Oban TOWN with Nicholas Crane

I've seen towns explode into cities.

I've seen towns with their hearts ripped out.

Every town has its own tales of triumph and catastrophe.

All of them face challenges.

Smaller than a city, more intimate, much greener.

Towns are where we first learned to be urban.

Harbour towns, market towns,

island towns, industrial towns.

Collectively, they bind our land together.

As a geographer, I believe towns are communities of the future.

This time, I'm in Oban,

a bustling harbour town on the west coast of Scotland.

Its name comes from the Gaelic meaning little bay.

Gathered around this bay are flourishes of Victorian grandeur,

the usual seaside suspects and a world-renowned distillery.

And that's just for starters.

For over 200 years,

this vibrant port has inspired artists, writers and travellers.

Many using Oban as a gateway to the Western Isles.

In Oban, I'll be investigating a curious paradox.

How a town with so much to offer is overlooked by so many.

I've done some fairly nutty adventures in my lifetime,

-but this takes the biscuit.

-Bob up and down.

I'll be seeing why this town aspires to the title

seafood capital of Scotland.

Mm! Absolutely delicious!

And I'll be experiencing the tremendous power of the landscape.

That is literally awesome.

Join me on a journey to discover the fascinating past,

the challenging present and the dynamic future of towns.

The town of Oban is the gateway to the Western Isles.

At its heart, there's no market square or shopping precinct,

but a thriving harbour.

This waterfront has been the beginning of many a great adventure.

And it's also a critical lifeline.

For centuries, Oban has been a jump-off point

for exploring the islands.

This has fuelled an identity crisis.

The town is torn between being a port and a destination.

So, what do people think about the town?

I want to know the word on the street.

Or in this case, the ferry.

What do you know about Oban?

Just a little bit I've read in the Lonely Planet series on Scotland.

-And what did that tell you?

-Not very much, actually.

So, how long did you spend in Oban?

The 30 minutes while we were waiting for the ferry.

Are you ever tempted to stop off in Oban on the way through?

No. We didn't stop, we just drove up and got the ferry.

But for some, it's a very different story.

We're selling some shellfish.

We're organising shellfish to go to Spain.

-How important is Oban to your business?

-It's very important.

We couldn't really operate without Oban as a hub.

It's a good place. We love it.

Most people pass Oban with barely a sideways glance.

While to others, it's the focus of their lives.

So, what's behind this town of two sides?

A first glimpse of Oban is rarely forgotten,

especially from the sea.

Until the arrival of roads and railways in the 19th century,

the easiest way to reach the town was by boat.

And in the summer of 1847,

two very special visitors dropped anchor in Oban Bay.

Queen Victoria and Prince Albert sailed here on the Royal Yacht.

Writing in her diary, the Queen described it as,

"One of the finest spots we have seen."

I'm sailing for Oban, too,

but my vessel's a little less regal than Queen Victoria's.

Off the portside here is the isle of Kerrera.

It's six miles long and lies like a gigantic breakwater

just off the mainland shore,

creating this passage of sheltered water.

Kerrera is Oban's minder,

protecting the town from the wind and the waves

of the mighty Atlantic out there.

Without Kerrera, Oban wouldn't exist.

And here's Oban coming into view, nestled into the cliff face.

The town's developed on a narrow strip of land around the bay.

Buildings stacked like a giant amphitheatre.

And dominating all, an extraordinary edifice that draws the eye.

It's Oban's Blackpool Tower, its London Eye.

Intended to brand the town as unique.

This, I must see.

McCaig's Tower.

Hewn from local granite and inspired by the Coliseum of Rome,

this so-called folly was added to the town's skyline in 1897.

Its purpose remains a mystery

because its creator, John Stuart McCaig,

a local banker and landowner

died before its completion.

Some say there were plans for another storey, even a roof.

And that statues of the McCaig family would adorn the arches.

I've passed through Oban loads of times,

usually in a bit of a rush.

And whenever I've looked up and seen this thing looming above the roofs,

I thought of it as McCaig's monstrosity.

But now I've taken the time to come up here and have a look,

I've changed my mind. It's like a sanctuary.

It's part of this busy little town, and yet it's perfectly tranquil.

This is a fantastic vantage point,

a great place to get a sense of the geography of the town.

At the southern end of the bay

is the ferry port and the railway station.

And to the north, a swathe of hotels stretching along the esplanade.

You can see how the island of Kerrera protects the harbour

and why it was such an attractive refuge for its earliest settlers.

Rich in history, this land was once the ancient Kingdom of Dalriada.

Dalriada was inhabited by the Scoti,

Gaelic Irish who settled on the west coast of Scotland.

In the 7th century, a major base for this vast kingdom

was at the northern end of Oban Bay.

Today, it's the site of Dunollie Castle.

Built in the 13th century, this was the seat of the Clan MacDougall.

Wow!

These walls must be ten-feet thick.

Up here, the chiefs of the Clan MacDougall

must have felt all powerful.

Looking north, they could see the mouth of Loch Linnhe,

westward...

..they guarded the Sound of Mull and the isles beyond.

And southward, they could see all the way down the Sound of Kerrara,

gateway to the isles of Jura and Islay.

This incredible vantage point was the clan seat of the MacDougalls,

commanding a territory of 250 square miles.

Dunollie was abandoned in 1746.

The MacDougalls turned their back on their wild Highland ways

and embraced more sophisticated pleasures.

I'm curious to know how the Clan moved on.

And I'm hoping Catherine Gillies, curator of Dunollie House will help.

What was life like when the family moved to Dunollie House?

Well, it was very different.

And they certainly had very different aspirations.

What we've got here is a document from 1737.

And it's the list of plenishings or possessions

that were owned by the last chief to live in the castle,

the great swashbuckling Jacobite Iain Ciar.

We see the list of his belongings on his death,

which have tartan and guns, pistols, broadswords.

These are all sort of warlike things,

the trappings of a clan chief.

And his son Alexander was not warlike.

He was an Edinburgh lawyer.

He was drinking claret on the Royal Mile.

And he built this house that we're sitting in now.

What was the relationship between this new forward-looking clan

and the emerging town of Oban?

In 1746, Oban was genuinely nothing much more than a village.

But there was one interesting crossover,

which starts to give a sense of the town beginning,

and that is the first identifiable urban industry,

which was the tobacco industry.

-And this is Oban Mixture.

-Right.

It's not like buying an ounce of ready-rub produced anywhere else.

They were still in this mindset of producing their own Oban tobacco.

This is 20th century tobacco,

but it's evidence of a much, much older association

with making your own weed, basically.

But have a sniff of that. It may just blow your head off.

Oh! Wow! That's strong, isn't it?

Yes, it's incredibly strong.

Back in the 18th century,

tobacco arrived in Scottish waters 100 tons at a time.

A ship called the Diamond plied directly between

the Western Highlands and Virginia in America 3,500 miles away.

The Diamond was owned by a local merchant

and tobacco barons from Glasgow,

eager to tap this emerging market.

-This is a huge moment in Oban's history.

-Yes. Totally.

-A tobacco factory. "This is us, we're manufacturers now."

-Yes.

Did the MacDougalls buy into this emerging industry, tobacco?

I'm sure they will have done.

They were certainly great snuff-takers.

And we've got more snuff boxes than you can shake a stick at.

And we actually have the evidence on this document of handkerchiefs,

a snuff box and a pair of gloves,

which is a sort of gentleman's equipment

for ingesting nicotine, pretty much.

The Diamond made at least seven transatlantic crossings

until the business finally ran into the rocks, literally.

The Diamond was wrecked on the coast of Kerrara just over there,

killing Oban's tobacco business for good.

But it was replaced by something else that suited pleasure seekers.

Whisky.

I'm beginning to think that Oban was founded on fags and booze.

As a town, Oban was a late starter.

Until the 1700s, it was little more than a small fishing hamlet

occupying the boggy mouth of a river.

The tobacco industry gave it the beginnings of an identity.

But it was a hard life.

You lived here not out of choice, but because you had to.

It was around this time that two strangers showed up in the bay.

John and Hugh Stevenson.

They were brothers.

In just 20 years, the Stevensons transformed a sleepy fishing village

into one of the busiest commercial centres on the west coast.

And the town remembers them.

John and Hugh were the Richard Bransons of their day.

Businessmen with vision.

Shipbuilders, stonemasons, traders,

these men recognised a wealth of local opportunity.

They capitalised on one of Oban's great natural elements,

the quality of its water, and on the local love of a good dram.

They built a distillery.

It was seed from which the town of Oban grew.

Today, the distillery is one of the oldest producers

of single malt Scotch whisky.

Teddy Maclean has worked here for 28 years.

So, this is where all the whisky's stored?

Yes. It's all stored in the warehouses.

And every so often, we have to come in and just tap the cask

just to make sure it's not leaking.

-Oh, I see.

-So it's just a...

and you'll hear...

-That's a full sound.

-Yeah.

So let's have you try that one there.

-Is that a full sound?

-That sounds pretty full to me.

That's only filled this year, so that shouldn't be leaking at all.

You must have seen a few barrels pass through this warehouse.

Oh, yes. When I started, we used to come in here quite regular.

And you would have to go in and do thousands of casks, to tap them,

just to make sure they weren't leaking.

How unusual is it to find a whisky distillery

right in the centre of a town?

You've got to remember now,

Oban itself is actually built round the distillery.

Because the distillery's been here since 1794.

What makes 14 years the magic number for maturing the whisky?

Well, Oban used to be 12-year-old at one time.

And they reckoned that it brought out more flavour

by making it 14-years-old.

I've been here for so long, I'm on my second fill of a bottle.

That's 28 years.

Because it's 14-year-old oak.

But the new boys starting off on the job, maybe been here five years,

and they've got good points to bring up now and then,

and you just say, "Just sit back and think about one thing.

"You've never produced a bottle of whisky yet."

-You haven't been here 14 years.

-You haven't been here 14 years.

The success of the distillery gave Oban confidence.

No longer was it a string of humble fishermen's cottages.

The distillery attracted other businesses.

There was a new optimism.

Recognition of Oban's potential came in 1811

when it was granted its Royal Charter,

giving it a prestige it hadn't known before.

Until now, links with the outside world

had been by sailing boat or along tracks

that were better suited to cattle than to stage coaches.

All that was about to change.

First came the Clyde puffers,

little cargo vessels that delivered coal and brought back whisky.

And they were soon followed by tourists.

The opening of the Crinan Canal

meant that steamboats could make the journey

between Glasgow and Oban in record time.

But it was the arrival of the railway in 1880

that brought mass tourism,

establishing Oban as the unofficial capital of the west coast.

The list of pioneering visitors to Oban

reads a bit like a 19th century Who's Who.

William Wordsworth came here,

as did fellow poet and novelist Sir Walter Scott.

The key to Oban's success was keeping visitors in the town.

This proved tricky.

In the 1860s, a traveller wrote,

"The tourist no more thinks of spending a week in Oban

"than he thinks of spending a week in a railway station."

For the town to prosper, it couldn't just be a stopover,

a place en route to somewhere else.

Then, as now, publicity was all important.

The Ward Lock Guide from 1897

reveals how busy Oban had become.

"On account of its convenience

"as a centre for excursions in all directions,

"Oban has been aptly named the Charing Cross of the Highlands."

But this book, Black's Picturesque Guide to Scotland,

published a few years earlier,

sees beyond the transit lounge image.

"Being of comparatively recent origin,

"the streets and buildings have a clean, modern aspect.

"A marine parade is formed along the shore.

"Oban has now become a place of great resort."

Reviews like this were the best form of advertising.

They made the hoteliers very happy.

As the town grew to service the demands of tourists,

it also built up the industry that first gave it life.

From its beginnings, Oban was a fishing hamlet.

And by the end of the 19th century, fishing was big business.

The railway meant catches could be whisked from port to plate in a day.

Herring was especially important.

Here on Railway Pier,

fishing boats would unload their catches of silver darlings.

Herring by the million

that turned this wharf into a giant outdoor fishmongers.

Today, the industry is not what it was,

but amongst the survivors is Alan Watt,

who runs a fishmongers tucked away on the Railway Pier.

I'd walked passed the end of this alleyway loads of times

-before I realised you were here.

-Originally, it wasn't an alleyway.

That was the edge of the pier at one time, a long time ago.

I mean, we've been here since 1918

and everyone likes to get their fish straight from the boats,

so obviously, it's landed here.

In the olden days, we used to literally drag it with a hook

across to the shop and filleted it.

When you say 1918, you look a bit young to have been here since 1918.

Well, I'm the third generation to do this.

My son's here now, so he's the fourth generation.

So I'm sure we must be one of the oldest family businesses in town.

What was the harbour like when you were a boy? How busy was it?

They say at one point, you could walk across from the Railway Pier,

which is this pier, to the North Pier,

across the tops of the boats.

There were masses of boats. It was a huge industry in those days.

But I'm afraid that's all gone now.

A town needs jobs to survive.

Fishing still employs over a hundred people,

but that's far less than in its heyday.

Now there's a very different industry that employs locals.

One that involves an unusual commute to work.

It's just before eight in the morning and I'm boarding a boat

taking workers to the Morvern Peninsula,

about ten miles north of Oban.

Many of the people here are from the town.

It's wet and windy, blowing a force five to six out there.

But for everyone here, it's a normal journey to work.

These guys work at Glensanda, Europe's largest granite quarry.

There are no roads into the site,

so the only way to get to work is by sea.

Ian Henry and Gwen Brown are regular commuters.

Do you ever look at the weather forecast the night before

to see what it's going to be like?

When I first started here, I would get some of the night shift

to text me in the morning if it was going to be rough.

But after a while, it just becomes part of your journey

and if it's rough, then you get a wee bit of adrenaline going. It's fine.

You tend to find folk that start here,

especially when they have their first winter,

if they can't hack the rough crossings, then they don't last.

But you get through your first winter, you get used to it.

But when it's not like this, you know, you're always looking out.

There's seals, sometimes you see the porpoises.

The biggest thing I've seen is a basking shark.

-On the way to work!

-On the way to work, yeah, yeah, yeah.

That's amazing!

Yeah. There's lots to see if you do look.

I'm not going to see that on a bus going through Camden in the morning.

LAUGHTER

And this is where they work.

Glensanda is one of the top producers of granite in Europe,

processing over seven million tonnes of rock a year.

The geology here is fascinating.

Glensanda granite was formed 420 million years ago

when a series of powerful earth movements

formed the Caledonian mountain range.

Molten rock trapped inside these mountains

cooled slowly to form granite.

And it's quarried here, near Oban.

Ian's offered to show me around.

How much granite is in here, do you know?

Up here, 800 million tons.

800 million tons?!

Yeah. That we have planning permission to extract.

There's a lot more than that in the mountain round about.

Physically, how big is this?

It's probably about a mile and a quarter across here.

How much have you taken out so far?

Total tonnage we've shipped out of Glensanda

is just under 130 million tons.

-130 million tons.

-That's since 1986.

The mountain is being dug from the inside outwards,

creating a massive crater.

Each one of these giant steps is 60-feet high.

There's enough rock here to be quarrying for another hundred years.

This is typical granite that's come off a blast. Um...

all the stuff you see here has been blasted at some time.

You can see it's mainly pink.

The colour really comes from the cooling of the magma

when the granite was formed.

Where is this granite going to end up?

After we have crushed it and screened it

and got into the sizes the customer wants,

we're sending it all over Europe.

-Why do they like Scottish granite?

-It's the best stuff.

SIREN WAILS

This is a first for me.

130,000 tonnes of rock are about to be blasted from this cliff face.

I felt it come up through my feet first.

-You see the movement, then you hear the bang.

-Yeah.

It's quite a kind of emotional moment.

I've never seen a mountain blown to bits before.

I like mountains.

I have to confess, I've mixed feelings.

This is one of the most beautiful landscapes on earth.

But explosions like these pay the people who work here.

And Britain is built with rocks like this.

All towns and cities are made of rock.

All the buildings that you live in, that you use,

all the hospitals, the libraries, everything is built with rock.

After the blast, it's time to collect the granite for processing.

And that calls for a very special vehicle.

Each one of these trucks weighs 100 tons.

And they each carry 100 tons of granite.

The driver is Colin MacKenzie.

Were you born in Oban? Is it your hometown?

I was born in Oban. Born and bred in Oban.

It's a lovely wee town.

I've been aware of the quarry my whole life

because it's a big employer in the local area.

I think it employs about 200 people overall.

And in terms of locals, it's a good 50%.

It's vital, I would say vital to the local economy, absolutely.

If I can line up the tail end of the skip with the orange light,

we should be pretty much in the centre.

-What's it like driving one of these, Colin?

-It's actually good fun.

When I saw the trucks, I thought, "I'd love to drive them!"

It's just like being a big kid

because they're just like big toys, like big Tonka toys.

It's good fun. What do you drive in real life?

In real life, it's an estate car.

I could do with putting mine through the crusher.

I don't think it'll see out another MOT.

The whole truck's vibrating.

It's like being in a lorry during an earthquake.

It is. It's quite...it's quite something.

That's 100 tons of granite...

delivered safely.

Granite pounds support Oban's economy.

And there's another big employer.

One that provides a service to the town

and a lifeline to countless far-flung communities.

From the islands of Iona and Coll

to Mull and Tiree, Colonsay and Kerrera,

the Royal Mail delivers six days a week, all year around.

Not only does the mail have to make it to Oban,

but the mail in Oban has to make the ferry.

Posties here don't just do the rounds of the town,

they sort mail for ten islands, too.

This involves precision timing, decent weather and solid teamwork.

Delivery Office Manager Ian Tibetts oversees operations.

It's just after 8:00 in the morning.

Vans have been arriving here since 4:30.

It's a well-oiled machine, and it needs to be.

This mail can't miss the ferry.

This is the last van of the day from Glasgow

and apparently, things are going to get hectic now.

So this is where everyone's waiting to see how much mail there is.

If that's stuffed to the roof, you know you've got a busy morning.

Well, that's right. That's medium. That's quite a reasonable last load.

Let's go and get some troops.

These are items that are both for north and south of the Isle of Mull.

So our job is basically to work out which van that goes in.

So tell me, Nick, Aros?

I haven't the faintest idea. Where's Aros? North or South Mull?

-It's in the north of Mull.

-OK.

-Tuloise?

-You got me there, as well. Where's that?

This one's Tobermory. Now, you should know that one.

-Er...

-That's on the north of the island.

Right, OK.

-Wouldn't be very good at this.

-OK.

Many of these parcels are a result of internet shopping.

Er...

This is especially popular with islanders

who don't have a high street lined with shops.

Sadly, my mental map of the islands isn't as good as Ian's.

-Lochaline. Where's that?

-Lochaline is Movern.

-OK.

There we are! Not bad.

8:30. Well done.

Let's get the mail down to the ferry now.

This is all run with military efficiency.

It's quite exciting, isn't it?

The whole kind of buzz about getting the mail ready to go.

It's the period when lots of things need to happen very quickly,

so you need a good system to make it work.

What happens when you suddenly find there's a big wind blowing,

there's no ferry, it's not managed to make it?

Er...huge disappointment.

The first thing I need to find out is it just delayed

or is it going to get cancelled for a significant period?

-Is that the Calmac ferry coming in?

-That's the one you see there now.

-That's the boat.

-So everything's gone according to plan.

This is a good day.

I'm used to living in landlocked London.

I cycle or walk everywhere,

or take tubes or buses that pass every few minutes.

Things are different here.

Life is driven by ferry timetables.

There's no alternative.

You make that ferry. You have no choice.

-So there she is.

-Bang on time.

-Yeah, it's good.

Even after doing this many times, I always think how nice it looks

on a sunny day, seeing the ferry come in. It's really good.

Delivering mail here is a bit like a relay race.

Ian drives the van onboard

and a postie on Mull drives it off the other side.

The post is safely onboard, and so am I.

Caledonian MacBrayne is Scotland's largest ferry company,

sailing 30 vessels to 23 islands on the west coast.

They carry four-and-a-half million passengers a year.

Today, the ferries are affectionately nicknamed Calmac by locals.

And they're as important as they ever were.

Everything goes by sea.

Not just people and vehicles, but livestock, medicines,

food and fuel, refrigerators, televisions.

You name it, it's on board.

I'm on the good ship Isle of Mull.

It's been the main lifeline

between Oban and the island for over 20 years.

And on the bridge today is Third Officer John Melvin.

On a normal day, we'll do six double crossings.

So that's 12 times across here. And it takes about 45 minutes.

Depends upon the weather and the tide, but usually about 45.

It's a very busy run. We carry...

I think we've got nearly 500 people on board at the moment.

How crucial is this service as a lifeline to the islands?

I think it would be reasonable to say that if this ferry wasn't running,

then life would become quite difficult.

We...this morning carry the Co-op, the Spar wagon,

lots of coaches with tourists,

and the post, of course.

So in one day, if the ferry wasn't running,

people would very quickly see an impact on what was happening.

What are your customers like, the ferry passengers?

Occasionally what happens is somebody might drive on in Oban

and then forget that they actually drove on

and they'll walk off on the Craignure side.

There are just 14 minutes

to get all the passengers and vehicles off the ferry

and reload for the next journey.

Just like the Royal Mail, this, too, is about precision timing.

TANNOY: "The lifejacket-donning instructions are displayed..."

Lifelines are vital here.

Oban was once home to another lifeline.

One that proved to be crucial for the entire world.

Out there in the bay are the remains

of one of the wonders of 20th century engineering.

This is where the transatlantic

telephone cable system emerged from the sea.

You can just see the pale line of the concrete plinth

that used to encase the cables.

The cables started their journey over 2,000 miles away

in Newfoundland, Canada.

And they came ashore here at Oban in Scotland.

"Oban, Argyll, was chosen as the site for the Eastern Shore Terminal."

This was the world's first transatlantic telephone cable.

TAT for short.

It was laid in the summers of 1955 and 1956.

And in its first year, carried 300,000 calls.

Oban offered one of the shortest routes across the Atlantic,

so it was a natural choice for the engineers.

This stump is all that remains of a tall post that once stood here

warning fishing boats to stay well clear of the area.

They didn't want anchors or trawling gear damaging cables.

And up here is the terminal building.

It's derelict now. Too dangerous for me to go inside.

But this is where the cables were monitored,

maintaining that vital link with America.

"At the newly-constructed terminal station,

"technicians and scientists were already busy

"testing, turning theory into fact."

This place would have been teeming with workers back then.

Archie McGill was one of the men who worked on the cable.

I was the leading hand.

And we were winching, pulling the cable

from the puffer, which was around the bay out there.

-There was a ship out there?

-Yes.

-There must have been about 100 folk. Near enough.

-Yeah.

-And did you know how important it was, the job you were doing?

-Yes.

During the Cold War, when relations between the United States

and the Soviet Union deteriorated,

TAT got a new role.

It was used to carry a hotline

between the White House and the Kremlin.

We all had to sign the Official Secrets Act.

And another thing, as well, working on the lines,

when you picked up a conversation, you couldn't repeat that.

When you look back, what did the laying of the cable mean to you?

Well, it meant to us communication. To see what that...

I'd better not say another word.

..stupid devil Khrushchev was up to.

Kennedy put him in his place.

When were you allowed to talk about what you'd done here on the beach?

We never talked about it.

No.

We just said it was a new cable, that was all.

They never asked. Nobody would be silly enough to ask us,

unless they were Russians or whatever.

Oban's lifeline was vital for transatlantic communication.

But after the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962,

TAT became critical.

A way to avoid accidental nuclear war.

Today, Oban's no longer a critical link in transatlantic communication.

Technology has moved on and we use satellites instead.

Oban's always been on the way to somewhere else.

Whether it's a cable to America or a ferry to a Hebridean island.

But the big question is,

how much does this role as a transit town, as a gateway,

as one end of a lifeline thrown to others,

how much does this supportive role

get in the way of Oban's ability to look after itself?

Walking around town, it seems busy enough.

There are plenty of tourists in the streets

and locals going about their everyday business.

But I've a sense there's something missing.

Like any town centre, Oban's has the usual mix of chain stores

and more interesting independent shops.

The ones that bring character to any high street.

But looking around, you couldn't say things look particularly healthy.

There are just too many "for sale" and "to let" signs.

There are also poignant reminders of better times.

Architectural flourishes from an age of busily-clinking tills.

Oban's a little frayed at the edges.

Victorian Oban had self-belief.

It was a port with a purpose.

From the grandeur of its hotels to grandstanding McCaig's Tower,

Oban got it right then.

It invited visitors to part with their tourist pounds.

This confidence eroded with time,

until the town looked more to the islands than to its heart.

There's a struggle here.

Oban can't survive without the harbour at its centre,

yet it's the harbour that draws people through the town

to a ferry that takes them away.

To change, Oban needs to generate its own business,

to reinvent itself, to bring trade from the islands to the town.

And there's evidence this is happening.

Ever since the town's beginnings,

rearing livestock has been a way of life.

And some of the closest farmland to the harbour

is on the nearby island of Kerrara.

Getting sheep to market is more challenging than on the mainland.

You can't just herd your livestock onto a trailer.

Today's passengers, of the woolly four-legged variety,

have to catch a ferry.

We're ferrying lambs across for market.

It's sale day today, Tuesday.

They're very well-behaved, generally speaking.

Livestock arrive in Oban harbour from the larger islands, too.

Mull, Tiree, Coll and Bara,

all converging on the town.

The harbour is the vital link to their ultimate destination,

Oban livestock market.

Farmers Tim and Gill Vollum

regularly make the journey from Kerrara.

Farming on Kerrara sounds like a big adventure.

Yes, it is. It is a really big adventure,

and one we've just started out on.

We took over my dad's farm in November last year.

Do you feel new kids on the block in here?

Yes, actually.

Some of the farmers have been coming to Oban market for 30, 40 years.

Yeah, absolutely.

Is this market here, is Oban going to work for you?

I think so, absolutely.

I mean, it's set up, it's part of the infrastructure, you know.

-It supplies hundreds and hundreds of farms.

-It's a major part of Oban.

We'd be lost without it.

Oban livestock market is a local success story.

It was founded nearly 20 years ago

when the old market near the town centre

was closed to make way for a supermarket.

Local farmers were worried they'd have to transport livestock

to markets 100 miles away,

so they set about raising half-a-million pounds

to build a new market on the edge of town.

One of the founders was Malcolm Macdonald.

How difficult was it to set the new market up here?

It was really quite a difficult job to do,

but the landowner, they donated the land.

Oh, really? He gave it to you for nothing?

-Well, for a nominal sum.

-Yeah.

So that gave a huge...a huge boost.

It sounds as if the market in Oban has been kept alive on this new site

because everybody in the town pulled together. Is that right?

That's exactly what happened. The farming community

and the business community in the area all came together.

Are you pleased with what you achieved here?

Exceedingly pleased and very proud.

-Yeah?

-Yes. It's great.

For a lot of these farmers,

Oban market is not just a place to buy and sell livestock.

It's a break from island life.

Once here, the camaraderie matters as much as the chequebook.

We came over last night and put them in here

and got ready for the sale today.

So, that's a two-day trip for you?

A two-day trip, yes, aye. Aye-aye.

But they've travelled well, they're looking fine, so quite happy.

How important is Oban market to you?

Oh, it's very important. It's a show and sale today.

So it's always good to get a few drams with the farmers later on

and unwind and before you know it, they're two or three bottles down

and we're all shaking hands at the end of the day.

So it's a great day out.

Here is Oban investing in itself.

Just as the Stevensons had the vision to build a distillery,

so these men and women had the foresight to rebuild their market.

All this symbolises a remarkable flowering of community spirit.

Of urban fortitude.

The people who pulled together to build this new market know

that Oban is a whole lot more

than a blur you glimpse on the way to somewhere else.

The lands and waters of Oban work hard for the town.

And they provide a good living,

not just for farmers and fishermen,

quarry blasters and distillery workers,

but for artists, too.

JMW Turner sought inspiration on these shores.

And today, there's a local artist

with his own colourful take on the landscape.

John Lowrie Morrison, known as Jolomo,

is one of the most sought after in the country.

This is an incredibly powerful landscape, John,

but what are you seeing in it as an artist?

What I'm seeing in places like Oban and Mull etc,

is the light.

I really try to always paint

what the light is actually doing to the landscape.

When you talk about light, what are you seeing?

Well, the light, you look at the light there to your right,

you're getting quite a lot of the colour,

but as you look at the light to the back, it's kind of silhouetted.

So it's that kind of changes

that I like putting into paintings.

And that's the kind of light I like the best,

where nearly all the detail's been taken out.

The gloaming, as we call it in Scotland,

the twilight, is the best time for me for painting.

John sells his paintings all over the world.

And they range in price from several thousand pounds

to tens of thousands.

-This is where I work here.

-Good heavens!

What on earth...is that?

That's 15 years' worth of rolled up tubes.

I have been offered a lot of money for this.

How much have people offered you to buy this?

Oh, thousands of pounds. Thousands of pounds.

I wish I could sell my junk for thousands of pounds.

What about paintings? That's what I've come to look at.

-Some paintings here.

-Wow!

Oban's just down here and this is up the Sound of Mull

and it's the morning light.

It strikes me that they're quite transitory fleeting moments.

-Yeah, exactly.

-How many paintings do you think you've created?

Oh, crumbs! Certainly well over ten thousand.

-Ten thousand?!

-Mm-hm.

I probably sell about 700 paintings a year.

And do you have any paintings of Oban or the immediate neighbourhood?

-I've got one I'm working on.

-Ah!

I've just got a bit more to do to it.

So we're looking out across the harbour.

The Catholic cathedral, where the ferry would go out of the bay.

I'll maybe do a wee bit just now.

-Oh, really?

-Oh, yeah, yeah. Why not?

Are you happy for me to keep chatting while you're painting?

Yes, um...Yeah.

I haven't had an audience before ever.

If I start throwing paint brushes at you, you know...

THEY LAUGH

Are you conscious that you're painting a shared view?

This is one of the busiest towns on the west coast.

I've thought of that before because I have painted this view before

from slightly different angles

and every sunset's different, so you get different colours.

How much have you learned about Oban, from looking at it?

I've painted Oban a lot over the years,

er...from all different angles.

It's one of these sort of towns that lends itself to being painted.

There's so many areas that I just love painting.

I love painting Oban.

John paints places, meaningful locations.

Oban is one of them.

And these places, these landscapes captured on canvas,

have a meaning for everyone.

Whether they're foreigners rushing through town to catch a ferry,

or whether they're locals waiting for a bus in George Street.

Landscape paintings are one way of expressing a sense of place.

They're place creators.

Framing a view with brush and oil is like saying,

"This is a place. Stop, look, enjoy!"

The Oban area is underpinned by some fascinating geology.

Volcanic lavas, conglomerates,

sedimentary rocks 400 million-years-old,

all attacked by the wild Atlantic.

Sea and rock come together to create a rugged coast

and a wonderful adventure playground.

I'm at Ganavan Bay just outside town,

and I'm about to get a taste of adventure.

To see the coast close up, enjoy its wonderful views,

most people take to the sea in a kayak

or take a walk along the cliffs.

Not me. I'm about to go coasteering.

Helping me on my way is Niall Urquhart,

a founder of social enterprise group Stramash.

-Hi, there.

-Hello, Nick.

-All set?

-Yes.

Niall trains local apprentices to be outdoor leaders.

And today, he's introducing me to Oban's wild side.

What exactly is coasteering?

Well, coasteering's a journey.

It's a journey along the coastline, really at water level.

So it's a wee bit of scrambling along the rocks,

a bit of swimming, a wee bit of jumping in, as well.

So a journey along the seashore.

They invented footpaths so you didn't have to do this.

You won't believe it, but some days,

you come out here and the water's like glass.

LAUGHTER

-How you doing?

-Not bad.

-You OK?

-Yep.

You've got to laugh.

If you do get swept out, float in the waves.

Bob up and down.

It's like being in a washing machine.

Each time you think you've spotted a good foothold,

it just disappears and you get swamped in froth.

Yeah. And you can feel the suction of the wave as it pulls you back out.

So that's part of the excitement and the fun of it, as well.

I'll give you that, it is exciting. It's also absolutely mad.

It is a little bit, yes.

This is obviously something that Oban can offer

that many other outdoor pursuit places perhaps would struggle with.

Yeah. That's the amazing thing about Oban for outdoors.

You've got coasteering, fantastic venues like this.

You've got sea kayaking, some of the best in Europe.

Sailing, as well.

You're not far from the mountains, you've got gorges.

It really is becoming the outdoor place in Scotland.

So, can we do some more, Niall?

Yeah, absolutely. Everyone up for it?

-Yeah.

-Yeah? OK, let's go, then.

Here's a resource that's free,

abundant and provides jobs for these apprentices, too.

And it's local, just what the town needs.

Well, we've got a bit of a surprise for you, Nick. Are you up for that?

-Try me.

-Yeah, come on. We'll head off up this way.

I'm getting used to Niall's surprises by now.

A little bit of fear, followed by a lot of fun.

We've got a brilliant wee jump to finish with here.

When you're going off, keep your legs together

and either your arms by your side or up above your head,

whichever you find easiest.

OK? And it's good fun. Just enjoy yourself as you're going down there.

OK?

Geronimo!

It's a very long way down.

Geronimo!

Coasteering is all in a day's work for these guys.

And what an amazing job to have.

You've got sea, terrific landscape

and even the sun has come out.

Outdoor adventure doesn't get much better than this.

Oban has the sea, an unspoilt coastline,

mountains, lochs, all of them right on the doorstep.

I'm wondering why it took so long to embrace them.

Perhaps the town was just too preoccupied

in helping people get from A to B.

Whatever the reason, Oban is finding its feet as an adventure town.

So, what other strengths lie hidden?

Like many harbour towns,

Oban has a selection of seafood restaurants

catering for all tastes and pockets.

From fish and chips to a la carte dining.

Alan McLeod has been in the restaurant business for 40 years

and relocated to Oban 10 years ago.

He spotted Oban's potential for getting the fish from the sea

to your plate in record time.

You really are right on the waterfront here, aren't you?

We're right on the water's edge, Nick, yes.

Alan has a small group of fishermen

dedicated to catching seafood destined for his tables.

Gordon Lamb fishes for langoustines.

Gordon's been fishing for us for the last ten years.

Never lets me down.

Hate him to have to take a holiday.

THEY LAUGH

-Alan.

-Hello, Gordon.

-How are you doing?

-I'm good.

You managed to get a prawn or two today, or is it the usual?

Just the usual. Life's a struggle.

Freshly-caught langoustine, straight out the water.

Ah, right.

There's a few whoppers in amongst that.

You usually put the whoppers to the top, Gordon.

That's not true, that's not true at all.

This is what we're looking for.

Good lively prawns waving their arms about,

saying goodbye to Gordon and hello to us.

And how important is it to you, Alan,

to be able to buy fish like this seafood straight from the quayside?

It's what we pride ourselves on,

being able to get fish within 20 metres of the restaurant.

And Gordon never lets us down. It's very important to us.

So, how long since this came off the seabed?

They've not been out the water more than three hours, four hours at the most.

How long till you could have this on a plate in your restaurant?

It'll be on the table within an hour. Is that fresh enough?

It makes it quite difficult for restaurants in Glasgow and London

-to compete really, doesn't it?

-Well, how could they?

How could they possibly? They'd have to fly them down there.

And even at that, they're not going to compete.

What do they taste like?

You're going to taste them shortly.

Right. Well, thank you very much, Gordon.

-I thought I'd get invited for lunch.

-THEY LAUGH

-You're very welcome.

-No, you're fine.

-Thanks, Gordon.

-Cheers.

-Cheers. I'll speak to you again.

-Thanks, Gordon.

-Bye.

Oban's like any seasonal town.

In summer, its population swells to around 20,000 people.

That's a lot of hungry mouths to feed.

But off-season, it's a very different story,

with numbers struggling to reach just 9,000.

The key to Oban's long-term success

is sustaining itself throughout the year.

And that's what Alan and other businessmen are trying to do.

-Enjoy.

-Thank you, Alan. No sauces then.

No sauces. You won't need them. They're delicious.

Thank you. Wow! Look at that.

Oban thinks it's the seafood capital of Scotland.

Well, that says an awful lot about this town's sense of self-belief.

A belief that it's not just a portal to other places,

but that it's one of Scotland's hotspots, a place in its own right.

Mm! Absolutely delicious!

And the seafood business

is not the only glimmer of hope on Oban's horizon.

A group of young folk are reviving Oban's cultural roots.

BAGPIPE RECITAL

Welcome to Skipinnish Ceilidh House, the cultural hub of Oban.

I'm helping founder Rachel Walker drum up support for tonight's show.

Do you fancy coming to a ceilidh tonight?

Oh, yes, that sounds good. Where's that?

Good. Just over the road there.

We've got fiddle, pipes, Gaelic singing, Highland dancing.

You can get up and do some ceilidh dancing.

-Are you going to teach us?

-We are. Yes.

I'm not going to teach you.

No, that's all right. I'm happy with that.

THEY LAUGH

So in a way, you're keeping the Gaelic culture alive by doing this

because maybe there'll be youngsters thinking, "I'd Like to learn that."

And they might grow up and pass it on to their children.

We believe Gaelic music is,

I don't know, one of the jewels in the crown of the Highlands.

And we just want to showcase it. Show it off.

The house is filling. And what a mix of people here.

Tourists getting a traditional night out

and locals getting employment

and a chance to celebrate their heritage.

Well, the stage is set, the band's ready. Let the fun begin.

Hold on tight, here it comes.

BAND BEGINS TO PLAY

Part of me is concentrating on one step forward,

two steps back, twist and turn.

And the other part is being swept along by the band and the banter.

Everyone here is joining in, is as one.

And now and again, I get a flash of the view across Oban Bay,

as if it's reminding me where I am.

APPLAUSE

I've not had time to get my breath back

and Rachel is up singing a Gaelic song.

The song of women working with newly-woven tweeds,

celebrating the cloth and their companionship.

RACHEL SINGS IN GAELIC

I think Oban is on the verge of finding itself once again.

And while arrivals and departures are a way of life here,

there's a heartbeat in the town that's getting louder.

A beat that sounds regardless of the ferry schedule.

This town can be both a port and a destination.

What a place.

This gateway between highlands and islands.

But it's an awful lot more than a waiting room, a transit town,

a portal between two very different worlds.

If you hesitate here, it's very hard to leave.

It's inspiring, it's beautiful, it's forward looking.

It's a little gem with a lot of soul.

Next time, I'm in Saffron Walden,

where I'll be investigating a town at tipping point.

I do have an objection to seeing a sign up that says,

"Thousands of new homes in Saffron Walden," when it's not true!

I'll be discovering what makes a commuter town tick.

495?!

And I'll see what gives Saffron Walden its unique name.

Three strands of saffron in every flower.

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd