To the untutored ears of a lowlander, the Aberdeen accent can be a thing of wonder: the vowels pitch and turn this way and that before changing their colours entirely.
To describe it merely as a dialect seems somehow to render an injustice to it. Perhaps it's what a Londoner hears when he encounters a native Geordie. My taxi driver last Thursday night held a PhD in its intricacies but no mere academic bauble could do justice to the drama of his delivery as we talked about his city.
In particular, I wanted to know how he felt about Aberdeen having just been revealed as one of the three happiest locations in the UK – Oxford and Reading/Bracknell were the others – and the most contented in Scotland. "It's a' a loada shite," he said. And, with some prescience, added: "It'll a' be tae dae wi' the oil money an' a' they big-piyin' joabs. But this city is a lot mair than a' that pish."
Aberdeen received its accolade in a survey conducted by the accountancy firm, PwC (PricewaterhouseCoopers), which sought to grade cities on their economic success and quality of life. The survey, though, had pointedly omitted the bare economic percentages of a city's GDP and instead concentrated solely on its residents' experiences of salaries, housing, the environment and time spent at work. Of course, Aberdeen's bountiful oil economy must be responsible for much of this, yet, as Drew le Taxi said, the attraction of Aberdeen is indeed a lot more than all that.
In Scotland it remains fashionable to deride the traditional parsimony of the city's citizenry. This is most commonly manifest in a pub when the Aberdeen member of the company will be asked the padlock combination code of his wallet. Sometimes he'll be asked about his nosebleed if he has been compelled to purchase a round containing more than two drinks. As a community they are commonly described as a dour lot who put the "bastard" into truculence and certainly, in my experience, they are not slow in conveying distrust or displeasure. But is that not the experience of many English people with Scots in general? Isn't that something to be cherished and not condemned? So what's putting the big smile on all their faces these days?
It can't just be the oil, for the city and the surrounding area has had the benefits of that for more than 40 years. Around 9pm last Thursday, the city's main shopping emporium built around the train station was thrumming with shoppers and revellers heading for the open-fronted food and drink outlets. The entire area was without any hint of menace or aggression evident in similar thoroughfares in other cities. Indeed, it's impossible to weary of Aberdeen's granite grandeur and the sheer sense of rectitude and rigour that its buildings emit. And the cleanliness simply makes you weep. Yet these same attributes have, previously, lent an aloof and forbidding air to the city. She is a school governess constantly scanning her girls' hemlines or scowling at incomers for any signs of earthy intent.
Yet there is a curious dissonance abroad in Aberdeen between its Presbyterian rigour and a pleasing attachment to baser pursuits. One of the busiest harbours in the UK delves deeply into the city and has spawned proper old pubs which are still thriving. And housed in an otherwise douce terrace up from the station is a little collection of gentlemen's clubs bearing names such as Private Eyes, Whispers and Silhouettes. There are no Catholic schools in Aberdeen; yet, several years ago, on learning that the council had voted to allow the Orange Order to hold its first ever parade in Union Street, thousands of locals lined the pavements and studiously turned their backs on the marchers.
Today, though, Aberdeen is, quite simply, the most desirable city in the United Kingdom in which to live and work. Unemployment is running at a meagre 2% in the city and 1% in the countryside. In the oil and gas industry the jobs are plentiful, well-paid and highly specialised. The skills are transferable to most places in the planet. The oil is probably good for another 40-odd years and the export of Aberdeen industrial expertise will continue to reap benefits.
Robert Collier, chief executive of Aberdeen Chamber of Commerce, is also eager to point out that there is much more to this place. "This survey is just the latest in a series recently that have recommended Aberdeen as a happy and healthy place to live," he said. "And of course our oil and gas industry plays a significant part in this. But we also have two very strong universities here, and 30% of all Scotland's food and drink exports come from here. Our tourism and biosciences sectors are flourishing, and there is social and cultural hinterland beyond with great skiing facilities and the Cairngorms national park nearby.
"I'd heard it said that people come to Aberdeen and never tend to leave. As an Englishman, I'm living proof of that. I've been here 15 years and, at one stage, preferred to commute to a job in Southampton rather than move away."
Despite the tiny unemployment rate, Collier wants to see more people like him arriving in Aberdeen. "We need more inward migration to take us into the next generation and we still have good jobs available for skilled and well-qualified people," he said.
So why, then, the outbreak of sly chuckles at the news of Aberdeen's official recognition as a happy place to be? Perhaps the answer lies in the area where the city was deemed to fare badly: its work/life balance. The highly paid technical jobs in oil and gas all demand lengthy hours. As such, they merely continue a tradition of hard and long shifts in the farming and fishing industries upon which Aberdeen's old prosperity was built. This is a city whose fruits continue to be hard earned. Thus they will not easily be frittered away.
