Views from an Island

  Argyll and Bute Council have launched their bid to have Oban granted city status and it seems that local opinion is divided over this. I must admit that initially I was unsure about whether this would be desirable or not. I think back to the Oban of my childhood and my teens, a bustling, busy, fun filled town. I have summer evening memories of pipe bands marching down George Street while farmers struggled to recapture escaped beasts heading for the mart, and tourists thronged, engaged in the sights and the sounds and smells of a busy rural seaport, replete with   ferries and fishing boats and fishermen landing catches and mending nets. The old station lent a Victorian grandeur to the vista and provided a sheltered meeting place. The replacement is an anodyne brick built station that would be more comfortably at home in Cumbernauld and nearby, lending added local colour and culture, is a branch of “Tesco’s by the sea” that has pretty much extinguished every small business in the t