On Clydeside Promenade author Peter Ross adds insight into changing life on the river.  Here  blogger Lucy Brouwer reviews the work of the award winning Glasgow journalist with a special interest in the Clyde, and how it symbolises Scotland’s character.

Peter Ross surely has one of the most enviable jobs in Scottish letters. In his feature articles, originally published in Scotland on Sunday, he investigates the lesser-known aspects of Scottish culture, meeting the ordinary and extraordinary men and women, whose lives reveal an independence of character that make Scotland what it is.

A natural force: the Clyde in spate below Lanark: photo Tim Niblett CC by 2.0

The River Clyde has acquired a character of its own.  Reading from some of his articles on Clydeside Promenade audio tour, Peter also gives his thoughts on the symbolic power of the river, not just in Glasgow but across Scotland.

“Through its association with shipbuilding in particular, the Clyde has become emblematic of what we like to believe are national characteristics – strength, rough humour, ingenuity, comradeship and a love of adventure.”

He finds different ways of bringing these characteristics to life:  tracing the source of the river at the meeting of Daer Water and Thick Cleuch burn, fishing with the anglers at Dalmarnock Bridge; boarding one of the last sailings of the Renfrew Ferry; boating with George Parsonage of the Glasgow Humane Society – in each encounter he captures the changing nature of the river and the people whose lives it shapes.

A collection of his pieces has now been published as Daunderlust: Dispatches From Unreported Scotland. In 42 articles written between 2008 and 2013, he documents aspects of Scottish life that might otherwise be overlooked.

Peter Ross

Now working freelance, Peter started his career as a fanzine writer and student journalist at Strathclyde University in the 1990s before getting a break with The List magazine. From there he went on to celebrity interviews at the Sunday Herald, before moving to Scotland on Sunday where he started his own column, a hybrid of his own thoughts and reportage.

“ I had kind of sickened myself on the celebrity thing,” he says, “I’d just done too much of it so my idea was that I was going to try to write about ordinary life or, if you like, extraordinary ordinary life”.

That’s what he’s been doing for the past seven years or so, taking the seemingly ordinary and describing it in a detailed, even poetic way to accentuate the extraordinary side of it. Peter spends time with his subjects, gains their trust and is able to build up their stories, offering an unobtrusive glimpse of their lives. He is interested in the processes of work and the way it has meaning in our lives. Maintaining a respect for his subjects, he is never sneering or exploitative, always standing back to let the people make the jokes.

The articles often have an elegiac tone, because they are often a record of disappearing lifestyles and occupations, but also because black humour seems to be deep rooted in the personality of the people of Scotland.

Peter Ross’s collection of writing about Scotland in Daunderlust adds up to a beautifully crafted portrait of a nation, “a snapshot of a people during a period of change” celebrating the character that is in his view “Scotland’s greatest natural resource”.

You can buy Daunderlust by Peter Ross HERE.

And you can hear Peter on Routes 3 and 4 of the Clydeside Promenade available as a free download HERE. or as audio only from Bandcamp  HERE