Composer Sir James MacMillan has seen the fortunes of his home town improve. Luckily, it’s a perfect place for music
Driving into the west of Scotland from England for the first time is a surreal experience. Just north of Gretna Green there’s a point when everything suddenly and inexplicably doubles in size and scale, as though God, in an act of joyous whimsy, pressed the button marked “200%” while designing the place. It was at this point that the rain began.
We’d been driving for about six hours by then, during which the sun had done its best to melt our windscreen. Through county after county we’d passed, barely a cloud overhead and not a hint of anything but the same to come. Then an angry purple-grey sky appeared without warning. After suffering through weeks of Saharan heat in London, I said a silent prayer to St Medard. My fiancée, whose delight had more than equalled my discomfort, suppressed the frown threatening her forehead’s composure – then smiled with utter bliss as the hills spread wide their arms and that double-sized landscape revealed its grandeur.
