ESSAY
Mike Scott of The Waterboys with local singers and musicians who took part in a community performance of Room to Roam as it became Huntly’s ‘anthem’ AS the sun sets on a winter afternoon, Huntly is a place of deserted streets and closed-down shopfronts. A once prosperous market town in the agricultural heartland between Aberdeen and Elgin, Huntly (population 4400, average household income £23,000) now tells the sad story of many small towns: economic decline, the slow withdrawal of services. But a set of rooms at the back of the library are a quiet powerhouse of socially distanced activity. Huntly is home to one of the most enduring socially engaged arts projects in the country. Deveron Projects (formerly Deveron Arts) has hosted 100 artists from all over the world in its 25-year existence, and has a roster full of plans for when Covid-19 restrictions are lifted.