A Scottish journalist's tales from another time

 

BOOK REVIEW:

A grain of truth: A Scottish journalist remembers by Jack Webster
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I picked up the book A Grain of Truth at a charity shop, not knowing anything about Jack Webster, but having an interest in the story of a local journalist whose career started in the north-east of Scotland and eventually led him to roles at one of the most prestigious national newspapers of the day.

The back cover of this 200-page book states that Jack Webster was one of Scotland's best known journalists. His career began in the later 1940s, and this autobiography was printed in 1981, when he would have been 50.

It's a well-written selection of memories of his childhood and youth in the Buchan area of Aberdeenshire, rich in colourful descriptions and tone to capture a way of life that, even then, was fading as modern ways changed the world.

The breadth of Webster's stories take in the pre-World War II years, the war, and the post-war world. The reader encounters stories that include brushes with such illustrious folk as Bernie Forbes, Charlie Chaplin, Mohammed Ali, and John Paul Getty.

The way Webster recalls these assorted tales is evocative and 'unshowy'. He writes with a journalist's eye to detail and with conciseness. There is room for Webster to ponder life and the march of time, which he does most powerfully in the final chapters, including a touching farewell to his parents.

At a distance of more than 40 years since these recollections were written - and with Webster himself no longer around - it is an interesting snapshot into a past world, with its values, characters and exploits. There are many surprises to be found within its pages.

Webster wrote subsequent books of memoirs, including an autobiography, which I hope to read one day having now had my interest piqued. However this, his first venture as a book writer, is a satisfying entry point to learn about the life and determination of a young journalist from a far-flung corner of rural Scotland, who went on to travel the world and meet some of its most famed personalities.

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A vanishing way of life high among the hills

A vanishing world: Katharine Stewart's celebrated
A Croft in the Hills is contained in A Life in the Hills,
an omnibus edition featuring four of her books

In A Croft in the Hills, Katharine Stewart chronicles the years that she, her husband Jim and their daughter Helen lived high in the hills bordering Loch Ness.

The memoir begins with an account of what led to the family waving goodbye to suburban life and embarking on a shared vision and passion to eke out a living in a remote place. It is the story of how they pursued that desire for a self-sustaining livelihood "on the edge".

The Stewarts chose a location that was susceptible to fearsomely harsh weather and to soaring wonderment and beauty. It is the 1950s, and the young couple and their daughter learn the ways of the land and how to run a smallholding. It involves sacrifices, impoverishment and the unconditional support of neighbours.

At times, everything seems perfect with good fortune shining and life going their way, but there are also setbacks, adjustments and reassessments of what is possible.

First published in 1960, an additional end piece to the book was added by the author in a 1979 update.

Stewart captures a world and way of life that, even as she and her family embarked upon it, was coming to an end. Some of the characters mentioned were already local legends, and many were soon to be gone.

In joining the Stewarts, the reader experiences the turning of the seasons and glimpses a life built on a small, tight-knit community familiar with sparse and enduring hardships, but ready and willing to help one another without quibble or question.

I found this book's greatest joy in the moments where the author shares more deeply her thoughts on what it means to have taken this direction in life, and the fulfillment from simple pleasures far from the city lights.

A Croft in the Hills is regarded as an important record of a time, now 70 years distant, and the indomitable spirit of the Stewarts and those they knew on the hillsides high in the Highlands of Scotland.

I read the book in A Life in the Hills, The Katharine Stewart omnibus published posthumously in 2018, which also contains Stewart's books from the 1990s, A Garden in the Hills, A School in the Hills, and A Post in the Hills.

The combined edition, A Life in the Hills, is published by Berlinn Ltd.

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.

Tea towel immortality at a village hall far away

Down to earth: Dougie MacLean, on stage at
Clunie village hall (Photographs by Heather Brain)

You know you're doing well when they put one of your songs on a tea towel, Dougie MacLean told the audience. We and the other 80 or so souls who sat on the wooden foldaway chairs in the tiny village hall, had travelled through unlit countryside and foothills to reach the remote venue on a single-track road in deepest Perthshire.

Our reward was an evening of music and tales from MacLean, who happily mingled with the audience during the half-time interval when tea, coffee, biscuits and bowls of crisps were laid on for free. During the break, MacLean also shared "nips" from a large bottle of The Gael gin - named after another of his tunes - which included the musical notation of the composition on the inside of the label, where it was magnified through the bottle's glass and its rapidly diminishing contents.

Clunie village hall is more often used for "knit and natter" evenings than staging concerts - but there was a good reason why MacLean, who was awarded the OBE in 2011 for services to music and charity, had chosen such an out-of-the-way location to sing his songs.

Earlier we had waited outside for the doors to open. It had been a day of clear blue sky, but as the long dusk settled so the temperature slid to the chill expected in March among foothills leading to the southern fringe of Scotland's Cairngorms mountain range. The thinest reminder of day clung precariously above us, a deepening blue turning to night; while the countryside silhouetted against the remnants of dusky light was all but swallowed by darkness.

Family assist: the stage decorations were
prepared by MacLean's grandchildren

Scattered on one horizon were distant lights of a few homes and farms. The final calls of birds settling in their nests echoed in the still air. The arrival of darkness in this remote spot leaves an outsider slightly disorientated, but not so for a local. MacLean's life and the lives of his parents and grandparents are deeply entwined with this place and the surrounding landscape.

As we were to learn from anecdotes shared between songs, as a boy MacLean had lived in a small house next to the village hall, and it had featured in his youth. He now owns and lives in a former village school a few miles away, where he has his own recording studio. Earlier generations of his family had had been taught at the school.

The landscape that stretches out from the village hall resonates with stories and meaning for MacLean and his family, who have maintained strong ties to the locale. Indeed, members of MacLean's family, including his wife, son and grandchildren, all pitched in to prepare the stage for the evening show, operate the mixing desk, serve the refreshments and look after the small merchandise stall at the door. His mother, now in her eighties, was among the audience.

It was at the entrance to the hall, next to a selection of CDs and DVDs, where a few tea towels emblazened with the lyrics to Caledonia were to be found. Caledonia is a spirited and beautifully uplifting ode that some have suggested is a future national anthem. It wrestles with The Gael as MacLean's most successful composition. The latter is an instrumental, a version of which took off a few years after MacLean's original, when it was prominently featured in the movie soundtrack of The Last of the Mohicans.

Evening to remember: MacLean
met all the audience during the interval

During the first half of the evening, MacLean presented us with a trove of stories and songs from places near and far; from Clunie village hall to Alaska and Australia. His instruments included a didgeridoo, and fiddle, but mostly acoustic guitar. The Gael was played on fiddle, augmented by an instrumental backing track created by MacLean's son. After the refreshment break, MacLean scanned through the request notes he'd encouraged and played, among others, the haunting Broken Wings, and the moving This Love Will Carry.

MacLean has travelled the world and performed on stages large and small, but he has retained a down to earth approach. To see him on a tiny stage in an intimate and personal setting, and share a moment of his time at the interval break as he made a point of meeting every member of the audience, made it an evening to treasure.

Before we knew it, almost three hours had passed and it was time to leave. After we ventured from the village hall into the night, the songs and voice of MacLean, and the love he showed to all, carried us safely home.

Video: Dougie MacLean sings Caledonia at his studio.

Away with the faeries at Lochan Uaine

Mystical place: An Lochan Uaine has an unusually green appearance
 that some say is caused by faeries washing their clothes in its water.

Thirty-three years after first stumbling across a book that mentioned a mysterious faery loch in a remote part of Scotland, I finally had the chance to visit it this year.

It is almost impossible to locate 'An Lochan Uaine' on a map, because it is so small and inconsequential relative to the mountainous splendor of its surroundings.

Tucked away in the vast wilderness of the Cairngorms, it is about seven miles due east of Aviemore -  but don't think about driving there, because you can't.  To reach it you must leave the road behind and take to quiet trails that lead into the mountains and an area known as Ryvoan Pass.

I'd read about An Lochan Uaine. I'd written a poem about it, which had became a song, a play and a short movie. Yet I'd never been to this place that had sparked my imagination in so many ways for more than three decades. Now, as I stood at the edge of the lochan, it felt like the closure of a personal journey that I'd carried since my teenage years.

The story began in 1985 as I read what was then a 30-year-old book about remote locations in Scotland. Each place described was accompanied by a single, page-sized black-and-white photograph. There were no people on the images, just the raw beauty of unspoiled wilderness.

On one page there was a photograph of An Lochan Uaine - a small body of water in the mountains. I recall the monochrome picture had a wintery feel. The words that accompanied it described the green water of the lochan and mentioned a folk tale that claimed faeries washed their clothes there and, as they did so, the dye would run and give the water its green tinge.

I wrote a poem in 1985 based on the tale. Faeries of Green Lochan was included in the 1987 paperback Inspired, a collection of young writers' stories and poems. I turned it into a song to perform at open mic events. In 2003, in a two-person play, I expanded on the theme of the mystical faeries and the lochan, and performed one of the roles at an amateur dramatics show at Bournemouth Centre for Community Arts. The screenplay was included in Eating Clouds in 2008. That led to the animation and live-action short film Faeries of Green Lochan of 2011. I had ambitions of filming it on location, but practicalities meant the live-action scene was filmed at a lake in Dorset, England.

This autumn I finally made it to the Cairngorms and sought out the lochan and its mystical green water. Heather, who was also the 'Woman in the Cloak' in the film version of Faeries of Green Lochan, and I set out on the tricky hillside trail that led to the lochan. The views were breathtaking as we followed a narrow path through fir trees and pines that hugged the steep edge of Ryvoan Pass. There was a magical feel to the place, and I was struck by the number of fly agaric mushrooms visible in the undergrowth. These distinctive bright red with white spot mushrooms had featured in animation sequences of the Faeries film, although at the time I had not known whether they were to be found near the lochan. They were - and in abundance.

Water's edge: with Heather beside An Lochan Uaine.

And then we were there at the edge of the lochan and its green water. A connection that spanned 33 years had been fulfilled. In the remote surroundings of the Cairngorms I wondered if this peaceful place guarded a precious secret. Were they out there - the faeries, hiding in the undergrowth and waiting until all folks had departed before coming to dance and sing at the water's edge and scrub their clothes clean?
Who can say? All I know is the place has a magical feel, and that is enough.

• The short movie Faeries of Green Lochan:

Life's journey among the isles

A cairn on the abandoned island of Mingulay,. Beyond are the islands of Pabbay, Sanday, Vatersay and Barra.

BOOK REVIEW: My Journey by Elizabeth Campbell (Acair Books)

Elizabeth Campbell's autobiography

Although only 67 when she died, and having spent the majority of her days in one of the remotest parts of the British Isles, Elizabeth Campbell saw the world transformed during her lifetime.

Born in 1913, she grew up in a community where homes had bare dirt floors and where shoeless children were the norm. She witnessed the mixture of marvel and trepidation that greeted the appearance of the first car on the island of Barra, and she could recollect the famous shipwrecking of a cargo vessel loaded with whisky, as well as the arrival on the island of gramophones and finally electricity.

Campbell was a teacher all her life, mostly in Barra and Vatersay, but also in Glasgow.

She quietly lived most of her life in the Western Isles. In 1977, the year before she retired, she was bestowed the honour of MBE for services to the community of Vatersay, and she travelled to Buckingham Palace to receive the award from the Queen Mother.

In 1980 she completed writing her autobiography, Air Mo Chuairt [My Journey], in her native Gaelic. She died the following year. In 1982 the book was published. Now, 34 years on, an English translation has been released for the first time.

My Journey reveals what it was like to grow up and live on one of the islands of the Outer Hebrides. Campbell chronicles her life from childhood, when her father was away serving in the First World War, through her school years, the dances and ceilidhs, the weddings and how it was to walk the length of the island to reach the main town of Castlebay.

The shipwrecking of the SS Politician off the coast of the nearby island of Eriskay, an event later immortalised in the film Whisky Galore, is also recollected by Campbell, who was then in her late 20s.

She chose teaching as her profession and it was a career that lasted for 40 years.

In My Journey she does a tremendous job of creating a sense of place, setting and time, giving voice to her recollections in a natural, everyday manner. Indeed, reading the autobiography almost feels like being in Campbell’s company, sitting in her front room and listening to her stories.

Among the tales is an encounter with an elderly, former resident of Mingulay, the remote island to the south of Vatersay that was abandoned in 1912. Campbell does a fine job weaving in enlightening facts about the history of the islands, including stories of Mingulay.

Ruins at Uidh on Vatersay

My Journey takes readers back to a world far removed from the often frantic one of today. Community spirit was all encompassing, traditions were well observed, and even though worldly possessions were scant, the people were happy.

The children of the villages went barefoot, they had no choice. When new tackery boots arrived they would compete to see who could keep theirs in the best condition for the longest time. "Often a young girl would have them on a table beside her bed at night," writes Campbell in one of many touching vignettes that jump from the pages of My Journey.

The first car arrived in Barra in 1926, of which Campbell said: "People were truly amazed watching it (nearly lost the two eyes). If an old man or old woman was walking on the road, on seeing the car miles off they would dive off the road and run up on the hillside as fast as they could."

There are a few moments that are touched upon more than once, and therefore appear to carry extra poignancy for Campbell. One is the striking image of a boy declaring his independence from school life, in the days when children were allowed to leave school when they turned 14.

"One day a young 'hero' was fully ready to leave school the very day of his birthday," recollects Campbell. The bell rang and the schoolmaster called the boy to join the others inside the school grounds. "But instead the lad gave a speech informing the whole world that he was this day in a heaven of his own, free from all the restrictions that did not appeal to him. Thus he stood with one hand on his hip, the other raised upwards to the sky, and happy as one ever seen he bounded off over the hill of the bay. But that did him no harm. He got on well in the world, though his life was cut short. Each time I see that bridge, the memory of the 'Highland Fling' comes back to me."

Campbell's descriptive and highly accessible writing style is as much of a joy as the tales she relates. A good example is the story of George, who was the first to bring to Barra a gramophone player, complete with an elegant long horn.

"We thought the voice came from the next world! George used to take it on the rounds to each and every house in the village, and our group always followed him. Those who could not fit inside the house were like leftovers outside the door."

Later on we hear about that arrival of electricity in Barra in 1967, soon followed by television - or "the box".

Although there are moments when the book becomes almost a stream of conscience as anecdotes finish abruptly and a new thread is taken up, these instances are few and far between and hardly detract from the otherwise compelling narrative.

Kisimul Castle, in the harbour at Castlebay, Barra

During Campbell’s lifetime Gaelic was widely spoken across the Western Isles, but from an early age she was aware that it was viewed as "the language of the working people" in comparison to English. However, it is abundantly clear that Gaelic was, and is, one of the most important bonding elements within the island communities. And Campbell states her belief that even in the future native islanders "will allow no one under the sun to push Gaelic backwards out of the way".

Towards the end of the book, as she reflects on her life she wonders if the modern generation are as happy and fulfilled as she was in her youth.

"I don’t see young girls picking flowers as they did in my day. Neither do I hear young people complaining of lack of money. There is no word now of working hard all week to earn the shilling entrance fee for the dance. Everything is so easy for them, perhaps they are just as happy in their state as we were in our youth, but it is difficult to believe that," she writes

Though it was more than 50 years distant at the time she completed her autobiography, Campbell remembered the opening of the Northbay Hall in the late 1920s, and the first community dance held there and the happy steps and the noisy clatter on the floorboards.

Over the years there was plenty of joy and some hardships, but even the latter - such as clambering on hands and knees across rocks and seaweed to reach the little ferry that linked Barra and Vatersay - had an endearing edge.

My Journey is a pleasure to read with its vivid documentation of a world now mostly vanished, and is a reminder of how things once were, and how important it is to enjoy life’s journey through the good times, the hard times and all manifestations in between.

Air Mo Chuairt by Ealasaid Chaimbeul [My Journey by Elizabeth Campbell] is published by Stornaway-based Acair Books.

The first half of the new edition features the original Gaelic version. It is followed by a supporting English translation, compiled by another Barra native and teacher, Mary Flora Galbraith. Galbraith has done a sterling job bringing the book to a wider audience and preserving much of the flavour and quirks of the Gaelic original in the translated version, which includes numerous enlightening footnotes.

'Peace Walker' defies odds and follows its bliss

Chase Korte in a scene from Peace Walker

For almost ten years it has existed only as short, tantalising clips on YouTube. But Peace Walker has now been uploaded in full, and this unusual and remarkable documentary is a treasure to watch.

In many ways it has defied the odds to see the light of day. It was made on a shoestring budget and half the crew abandoned the project part way through. Six months after filming was completed its main star, Chase Korte, died at the age of 24 when the car he was driving was hit by a drink-driver.

Korte had previously appeared in a number of TV commercials and short films in the US, and as an extra in an Oliver Stone feature film.

Peace Walker was initially to be a hybrid film following one man's walk for peace from John O'Groats on the northeastern tip of Scotland, to Land's End in the southwest corner of England. The fictional side of the film was to feature Korte playing a character called Ray, who sets out on the 1,100-mile journey after his brother is killed in the conflict in Iraq. 'Ray' was to be the peace walker interacting with strangers along the way.

At the same time as filming the 'Ray' storyline, moviemaker Tara Golden would use a second camera to capture documentary footage of the journey.

It was an ambitious and unorthodox project. What's more, there was virtually no budget and the crew mostly relied on the goodwill of strangers for accommodation each night.

The four-person crew began filming in early June 2006. On the first day Golden, an Arizona-based independent director, injured her ankle after walking 18 miles with Korte. It had been her intention to walk the full distance from John O'Groats to Land's End, but following the advice of the others she put such ambitions aside - although things would later change.

The project was inspired by Mildred Lisette Norman, the original Peace Pilgrim who, in her mid-40s, started a peace walk in 1953 that lasted 28 years as she continuously walked back and forth across the US. She changed her name to Peace Pilgrim and vowed to "remain a wanderer until mankind has learned the way of peace - walking until given shelter and fasting until given food."

Chase Korte during the filming of Peace Walker

Crucial to the integrity of Golden’s Peace Walker project was to actually do the 1,100-mile hike. As Korte walked up to 20 miles a day, Golden and the two crew travelled in a rental vehicle, filming at strategic points. Beyond directing, Golden also had to secure accommodation each night for the crew either for free, like the original Peace Pilgrim, or at minimum cost.

Within a matter of days there was tension between Golden and cinematographer Mike Herd regarding the direction of the film. A few weeks later, when the crew reached Glasgow, Herd quit.

At this point I should mention another aspect of the Peace Walker project as it originally unfolded, and that was the daily online diary entries that Golden and Korte wrote separately. These candid and uncensored postings went onto a webpage and chartered the inner highs, lows and conflicts of the two as the journey progressed.

I first stumbled upon the Peace Walker project in late 2006 when I read these online journal entries [which are no longer accessible] and watched a clip of Peace Walker on YouTube. That short snippet was voted among the most inspiring videos to appear on the website during 2006, an accolade that garnered it more than one million views - which was a major achievement at the time on the fledgling YouTube site that had only gone live the year before.

After Herd quit the project, Golden, Korte and production assistant Danny Weiss sat in a city restaurant and discussed options for Peace Walker. The possibility of not going through with the walk brought a forthright reaction from Korte. He leapt to his feet and, before astonished diners, delivered his own impassioned ultimatum – having started the peace walk he was going to see it through regardless and would walk every step of the way. Although not seen in the documentary, the moment was captured in the contemporaneous Peace Walker diary, with Minnesota-born Korte writing:

The walk and the movie, in my mind, were inextricably bound up in each other. I said, "What’s the first thing we say when we tell people about the movie…we say it’s about an American who comes to the UK to hike 1,000 miles for peace. What’s the second thing we say?"

"He’s really doing the hike," Tara replied.

"That’s right. This isn’t just a movie. This IS a peace walk." At some point the whole thing turned into an Oscar scene. I was making an impassioned speech, standing up and yelling in the middle of the restaurant.

However, this was not enough to keep Weiss involved, and he decided to return to the States. The documentary features a scene filmed shortly after the implosion of the film crew, in which Golden and Korte decide to continue, albeit with a reframed project. Korte refers to it as "switching gears" and it now being a documentary about how they had tried to make the film, but had failed, but were going to do the peace walk anyway.

What went before was interesting enough, particularly a touching section featuring Korte walking through the Scottish landscape overlaid with the song 'Brother', a tribute written and performed many years later by his brother Joel Korte. However, the heart of Peace Walker comes in the remainder of the documentary as Korte and Golden tackle the last 700 miles. We see the dynamics of friendship and conflict; the trials and tribulations they face on the road, the places they go and the strangers they meet.

"Follow your bliss," Korte says at one point, quoting the words of Joseph Campbell, the American mythologist and writer. We get the sense Korte is truly following his bliss on the epic walk. "It comes down to love and fear," he muses. When asked if doing a peace walk is creating peace, he reflects, "Maybe it is creating some kind of inner peace."

Korte is happiest when he's away from the roads and traffic. He states that nature and countryside trails give energy, but the road drains it out of you. As he walks the coastal path in Devon and Cornwall on the final leg of the journey, he says, "I do have the best job in the world right now."

Chase Korte, right, walks with route advisor Don Dyer

Peace Walker could well have ended up as no more than a meandering but well-intentioned escapade. However, it provides some genuinely thought-provoking moments on the essence of peace - in all its facets - and builds to a climax as journey's end nears and Golden decides to resume walking. This decision creates a flashpoint between Korte and Golden. There is a conflict of expectations, and it is here that the documentary is most captivating.

Golden explains why she feels compelled to get back on the trail and cries, off camera, as she quietly works through her thoughts with Korte. Then, in a further moment of introspection, she gives voice to her feelings as she films her progress along the coastal path. "I think I'm going to hate this footage later," she comments.

Kudos to Golden for including the scene, along with other insightful moments from the final stages of the walk. For it is here, as the finish line at Land's End nears, that the life-affirming essence of Peace Walker shines through in unexpected ways.

Almost ten years after it was filmed, Peace Walker was released in seven segments on YouTube. Golden's decision to do so stemmed from the short film Faces of the Marchers - The Great March for Climate Action, about a march from California to Washington DC to raise awareness of climate change. She released that film in 2014. The people doing the trans-continental march reminded her of her own passion and hope to inspire people, reported Quo Vadis? - the journal of the Land's End John O'Groats Association.

Peace Walker ends with Golden and Korte reunited. It was February 10, 2007 and they had met to discuss the ongoing editing of the film. A few hours later Korte was killed as he was returning to his home in Los Angeles.

Korte's last words on-camera are poignant. Golden asks if he has any message for the viewers. He replies with a quote from the 1989 movie Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure.

"Be excellent to each other."

The Forth Bridge

On the back cover of the soon to be released Dolphin Girl novel is this artistic image of the Forth Bridge created by book cover artist Kit Foster.

Dolphin Girl is set almost entirely in and around Edinburgh, so it is perhaps not surprising that the nearby iconic landmark features throughout the novel. Indeed, there is a short chapter entitled Forth Bridge, a passage from which appears at the bottom of this blog post.

You don't need to have visited Edinburgh, or Scotland, to be familiar with the steel bridge that spans the Firth of Forth within sight of the capital city. The cantilever bridge is one of the most enduring and picturesque representations of the country; a tin of Scottish shortbread would not be complete without an image of the bridge's three great cantilever structures.

Having spent a number of childhood years in Edinburgh, I know how this imposing marvel of the Victorian age sears itself into the mind and conscience of anyone who has viewed it from near or afar. It is anchored like an steadfast old friend in my recollections of youth.

Built between 1882 and 1890, it is 1.6 miles long and is a rail-only crossing (the nearby Forth Road Bridge for motor vehicles opened in the 1970s).

When people talk about 'painting the Forth Bridge' they are using a phrase that is shorthand for any seemingly never-ending task. This is rooted in the belief that when the bridge is repainted it is such a major and lengthy undertaking that once complete a new repaint job must commence immediately. A myth, but a well-worn one.

In recent years, when flying to Glasgow I have scanned the horizon below to pick out the distant 'humps' of the bridge which are visible from the air even from a distance of 30 or 40 miles away. There is something reassuring and timeless about the bridge.

And so, just as it proved to be for me in my younger years, the Forth Bridge is a constant background presence in the lives of the characters in Dolphin Girl. The novel is currently undergoing final readings and adjustments and is scheduled for release in April.

As an advance taster, here is a brief section from the start of the Forth Bridge chapter.

Katrina lowered her eyes and contemplated the choppy waves a hundred feet below in the river that thought it was a sea. Even at such a distance the cold water reached up with invisible hands chilling her face. She looked away and up towards the soaring magnificence of the Forth Bridge, a marvel of the Victorian age. Its rugged splendor matched the wilderness it adorned. It belonged and it was hard to imagine a time before, or to come, when the railway bridge would not stand sentinel over the Forth’s murky waters.
Standing inside the belly of the three-humped red monster she was a lost ant buffeted by the incessant wind whistling and swirling through this steel behemoth.

Living in a world less busy

(Photo by Klaus/Wikimedia Commons)

There can’t be many writers who publish their first book aged 80. That is what Mary J MacLeod has done with ‘The Island Nurse’, a book I have been reading for the past few weeks. Her memories of living life as a nurse on a remote Scottish island more than 40 years ago made for a fascinating read.

In 1969 Mrs MacLeod and her husband George lived in the south of England. But they had become disillusioned with their way life and all its pressures. They wanted to live a life less cluttered and frantic.

They followed their dream and relocated with their young family to one of the remotest parts of the British Isles — the Hebridean islands off of Scotland’s northwest coast. It was a world apart from the life they knew. On the island Papavray (the island’s true identity is concealed to protect the privacy of those mentioned in the book) indoor toilets were still a luxury, while television was viewed with suspicion and even terror by some of the older residents.

Nurse Mrs MacLeod soon became entwined in the lives of the island people, getting to know their stories, their troubles, their joys — and a few secrets — as she and her family found themselves increasingly touched by the warmth of the remote community.

By the end of the book, the author refers to the many characters she met half-a-lifetime ago as ‘the dear, unique people who still live on that remote, rocky island’.

In ‘The Island Nurse’ (published in the US as ‘Call the Nurse’) Mrs MacLeod takes us on a journey that captures the nuances of island life. It is a touching memoir that traces many stories across the seasons of a year, from births and marriages, to tragedies and deaths. Keeping chapters short and fast-moving, Mrs MacLeod crams a remarkable number of vignettes and incidents into 300-odd pages.

In one chapter a window has to be removed to allow a bed-bound patient to be transported to a hospital, while there is a sinister reason behind a mysterious night-time rendezvous at a remote section of shore.

There are intricate portraits of her neighbours, and description of the hardships of island life. The author herself experiences some of those trials, including having the steering column of her car break on a remote mountain pass. She returns to her abandoned vehicle hours later to find a concerned islander has fashioned a temporary repair using sticky plasters that holds together until she gets her car home.

She joins the crofters one day sheep shearing high on the hillsides, where chatter, stories and jokes are shared, and sandwiches and Thermos drinks are consumed. As the bright afternoon turns to early evening Mrs MacLeod dallies, ensuring she is the last to leave the high vantage point. It gives her the opportunity to observe the village and the crofts far below. She writes: “Gradually, as the peace of the evening settled over the glen, I began to see little plumes of blue smoke rise from the chimneys as folk lit their fires. I listened — even distant voices had stilled, the hill was quiet once more, and I was left in the silent clamour of remembered noise.”

The author writes in a style that makes you feel you are right there, listening to the conversations as they happen and seeing the events unfold. When Mrs MacLeod turns her thoughts to her surroundings, she shows a talent for descriptive and evocative turns of phrase. The sea is “silver in owl-haunted moonlight”, while later in the year, as the evenings draw in, she drives along the island’s narrow, uneven roads “between small lochans with the brown peaty water winking at us in the failing light”.

A dozen or so islanders meet at a tiny croft for a ceilidh of drinking, unsophisticated entertainment, poems, songs, stories, jokes and reminiscing about “times gone by and people long dead’. Mrs MacLeod notes that once the small croft is full of people, and with a big peat fire generating heat in the fireplace, it soon becomes unbearably hot. “It seemed to me that ceilidhs were not ceilidhs unless everyone was perspiring freely by the end of the evening,” she writes.

Filled with stories that reflect the day-to-day lives of people far removed from the bustle of mainland towns and cities, Mrs MacLeod has impressively reflected the humour, warmth and culture that holds together these distant communities.

  The Island Nurse is published by Mainstream Publishing in the UK and Random House in the USA.