Sounds of the Underground: Echoes of Travelling Lives
CAVE DWELLERS OF WICK - ECHOES OF TRAVELLING LIVES The piece was inspired by an article written by Alison Campsie in The Scotsman (2015) detailing the historic cave-dwelling of Traveller families: this was a relatively commonplace occurrence throughout the Far North and Scotland as a whole until the practice was outlawed around the time of the First World War. Travelller families at cave mouth, Wick South Head. (The Johnstone Collection, Wick) The location of the cave is stark: jutting slate faces directly East over the full force of the North Sea, with the next landmass beyond the horizon being Norway. Standing at the edge of slate - the modern horizon with the Beatrice offshore wind farm just visible. Even when visiting on a relatively balmy July day, the cave was an eerie, cold and wet place: littered with inevitable jetsam from passing vessels and the discarded party debris of local youth, permeated by the ammonial stench of gull guano. The resonance of the cave was continual
