Prison Birds

A visit to the Peterhead Prison Museum. Seeing the grimness close up was just as uncomfortable as my previous encounter in another work life with the Museum's patron. Luckily, as exhibit A above shows, Noel Gallagher happened to be visiting the laundry too it would seem, which gave us a bit of light relief.

Thanks to the museum's nifty personal headphones, we could individually drip feed information on the harsh conditions and violent incidents as we walked through the buildings. A sense of malevolence remains throughout, those Victorian walls have seen and heard the worst of things, and a sense of the tension and threat of violence simmering through confinement makes you want to nip outside for air, and that was even without some of the more infamous stories and inmates being highlighted as part of the tour, maybe just as well, the stories that were included were shuddersome enough and sometimes (most of the time in fact) you just don't need the gruesome details. I'm betting some of the wardens through the years were just as violently notorious as the inmates...though I'm probably just letting my imagination run riot....... So after exposing my two ne'er do wells, I asked them if it had put them off considering a criminal career choice in future (criminal mastermind is not on the subject choice form at their school, nor does Skills Development Scotland have it as a career pathway on their website)....they were noncommittal, keeping their options open perhaps, which is what SDS probably do advise.

The Buchan Braes were looking affa bonnie on the way home though, sparkling blue sea, harvest gold fields. And not a Nordic submarine or Russian frigate in sight unlike yesterday's discombobulation.