Vivid memoir of a childhood in the Highlands

Childhood memoir: W.A.M MacKenzie's
Where's Home? will brighten the winter evenings

As the dark nights draw in, and the winter chill bites, now is the time when many will reach for a comforting read to soften the heart and bring some cheer. But where to find a good read? 

A just-published work I recommend is William MacKenzie's memoir Where's Home? Glimpses of a boy I used to know. It is a series of recollections from his childhood, spanning the 1940s in Sutherland, in the north Highlands of Scotland.

W.A.M. MacKenzie's vivid recollections cover everything from family life, to helping out on the farm, school days, community celebrations, and a great many boyhood adventures. Although the events are more than 70 years distant, MacKenzie said he could better recall things that had happened so many decades ago than he could what had happened yesterday.

There is a gentle touch of humour and lightheartedness in his plain English writing style.

Where's Home? is a heartwarming stroll through a period that now seems unhurried and simple, with connections and bonds greatly treasured. The book is a memoir and includes interwoven snippets of local history and a passing nod to historical moments. These all add to the colour and vividness of the world as seen and experienced by the young MacKenzie.

Perhaps there was scope to add deeper thoughts on what these distant moments now mean to MacKenzie from his latter-day perspective as an 80-year-old. Perhaps there could have been room for more autobiographical additions to trace, even if briefly, MacKenzie's life as an adult. But these are my personal pondering and should not detract from what Where's Home? is at heart. It is an abundant recollection and a delightful read that offers an escape for a few hours - or a few days - to a world now vanished.

For those wondering, as I, about MacKenzie's life beyond these childhood tales, he lived for decades in the West Midlands, in England, before returning to Sutherland. He once owned the former Cathedral Cafe in Dornoch, and spent his later years living further north in the village of Brora.

He became a writer in his sixties after joining the Dornoch writers' group. He authored a number of novels. The memoir Where's Home? stands out as his one work of non-fiction. He self-published it as a kindle e-book in the early 2010s. A second e-book version was released in 2015.

In the past few years, short articles clipped from stories in Where's Home? were featured in the new quarterly magazine Kyle Chronicle, which serves the communities around the Kyle of Sutherland. This in turn led to a third edition of the book being professionally edited and including maps, photos and further writing by MacKenzie, who died shortly before the new edition appeared this autumn.

The book has been published by Carn Bren Publishing, which is based in the village of Ardgay, a stone's throw from where MacKenzie's childhood adventures took place.

Where's Home? can be purchased at the Dornoch Bookshop, or through Carn Bren Publishing. It is also available from major online booksellers.

Pandemic and the unturned calendar pages

World changed: the calendar still showed the month of March

When I returned to my apartment, just over five months had passed since I was last there. The air was stale and musty, the unmistakable odour of long-vacated places.

On the wall I found the calendar as I had left it, freshly turned to the month of March 2020. 

But now it was August.

If things had gone to plan, I'd have been back from my vacation in time to turn the page to April. If things had gone to plan.

But plans are something the world has had to forgo this year. The Covid-19 pandemic brought us all to a shuddering halt; stranded in place, wherever that might have been at the time, and adjusting our lives to the changed circumstances.

So it was for me for five months, until I was able to return to Bermuda and the temporarily unoccupied apartment. It took many days to bring it back to life - to clear away the mould and dust that had taken over, and to circulate fresh air into every corner.

The mandatory four days of quarantine allowed plenty of time to scrub away at things. There were no distractions, no other places I could go, for I could merely look out from the doorway at the world outside, the places I  had long grown familiar with, but where for a few more days I'd be unable to venture.

Then I got my 'day four' Covid test. I was clear and out of quarantine. A welcome release. I took out the trash, which included the empty pages of the calendar, those months away that had passed when I was elsewhere and living through these surreal times.

Now I look at the calendar and wonder if normality is returning. Is the world soon to be back on an even keel? Can things return to going as planned?

Plans - they no longer seem so solid as they once did. A lesson to carry into the new normal.