The Tarradale Challenges
The brief was to be inspired by the Tarradale Through Time project and produce an artwork, photograph or piece of creative writing for us. We are now very pleased to be able to bring you the results.
Three separate challenges were set up encouraging people to engage their creativity by producing a work of art or a photograph or a piece of creative writing. The only criterion was that the submission had something to do with Tarradale in its widest sense. The entries, from a wide cross-section of the community, included watercolours, wood engravings, different styles of photography, creative essays and poems.
It was very difficult to choose clear winners and as far as we are concerned everyone that engaged with the project was a winner. A selection of the submissions is included here and these should be seen as representative of the quality of the entries. The TARRADALE THROUGH TIME team engaged in a degree of creativity themselves by commissioning three-dimensional models of the antler harpoon found at the shell midden excavations in Tarradale in 2017. The harpoon is such a rare and important find that we want it to be the identifying badge or logo for the TARRADALE THROUGH TIME project and we intend to present reproductions of the harpoon as prizes for the creative challenges.
The Winners
The barrow cemetery excavation was often carried out in rather blustery and wet weather and one of the art challenge submissions was a moody watercolour, with the title Rain clouds over Tarradale.
Rain clouds over Tarradale by Margie Trewin Photography
The photography challenge was the most popular category with a range of photographs taken in and around the Tarradale excavations. Photographers could submit one photograph or a few photographs to illustrate a theme. Again we can only show a small sample of the photographs, one from a study by Konia Tack simply entitled Buckets and another called Life’s shadow.
Creative Writing
The creative writing challenge was also popular, with the barrow cemetery and its shadowy grave providing inspiration for a number of entries. One of these was in the form of an excellent poem The last man. It conveys a moving depth of feeling and poignancy. A very different inspiration for creative writing were the remains of an abandoned settlement surveyed and excavated near Tarradale Mains farm in 2018. A cluster of houses appears on the Tarradale estate map of 1788 but all that remains today is just the overgrown footings of the buildings. We do not know when or why this settlement of poor tenants was abandoned but life on the edge is dramatically portrayed in the essay Tam’s Tarradale dilemma.
Tarradale Primary School
The TARRADALE THROUGH TIME project has worked in partnership with Tarradale Primary School throughout the project. Lachlan McKeggie, our outreach coordinator, has engaged with pupils in most of the classes, with archaeological workshops in the school and visits to the excavations. The school also took part in the TARRADALE THROUGH TIME creative challenges with the current Primary 7 class writing wonderful poems using the initial letters of TARRADALE THROUGH TIME for the beginning of each line. We were amazed at the high standard of the entries; it says a great deal about both engagement of the pupils and the professionalism of the teachers. Unfortunately we cannot print all the poems here and our selection should be seen as purely representative of the quality of the entries. The whole of P7 are winners.
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CREATIVE WRITING SUBMISSIONS - Adult category:
The Last Man by Sheila Lockhart
At first it was a rough ride,
soil was heaved,
rocks and earth flung aside.
I trembled
as they stripped off the years.
Later a kind of tenderness,
as they lifted and sifted
the fine grains of the past.
Rain seeped in, rinsing clean
what once had been my flesh.
I heard their voices, familiar
yet strange, like echoes
from the day they laid me here
to rest.
They didn’t bring the usual offerings,
but stood around at dusk,
hushed and listening, respecting
the mysteries of the place.
Their shadows stroked
what once had been my face.
When they’ve left I’ll sleep again,
until rain dissolves all trace of me.
Dream of geese weaving seasons
through the skies,
of battle cries and boots and hooves,
ploughmen’s songs,
furrowed fields, strangers
at my tomb.
Now night creeps round the sacred hill.
The last man turns to go,
weighed down with questioning.
My silent voice calls out,
one last sweep will shed my shroud.
A shadow on sand is all that’s left.
Enough for him.
My sightless eyes gaze up,
behind his smile wild geese
still weaving seasons through the skies.
TAM’S TARRADALE DILEMMA by Richard Guest
Should I go or should I stay?
Hello.
My name’s Tam. Tam Mciver. Ewan’s lad.
We live at Tarradale in a wee cottage my dad built from turf, clay and bools. That was in 1786 when I was just a wee bairn. It’s not much, but it’s home. It’s getting crowded now my three brothers and sister came along, we all shared a bed so it was nice and cosy. I’m too big for that now; should have left home long since.
My dad, Duncan, Norman and John are all mailers so they had to break in the land when they were moved here, it was just scrub and tussocks. They didn’t have a choice; they were evicted from better land for “improvements”. Now there’s kale yards and rig and furrow but it’s pitiful small, not enough to feed us all. The mailers work for Dr Murchison’s factor sometimes, but not for money, oh no! That’s just for the rent. The young Murchison boy, he’s too young to take charge so it’s all down to the factor and he cares nothing for the likes of us.
When I was small, I went with the men to the ploughing in the big fields. When you’re a boy you find all sorts of queer things looking at the ground and kicking the loose soil with your toes. The men never find nothing, they’re too busy looking to the horses and such like. I’ve got a stone arrowhead, a beauty it is, real sharp. And there’s little seashells too. How did they get right up here, twenty feet above the sea?
A rich man came after one of the boys found a bronze axe. He said he was an anti-quarry-man so I thought he didn’t want Dr Murchison re-opening the old quarry, but he laughed and said no, it meant he was interested in digging up old things. Then he said it again slower and it sounded like anti-queery-ane but it still made no sense. Anyway, he took the axe away and nobody has seen it since.
That quarry though, that could be our salvation if only it would stay open but sometimes it shuts for months, even years, and then times are hard. I’ve been working there since I was big enough. It seems there’s no end to the stone needed for the big canal that’s being dug at Inverness. A man came on a horse to make sure the stone was good quality and hewn out just right. I was dressing some blocks and he said I had a talent for it. He told me that when he was my age he’d been hewing stone and now he oversaw the whole canal and building docks and bridges. Telford he said his name was. Still, it gave me some ideas. Maybe I didn’t need to spend my life in Tarradale. So I went to see his assistant, a Mathew Davidson, but it was only Irish he was setting on, said we highlanders were unreliable.
Maybe I could go and fight the Froggies. There’s lots from round here signed up to be soldiers to fight Bonaparte. Or maybe I could sail for Canada. There’re ships they say, from Aberdeen and some of them calls at Cromarty. They say there’s land for the taking, acres and acres, not just some wee kale yard. But it’s a big step. Here I am, sleeping on straw by the fire in my parent’s kitchen, working when there’s work and starving when there’s not. One thing is sure, there’s no future here for five families in these poor cottages. If I go, I can carry everything I own in my pockets, no need for a bag. I’ve only one set of clothes.
One thing in my pocket will be that stone arrowhead I picked up as a bairn.
It’ll remind me of Tarradale.
Of home.
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CREATIVE WRITING SUBMISSIONS - schools category:
TARRADALE THROUGH TIME by Felix Hardie P7
Tools are at hand
Amazing relics in the sand
Relics, pottery and decaying bones
Rolling around in
Acid ground.
Drones examining the dig
Archaeology has never been so big!
Let the research begin
Exciting destiny awaits!
Tarradale is a special place
History has a Pictish race
Riddling the historians
Oral features only remaining
Underworld is containing
Groundbreaking bodies
Hunting the soil!!
Tarradale through time
Is uncovering the past
Making history themselves
Ensuring the past
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TARRADALE THROUGH TIME by Mia-Louise Donaldson P7
Trotting through the big fields
Archaeology is the way to go
Researching is meant to be nice and slow
Running through dirt and barrows is fun
After the day is over the works not done
Dirt, stone and other materials bury the hidden bones
An entire team of people start on mounds
Learning about fascinating pottery
Exciting mounds with the outline of a square
They all go for fun and care
Happy as can be and they like to share
Revealing the undead and graves that are big
Optional mounds they like to dig
Unreasonable pottery will be kept
Getting all the sources is useful
Helping people gives them joy
Time is up ready to go
I’m realIy happy I got to do this
Mr Lachlan was nice and it was great
We will be back soon let’s celebrate!
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TARRADALE THROUGH TIME by Abbie Innes P7
Trenches were dug
Amazing experience
Research
Relics
Archaeology
Drones to scan the area
Artefacts may be found
Learning about Pictish burial
Examined carefully
Taking care of evidence
Hollow burial trench
Round burials
Old cultures explored
Underground burials
Ground full of secrets
Historical detail expanded
Tools like shovels, picks, sieves
Important information
Mounds unfold the past
Evidence of Pictish times
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TARRADALE THROUGH TIME by Rory Lee P7
Tools in the ground
All circling round
Researching the Picts
Relics in the ground
Acid is breaking bones
Drones in the sky
Amazing artefacts
Lots of time
Exploring the past
Trenches aren’t that a deep
Holes in the ground
Raking through the ground
Only teeth remain
Under the soil
Gathering evidence and relics
Hollowing out the ground
Trowels at the ready
In the trenches we will dig
Making history in the soil
Every day is something different
Further details of the challenges and Terms and Conditions can be seen here.