It takes a confident tour guide to claim that demand for your product outstrips what you can make, yet the guide at Oban Distillery wasn’t boasting; he was just commenting on the modest size of the operation, which crams its stills into seemingly impossible spaces. Not that Oban could do anything about that. Extending the distillery would involve blasting into the cliffs against which the distillery sits, and the owners of the cliff-top homes would have something to say about that.
It seemed that everything anyone told me about Oban came back to its size and the sense of community it maintains. Cameron, a nurse from Dundee whom I met on the train from Glasgow, told me that he likes visiting Oban for exactly that reason. He encouraged me to go to The Tartan Tavern, a pub so small that, as he put it, “When you open the door you’re basically behind the bar.”
Oban does temporarily grow its size during the summer months, when tourists stop to sample the local scallops or sift through on their way to Mull, which looms on the horizon as an intimidatingly beautiful green mass that shields Oban from the harshness of the ocean beyond. The tourists, like me, no doubt spend their Friday nights in Lorne Bar, an oaky and intimate pub that Cameron had pitched to me as being “Where everyone goes.” Whether he’s right about that or not, that’s certainly not an indicator of its size. I turned up late, excited by the promise of local music, but instead of there being a stage and band there was just a bloke on a stool with an accordion.
Clearly there’s plenty to be curious about in Oban, nothing more so than McCaig’s Tower. The folly, built in 1897, which overlooks the town, is an enormous grey ring left unfinished by its creator. What was imagined as a Colosseum-like structure with a roof to house a gallery within is instead just a shell with a viewing platform which is well worth the steep walk up. It’s a poignant reminder that things don’t always need to be finished to be remarkable. As someone who grapples wiith a daily to-do list, its a reassuring thought.
Back at the distillery, the guide tells us about renovations that took place in 1890. During the work, a cave was discovered and, inside, human remains dating from the Mesolithic era were found. He tells that story with a knowing smile, implying that there’s more to Oban than there might seem at first glance.
Oban – Gaelic for Little Bay – is a lesson that small doesn’t mean uninteresting.
The Guardian Weekly regularly publishes a Letter from one of its readers from around the world. We welcome submissions – they should focus on giving a clear sense of a place and its people. Please send them to weekly.letters@theguardian.com
Comments (…)
Sign in or create your Guardian account to join the discussion