The Forest at Forres (Chapter 6.6, Visual Journey)

Giants in the Forres (Chapter 6.5, Visual Journey)

Forres (an interlude before Giants Chapter 7)

It wasn't that hard to find out something about Forres. My lack of ambition in previous locations is now set in sharp contrast against the ease of looking stuff up on Wikipedia. 

Forres has a rich history. It turns up in Macbeth (Duncan had a castle there, before he kipped on the couch of the wrong laird). In 1200 it was made a Royal Burgh, and King James IV gave it a special charter in 1496. It also has Sueno's Stone, which was possibly carved by Picts to celebrate a victory against the Vikings. Bringing things bang up to date, it also had the first crystal meth lab in Scotland. That might be the first lab that got busted.

I bet the local council are delighted that the last fact is on the Wikipedia page.

Sueno's Stone is more interesting, anyway. It is still outside- it's been put in a big case, so it probably counts as the world's most concise museum. It's quite hard to pick out the detail on it, but there's plenty of old school fighting on it. It begs comparisons with the Giants: while the exact purpose of Sueno's Stone is contested, it's all about the ruckus. It's unlikely that it became the focus of community art, or spontaneous aesthetic responses by disturbed cyclists.

The relics of the railway are what caught my attention. Knowing that it was once a busy location - possibly due to the old distillery - opens up questions about how Scotland was impacted by the cuts of the 1960s. I have always been unhappy about the way that the state treats its railway services (getting a train is a pleasure, not just a journey), and start to wonder whether the cutting of services on this line has had an impact on the way that the countryside and city connect. 

I have always seen the concentration of population in the central belt as natural. But was it enforced by the destruction of the railways? Was there a time when being outside of the big cities wasn't necessarily a disconnection from urban life?

Forres has a fine history - and certainly deserves more study than I have given it.

Giants in the Forest: Trains and Forres Chapter 6.5

After the drama of getting lost in Forres, finding my inner artist in the woods, the cycle back to the station is uneventful. Forres is a town that I find difficult to assess - that juxtaposition of the New Age Healing culture and a gentle village intrigues me. It is as if there are two Forres...

I am also forced to reconsider various prejudices. Being an urban type, I assume that there are less masseurs in the Highlands.

The train station (from Forres along to Nethy Bridge) gives me both a train journey (as far as Carrbridge) and a good cycle. I arrive in plenty of time - booking a bike on a train means getting onto the right train - and fiddle with the google map. There will be a spot of drama when I get off the train, if I don't work out which way is south.

After my realisation that I am more like my father than I had imagined, time on a train station can be more fulfilling. I have more than the accepted level of excitement as I stare off along the tracks, noting the old fashioned signal and the growth of plants across on the disused platform. I become an industrial detective, realising that Forres was once much busier. It must have had two lines once, and enough travellers to need two platforms.

My sentimentality about the railways is more common than I thought. In the ticket office, there are old photographs of the trains. I treat the waiting room like a model, snapping images from different angles, trying to capture enough of the trains to be able to send them back to my father. He's be able to identify their stock, their date.

My original assumptions about Forres might be wrong: I assumed that its growth was based on the influx caused by the growth of Findhorn.

Giants in the Forest Chapter 6.4

A close  up of the knot (made from grass) that holds together the two sticks at the centre of the sculpture.

''Love seeketh only self to please,
To bind another to its delight,
Joys in another's loss of ease,
And builds a Hell in Heaven's despite.''

William Blake 

After building my tribute to the Giants, I spent longer taking photographs of it than I had making it. So much for my desire to create an impermanent structure - although I do hope it gets knocked over, since it adds little to the general ambience, I have a mania for documentation.

From behind, the fronds of the plants act as a sort of head  - it looks as if the sculpture has already fallen over. Perhaps it is a representation of the exhaustion I felt after getting lost in Forres. Maybe it is lying in supplication to the Giants.

There's something a little bit Blair Witch about it from this angle. I'd rather not stumble across this in the middle of the night. 

''"O life of this our Spring! why fades the lotus of the water?
Why fade these children of the Spring,born but to smile and fall?''

I tried to get a few snaps from different positions to show the scale of the piece, and to impress the detail. It hasn't come out like that. It looks as if a few bits were added to random tree falls. 

Giants in the Forest: Forres Chapter 6.3

This is what the view from the Giants looks like in Sanquahar Woods. So far, I have been interested in the relationship between the Giants and their immediate environment. However - perhaps due to the mysterious associations of the nearby Findhorn community - I have become concerned with a more mythical interpretation of these Giants.

A couple who had come across me on the site suggested that there were symbolic readings of the Giants. These alluded to the pagan traditions, and stories of beings who once inhabited these forests. I determined to attempt an alternative reading.

My first step was to think about creating some kind of on the spot response to the forest. I put down my camera, and began to haul pieces of wood, stones and fir cones about. I discovered a mound which would serve as a sort of shrine.

The mound was directly beneath the gaze of all three Giants. I wanted to leave something behind that clearly alluded to their presence, but wasn't necessarily a crude commentary on the Giants. It was intended to be an abstract art review of their presence. Each branch, each leaf, had a meaning - at least to me. How far this sculpture would be comprehensible to others was moot.

No trees were harmed in the creation: the branches had already fallen from the trees. I hope that the piece would not be permanent. In fact, I originally intended not to mention it on the blog. I thought I could pretend someone else had done it.

After I had spent ten minutes carrying the wood about, adjusting the line, closing in on the detail, I wanted to sign it in huge letters. Having struggling with writing about the Giants, and making sense of them through words, I decided that I had found an alternative process.

Here's a close up of the arrangement in the middle. The repetition of the number three throughout the design reflects both the number of Giants but also the use of trinities in many world religions. The lines of the branches are there to emphasise the pathway that has led me across the country towards the Giants.

I felt absurd making the piece, and feel absurd talking about it. I was having fun as I made it though.

Giants in the Forest Chapter 6.2 (Forres)

Not for the last time, I thank my common sense that I don't talk too loudly to the Giants. After twenty minutes of leaping about in the glade, I spot a couple walking across the hill towards me. I ask them whether they knew that the Giants were here. They reply that they have come across from Findhorn to check them out.

This is the first time that I have been in a position to show off about the Giants. I explain to them that I am tracing the trail of the Giants across the country, and do a quick compare and contrast with other locations.

It turns out that one of the couple will be doing a story-telling workshop at another location, and they are more than familiar with the construction of the Giants. They are pretty nice about my grand-standing, and ask me which Giants I liked the best.

I reply that I have found it is no so much about the Giants themselves as their placement. I discuss how the Giants act as a sort of neutral balance, and take on the quality of the area. So, I begin, The Edinburgh Giants are like business giants, waiting for tourist footfall. The Bowhill ones, in retrospect, had a quiet, polite dignity. Forres' Giants are, perhaps due to their proximity to Findhorn, about to get a mystical analysis.

The three of us stand in silence for a while. I have tried to avoid getting too mystical about the Giants - although I have a blog post tucked away that bangs on about the nature of Trinities and the pagan symbolism of weaving. The couple bring it up first. They are pondering where the Giants are, guessing at another dimension somewhere. One beyond the one that I am wandering about in.

I shift uneasily. I don't like to admit that I have pondered something similar. I cough and reply that they are very obviously man-made, and that is what gives them their presence. The couple look at me and ask me what I think they represent.

I leap into a quick lecture on the ancient Roman idea that each place has its own spirits. I am flailing about in
this half-remembered idea (the Lares? the Penates? I know that Aeneas carried these out of Troy when he set off to find Italy, but...) when the couple rescue me. 'It might just be about encouraging people to visit the wilds.'

It's a horrible moment - I realise that from the moment we met, I have been treating this couple as new age flakes, assuming that they were about to burst into song or abstract philosophy at any moment. I haven't really been listening to them at all. They are kind and interesting and as they walk away, I am pretty sure I would have really enjoyed listening to what they had to say.

Had I not been hung up on being so rational, so scientific.

I flick back over my notes. I've been crossing out anything that might sound like a hippy - or allude to anything other than the literal description of the Giants. I mock myself whenever I play around with ideas, talk to the Giants. I am probably missing something.

There have been a few too many personal revelations on this trip for my liking...

Giants in the Forest: Chapter 6.1 Forres

Apart from my cheeky night-time adventure in Falkland - which I am pretty sure that I did on purpose to give myself something terrifying to write - my trip to the Giants in Forres becomes the first time that I get lost. I managed to get confused by the route, because it went through a housing estate. Quite obviously, urban cycling no longer suits me.

Forres is also the first place that I meet other people who have explicitly come out to the woods to see the Giants. A charming
couple arrive from  nearby Findhorn and talk about the Giants in a way that is mystical and intriguing.

Forres, the town, is also mystical and intriguing. Thanks to the simple straight line of the High Street, and the complicated network of the housing estate, it feels like a more modern settlement than those I have encountered recently. The shopping selection is also unique: there are the usual suspects (the sweet shop, a bar or two, a couple of supermarkets and the charity shop). Yet there are more alternative therapy centres than I would have imagined. The influence of Findhorn, which is a haven for spiritual seekers, is clear in the main area of town.

I am slightly disorientated by this, and that same dualism is played out when I head out towards the heads. They are in a patch of woodland that is within the housing estate. They are tucked away, up a hill and at the end of a muddy trail, but I am never that far from a road.

The three Giants are on the crest of a hill: it's still early enough in the day, despite my detours, to catch the sun as it floods onto the plateau. Each set of Giants has taken on their own identity, but I am struggling with these guys. I am running about, photographing them, trying to chat to them, asking what they have seen. They are, unsurprisingly, less talkative than I am.

The photographs never manage to represent the experience of seeing the Giants (no angle holds all three together, to give the sense of their relationship to each other, and while the films do show their stillness, the depth of the forest background is lost). But I like the way that the photograph flattens them against the tree-line, and emphasises how they respond to the colours around them...