18-07-2025
When it comes to travel, nostalgia is never a dirty word
It was the English writer L.P. Hartley who came up with the magnificent statement that 'the past is a foreign country; they do things differently there' – using those 11 clever words to open his best-known novel, The Go-Between.
Said literary touchstone is itself a slice of nostalgia that, though published in 1953, peers back at the summer of 1900 with – before the narrative turns to tragedy and trauma – a reasonable amount of rose-tintedness.
I was put in mind of Hartley's frequently quoted wisdom late last month, and then again this week, while researching and writing an article on Aberdeen and its hosting of the Tall Ships Races.
This salute to the 'golden age of sailing' will breezily dominate Scotland's third biggest city over the next four days (July 19-22; filling the main harbour with almost 50 high-masted, wind-powered vessels from the (relatively) dim mists of the 19th and 20th centuries. As many as half a million visitors are expected.
Reader responses to the piece have ranged from fond reminiscences about the 'Granite City' during the 1980s and 1990s, at the height of the North Sea oil boom ('an amazing vibrant place'), to further-flung recollections of childhood jaunts ('wonderful holiday memories of Aberdeen from when I was a lad. I used to love going down to the harbour to see the women filleting the fish. Showing my age. Simple times'), and a rather wearier realism.
'If the Aberdeen weather is kind, the Tall Ships ought to be a proper spectacle for a few days,' one particularly prescient comment ran. 'However, there may be minimal long-term benefits for the city.'
You may well agree with that final assertion. And unfortunately, the suggestion – made by several readers – that Aberdeen is 'not what it was', citing the boarded-up shops and the empty bank buildings along the key drag of Union Street, may hold some truth.
But then, such urban decline is hardly uncommon in a Britain where our addiction to the easy click of online retail has hollowed out our city centres.
And while a long weekend of schooners, windjammers and barques at anchor will not bring back the ship-building industry of which Aberdeen was one of the global hubs for more than two centuries, there is no harm in celebrating what once was, or in revelling in the merry echoes of yesterday.
We are often told that nostalgia is a fool's errand; a wilful misrepresentation of a past that may not have existed.
But it is also a golden thread through the present, irresistible in its allure.
Its power is currently visible in – to pick two examples – the rapturous scenes at the gigs being played this month by the reformed Oasis, to the reinvention of beloved TV shows and movies, safe in the knowledge that their ingrained appeal will attract viewers all over again (see I Know What You Did Last Summer, the 1997 horror film that has returned to cinemas this weekend with a whole new cast but, pretty much, the same plot).
Nostalgia is also an excellent reason for travel. One of the best. And it is a factor in our holiday decisions more often than we may care to admit.
Why else do we so often return to destinations we have enjoyed before, relishing the prospect of revisiting favourite bars and cherished restaurants? Why do we head back to honeymoon hotspots when a major anniversary rolls around? Why are companies such as Belmond and Orient Express, who specialise in a sophisticated, vintage style of rail travel, so successful in their endeavours? The past may well be a foreign country, but we are more than happy to take a break there.
Besides, the Tall Ships are not just a nostalgic exercise. They keep the skill inherent in sailing – as well as the graceful beauty of the process – alive, bringing youthful participants into the racing crews, and letting them (quite literally) learn the ropes.
I also disagree with the notion that such an event cannot bring broader benefits. If a visitor to the festival 'discovers' Royal Deeside, the Aberdeenshire coast or even the Granite City's superb art gallery over the coming days, tourism has – once again – been a force for good.
