Bog Myrtle & Peat

When I was a child, I used to wear a Scotland rugby shirt. I loved the team, but I also felt it was important to badge myself with a clear sense of who I was. Later in more adolescent years, I took to wearing pins and t-shirts which flagged up the bands I liked and the music that pleased me. That was tribal too, and so self-regarding that now it makes me cringe with embarrassment. Within the altogether plainer confines of adulthood and fast-approaching middle-age, I tell myself that no-one’s really looking anyway. But still I quietly badge myself according to a code I’ve made for myself.

Obsessed with Ray Davies, Ted Hughes and Seamus Heaney, I quietly nod to these giants by affecting a soft-core 1970s aesthetic, complete with knitwear and bell-bottom trousers. I tell myself it’s nothing too noisy or in-your-face, but it serves a similar purpose to that long-since-retired Scotland rugby shirt. It’s a little nudge towards the things I love.

Visiting Magherafelt in County Derry earlier this week, I felt more than usually entitled to flaunt my gladrags. I have a clear view on Seamus Heaney as a young man on these mean streets, already plumping up with a mop of shaggy hair on his head. Knowing I would pass that way, I dressed myself accordingly in a pair of flares and a bottle-green jacket. And I felt the enriching slap of reality in my face when two children slowed down their bicycles to shout at me in the street, saying “Shit trousers you wanker”.

Picture: Seamus Heaney, 1970