Lord Gove of … where? Is this some kind of joke?

The Herald Scotland

26-04-2025

I must admit though that my first reaction on hearing Lord Gove would be Lord Gove of Torry was that the words don't belong together: Lord and Torry. I know Torry well – half my family are from there – and it's not a place that's very lordly, thank goodness. And despite only missing out by one letter, it's never been a Tory sort of place either. So a Tory calling himself Torry felt at first like a bit of a bad-taste joke, and judging by the vox-pops journalists did in the area, some of the people of Torry feel the same way.
But then I thought about it some more and the scepticism I felt about a Lord called Torry started to turn into something else. It's nice that Mr Gove wants to pay respect to his parents – as I say, it's a reason to like him a bit more. There must also be a (small, very small) hope that when he gets to the House of Lords, his name will bring some attention to what's going on in the place he's named after, and other areas like it. Torry has suffered, is suffering, and it's frustrating that we're still making the same mistakes and making things worse, in Aberdeen, and elsewhere.
In Torry's case, the mistakes go back a long way. Down near where Mr Gove's dad used to have his fish business is Old Torry, or what used to be Old Torry. The community was demolished in the 1970s, during the oil boom, to make way for an expansion of the harbour and it happened despite the objections of the people who lived there. The objections weren't listened to and it looked a lot like the interests of the people who lived in Torry mattered less than the interests of the people who didn't (this will be a theme).
Exactly the same thing has happened more recently. Drive into Torry down the hill on Wellington Road and the one thing you can't miss is the new incinerator, sitting there all ugly and giant and hungry like one of Frank Herbert's sandworms. What it eats is rubbish from the better-off parts of Aberdeen which is bussed here then burnt. They tell us it'll provide 'energy from waste' but when the folk of Torry said they didn't want the incinerator, they were ignored. In other words, same-old same-old: the interests of the people who live in deprived communities matter less than the interests of the people who don't, and it's the people in the deprived communities who live with the consequences.
Read more
There are lots of other examples. Like Torry's Walker Road primary, my old school as it happens, which is shut and neglected and probably doomed. And Victoria Road school just up the road which is in an even worse state: reduced by neglect and decay and vandals and fire and the desire of the council to demolish and be shot of it even though there's a perfectly realistic plan to turn the building into affordable housing. Communities like Torry need communal buildings more than most, but they are more likely to lose them.
Another couple of examples. You may have heard about the plans to develop and industrialise Torry's St Fittick's Park. We're told it will become an 'energy transition zone', which is a similar euphemism to 'energy from waste', so let me translate: it means a large part of the park will go and an industrial estate will go up in its place. Would this happen to a park in a wealthier part of town? Of course not.
Then there's the reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete – Raac to you and me – the cheap, lightweight and now dangerous material that was used in buildings for decades including hundreds of houses in Torry. The council has told the people affected that their homes will be pulled down, but the compensation they've been offered is pathetic and won't get them a similar home elsewhere. The residents say, very reasonably: give us a fair price; they also say there's been no compassion or empathy, just an order to get out.
(Image: Protesters at the incinerator)
All of this does get me down a bit. Torry is a fine example of what old Victorian granite could create, but a lot of its architecture has been demolished and neglected. Torry has also been dumped with a lot of the consequences of development that benefits other places: the oil terminals that flattened Old Torry, the incinerator that burns other people's rubbish. To make matters worse, opportunities to support and protect the community, such as converting the old schools into homes, have also been missed or ignored.
One of the big problems – and you see it in other cities too – is that time and again, the authorities get away with dumping bad decisions on places like Torry because places like Torry don't have the same number of pushy, well-connected people that the posher suburbs have. Torry has its champions of course – I know some of them and they're brilliant – but governments and councils and businesses have always found it easier to ignore deprived communities because they just don't know a lot of the people who live there.
But maybe the creation of a new lord with the word Torry in his name is a chance to disrupt things a bit. I don't know if Mr Gove has thought about his new title as anything more than a tribute to his parents and if he hasn't, that's fine. But what I'd say is this: suddenly, out of the blue, a pushy, well-connected person has a connection with Torry. So perhaps he could come up and look around, and perhaps he could speak to local people, and perhaps he could say something in the House of Lords, or write about it in his magazine. A new Lord of Torry is a chance to push for a little bit of change; it would be great if the lord took it.