I’m a hydroelectrician, I’m a water engineer
To develop backward regions is my task
With a free hand in my enterprise and none to interfere
And a comfortable wage is all I ask
Sure by Tummel and by Garry and Pitlochry I will go
Building generating stations left and right
And in the highland battlefields where highland ladies fought the frenzied foe
Shining pylons will commemorate the site
I’ll launch prodigious projects, I shall build a mighty shrine
I shall flood the countryside for miles around
I shall put God’s racing waters to some profitable use
And submerge all barren unproductive land
Yes but what is going to happen to our lovely lovely view?
Is the query of some sentimental Scots
Is there not sufficient beauty in the prospect given you
Of a hundred thousand million kilowatts?
Sure by Tummel and by Garry and Pitlochry I will go
But since progress must be purchased at a price
I shall not allow my sentiments to hinder me and so
I am quite prepared to make the sacrifice
And so far as loss of beauty is concerned I’m pleased to state
That most certainly you need not be afraid
Since our revenue for selling to the grid will compensate
For the trifling falling off in the tourist trade
Sure by Tummel and by Garry and Pitlochry he will go
Building generating stations left and right
But when all the world forgets him as a whirring dynamo
They will remember Tummel’s falls and heave a sigh
Pitlochry is a popular tourist town,
easily reached from Edinburgh; nearby the River Garry flows through the Pass of
Killiecrankie, the scene of a famous Highland victory. An obelisk on the Linn of
Tummell estate, given to the National Trust for Scotland in 1944 because of
concern about a proposed hydro-electric scheme, commemorates Queen Victoria's
visit to the Falls of Tummel in 1844. The Falls became the Linn (Gaelic - Linne,
a pool) when the scheme went ahead in 1950 and the level of both rivers was
raised by the creation of Loch Faskally, much reducing the height of the Falls.