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The Waning of Ferryden
| Article
# : |
13436 |
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Section : |
CULTURE
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| Issue
Date : |
9 / 1987 |
4,455 Words |
| Author
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Jane Hurwitz Nadel
Jane Hurwitz Nadel is assistant professor of anthropology at
Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut. |
Villages, like people, come into the world and must eventually leave it. Some last longer than others, and the manner of their passing varies. Some die dramatically, their houses and halls shattered by war; others, their life oozing away with every resident who despairs and leaves, cling hungrily to crumbling factories or unsafe mines. But some, like the Scottish village of Ferryden, die quietly, in a way that few outsiders would notice.
Ferryden, a former fishing village of eight hundred people that now hosts an offshore oil-support base, is not dying for want of people or houses, but for want of community. For the past fifty years, in ever-increasing proportions, newcomers have replaced the fisherfolk who once were Ferryden's sole inhabitants. Ferryden has been changing from a village community into a suburb, a disturbing distinction for the fisherfolk who remain.
I first visited Ferryden in 1975 to study the social impact of offshore oil development on a Scottish community. A riverside village in the Angus District, it lies thirty miles to the south of Aberdeen (a city long renowned as a fishing port but then known locally as "the Houston of Scotland") on the North Sea coast. In 1973, the Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company built its Sea Oil Services offshore-supply base on Ferryden's northern flank. The harbor formed by the mouth of the South Esk River separates both village and base from the old port town of Montrose.
To the outsider, Ferryden resembles an outflung suburban arm of Montrose more than it does a traditional village. Generally thought of as a fishing village, it offers little visual evidence to confirm this
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