We were just having a general chat. He asked me what I did and I told him I was a prison officer, and I then went on to explain how we were trying to open things up to get a bit more interaction between the prisoners and the public. The entertainment nights within the prison had been a start and something we had been looking to build on.
Ian then asked if we fancied coming up and doing some work with the prisoners at Burn O’Vat. The nature reserve welcomes thousands of visitors through its doors every year. People enjoy days and nights out, searching for anything from rare water beetles to otters, while the rich woodlands are home to many breeding birds like the chaffinch, wood warbler or the slightly less well-known Kentish glory moth. Each Scottish season also brings something different, as the winter attracts many migrating birds, gees and wildfowl.
That is not to mention the many man-made additions that Burn O’Vat can proudly boast, including a hut on stilts – a crannog, as it is also known – that was built during the Iron Age and still sits on Lock Kinord. There is also a ninth-century standing stone, along with the remains of hut circles and medieval moated homesteads.
It is such a vast site, more than one hectare in size. Yet despite having such a rich history, all the way from the Ice Age to modern times, with many things built or added or left as they were, the one thing that was sadly lacking was a simple walkway.
There had been traditional dirt paths but they were hardly ideal for visitors, especially those with young children or those who needed access. The reserve wanted to install walkways or ramps but due to a lack of funds was struggling to finance the project and the work.
So Ian asked, if they provided the materials and transport, would we be willing to put a team of prisoners together to work at Burn O’Vat over a period of time, just before and then after the main visitor season.
When we left Burn O’Vat that day, I felt a real buzz of excitement but it was still nothing more than a good idea. A lot of water had to flow under the bridge before it came anywhere near fruition.
I thought it was a great opportunity for the prisoners but I knew the final decision wasn’t down to me! I went back and spoke to the prison governor, Scott Ogilvie, as I knew that taking any inmates outside of the prison had to be cleared by him. He would also need to get authorisation from his own bosses, like we had to do for our Pittodrie work, and after that we would then need to see if any of the prisoners would want to get involved.
Luckily the governor shared my enthusiasm for the project. He saw the merits of it and also knew, if it was successful, that it could help show HMP Aberdeen in a slightly better light!
So after speaking to his bosses no objections were raised and we were given the green light. We both went up to Burn O’Vat to look around and to see what work the people at the reserve wanted to be done, for example those walkways up to the viewpoint. Most of it was old-fashioned manual labour! Some half-decent joinery skills would also come in handy, although that wasn’t a necessity of the job description. As we came to the end of our trip the governor turned and asked me my thoughts and I said: ‘Why don’t we just give it a go?’ Thankfully, he agreed and Operation Burn O’Vat was born.
The governor told me I could take out a team of prisoners. We agreed on a team of four because I knew that was a number that was controllable. I would normally speak to some of my fellow officers before we decided the team who would do the work. We needed people who we knew would put in a shift but would also be trustworthy and wouldn’t cause us any trouble. This project was a major breakthrough for the prison and the inmates and we all knew that if anything went wrong then there would be no second chances.
It was a big job but the nature reserve gave us all the raw materials we needed. We would leave about 7.30 a.m., just after breakfast, and be up at Burn O’Vat around 8.30 to 8.45 a.m., depending on traffic. We would work until 3 p.m. so we could get the guys back to the prison, to allow them to get showered and ready for their dinner, as their only other meal of the day would have been a packed lunch.
Burn O’Vat also provided the transport for us and the prisoners to get up and down every day – a Range Rover.
It was certainly anything but a day out for the prisoners. Yes, it was a privilege and they may have been outdoors but they had to work hard and probably put in more of a shift than if they had remained back at the prison for the day. Yet that was a small price to pay just to get some freedom and to be outside rather than being cooped up in a cell or spending their day in the work shed.
We ended up returning to Burn O’Vat bi-annually over the space of six years to get everything for the project all done and finished. Our first visit was normally in early spring before the main visitor season kicked in. We would work for a couple of weeks and then we would go back and do a few weeks in September after things started to die down a bit. We would do a bit of tidying up, maintenance and burning before we continued with our work on the walkways to the viewpoint and back down to the car park.
Anyone who has been to Burn O’Vat will be aware that the vat sits on ground level and then about 200 yards across the burn you can then start climbing the hill up to the viewpoint. The nature reserve wanted a wooden walkway laid down either side to reach the viewpoint, as you looked down the loch at Dinnet. The first year we built the walkway up one side and the following year we laid the walkway coming back down from the viewpoint.
I have to say, seeing the project take shape over the years gave me a tremendous feeling. I knew the work the prisoners had put in – and all those involved certainly put in a real shift. It is fair to say they did themselves and the prison proud with their work at Burn O’Vat.
That was pretty much summed up by this little story. We were doing the walkway coming back down the hill towards the car park at the time. It was a fair distance, a good few hundred yards. I remember one of the nature reserve staff, Jim Parkin, said, ‘I know there is a fair bit to go but don’t worry about it. Just do what you can, we aren’t expecting you to finish it all!’
That was a fair assessment because I thought I would have had to keep the prisoners out night and day to get it done in that time frame!
It wasn’t just a case of just throwing down the timber and hammering the walkway together. There was a massive amount of preparation work that went in before we even got to that stage. We needed to level the land underneath because it was really uneven. Some parts you walked at your own risk and I am not sure Health and Safety had got to Burn O’Vat at the time because there really were some treacherous underfoot conditions, hence the new walkways!
Normally two prisoners would work at the front doing the preparation work and then the other two would work at the back hammering the decking or wooden frames with me. Some of them may have had carpentry skills from their previous lives but for some others this would have been their first experience, but it didn’t take any of them long to get into full swing.
The prisoners had obviously been listening to our conversation about the walkway and the fact we weren’t expected to finish it all the way down to the car park, and I think that was the extra motivation that they needed: ‘Don’t underestimate us.’ My foreman in the group had been at Burn O’Vat with me before and he knew exactly what work had to be done. He said: ‘Right, lads, let’s get this job done.’ By the end of the Tuesday the other lads had a grasp of the job in hand and it was all go. At the end of the first week I did think we might make it but made no comment. The second week was a hard slog but, my God, they just kept on going and come Thursday I knew we were nearly there. On the Friday Jim paid us a visit again and was astonished to see the job completed to our usual high standard. He congratulated the lads individually for the wonderful job they had done. Jim’s speech was all the motivation that the lads needed and I myself was very proud of the job they had done: mission accomplished.
I remember another time at Burn O’Vat we had finished the walkway we were doing on the Thursday before lunchtime. We all went back to the reserve HQ depot t
o report to Ian Watt, one of the wardens, that we had finished. He was busy trying to renovate an old outbuilding which they wanted to make wind and watertight to house all their tools, equipment and machinery. We worked with Ian for the rest of the day and all day on the Friday. When we finished we had got all the repairs done and there was just the roof to do, so I went back to my bosses at the prison and asked if they could spare us another couple of days to get the job finished. They agreed, so we went back on Monday and Tuesday and helped Ian finish the job with winter fast approaching. The job would have taken Ian well into the New Year to finish. Another job well done by the lads. They worked hard and enjoyed it and I am always so proud of them when I see the finished project.
It is fair to say they did an absolutely fantastic job up there. They and their families can be proud of their efforts. That was also the general feeling amongst everyone who visited or saw their work. They did really help to transform Burn O’Vat. We got great acclaim for that work and rightly so. We got numerous letters from the Nature Conservatory Council thanking us for the work we did.
Here is one of them, with a request for further assistance:
Dear Sir,
I am warden of the Muir of Dinnet National Nature Reserve. The reason why I write is to ask if it would be possible for Bryan Glennie and a team of prisoners to come here and assist us with further work on the Burn O’Vat footpath sometime in April or May?
As you are well aware Bryan has brought teams out for a number of years. They have done some excellent work which is gratefully appreciated by us but more importantly by the large number of visitors who use the path each year.
If permission is granted there will be no cost to the prison authorities. All transport and material costs will be met by the Nature Conservancy Council.
I look forward to hearing from you and hopefully to having Bryan and the boys working with us again.
Yours sincerely Jim Parkin (park warden).
We also got a lot of positive publicity for our work in the local and even the national press.
The walkways are still there, though. I think some bits of it could be doing with getting replaced. One of my friends was up there lately and told me it is time the prisoners paid another visit, but I joked I don’t think there is any chance of that happening now!
23
Life’s a Beach in Balmedie
We got so much positive publicity from our efforts at Burn O’Vat that we received several more approaches for work and assistance from various projects across the North-east. Burn O’Vat was a great feather in the cap of HMP Aberdeen and to the inmates themselves because it showed the quality of work they produced. It was great that all their efforts hadn’t gone unnoticed.
The Aberdeenshire councillor Paul Miller made an approach in 1989. He made his pitch on behalf of the ‘Keep Grampian Beautiful’ campaign. It was launched to clean up the area, as the region, disappointingly, was voted one of the worst in the United Kingdom. The local council wanted to turn things around and came up with this local campaign that was instigated to educate and change habits and to make Grampian a place to be proud of. Several projects were put in place to raise the profile and to generally tidy up the area.
Balmedie was part of Councillor Miller’s constituency and he and the local people in the village expressed their growing concerns about the mess of Balmedie beach. It had always been a very popular beach with locals, sun worshippers and even walkers.
The problem was that over the winter months it wasn’t quite so appealing, with all the debris and rubbish that had washed ashore from the shipping and oil industries.
Councillor Miller came to us and asked if we could provide some prisoners and staff to do a bit of a clean-up operation. They wanted us to tidy the beach up and to get it ready for the main summer season. We agreed because we knew the ‘Keep Grampian Tidy’ campaign was very high profile and we knew that once again the community would benefit from our work.
So we got the green light from the governor and then Councillor Miller took care of everything else. He put the facilities we needed in place. He left us a little caravan to have a seat, lunch, a cup of tea or to use the facilities. He also got the council to provide skips for the refuse collections so we could get rid of all the rubbish we weren’t able to dispose of ourselves.
We cleaned up everything. Everything that was flammable was burnt. We would wait until the tide went out and then we would burn everything. The tide would then come in and wash the remains away. The rest was thrown into a giant skip. It was nothing like the recycling today. The rubbish and debris that was washed ashore was jaw-dropping, especially in the height of winter when the tides were higher.
Some of the debris that was washed up at Balmedie, if you pardon the pun, was absolutely criminal. We found a fridge and even a bed frame – the sort of stuff that should have been put to a refuge tip.
Some of the rubbish was that bad we struggled to move it by sheer brute force. We had to get hold of a local farmer and ask him to lend us his tractor and cart in order to get some things moved. That shows the size of the problem we were facing.
Another big problem along the ten-mile strip from Bridge of Don to Newburgh was from the offshore or more traditional North-east industries. There is no questioning the money and jobs that fishing and the old industry have brought to the area but in those early years they also caused a lot of damage to the environment. A big issue along the Balmedie beach stretch was oil drums. There were dozens and dozens of them that would be washed ashore. They came off ships and the oil rigs and goodness knows what sort of damage and pollution they caused. I shudder to think. Another problem was the fish boxes from the trawlers. They left a terrible mess with the wooden and plastic boxes. Thankfully the whole set-up is a lot greener today.
You also had the everyday waste that comes from visiting the beach. The number of glass and plastic bottles was amazing. If we’d known waste was so profitable, as it is today, we could have made the prison a fortune by recycling it all. It is fair to say there wasn’t the same awareness of waste back then, but at least things have now changed for the better.
It wasn’t just the clean-up side of things; there was also the safety element to the public as well. Some of the stuff the prisoners picked up, from broken glass to planks with rusty nails sticking out, could have done some real damage, especially to young children or babies playing innocently in the sand.
There were the obvious benefits from our work but it is fair to say the prisoners also got something back and felt they were doing something worthwhile.
I remember one of the prisoners we took out. He was serving a life sentence. It was the first time he had stepped outside of the prison in the fifteen years since he had been sent down. This was a hardened criminal but he was nearly in tears. He was so emotional. I don’t think he had expected to be outside the prison walls again!
We were having a cup of tea and I remember him just looking out from the door of the caravan. He was just staring at everything, from the sand dunes to the sea, in total dismay. He probably thought he would never see outside of the prison walls again. It was great witnessing the prisoners’ reactions and you could see this sort of project was a real positive – a shot in the arm to those lucky enough to be involved. We went and did regular clean-ups at Balmedie beach between 1989 and 1991.
We received more good headlines and publicity from Balmedie Beach. We helped to turn it into a top beach that people could visit all year round and it also proved a winner for the ‘Keep Grampian Beautiful’ campaign.
Councillor Paul Miller paid tribute to the prisoners and the team who did all the work at Balmedie. He said at the time ‘The prisoners have done some very good work for the North-east public. This is a very good example from the inmates, it does good all round – from the workers to the public using the beach.’
24
Down on the Boardwalk
Aberdeen District Council was next to get in touch with Craiginches a
fter seeing the work and the impact the endeavours of our prisoners had made at Balmedie and at Burn O’Vat.
The council had initiated a joint project with the Nature Conservancy Council and the oil giants Texaco. That was in 1991. They had teamed up together to try and give something back to local communities. At that time the perception amongst many was that oil companies were only interested in making money and weren’t really that interested in anything else.
We then had all these negative stories of what oil and gas was doing to the environment and the oil giants knew they had to clean up their acts and had to be seen to be cleaner and greener.
This was one of these good news projects, where Texaco worked in tandem with the Nature Conservancy Council. The council suggested places or areas that needed some work or investment and with Texaco’s financial backing they would be able to transform certain areas.
Both parties also felt we could play a major part in one of their landmark projects in Aberdeen. They wanted us to combine the skills we had used on both projects to tidy up the area around the mouth of the River Don, at the Bridge of Don, and to allow it to be designated as a local nature reserve.
The area is a popular site for walkers and families but it wasn’t without its hazards. People would park their cars and come down from beside the Donmouth pub for a stroll or to walk their dogs. It was quite a drop and people were basically walking straight on to giant sand dunes. It was far from safe, especially as the dunes started to erode. It was also near impossible if you wanted wheelchair access to get down on to the beach.
The council had various complaints and knew they had to address the problem. The last thing they wanted was to leave themselves open to a claim against any potential injury. They also knew that any new work would really add to the area and help them attract more people to the beachfront.
Craiginches Page 10