Letters / Open letter to SSE: please listen to Lottie’s own words
Last week, Shetland News reported that you have no intention of sparing the late Charlotte Robertson of Sandwater – known as Lottie – the posthumous affront of having one of your turbines named after her.
Grotesquely, she might even find herself next to “Betty Da Blustery Birler” or “Mr Windy”.
Some weeks ago, it was made very clear to you that naming a turbine after Lottie was inappropriate, given her views on Viking.
Rather than acknowledging your mistake, you have chosen instead to compound it, by deliberately persisting with your course of action attaching her name to a turbine, fully aware of the offence this causes.
So let’s hear directly from the lady of Sandwater House (she disliked the name Halfway House) herself. In 2020, at a time when you were digging and blasting around her iconic home, I had the privilege of interviewing her.
I recorded that conversation on video to save myself the need to take notes. Knowing she valued her privacy; I had no intention of making the footage public.
But you leave me no choice. So please listen to Lottie’s own words, spoken in her own home, about how she considered moving away and how she received no compensation whatsoever for the upheaval in her life.
Then ask yourself: is this really the hill you want to die on? Failing to address the initial insult to Lottie’s memory is one thing, but your current behaviour goes beyond shameful.
Choosing not to name a turbine after Lottie costs you nothing, but doing so might just cost you the last bit of goodwill you have left with the Shetland community.
Ernie Ramaker
Whiteness
