New Social Art School Projects - Tillydrone Tracy
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Tracy, doing the first interview in the artist's flat, May 2007
Tracy inventor and masters student
Take two. Tracy is the first person I have ever had to interview twice. Last time, late at night, we got too far off track with the wine and the music. She’s got so much to say and I’m impressed by her energy; she’s like a tornado coming into your house. So, on this lovely sunny Sunday we go down to the mighty Don with a flask of tea. Tracy has got a very special relationship with the river. She’s also the only student at Gray’s School of art who lives in Tillydrone. We promise to stay focused this time. Tracy is 35 years old.
I have lived two years in Alexander Drive and almost seven years in my current flat on Bradley Terrace. But I’m a Northfield quine! My mum and dad still stay in the same house I was brought up in. I’ve lived in Logie, Torry, Mastrick, Bridge of Dee and Tillydrone. Heaps of places. Most of them regeneration areas actually. I went to Summerhill Academy, left with Highers in 1989 and had a twelve-year gap to find myself. Then I started college at 29. I think it was the imminent panic of the big three zero, you know, the what-have-I-done-with-my-life thing. I did an HNC in interior design and architecture, which is a really good course, quite busy. And then I did my HND, applied to Gray’s School of art and got straight into second year there.
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Last year I got my honours degree in product design. My project was about sustainable design. It’s something that I’m really interested in, something that we should all focus on. I think that a lot of design is wasteful. In particular the iPod. Everybody has got one. But at the end of the day, once the battery is gone, tough, throw it on the electrical scrap heap and start again. I find it quite ironic that it’s the best selling product of our time, and it’s completely unsustainable. That’s why I curse Apple. I’ve got a thing about super companies anyway. But yeah, I was looking at power generation and the amount of power we create just by walking. The average person walks about 4000 to 5000 steps a day and that’s basic - not even a walking job - just pottering around in the house or whatever. So I looked at how we could maybe harness that power to supplement our products. Basically, it’s a special insole that goes into a shoe, and it hides a lithium battery. Just by walking, you’re the human dynamo and you’re charging gears that charge the internal battery. So, if you’re out and about you just have to reach down to the shoe and take the battery out and use it in your products. My research showed that the average person uses four or five personal products; iPods, MP3 players, mobile phones, headphones, cameras. I got a lot of press coverage on the shoe; seven national newspapers in one day and I never even committed a crime! I’m so proud. Quite cool! On the Internet it was up in different forums and people were discussing it. It was good to sort of provoke that kind of reaction. I got a call from Dragon’s Den and they wanted me. It’s basically a panel of really rich people. You pitch to them and, if they like it, they buy in for percentage of your company. But, with me going straight into Masters, I haven’t really had time to get it up to a prototype stage yet. Dragon’s Den will just have to wait! But it’s all good. Masters was a dream of mine since I was a kid. So, when I got the chance I just jumped at it.
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To be honest, I never admitted that I lived in Tillydrone before. I don’t know why, but I think it’s a kind of shame thing. I thought I’d shoot myself in the foot if I put Tillydrone down. I hid it and never mentioned it. At uni they are mostly mummy-and-daddy-are-paying-for-all students. I felt that quite intimidating. When they asked me where I lived I told them Old Aberdeen, beside Aberdeen uni, kept it nice and loose! I told them for years. Nobody was coming back to my flat anyway, it wasn’t that kind of relationship I had with folk at uni. I’ve only recently started putting Tillydrone on my letters and stuff. And last year I said to my tutor, ‘Right, I’m ready to come out’ and I went, ‘I live in Tillydrone!’ Hahahaha! Honestly, the folk in my class were like… stunned by my confession. But it got so much better after that. It’s like, what the hell? I’m getting older… Hell yeah, it’s a pride thing as well. I’m here on my achievements. And I worked damn hard. I worked extra hard because I didn’t have it on the plate. During the summer some of the other students were like, ‘Oh, I wonder where I’ll go on holiday with mum and dad?’ And I was like, ‘Oh, better go back to work full-time.’ In all the time I’ve been at uni I’ve had to work at least 20 hours a week. And I still got my honours degree. Oh yeah! What pride man! I’ve sold mobile phones for seven years. Hell yeah, I can still sell sand to the Arabs! Honestly, I know how to talk and relate to people. But I think it’s time to start focusing on what I want to do. It was a means to an end and it was a good paid part-time job that helped me survive, keep my flat, and get my honours degree. I’m not belittling it in any way, but it’s time for me to stop selling products and start selling myself.
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The river is a big source of power. I sort of stumbled down here. I gave up smoking a couple of years ago and I took to walking. I had so much energy I had to walk for miles every day just so I could sleep. I walked further and further and came down here. What a beautiful place it is. It clears your head. I’ve been down here when I’ve been feeling really depressed, I’ve been down here when I’ve had exam stress and I’ve been down here to celebrate. It supports me, in every way. Come down here to cry or come down here to laugh. It’s got a special power that sort of sympathises with you. Walking along the Tillydrone side there’s original boundary walls, giant steelworks, and big cranks that they used to chain grates to and trap the power from the river. They used waterpower quite a lot here, back in the early days. And there’s evidence of houses and moats and bridges. It’s just fantastic. I decided to look on the Internet and that’s how I found out that the steelworks was actually part of Donside paper mill. On the Bridge of Don side, further up, there are lots of little archways that trap the water, and it was used for power purposes as well. Then I found out that it was a sacred river. In the year 2 AD it was classified a sacred river. And you’ve got St Machar Cathedral, which is another place I’ve stumbled upon this year. Wow! What a place. I found out from the leaflets in there that it has been a place for worship, on that site, well before BC. That’s quite intense as well. That’s why I like the fact that I can still sit here and I’m not in somebody’s living room, looking out. If it was sacred land in Rome they wouldn’t be allowed to build here, you know. But I don’t think Aberdeen council is about to contact the pope!
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It’s because it’s a moving thing, a living thing. Yeah, it’s a beautiful river. And, speaking about the regeneration, I don’t know what influence the Donside development will have when the buildings go up here. They want to build a massive new community with bistros and retail outlets and everything. It’s almost like they’re improving the exit route from that third crossing over the river Don. That would be the exclusive road for people who moved into the Donside development. They are building a place of luxury. And to have it right next to Tillydrone seems quite ironic. Now they have to improve both, they can’t just do the one. When people come over the river, you know, ‘What’s this place? Oh, it’s Tillydrone…’
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If you look at statistics, giving you a breakdown of the postcodes, this is one of the lowest grade postcodes. The average price of housing in Tillydrone is £24,000. When you’re looking at places like Cults or Culter the average is £224,000. And it’s all on the same bus route! I go on the 19-bus to uni, and it’s like New York; you’ve got Fifth Avenue with the millionaires at one end and the Bronx at the other! It reflects that. It’s a bit like a financial map where you’ve got Tillydrone housing at this end and you come through town, it goes up a bit, and then you come out the other side and you’ve got Cults, Bieldside, Culter, the most expensive housing in Aberdeen. It’s all on the same bus route. It is crazy! It’s quite an interesting journey, terminus to terminus.
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The regeneration is a personal thing to people. You can feel their emotions behind it. And there’s mistrust. So far, all we’ve seen are buildings coming down. That’s it. They board up the flats and then take them down. I don’t see how that is regeneration to be honest. It’s quite sad to see a block that you lived in for many years come down. Wouldn’t you think? And people voice that. But no, we’ve got 15 years. We’ll get back to you! They’ve almost used it as a carrot, but it’s dangling too far away. People can only think in something like two-year blocks. It needs to be broken down for them. It really does. I don’t know what I’m gonna be doing in 15 years. Do you? My god, give them some more green space! Do you actually see people using it? What you need is more, smaller spaces to actually congregate.
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The 15-year plan, I think, gives them the excuse not to tackle things now.
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It’s something you would see in an earthquake. I’m speaking about the last building that came down in Formartine Road. Ironically it was directly across from the housing office! Hahaha! I’ve got a cracking picture: Tillydrone Housing with this pile of rubble in the background! I do a lot of walks around in Tillydrone and take a lot of pictures. I’ve made a big poster with the map in the middle and all these red dots and everything that I’ve seen coming off of it. The guy that was found dead in his flat is that close to me on the Tillydrone map. It was on Harris Drive, right across the road from me. A year he lay there and I walked past every day. You know when you get a feeling about a place, but you don’t really have enough to say anything about it? It was that flat. It looked strange; there was sort of a metal bar with springs in the window, looked like the underside of a mattress or something leaning up against the front window. Isn’t that sad? I mean the guy was a loner, fair enough. But come on, a year. What about the smell in the building? Come on! The neighbour above never heard him for a year? Come on! I find it quite scary to think that I could be lying there and nobody would visit me for a year. Dear god.
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I’m interested in the whole regeneration thing and I’m quite interested in finding the sense of community. Getting the community involved, that’s the key word. It’s gonna take a lot, but it can be done. I’m thinking about a huge map of Tillydrone, blown up. And every house is a square. People can fill it in however they want; they can give me text, pictures, anything that represents regeneration for them. So I’m gonna build this baby up! I’m gonna go to their doors because I know they won’t come to me. I’ve been doing a little bit of design work for Station House and we only have one volunteer from Tillydrone, involved in the Tilly Tattle publication. So I thought, ‘If Mohammed won’t go to the mountain, the mountain will go to Mohammed. I’ll go to them.’ We photocopied 2,500 leaflets, asking people to come along to the Community Flat for training. Karen Brown and I posted all these leaflets through the doors. Got another two people interested! But hey, that’s okay. Now we’ve got three volunteers. It’s the start of something. These three people will talk to three people and in turn they’ll tell three people and that’s how networking goes. So, yeah, I’m quite willing to go to every door. I also want to record and interview people out on the streets in Tillydrone. Basically get real people’s views. You have to go to them. And I’m a stubborn bugger anyway. I’ll get that done.
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I want to devote more time to this regeneration project. Definitely. Because it’s something that I’m living through myself. And, what is the role of the designer in the community? What could I do to actually improve things? It is based around the regeneration but I need to know what design means to people. Another string to my bow is that I’m going to have a radio show at SHMU: A regeneration phone-in. Real views from real people. It’s basically about working together and building that sense of community back up.
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I am intending to stay in Tillydrone. I might work abroad for a couple of years, but I’ve still got time… Well, life begins at 40 doesn’t it? Yes, I’d like to see how this regeneration pans out, you know. I’d like to see the influence it has on the people. Definitely. And I like to be close to the river; it makes me feel calm. What else is good about Tillydrone? I’m thinking! Tillydrone is entertaining! And in Tillydrone people don’t judge you. You can be yourself. Who you want to be...
Recorded 6th May