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Invergordon Tank Farm


"Oh no cannonball did fly, no rifles cut us down

No bombs fell from the sky, no blood soaked the ground

No powder flash blinded the eye

No deathly thunder sounded

But just as sure as the hand of God

They brought death to my hometown

They brought death to my hometown"

Bruce Springsteen - Death To My Hometown.

I have always had mixed feelings about my hometown of Invergordon in Scotland. It is a place I have grown up and have learned a good deal many of life lessons. Lessons about friends, love, death, and about myself. Sometimes I do not mind living here and other times I wish I could be a million miles from the town with all its memories and people. This is mostly small town thoughts of wanting to get out and discover the world and to move on. But of course, one such life lesson is that you cannot move on and move forward unless you know where you have come from. Invergordon is that place for me. A small feeling of pride emerges about your hometown when you start to realize this. This hard land has shaped you, is a part of who you are whether you like it or not and it is something that will never change. An emotion that no doubt the residents of the Glasgow high raises in the last two blog posts can identify with. The abandoned tank farm in Invergordon is an aspect of the town which undeniably is a part of its character. The tank farm overlooks the whole of Invergordon and no matter where you are in the town you are within walking distance from them. I look at them as guardians of the past and as a symbol of how great and important this town was. They are also a symbol to some of mankind's darkest hours during the World Wars.

Thanks to the sheer depth of the Cromarty Firth in front of the town it meant that it was used during the war as a naval port for warships. I have often heard in my childhood that you could have walked from one side of the Firth to the other without getting your feet wet because of the number of ships. And these amount of ships needed fuel and lots of it to keep them going. This was where the Tank Farm came into play. These massive Tanks stored oil and traces of this black gold can still be seen inside the tanks and splotched around the area.

It is hard to imagine Invergordon without the tanks. They have been there all my life and look set to be there long after I have gone. Thinking about them for this blog they reminded me in a way about the Standing Stones you see around Scotland. Like the ones on Lewis or even Stonehenge. They are images of my childhood and now a part of some of my adulthood.

It is challenging to replace the current image I have of the Cromarty Firth without the many oil rigs, tugboats, massive working ships and Cruise Liners. Likewise, it is challenging for me to picture the town and its center busy with people coming and going during wartime. In that regard, I feel it is hard for anyone around my age to truly remember and picture what their hometown was like back then. Thankfully Invergordon still has some guardians that make it all the easier to imagine. Some guardians are hid

den like the many small bunker type buildings and others are more obvious like the tank farm itself and in particular tank number 13.

Link to "The Invergordon Archive" from more Information on Tank 13.

Invergordon being the type of place it was meant that it was a target for the enemy. Although Invergordon and the surrounding area was not bombed as badly and as constantly as other locations throughout the UK it was still a target. This is where unlucky 13 comes into the history books of the town. The story goes that a plane dropped a bomb directly on the tank however the bomb did not explode. If it went to plan and did explode then the tank farm as we know it might have been destroyed and I would not be writing about it now. Instead, the weight and force of the bomb were enough to completely destroy the structure. To this day a notable gap where Tank 13 use to lie is obvious from the road and Invergordon Academy. A reminder that buildings can be built with such hard graft and effort and can be destructed within a matter of seconds. Such buildings that seem strong always have a weakness in one way or another. Strong but fragile at the same time, you cannot have one without the other and in this perhaps lies another lesson for life.

Urban Exploration UK Tank Farm.

This leads onto to my next point that this Tank farm has remained largely untouched while Invergordon as a town has moved and changed. These guardians have seen the war, industrial boom, and industrial decline. Now they are seeing cruise liners and so-called economic benefits. Frustratingly to many locals it appears to not stay in the town or has very little visible benefits. The song quoted at the start is no mistake and is just one song that conveys this frustration that I have towards my hometown.

These Tanks and abandoned structures still serve Invergordon in a way. They serve as a reminder to the people of Invergordon that the town has a rich history. It also serves as a reminder to its people and to the rest of the world just what Invergordon is capable of and how it can be capable of more when the people work together. Certainly, when you walk among the Tanks you cannot help but feel the history surround you. It is like walking in a museum but there is no protective glass or barrier between you and the exhibit, you become fully submerged in it. In a way, it is like you become a part of it just by standing among them. To me standing on the farm was always and still is history that you can touch, hear and feel whenever you want. The tanks however were not the only fuel supply in Invergordon. A secret hides beneath the hills behind the town and this will be in the revealed in the next blog post.

References

Bruce Springsteen. "Death To My Hometown" audio from the album "Wrecking Ball". YouTube : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UASyS-jUKKI

Standing Stones. Isle of Lewis : http://www.isle-of-lewis.com/what-to-do/historical-attractions/laundry/

Invergordon Information website : http://www.invergordon.info/

Seabank Tank Farm. Abandoned Scotland Article : http://www.abandonedscotland.com/seabank-tank-farm-guest-article-abandoned-scotland/

Port of Cromarty Firth website : http://www.pocf.co.uk/

Invergordon Cruise Ship Schedule 2018 : http://crew-center.com/invergordon-scotland-cruise-ship-schedule-2018

The Invergordon Archive. Bombing of Tank 13 : http://www.theinvergordonarchive.org/picture/number389.asp

Seabank Tank Farm. Urban Exploration UK. YouTube : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7jnpOnT7Yjw

Videos and photographs are my own unless otherwise stated.


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