grilled cheese sandwich made with excrement you could call a croque de merde, Monsieur, when I realised that wasn’t funny. Then I remembered that I hate comedy.

Anyway, when I walk Dexter the Increasingly Fat Dog on the Ballast Bank, It’s a calming experience, no matter the buffeting weather.  It’s like…I don’t know; being on holiday. On a holy day.

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Of course, digital technology means you’re never quite on vacation, and Wednesday saw an incredibly long (three hours and 45 minutes), tedious and sometimes splenetic meeting of Shetland islands Council, conducted on my part via Microsoft Teams. Many councillors are currently in trembling thrall to the Gloomy Grey Elders of Audit Scotland and the Accounts Commission, who have been warning against using Shetland’s oil-funded reserves to meet budget deficits. The notion that we might be in some kind of serious cost of living crisis, that free bus travel and free school meals  could actually save lives and secure futures – apparently cuts no ice when Old Edinburgh Men In Ties have fingers to wag and threats of ‘special measures’ to invoke.

Never mind, the journey towards the Holy Emissions Grail of ‘Net Zero’ is not, as yet, going to stop anyone cutting peat for fuel. Let us now grind our tushkars!

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Teams worked flawlessly for the interminable length of said council meeting, but WebEx, whatever that is, failed miserably, stopping my attendance at a lecture on the apparent health risks posed by eroding wind generator blades. Zoom was fine for a Shetland Labour Party conclave, at which I modelled Susan’s latest project, a Fair isle Labour Party hat. 

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Back home to Shetland on Friday, and the forecast is looking reasonable. A repeat of last Saturday’s 18-hour, four-metre-swell epic ferry trip would not be welcome. Meanwhile, fish and chips not from the Wee Hurrie, but the venerable Pavilion Café in Templehill. Old school haddock and delicious with it. There’s a picture on the wall of Pele training with the Brazil Squad at Troon Juniors’ Portland Park in 1966. I remember it well. When football was something else entirely.

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