by William Loneskie
I find it hard to understand why people who can choose where they live opt to live in a large town or city. Take Edinburgh for example, where 450,000 people jostle amid traffic noise, air pollution, vandalism, drugs, violent crime, and cramped and confined housing. It would be understandable if the cost of living there were low as a way of compensating for the lowly form of life its inhabitants enjoy. Alas the cost of housing there is high, and even Edinburgh’s most expensive residences cannot offer the riches of living in a small rural village like Oxton.
No wonder a Dumfriesshire solicitor once said to me that he didn’t really consider Edinburgh to be a part of Scotland at all.
And so to Oxton. A unique high village away from a main road like so very few, and so away from traffic noise. A place where crime is unheard of and where you can leave your door unlocked at night. Clean air. Clean living. Crime-free. Silent nights under a trillion stars. Birdsong dawn. Peace. An oasis of calm in a disturbingly violent world.
With a good school, Oxton is also a great place to bring up children away from Edinburgh’s vices. Have you noticed how most of the great Scots came from rural areas? Air Marshall Sir Hugh Dowding for example, the architect of the RAF’s victory in the Battle of Britain (1940), a battle of far greater significance than Bannockburn (1314), was born and brought up in Moffat.
Are any of Oxton’s children destined for high places? I am certain that there are.
And yet while Oxton is insulated from the degradations of Edinburgh, it is not isolated, for it is only some 25 miles to the south and west of “Athens of the North” as the capital was once ironically termed. And so if you wish to speak to your local MSP all you need to do is hop on a number 51 bus, and with a change onto LRT you will be at the gates of Ramshackle House before you wished you hadn’t come.
“But there’s no night life!” says the Edinburgh “sophisticate”. To which I reply, “Get a life”. “Ok then,” replies the Sophisticate, “there’s no Tesco”. Actually your wrong there, chum. Both Tesco and Asda will deliver your every whim right to your very door without you hassling to park, trolley, pick, choose and check-out queue. And should you prefer instant service from dawn to dusk, the Bakehouse Stores are at your disposal.
Tom Weir, one of Scotland’s great hill and mountain writers, once said that living in the country was worth a thousand a year. But that was fifty years ago. Work out for yourself what it means now after allowing for fifty years inflation.
In 2011 research was completed about the difference in the amygdala between city and country dwellers. The amygdala is the region of the brain which deals with emotion and mood. The research was carried out by Dr. Jens Pruessner of the Douglas Mental Health University Institute in Quebec, along with scientists from the world renowned Heidelberg University (established 1386). The study found that the amygdala was much more active in city dwellers, explaining why people who live in rural areas are less prone to heart attacks and strokes – two conditions known to be exacerbated by stress and anxiety.
There’s no doubt about it : urbanism drives folk to the edge of reason. I remember some years ago telling a gnarled son of the soil through the window of his venerable but still serviceable Land Rover about the European Union daytime running lights proposal, forcing us to drive around with lights on in broad daylight. He heaved his bulky frame on his seat, squeezed the worn steering wheel in his mighty hands and looking through the scratched and dusty windscreen shook his head and said scornfully, “They’re mad, these people.” I couldn’t agree more.
