Being A Goth In The Highlands

I have been recently electronically interviewed by Gothic Beauty magazine about being a Goth in the UK. I was asked quite a few questions, and one of them was about my experiences in different locations - I obviously couldn't write an essay in answer to every question, and even the answers I did give ended up quoted rather than published in full. 

I have moved around quite a been to and stayed a lot of places - some for longer than others - in the UK and in Brittany, where my mother's family are from. My main locations have been Oxfordshire and Berkshire, then Peterborough and Bristol, before moving here to the Highlands. I've also spent time in Brittany, France. I could probably write reams upon reams on my experiences in each of those places, but as I've been writing this blog since I moved to the Highlands, and as I have yet to find another Goth blogger hailing from this far North in Scotland, I feel it's important to share this perspective.

I will also make it clear that my perspective is that of an immigrant; I have lived here several years, but I am not someone who was born here or has lived here since they were very young. Other people's experiences and perspectives will vary. 

The Highlands has been the most radically different place I have moved to and been to! Even Glasgow and Edinburgh have their paralels with cities like Bristol, Oxford and London, but the Highlands is most different place I lived compared to the others. I have lived in the countryside before, in Oxfordshire, but even that was nothing like here. The geography and climate is also rather different here, and I think it's important to understand that regional geography really does still impact on people's way of life, wherever you are, even in the 21stC. Highland culture is also pretty different from other regional Scottish and British cultures that I have experienced,and as such the Goth that exists there will be different than the Goth that exists in places with other local cultures. Goth is an interesting thing; it is its own culture, but it i also in many ways a subculture to the parent location of wherever it springs up.

The Highlands' alternative scene is very vital, vivacious and vivid, but due to the area being mostly small downs and villages with Inverness as the largest centre of population (and Inverness is not very big, as far as cities go), there's just not a lot of us. I think, in terms of percentage of the local population, there's possibly actually a higher than average number of alternative people of various sorts - and I would imagine that this may be a consequence of the Findhorn Foudation being in the local area, over near Forres. A lot of the alternative folk in the area tend to be of a more 'Bohemian' or 'Hippie' variety (although I am sure quite a few would eschew such labels), rather than the darker forms of alternative lifestyles. That being said, there are a fair few metalheads in the area too!

The Goth scene here is not a distinct entity from the other local alternative-lifestyle scenes - there are a lot of overlaps, and every person seems very individual; there's less pressure to form little cliques of subtypes - probably in part because there's simply not enough of any one subtype to make this work, except for perhaps the Skaters, who seem to be less engaged with other local subcultures - although I do know a few people in that group, they're a separate group in many ways. In general, though alternative people here participate in a variety of different alternative groups - alternative people connect with other alternative people, and it there's a definite intermingling of groups; I'm a Goth, but I'm intertwined with the Metal scene here, the small but burgeoning group of Lolitas,  and the Pagans, and a lot of people who are more close to being hippies or 'Bohemians'. This means there's a lot of cross-polination of ideas from the varied subcultures, and a lack of exclusivity; what group or groups you belong to does not exclude you from other groups. Those who have been reading my blog for a while will have seen the diverse assemblage of eccentrics I have the honour of knowing!

One advantage in the local scene being so small is that we don't seem to have that "Gothier than thou" competitive element (I have only come across this in a couple of younger Goths, and I think it was more about their own insecurity rather than them really believing they are some sort of Gothic elite), and folk here are not afraid to talk about their interests outside of subcultures, whether that's shinty or welding or being a chef. Small numbers make gatherings easier to facilitate, but as most gatherings are small, it is easier for us to find venues for some things, and harder for other things. The small scene also makes it easier to make friends, because it is quite a tight-knit group and a welcoming group, so once you know a few members of the scene, it is likely you will soon be introduced to more. Some of the disadvantages are that the scene ends up feeling a bit 'incestuous' - everyone ends up sometimes a bit too tightly connected to everyone else, and it can seem like a bit of variety and changes could be beneficial. I don't know literally every Goth in the area, but I do feel like I know a good few of them. 

The Goth scene in the Highlands seems to be a rather intergenerational Goth scene - I think due to there being fewer Goths in general, we tend to be more open to talking to Goths of any age. I certainly have friends here who were Goths "the first time around" who joined the scene when they were in their teens or twenties during the early 1980's, and I am acquainted with a few much newer Goths who are 18, 19, etc. There are even younger Goths in their early and mid teens, but I don't know them personally, although some of my younger friends do and as such I guess they're acquaintances of a sort. I try my best to support the younger Goths because I know I could have benefited from that when I was a younger Goth and a babybat, and it wasn't really something that occurred for me. 

Also, the Highlands do not have the numbers of Goths (or even darker alternative types) nor the geography (Inverness is the hub, but scene participants come from a rather broad geographic area, and that makes the practicalities of transport an obstacle, to support any specifically Goth retailers or venues. Our club nights have become rarer and rarer, and Inverness no longer has a specifically Goth shop. It's not a dying scene, though, and I find quite a few teenagers are still becoming involved, but it is a very small one. Life here is, however, connected to Glasgow, Edinburgh and the rest of Britain, and the Cairngorm mountains do not provide an inpenetrable barrier (even when the trunk road north to us is closed by avalanches and snow), especially in the age of the internet, and a lot of us go to places like Glasgow, Stirling and Edinburgh for events that happen there - but the cost of transport is restrictive. There are a lot of things I miss out on because they do not happen in the Highlands, and travelling down to a bigger city is very expensive. It's also time consuming; it's just over 4 hours by car or coach, and somewhere between 3 and 3 and half hours by train to get to Glasgow, and Stirling is closer, Edinburgh further. There does not seem to be many events in other Northerly towns and cities such as Perth, Aberdeen or Elgin. 

Being a small group here, we stand out more. I am certainly known as visible figure, and have had a lot of strangers come up up to me with some variation on "I've seen you around as that lady in the Victorian clothes with green hair, and..."  but I am probably one of the more visually distinctive Goths (and my fashion isn't actually accurately Victorian, but I guess that is what people identify it as). I am often asked if I know other visually distinctive local Goths (and mostly the answer is that I do, or am at least acquainted, and it will turn out that there will be someone in common that we know; it is really that sort of small scene). Being visibly rather different probably contributes to the attention, but I love how I look more than I dislike the attention. There are also practical concerns because of the climate; I have ended up with skull-pattern wellie boots worn over layers of stripy socks and vine-pattern tights, a big collection of Gothic scarves in varying warmths and thicknesses, lots of gloves to wear under my gloves, and an ability to put together layered outfits that are both adjustable to the ever-changing weather and still within the Gothic aesthetic, I have bought an extensive selection of sensible footwear that keeps relatively within the aesthetic, and have all-black wet-weather gear and then high-visibility skull stickers to add to that! Here I end up wearing a full-length trenchcoat out of warmth rather than aesthetics, and wear it buttoned up against the cold. Compared to Southern England, the weather is noticeably colder and more changeable, and the winters much harsher.

Urquhart Castle - photograph by the HouseCat

There is a lot of dark and bloody local history. My last apartment was in walking distance from Culloden Battlefield, and I've been to ::Rait Castle::, the ::Old High Church::, the remains of ::Craig Dunain pyschiatric hospital:: (which used to be Inverness District Asylum) and plenty of other places with dark and turbulent histories. The current division of the landscape is still a derivative of the landscape carved up in the Highland Clearances. Artistic interpretation of past events is part of what makes Goth very attractive to me, and part of how I engage with Goth myself. The land has millennia of human history, back to the Picts and even before. Historical inspiration is a big part of being Goth - and while we ought not glamourise or exploit the sufferings of the real people involved in these events (or ignore their contemporary ramifications), it is important not to forget them, and I think that artistic exploration of the more troubled parts of history not only facilitates a greater understanding of that history - as long as it is done with good scholarship - but also can act as a way for us to understand more contemporary struggles.  

I find a lot of inspiration in the regional architecture, history, art, etc - as I have in Oxford, Bristol Edinburgh (I love Edinburgh!) and Glasgow. I visit the local cemeteries quite regularly, especially the one at Tomnahurich, which is practically a necropolis, and I visit and photograph the many local castle ruins, ecclesiastical ruins etc. I actually have personal project to visit and record as many of the cemeteries in the area as possible, and I find the local traditions of symbolic carving to be fascinating. 

There's a uniquely Scottish style of architecture called Scottish Baronial, different to Gothic and English medieval fortified and vernacular architecture, evolved from late medieval and renaissance 'castle' architecture specific to the needs and purposes of the how the semi-fortified and fortified estates of the Scottish functioned. It is aesthetically different despite there being parallels between castle architecture the world wide, and in the same way that the Gothic style evolved to be used for more than its original use as an ecclesiastical architectural style, Scottish Baronial went on to be applied to things other than castles and the estates of the nobility. In the same way that Gothic architecture has shaped the atmosphere of the Gothic mindset in the literary aspect of that term (after all, it was named after the architectural settings), Scottish Baronial architecture fills that role to a degree in Scotland, especially in the Highlands. Yes, we have ruins of Gothic architecture too (::Fortrose Cathedral ruins::, ::Beauly Priory ruins::, Elgin Cathedral ruins, Pluscarden Abbey...) but the Scottish Baronial style is more ubiquitous, especially as it was adopted in a revival manner in Victorian times, and even more recently, buildings like the newer wing of the Eastgate shopping mall in Inverness hark back to it, and castles are certainly a lot more common in these parts (surrounding Inverness there are several castles - Rait, Kilravock, Cawdor, Brodie, Urquhart, Inshes (only the doocot left), Inverness, Aldourie, and Dingwall had one that is now a manor, etc.).

There were two more paragraphs on this blog entry and then BLOGSPOT ATE THEM. I will fix this when I have time. Coursework is priority. 

January Alternative Mini-Meet

I organise little informal social gatherings of local alternative types of many varieties (I deliberately encourage members of diverse subcultures to attend the same gatherings because we have a mixture of shared experiences and differing perspectives that I think is valuable). Today a small group of us met at the Brae Café in Inverness for hot drinks, cake and chatter. 

Cl. on the left, K. on the right.
Photograph by the HouseCat. 

Originally I anticipated a few more Lolitas from the general area to be attending, hence my Gothic Lolita outfit, but sadly due to transport issues, that was not to be (one of the disadvantage of living in somewhere like the Highlands where there is a level of practical isolation - not everyone can easily get into the city, especially if they don't own a car). Part of the reason I try and organise the gatherings is because often people can't get into Inverness on the dates of larger events like club nights, especially as late night transport is limited to a taxi or a stay in a local hotel if one is drinking, as often the busses don't run at late hours and many folk live in places unconnected by rail. My meets tend to involve tea and coffee rather than beer and whiskey, so people can drive home safely and legally and not need to rely on public transport or taxis. Also, I can plan meets on dates that don't clash with people's schedules, and be quite flexible about arrangements. 

Gothic Lolita ruffles, and an awkward smile.
Photograph by K.

I decided this was the perfect occasion to wear both my new curly wig (well, second-hand, bought from the photographer behind ::Sheridan's Art:: - check out her awesome and often quite darkly inspired art photography) and the Baby, The Stars Shine Bright dress I bought secondhand from Closet Child. I tried to keep my Gothic Lolita outfit on the decidedly Goth side. Sarge was wearing my Hearts & Roses London brocade frock-coat, his own rather beautifully embroidered guayabera shirt, Raven's lace jabot, and my winged and chained (an interesting metaphor, perhaps?) collar pins. He's not normally that Gothic in appearance, and especially not that vampiric looking. He also borrowed one of Raven's canes. 

K is for kitty-cat! Nyan :3
Photograph by the HouseCat.

The meet began at 13:30, and we disbanded at 16:00 and got through a lot of chatter. It's only a social gathering, not an on-topic discussion group, so everything from my Japanese fashion magazines to historical amputation techniques (well, we are a bunch of morbidly curious Gothically inclined types...) to online gaming got discussed and time flew by with me being quite surprised by how quickly the time passed, and how dark it had become when we left the cafe. 

CL. One of those people who is part Goth, part Metalhead, and all awesome.
Photograph by the HouseCat.

Some of us had met each other in person before at other gatherings (my birthday picnic, various tea-parties, out clubbing, etc.) and some of us had never met in person before! K and I have known each other for a while, but she brought her friend C. - whom I had never met - with her. Cl. & and K. had met before at my birthday party, and Cl. and I meet often at Alternative X clubbing nights, and Sarge and I have been friends for a very long while, but this is the first time he has met the rest of the group. Despite us not really being hugely well-acquainted, we all gelled really well, probably partly due to it being quite a small number, and partly because we actually all have more in common than just alternative subcultures - for example it turns out that both Sarge and C. are avid players of 'League of Legends'. 

Sarge, in ruffles and brocade, courtesy of him staying at my place
and I wanting some unsuspecting metalhead to vamp up...
Photograph by me.

The Brae Café is a café-gallery that has a lot of interesting art on the walls and some interesting quirky and alternative jewellery for sale by Frost Raven Jewellery. I spotted the skulls, Cl. spotted some black lips with fangs, and thinking of K. I spotted a black coffin with pink swirls, which C. bought for her at the end. I'm seriously thinking of buying one of the skull pendants for myself. I unfortunately can't find a link to website, Etsy page or FaceBook page for Frost Raven Jewellery, but I am trying to track them down so I can interview and show-case them on this blog sometime, as their work is really quite funky. 

Altogether an interesting day was had, and I think everyone enjoyed themselves. We wandered off into the town as a group before heading off to our respective destinations, and I met up with Suzy_Bugs (who came 'round to my apartment for dinner). It's Raven's birthday, our anniversary, and Valentine's day next month, so I doubt I will be having another gathering for a while yet, but another will occur, that is almost certain. 

Goth, Sub-Genres and Boundaries

I don't think Goth should be cliquish, or that it is at all wrong to use 'Goth' as a label if you like things that are outside the scope of the original 1980's subculture as well as things that are. If you're into commonly overlapping groups like Cyber/EBM, Japanese fashion, Metal, etc. or into completely not-usually-associated-with-goth hobbies like rambling, cookery, various sports, etc. it does not mean you should suddenly have your ability to call yourself 'Goth' revoked, after all, if someone is trying to fit themselves in a narrow box by avoiding all activities outside it as well as actively doing all those things within it, they are not being themselves at all, and being yourself is far more important than being Goth or not being Goth. 

Nobody should try to be Goth, they either like that sort of thing, or they don't, and that is all that should be to it. A lot of people get pressure from outside the Gothic community to try and be "normal" and the last thing they need is to get pressure from inside the Gothic community trying to force them down someone else's definition of Goth. Nobody has the right to dictate another person's taste, regardless of decades in the subculture. Also, anyone who has been in the subculture since the 1980's should have the emotional maturity becoming to their age and know better than to mock people for liking bands or fashion outside their tastes, and even if they don't think it truly Goth, they should approach the subject in a positive way (e.g encouraging people to listen to Sisters of Mercy or Bauhaus) instead of a judgemental way. This is common politeness, and no matter how Punk you are, there is a place for it. 

Goth has changed over the last 30-ish years, and it has changed a lot, and become an umbrella term for a lot of darker forms of self-expression, and it has mingled with other subcultures, like Visual Kei/J-Rock, and Lolita, and Metal, and while all these groups are different subcultures in their own right, and always will be, they have had an impact on Goth, and personally, I think it is this diversity that is keeping the subculture alive. Goth has gone from being the fans of a small group of bands from the 1970's, 1980's and early 1990's and become a broad, vibrant movement, an umbrella under which people can be their own dark selves, and find avenues to explore. Goth has grown, and this is no bad thing - an influx of new music that doesn't sound like the Post-Punk or Deathrock of the 1980s does not mean that people will stop listening to the original bands, it just means that they'll listen to other things too. These new bands are not calling themselves Goth (not that the original bands called themselves that); they are calling themselves Gothic Metal, or Dark Cabaret or Industrial or EBM, and are making no claims on the original subculture. What they are, though, is influenced by the original subculture and influencing the current subculture as it grows. 

Goth, after all, is a mere label that summarises a person's tastes, fashion and lifestyle, it is a name for a broad subculture that is as diverse as its members, and it has never, and will never, be a line in the sand on one side of which is Goth and on the other side of which is everything else. The boundaries of what is and isn't Goth are different for every single Goth, and while there are some that are approximately agreed on, those areas are fuzzy and indistinct. 

A lot of people who from the outside are clearly Goth renounce the name, and I think it is partly from this pressure from certain sections of the Goth community to adhere to certain criteria. If you stop calling yourself Goth, you're free to like all the Goth things you previously enjoyed, and yet are at liberty to enjoy anything else too, as you are no longer under pressure to stay within the bounds of Goth. This situation, though, should not arise. Goth should not be a limiting pigeon-hole, it should be an accepting community of dark outsiders, individuals who are outside the mainstream and drawn towards more morbid and unusual artistic expression, especially music and fashion. 

There is also an external pressure on professionally Goth members of the subculture - Goth has been identified as a target market, a demographic to sell to, and therefore it is in the commercial interest to pander to an interpretation of that market (and it is only an interpretation because it is coming from outside) and so, as a professionally Goth person or group, for example a band, get more popular, they will come under pressure from those financially involved to stick to a certain brand (or band) image that they assume will be popular and keep fans loyal.  Unfortunately this can very easily lead to either selling out or becoming bland and thus being totally counter-productive, or switching target audience to babybats. 

What motivates people to be militant about the boundaries of the subculture mystifies me. Received wisdom is that it is fuelled by their own insecurities as regards their subcultural identities, but I'm not sure  this really true. I don't think that the arguments over what is and isn't Goth and the judgement of people as their status of Goth or Not Goth is that simple. I think some of it is to do with how broad the subculture has got, and how a lot of people who are very different indeed from the original subculture (e.g cybergoths) identify as Goth, and this isn't something that people who have big hair and danced to strains of The Sisters of Mercy in the '80s do not recognise as part of what they know as their subculture. One thing that should be noted when it comes to these less traditional manifestations of the subculture is that someone who is dressed up as a Cybergoth and dancing to T3RR0R 3RR0R might also be fond of back-combing their hair and dancing to Siouxsie and The Banshees - they are not mutually exclusive. 

One very important, and probably obvious point that I shouldn't have to mention but sadly do, is that just because someone doesn't like a band, brand, shop, item of clothing, etc. that does not impact whether or not it is "Goth" or whether or not someone else should like it or think it is good. Opinions are not absolute truth. 

What IS Goth?

I think one of the most common questions I get are those of "What is this whole "Goth" thing" as it seems that people  tend to either know of shock stories in tabloids and gossip magazines or just see these strange-looking people in a lot of black and metal walking around and are understandably curious.  There are already numerous attempts to answer that question that present it as a fashion,  a music scene, an artistic movement, a lifestyle, a subculture. I believe it is all of those things, or rather that it is a subculture that encompasses being all of the other things, and am going to make my attempt at explaining this. Goth is probably far too shifting and broad to ever define properly, and so this is quite brief and while I've tried to be as inclusive as possible, I'm probably missing bits.

Goth is one of my favourite aesthetics, or rather it is one of my favourite way of blending all my other favourite aesthetics. I can combine Baroque, Art Nouveau, Deco, Neo-Gothic, Victorian, etc. and then I can throw in some futuristic things I saw in Ultra Violet or The Matrix or off the cover of a science fiction paperback... Goth is this wonderfully huge umbrella that covers everything from the cutesiest halloween kitsch to the most elegant funereal anachronism because rather than a specific stylistic guide, it is an approach, its basic premise is to look at the dark side of life - the deathly, the dystopian, the twisted, and bring it into the light whether by turning it into macabre high art or looking at it with humour or turning it into something adorable. In that way, it is an art movement defined by approach that spans music, literature, visual arts, fashion and decor.


Goth is also a fashion. You can wear goth clothes without reading Poe, Neil Gaiman and Anne Rice; watching Interview With A Vampire, Sweeney Todd and The Crow; and listening to Bauhaus, Emilie Autumn and Sisters of Mercy, although I think that being fully immersed in the subculture leads to being more individual and better dressed because you can then be inspired by what you've read about, or by the stage costumes and clothes of musicians, costumes from films, etc. It is perfectly possible to go into certain shops or look on the internet and assemble a beautiful outfit or several and only be in it for the clothes without any real interest in the rest of Goth. Many teenagers do this badly as a rebellious phase, quite a few Goths who weren't around in the '80s probably started out this way, and there are probably quite a few people who simply like the clothes. Of course, mainstream fashion and the hipster subculture routinely mine the fashion side for inspiration too.

Goth is definitely a music scene. While there have been darkly inclined people for centuries doing the this sort of thing (Paganini, Liszt, Theda Bara, to name a few) the Post-Punk and Deathrock scenes  in the latter 1970s and 1980s gave it point about which to crystalise and grow.  The music itself has changed a lot since the days of Siouxsie Sioux and Bauhaus, and is now as broad as the space between Emilie Autumn and Centhron (not that either artist is Goth, just that they have a significant number of Goths in their fan-base), not to mention people like Marilyn Manson (he is clearly a Goth, but his music's between shock-rock and metal) and the influence of the Visual Kei scene. The other aspects of Goth have broadened with the music as various musical genres have merged and diverged and brought with them different band aesthetics and different inspirations. The music is important, but cannot be divorced from its musical antecedents and non-musical inspiration.


The visual aesthetic and lyric content and dark but danceable sound links back to the concept of Goth as an art-movement, but  at the same time, it is a form of "pop culture" although it wasn't all that popular, even in the 1980s. Goth, as well as being in fine hand-made Victorian  gowns, art photography of graveyards and bones and macabre sculpture is also in mass-produced consumables available in Hot Topic. This is probably why the word "scene" developed its modern meaning, to describe what happens around a pop-culture focus. Yes, someone somewhere drew the kitsch zombies on Iron Fist shoes  and people made their own collars before you could buy them for a fiver, and somebody had to design  Draculaura and her classmates, but that initial effort has been turned into things produced in their thousands. Monster High isn't even actually aimed at goths, but Draculaura combines Gothic Lolita fashion with pink New Rock boots (not branded, of course) and bringing a parasol to school.


Goth is also a lifestyle. The longer you spend in the subculture, the more likely you are to decorate your house to your own take on that aesthetic, probably because it takes time to be able to afford one's own place and the materials to decorate it! But it's more than the aesthetic creeping in to all aspects of your life until you have black crockery and spiderweb toilet paper. It is appreciating the old architecture you see, it is taking photographs of dead flowers, it is visiting graveyards that aren't the final resting place of any of your relatives, it is in visiting parks to appreciate their beauty rather than just to have a space to drink or play sport in, it is writing letters by hand in purple ink instead of sending e-mails, it crafting your own dark aesthetic. It's more than going to concerts and Goth clubs and gatherings.

Look what I found in Tesco at Halloween...

The important thing is to do things because you enjoy them, not because they are on the fictitious Goth Lifestyle Tick-Box List, but some activities (like reading too much, lighting the house with candles even when the electricity is working and having picnics in the graveyard) have become stereotypically Goth for a reason - people who like the fashion and the music tend to like doing those things too. That's not to say that anyone in all black and spikes collects weaponry or skulls or both, eats lunch in the Graveyard and has more black candles than black socks, but you will find goths that do.

For a less text-intensive version of answering that recurring "What is Goth?" question check out this video by Jillian Venters aka The Lady of the Manners from Gothic Charm School (there's always a link to her site in my Blog Roll) ::here::