The guns may have fallen silent at the north-east’s own Wild West town, but that hasn’t stopped enthusiastic members there from creating a virtual look through the saloon for would-be visitors.
Tranquility, Scotland’s only wild west town, at Forgue near Huntly, had to cancel its monthly shoot-offs and public open days when lockdown hit in March, but has forayed into the 21st century instead.
The unusual attraction, a haven where like-minded volunteers can indulge their love for the cowboy era, is about to celebrate its 15th anniversary.
And in that time what started as owner Alistair Baranowski’s boyhood dream, has grown from one building put together using hand-held saws to an entire street of attractions.
For Mr Baranowski, known in the cowboy circle as JB, and his friends, this visitor season has been a complete write-off during a “difficult year”.
“The club and members had to cancel every single planned public event this year,” he said. “We tried rescheduling some but always Covid seemed to get the upper hand and rules were tightened making public events impossible to plan.”
However, the pandemic failed to stop members eventually getting together, while staying two metres apart, to undertake some essential maintenance on the town’s saloon, sheriff’s office, bath house and barbers, to name a few, and to keep up their shooting practice.
“Every cloud has a silver lining,” Mr Baranowski added. “At the start of lockdown I found myself single-handedly doing all the maintenance around the town such as external painting, floor repairs, leaks etc.
“However after a few weeks one of the members who lives nearby and had been furloughed was beginning to suffer cabin fever and volunteered to come over twice weekly to help with maintenance.
“And slowly another three members would make occasional visits to help with the maintenance.”
The cowboys also used their down time to expand their ever-growing on screen portfolio, making a few short western movies and their first ‘Virtual Tour of Tranquility’ documentary, before helping Huntly film student out with a 10-minute short film, which it’s hoped will premier at the University of the Highlands and Islands degree show at Inverness’ Eden Court in April.
“Bruce was delighted that we agreed to help him and in turn offered to help us make another movie in the future,” Mr Baranowski added. “That encouraged me to write a short western which I called “The Bounty Hunter”. I sent a copy of the script to him and he loved it. In fact, he thought we could make it into a series, so that is one project we are looking forward to doing next year.”
Mr Baranowski is also looking forward to welcoming visitors through the saloon doors soon too.
He added: “I’m very hopeful that things will return to some kind of normality in 2021. We are always looking for more members and have already penciled in our traditional open Sundays for next year with a spring round-up on May 9, independence weekend on July 4, and our autumn round-up on October 3, all starting at 1.30pm.
