FOR a lad who is currently the centre of the wrong kind of attention in Campbeltown, Donnie Brown was playing it decidedly cool. There he was at the harbour, chatting to his pals and looking for all the world as if he didn't have a care to contend with. Perhaps he didn't. Still, if there was a steamie in Campbeltown - and there isn't - the 18-year-old would be the talk of it.

On Tuesday night BBC2 screened a documentary, Campbeltown, which purported to be a portrayal of teenage life in an isolated community. It followed four local youngsters, Donnie among them, over the course of a year. It showed them drinking, haring around the town in fast cars and expressing the general opinion that the best thing about Campbeltown was the road to Glasgow. Needless to say, the town did not like what it saw. In fact, it did not recognise what it saw.

Paddy Wivell, the English-based director who made the 50-minute film, had unjustly maligned a community. ''There should be a 'wanted dead or alive' poster up for him in the town,'' says local barber Ian Martin, aged 25.

Donnie, however, was a little more philosophical about it. ''There have been two reactions to it. There were the folk who found it funny and there were the folk who thought it was a disgrace,'' he says. There appears to be no hard feelings between Donnie and Wivell, even though the teenager does think that the film-maker stitched him up.

It wasn't so much what he put into his documentary, it was more what he left out. Donnie is an accomplished musician, a drummer in not just any pipe band but in the Kintyre Schools Pipe Band - world, European and Scottish champions in their grade. Apart from a brief clip of the teenager practising, however, there was no mention of this.

Indeed, Wivell went all the way

to film the band at the world championships but, curiously, it ended up on the cutting-room floor.

Donnie says that he was also filmed playing amateur football - at which he is no slouch - but that, too, failed to make the final cut. Not that Donnie is bothered. Now in full-time employment in forestry, he says: ''He just concentrated on the negative things. But I don't think it is that bad really. Though I can see why people are a wee bit annoyed. The drinking was only at the weekend and, let's face it, every young person does it. I could see that he stitched me up but I don't regret it.''

Since the film was broadcast, a couple of people have challenged him in the street, saying he was an embarrassment to the town. As for his parents, he says they found it funny. ''They were laughing when they watched it,'' he adds. One of Donnie's mates, 20-year-old John (he wouldn't give his surname), describes the people who complained as hypocrites. ''They go to their coffee mornings and talk about how there is nothing for young folk to do in Campbeltown. They are

just being hypocrites when they complain.''

For the most part, though, the local community feel that the four teenagers featured in the film were the victims of a man who had his own preconceived agenda.

Small-town Scotland, then, has had a bad press. Yet the statistics on rural depopulation back up the notion that Scotland's rural communities are losing the fight for young people's loyalties. Earlier this month, a report by the Scottish Executive showed a continuing fall in the number of young people choosing to remain in rural areas. Those aged 15 to 30 are greatly outnumbered by the over-50s. The reasons are complex, the problems facing the agriculture and fisheries, the scarcity of affordable housing and patchy transport links among them. The simple fact that there just isn't much to do, though, is undoubtedly a major issue and one that affects young people from Stornoway to Haddington.

There are only five full-time

cinemas, for instance, in the whole of the Highlands and Islands outside Inverness. There is also the Screen Machine, a mobile cinema, but it offers a very different experience from the urban glass and neon multiplex, with its combination of bars, restaurants, bowling alleys and every other amenity the jaded townie might wish for. No wonder rural 15-year-olds sigh longingly at the thought.

Still, the idea that the young

people of rural Scotland like to channel their considerable energies into nothing more constructive than carrying crates of beer down to the beach, is patently not true, even in the furthest flung communities.

Campbeltown is the end of the road. It is a very long road, one which stretches for 100 miles along the Kintyre Peninsular. On a clear day, you can see the mainland from the top of the hills which surround the town. As you gaze across the water it almost seems to fool you into thinking that it is within easy reach, but it is not. Campbeltown, then, is as isolated a community as you will find in Scotland, but it is a community - and a close-knit one - nonetheless.

This is perhaps why the people here have been so hurt and angered by this week's documentary, for it paints the town as a miserable backwater; a place where hope must be abandoned by all those who enter. Nothing could be further from the truth, for it is a thriving, bustling

little town.

One of the themes of the documentary was how people apparently wanted to leave Campbeltown and head for pastures new in Glasgow. One of the teenage girls in the programme was even filmed boarding the bus to the big city (though one local pointed out that it was the wrong bus).

Ross Kennedy, aged 43, is a man who did just the opposite. With

his wife and two children, he came from Clydebank to set up home in Campbeltown 15 years ago. Like many others, he was incensed by the programme: ''It was disgraceful. It painted the wrong picture. I left the Glasgow area to get away from the drunkenness and the violence and the truth is you just don't get trouble here.

''Donald is a world-class drummer but did they show that? No. It's

true that there is nothing much for young people to do here but that's no different from any other place in Scotland. It is the end of the world in terms of Scotland - you can't go any further - but that doesn't mean to say that there is nothing happening here.''

Amy Adams, aged 19, a politics student at Glasgow University, recognises the sentiment. She grew up in another small town, Elgin, where she says there are quite a lot of places for young people to go, including a swimming pool, an ice rink and some ''youth cafes''. ''Elgin's not as bad as it's made out to be,'' she says, but adds: ''At about age 16 or 17 you start to feel too old for these things. That's when you get bored. At that age I was ready to leave Elgin. Everyone knows who you are and what you do and that can get pretty claustrophobic.''

Since coming to Glasgow, she has appreciated Elgin more, but, while she is happy to spend her summers working there, would not go back

to stay. ''I don't know very many people my age who stayed in Elgin. My sister did, she's 22 and she's quite happy because it was always her plan to stay. But I know another guy who's a plumber and he's desperate to get out.''

Ultimately, though, Amy does not believe that there is that much difference between the experience of suburban teenagers and those living in remoter communities: ''You still get your parents telling you what you can and can't do. Even if I could go back, I wouldn't change the place I grew up in.''

So, it's not just as black-and-white as legend and documentary filmmakers might make out.

Lorne MacDougall, a 20-year-old musician who has just gained

a degree in piping from the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama in Glasgow, was back home in Campbeltown when he saw

the programme this week. He

was present at a beach drinking party prominently featured in the film.

''The programme was terrible. I suspected that they were going

to look at the negative side. I saw a lot of the guy [Wivell] when he was making the film. The funny thing is, he seemed to be looking at positive things as well but that was obviously just a big show on his part.

''I remember thinking at the beach party that it was just the kind of thing I wouldn't want to see in a film about Campbeltown. A bunch of teenage kids letting their hair down. But that is all it was.''

Barber Ian Martin says that

Wivell had been around his shop while he was making the film. He adds: ''He came across as a genuine guy but frankly he turned out to be an arse.''

At the local newspaper, the Campeltown Courier, reporter Ranald Watson said that they had had more communication and complaints on the issue over the past two days than they had ever had on any subject in the past.

He predicted, with some confidence, that it would be the lead item in next week's edition.