When the oil boom brought cowboys and crofters to Cromarty

Highland One, an enormous steel jacket destined for the newly discovered Forties oil field, was constructed at breakneck speed by fearless workers often fuelled by whisky and beer from the Nigg Ferry Hotel and slick American roughnecks wearing cowboy boots and with names like Hank, Leroy and Chuck.

It was the early 1970s and Scotland, and in particular a scattering of Highland communities, was in a race to bring the first drips of liquid gold to the surface.

On Tuesday, a BBC Scotland programme, Rigs of Nigg, will explore the impact the discovery of the Forties oilfield had on the sleepy Highland village of Nigg on the Cromarty Firth, documenting how it was propelled from peaceful farming community to the very cutting edge of Scotland’s dash for oil and gas.

Using old film and modern interviews from the men and women who were there, it focuses on the role Highland Fabrication (Hi-Fab) played in bringing jobs and wealth to an area more used to a far simpler way of life.

While its focus is the Nigg fabrication yard and its race to deliver the first Forties oil rig jacket, Highland One, the oil boom was felt across Scotland; from the refinery at Grangemouth to the oil capital of Aberdeen, and in Shetland and Orkney which became the homes of major terminals.

The deep-sea lochs of Wester Ross and Argyll became fabrication sites for huge oil rig concrete platforms – at Loch Kishorn alone, a self-contained village for 2000 workers was created.

At its peak, Nigg employed 5,000, with thousands more at the fabrication site at nearby Ardersier and the undersea pipe coating plant at Invergordon.

To serve them, countless contractors and service businesses sprung up, while small village shops, hotels and pubs counted the cash that flowed into their tills thanks to North Sea oil and gas.

The hour-long documentary, filmed by BAFTA-winning director Don Coutts, who lived in the Cromarty Firth area for 25 years, reflects on the heady days when war in the Middle East brought soaring oil prices and politicians were desperate to unleash the wealth below the North Sea.

It is in deep contrast to today, when political leaders are facing a different kind of pressure over oil production.

Last week’s stark UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report, with its ‘code red’ warning over the impact of burning fossil fuels and other pollutants, has placed the future of Cambo, the planned oil field development off the coast of Shetland, under the spotlight.

Oil giants Shell and Siccar Point Energy want UK Government permission to initially drill for over 150 million barrels of oil with hopes to continue until 2050, to access 800 million barrels.

In the Seventies, it may have sparked a race to the fabrication yard at Nigg and a political wrestle over who owns ‘Scotland’s oil’.

Instead, the prospect of a new oilfield against the backdrop of Scottish and UK Government’s tough net-zero targets is a political hot potato. Under pressure to fiercely oppose it, First Minister Nicola Sturgeon stopped short and instead has asked Boris Johnson to reassess oil licenses already issued but where field development has not yet commenced – such as Cambo.

Such hesitancy was unthought of in the Seventies.

According to Pug Petersen, senior engineer at the Nigg yard who came from Texas and ended up staying, Nigg was chosen after locations from Yugoslavia to Finland, and closer to home, Dunnet Head, Ardyne point in Ayrshire and Portavadie in Argyll had been considered.

“It became apparent that the Nigg facility was the best location,” he says. “It was close to the North Sea, close to deep water, sheltered, very shallow and we realised we when we dredged out material from the graving dock we could put that on flat land and make more space.”

More than 100 acres of dunes and estuary were reclaimed and nearly 3 million cubic yards of sand and sandstone excavated or dredged.

Any environmental fears over the loss of pristine beaches and the impact on wildlife were confined to a handful of locals who could only watch as huge bulldozers rolled over the sandy dunes where they played as children.

But just as the yard’s construction changed the landscape, it also brought significant changes to community and their way of life.

Not everyone wanted it.

“There were people who were very much against it,” recalls broadcaster Iain MacDonald. “There were even families divided over it.

“Some people didn’t want it because it looked like an industrial nightmare in that part of the Highlands, some people wanted to preserve it in aspic.”

Before long, however, Nigg, once plagued by unemployment, low wages from farm work and the loss of its young people, was a magnet for workers seeking wages they had previously only dreamed of.

Local crofters, farm labourers, shopkeepers and fishermen became welders, riggers and offshore technicians, leaving farmers to fret over who would be left to help haul their tatties.

There were opportunities for the area’s women too, with countless office-based jobs and, for some, an exciting role in traditional male jobs like welding.

Families counted their blessings in bulging wage packets: one wife told how her husband’s salary leapt from just £12 a week to £50, allowing the family to dine out on as much luxury ice cream as they wanted.

Others splashed out on bulky stereos and holidays to the Spanish Costas. For some young apprentices, yard wages bought fast cars and motorbikes with tragic consequences as they careered around Easter Ross’s roads.

Workers found themselves shoulder to shoulder with oil savvy and mild-mannered Americans brought to Easter Ross by BP, inspiring a trend for cowboy boots, handlebar moustaches, and checked shirts. Accents developed distinct American twangs.

As the complexities of creating a steel jacket to withstand the violent conditions of the North Sea became apparent, a call went out for even more welders, riggers and fabricators. Hundreds from shipbuilding communities in Glasgow, the north of England and abroad swamped Easter Ross.

Accommodating 5,000 mainly men in a rural corner of Scotland posed major problems – caravan communities and campsites sprung up long before the NC500 tourists rolled into town.

“There were people staying in World War Two pillboxes,” Iain recalls. “One lot would find accommodation eventually and move out, and another lot moved it. It was not exactly hot and cold all mod cons.

“At one stage the population of nearby Alness went up something like 10 score between censuses.”

To help, two ageing Greek cruise ships manned by an Egyptian and Greek crew were anchored in the bay. But with nothing to do but drink, fights flared - often over the simplest things.

Rab Stewart, a scaffolder and former Nigg shop steward, recalls even the Greek-style cooking was enough to ignite a barney: “Once there was a battle in the galley. This guy thought there was a leaf in his stew - he didn’t realise it was all good cooking, and it was a bay leaf.”

For the engineers working to complete Highland One, the pressure piled on from Downing Street to meet the tight deadline – it had to be towed into position in the calmer spring to summer months – matched the enormity of the challenge.

Eventually on a dull September day in 1974 and watched by thousands lining the Cromarty Firth coast, Highland One set off on its journey to the North Sea Forties field.

A year later the Queen pushed a button to initiate the flow of oil from the field, heralding a new dawn for the UK economy.

For Nigg, the klondike days had peaked. While fabrication work continued for almost 30 years, contracts eventually dried up.

Having been mothballed for ten years – and with rusting oil rigs now lined up in the Cromarty Firth – offshore wind, wave and tidal technology are its future.

Roy MacGregor, group chairman of Global Energy, who started his working life at the Nigg yard, has returned with a vision to make the UK’s leading renewables hub.

Work is underway at Nigg to assemble the foundations for the giant 1.1GW Seagreen Offshore Wind Farm off the Angus coast, securing almost 100 jobs at the yard.

“I think we will have a renewable industry… building these structures for the future,” he adds.

“They will be bigger, they will be better they will be more complex, and we’ll be feeding electricity to Europe and other parts of the world.”

Rigs of Nigg is on BBC Scotland on Tuesday (August 17) 10.00-11.00pm