Just a wee update on our local hero
http://women.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/women/article2733560.eceFrom The Times
October 25, 2007
Donald Trump’s Scottish nemesis is a pin-up with American women
David Lister: Scotland Correspondent A ruddy-cheeked Scottish fisherman has become an unlikely hit with American women after opposing plans by Donald Trump to build a £1 billion golf course in Aberdeenshire.
Described by one blogger as “some old farmer in a kilt” and by a US television network as a “force of nature”, Michael Forbes, 55, admits that he is not the most obvious choice of pin-up.
Thickset, with little remaining hair and one arm in plaster after an operation to treat arthritis, Mr Forbes achieved overnight fame after refusing to sell his 23 acres of land at Balmedie, where Mr Trump plans to build “the world’s finest golf course”.
It is no coincidence, perhaps, that in
a country where Scottish hunks have always had a strange exotic appeal, Mr Forbes’s popularity has followed his apperance on American TV in a kilt.
Speaking as he sifted through the latest fanmail, he told The Times: “I’ve had 50 or 60 letters of support, mostly from America but also from Newfoundland and even Australia and New Zealand. All the letters wish me well and say ‘keep up the good fight’. Most of them have been from women, though I don’t quite know why.”
He added: “Have I become a bit of a pin-up in America? Surely not. I’m a shy lad really and I’d have normally run from things like this, but we’ve got to make a stand. I’m not a hero, I’m just fighting for what’s mine.”
Until a few weeks ago Mr Forbes, who works as a fisherman and also at a local quarry, was leading a quiet life on his farm behind the sand dunes at Balmedie, 13 miles north of Aberdeen, on land that has been farmed by his family for 40 years.
But since he announced that he would not be selling his home to Mr Trump, he has found himself at the centre of a worldwide media frenzy, with comparisons to the plot of the 1983 film Local Hero, in which a Texas-based oil tycoon seeks to buy up a Scottish fishing village.
“Has Donald Trump met his match?” asked ABC News. Blogs have praised Mr Forbes’s defiance, while the idea of a film has been floated.
Mr Forbes, who lives at the end of a narrow, unmade road in the middle of Mr Trump’s proposed site, said that the letters had started to arrive about two weeks ago. “I don’t know how some of them reach me,” he said. “Some are just addressed to ‘Michael Forbes, Balmedie”, while one has even been addressed “Michael Forbes, Behind the Dunes, Balmedie, Scotland”.
Although most offer no more than moral support, one has included a poem and another a pair of T-shirts bearing the words, “Support your local farmer”. Another included a $1 bill. “Kind Sir,” wrote the female sender, “This $1 has little value but the prayer that comes with it is priceless.”
Mr Forbes’s land sits between the tycoon’s two proposed 18-hole golf courses and a planned 450-bedroom five-star hotel. Although he has been offered £375,000 by Mr Trump and an unspecified “job for life”, Mr Forbes insists that he will not move.
His defiance led to an extraordinary public attack by Mr Trump when he was in Scotland this month. However, postings on Times Online include messages of solidarity from across the US, and an unusually high number from women. Patricia Bragg, from Apopka, Florida, wrote: “Hold firm, Mr Forbes. You’ve got something many of us would love to have, a little piece of heaven.” In a telling afterthought, she adds: “By the way, you look marvellous in your kilt.”