DRIVING north along the A82 is one of life’s great pleasures.
Along Loch Lomond, through Strath Fillan before heading across the bleak and melancholy Rannoch Moor, descending into the majestic Glen Coe and then opening out on to the seascape at Ballachulish and heading north along the shore of Loch Linnhe.
Sadly, one of the world’s great drives then arrives in the rather disappointing Fort William, which has been ruined by a bypass of sorts which takes away from what should be one of the prettiest places in Scotland and instead offers a view of the back of a row of shops.
It's a great shame as Fort William is set amidst possibly the finest scenery in the country, the town itself is thriving with a bustling and pretty High Street that puts many towns of a similar size in Scotland to shame.
It is known as the outdoor capital of Scotland for a reason and despite the unsightly bypass is well worth a visit, in fact many visits.
But while many people have a view on Fort William and its relative aesthetic merits, one thing you can’t argue with is what it’s called.
Until now that is apparently.
Hundreds of people have signed a petition calling for it to be renamed as its Gaelic counterpart – An Gearasdan (The Garrison) – in response to a Twitter row that re-ignited a long-running argument about Scotland’s bilingual road signs.
The debate over Scotland’s bilingual road signs is about as old as Gaelic itself and probably pre-dates the building of the original garrison in 1655
But let’s be clear, this is nothing about promoting Gaelic and everything about harbouring a long-standing grudge for some.
Certainly some tourists may have got confused with the blizzard of names on some signs in the past, but by and large it adds to the charm of the Highlands and islands and raises awareness of Gaelic.
However, moves to make it compulsory across Scotland is not remotely helpful, historically accurate and in some cases may even cause accidents.
Foreign visitors arriving at Glasgow Airport, for example, have enough to contend with driving on the left of the M8 into the city without the overhead gantry signs being bilingual.
Anyone who has ever driven through Belgium on the main motorway running from Holland to France can attest to how confusing it is when you enter the Flemish-speaking part and some of the places suddenly have entirely different names.
Gaelic is in crisis, of that everyone agrees, and it must be preserved, but how we go about that is the tricky part and one that will take many years yet to resolve. Road signs are just a distraction from the real issue, as is renaming places by their Gaelic names.
But one thing we can probably all agree on is that the view of the back of the shops on the A82 is ugly – in anyone’s language.
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