I live four miles the Scottish-English border, worked for several years in Germany and Switzerland and have spent time in France and Estonia. I’ve long been fascinated with borders and the contrast between the porous borders of this island and much of Europe, and others that limit, control and oppress. Working in a high security compound, visits to east Germany and encounters with border guards meant I never took cross-border travel for granted. But even growing up in the Scottish Borders, heading down to Carlisle or Newcastle or up to Hexham across an all-but-invisible border held a kind of spell. Borders families have their own rituals of cheering, waymarking, noticing. It felt the same crossing from Germany to Alsace – a mental shift, a leaving and arriving. The border was there, but not there. I learned about border anomalies and discovered there was a whole taxonomy, and that shapeshifting is the norm, given time.
Working in Germany as a translator, I remember a period in the 1980-90s when it seemed like every few months, we had to update the Terminology Handbook of Countries. Countries changed their names, and translators had to follow. We each had a ringbinder. Out went Czechoslovakia. In went the Czech Republic and Slovakia. Out went Burma. In went Myanmar. Out went the German Democratic Republic. Yugoslavia – it was impossible to keep up. Again, this reinforced a feeling of taking nothing for granted. Not freedoms, not flags, not identity.
The year of Brexit and the pandemic have shone a new light on borders, jurisdictions, rights, permissions. It feels as though the island borders are changing, flexing, in our minds and in reality. This is a geological as well as political faultline, which seems to surprise many people. So I’ve been thinking a lot about our place on the edges, in the crumple zone. The interior, where power sits, feels far away and not that aware of here and its people. I’ve been extremely fortunate to receive a Creative Scotland award to give time to dig deeper into this multi-dimensional theme.
