In an article cleverly titled “What a Chi-k!” the Bo’ness Journal (8 November 2008) and Linlithgow Today (7 Nov 2008) say that Sarah McAllister of London-based Feng Shui Agency insulted Bo’ness and its residents in a case study titled “Bo’ness Monsters and Linlithgow Lovies” presented in a feng shui course in 2006.

A councilmember complained that McAllister’s company conveyed “a dreadful and quite misleading picture of Bo’ness.”

In the case study, McAllister (a student of ba zhai Master Chan Kun Wah) claimed Bo’ness is “an unfortunate town” with one of the highest rates of teen pregnancy, drug abuse, and unemployment in the UK. She says the inhabitants are jokingly labeled “Bo’ness monsters” by outsiders. The “unflattering portrayal” was taken off the website in November 2008 — although the map with feng shui notes remains on the site.

Actual statistics provide a very different portrait of this former whaling port.

Bo’ness is ACORN type 22, “largely composed of single people, both young and old. Around 20% of the people in these areas are in their 20s, but 10% are over 75.”

Drugs

According to Drugs Misuse Information Scotland, 2007-2008 figures on drug abuse show the council area served by Bon’ess had less than 400 newly-reported cases of addicts coming for treatment. This figure was dwarfed by other areas in Scotland.

Drug seizure statistics for Bo’ness weren’t as high as most areas in Scotland — for example, Strathclyde police made more than half of the illicit drug seizures in Scotland, followed by Tayside and Grampian.

By policing area, 2006-2007 (last year of reporting) shows drug seizures in Bo’ness for Class C drugs were smaller than all other areas except Fife. Bo’ness is also low on the list for seizures of Class A drugs. However, Bo’ness police area was second on the list for seizing amphetamines (after Strathclyde).

If you are being dramatic you could claim Bo’ness has “one of the highest rates” of drug addiction — in Scotland, not the UK — but only if you based the claim on police busts for amphetamines. Obviously what was claimed about Bo’ness drug addiction in McAllister’s case study was deceptive and largely incorrect.

Unemployment

In 2008 the seasonally adjusted unemployment rate in Scotland was 4.7 percent and as of December 2008 the UK unemployment rate was 6 percent, according to the UK Statistics Authority.

According to the Scottish parliament, some 1.2 million people in Scotland live in poor households — that is 25% of the population.

Labour Market Statistics as of November 2008 indicate that the unemployment rate in the council area that serves Bo’ness was 2.1 percent.

According to the BBC, overall “unemployment in Scotland was still lower than elsewhere in the UK.” (“Big rise in Scottish unemployment,” 17 December 2008)

The claim that Bo’ness has “one of the highest rates of unemployment in the UK” is obviously false.

Teenage pregnancy

According to the BBC, “The UK has the highest number of teenage pregnancies in Western Europe and the highest number of unmarried teenage mothers in the world. ” (“Teenage pregnancies: the picture worldwide” 28 June 1999; “Teenage Pregnancy December 2007”). The rate in Scotland is even higher.

However, according to ISD Scotland, by council area Bo’ness has lower figures of teenage pregnancy than other areas of Scotland. Ayrshire and Arran recorded the highest rate in under-16 girls, and Tayside has the highest teenage pregnancy rates for under-18- and under-20-year-olds).

Overall, statistics show Bo’ness isn’t the “unfortunate town” claimed in the case study (which was definitely “dreadful and misleading”)

McAllister claimed the case study’s data would have been obtained either from “observations or some sort of national statistics or a couple of newspaper reports.” It is disturbing that McAllister was so vague about the sources for the claims made in the case study. Professionals should be able to name their sources, most especially when the material is inflammatory.

McAllister may have been vague because evidence for the claims about Bo’ness was anecdotal: Master Chen Kun Wah used to run a take-out restaurant (“take-away”) in Bo’ness and was said to have served “a lot of teenage mothers.”

This is another unfortunate example of Scots being maligned by English.

Scottishness is increasingly seen as a second-class thing. There’s always been an idea of two types of Scots -– those who went to London and made it big, and the second-raters who stayed home. It’s a very negative thing.

— Tim Bell, lay chaplain for the Port of Leith. Quoted in “What happened to the Trainspotting generation?” by Aida Edemariam and Kirsty Scott (The Guardian, Saturday 15 August 2009)