Kurt Jackson RWA (b.1961)
The Burn – A Scottish Millstream In the spring of 2012, I followed the Kintyre peninsula down to its southern end near Campbeltown to arrive by a glinting, rushing burn between banks of celandines and kingcups. I stayed in a big, solid, ancient water mill complete and in perfect working order but still and silent, every functional cog and wheel unworked for 50 years, situated on the north bank of that noisy, bubbling brook; beneath soaring golden eagles and skylarks. I trailed the stream from its loch high on the moor with its prehistoric rock carvings and roaring windfarm, past the mill and down to that dark coast with my pencil line and paintbrush strokes, tracing every curve and meander, overhanging tree and washed rock. So a journey for the Tangy Burn [and for me] from the source to the sea of only four kilometres but as resonant and diverse as any River Thames, Clyde or Forth; a small world but encompassing all those bends and twists, river cliffs and flood plains; all those falls and eddies, rushes and cataracts. Black water, white water, ochre water, clear water. Moorland, farmland, woodland, coastland. On a small scale but not of insignificance – every boggy mire of draining moorland bank and flower clad valley side, every stretch holds its own riparian story of evolution; supporting its own pertinent biodiverse communities – colonies of plants and animals clinging to the banks and bathing in those waters. A world in microcosm. —Kurt Jackson, 2022
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