Dolphin Girl and the wartime secret keeper

Book comments: Jim Humphreys' faxed letter about Dolphin Girl.

A man who knew one of the big secrets of the Second World War has died at 100.

James Humphreys Jr also wrote kind words about Dolphin Girl shortly after it first appeared in the Eating Clouds collection in 2008. He felt it should be turned into a movie and suggested who might be the perfect producer.

More on that in a moment, but first some words on Jim. He was a US Navy Lieutenant during the Second World War and was stationed in Bermuda in 1944, where he met his future wife Shirley. She was a volunteer nurse's aide and tended to patients at the US military hospital in Southampton. She was tasked with looking after a German U-boat commander, Admiral Harald Lange, who along with his submarine and crew members had been captured by the Americans.

The big secret was that the capture in 1944 had resulted in an Enigma machine and assorted codebooks falling into the hands of the Allies. While codebreakers in the UK had already cracked many of the Enigma codes, the additional resources from the captured U-boat gave further insights, including a coordinate code for locating the rendezvous locations of the submarines.

Of significant value was the capture of the submarine U-505. It was towed to Bermuda, where its acoustic homing torpedoes were analysed and tested. This gave the Allies crucial information on ways to counter the technology.

It was vital that the capture of the U-boat and its crew remained a secret - lest the Germans find out how much the Allies had learned from the codes and torpedoes. Shirley was sworn to secrecy, although she shared the secret with her beloved Jim. Together they kept the information under wraps for 50 years. The couple married and after the war lived in the US before returning to Bermuda in 1980. It was only in 1992 that the wartime secret was revealed during interviews.

Shirley died in 1999. By all accounts, Jim felt Bermuda was his home as it had played such a significant part in his life and he remained on the island for the rest of his days.
I met Jim in November 2005. He was a wartime veteran taking part in the annual Remembrance Day parade on Front Street, Hamilton. I was compiling a report for The Royal Gazette newspaper and I spoke to him and a number of the other veterans. Jim was 88, and in our brief exchange he did not mention the drama of the U-boat secret.

Three years later, the original edition of Eating Clouds was published. It contained a mixture of journalism and life stories that I had collected over the years. The second part of the book featured the short novel Dolphin Girl, which became an expanded and improved standalone novel in 2015.

An article about Eating Clouds appeared in the newspaper in December 2005, and two weeks later a fax arrived at the newspaper office from Jim. It was addressed to me, and in it Jim wrote he had enjoyed the book "especially Dolphin Girl" and added: "I recommend that you consult Michael Douglas and ask him to consider being the producer of the film, Dolphin Girl. Special effects rendition of Dolphin Girl changing from a dolphin to a gorgeous blonde as the Scottish team, led by Josh and Katrina, save her is an Academy candidate winner."

Jim also mentioned that I had interviewed him a few years earlier. I wrote back thanking him for his words, which were among the first positive feedback received regarding Eating Clouds and Dolphin Girl. I've yet to take up Jim's recommendation to approach Mr Douglas (who occasionally resides in Bermuda) regarding a Dolphin Girl film.

It was sad to hear of Jim's passing this week. However, I'm glad he lived a full and remarkable life, that our paths crossed and that he stayed happy and engaged with the world to such a grand age - as evident by an interview a colleague conducted with him last year on his 100th birthday.
This is a salute to retired US Navy Lt Jim Humphreys. Fair winds and following seas.

A Royal Gazette obituary article on Mr Humphreys: https://tinyurl.com/y7cmvd7r

Eating Clouds (2008 edition) being retired

Two editions: The original Eating Clouds, on the left, was released in
late 2008. It was followed in 2009 by a more compact edition.

The original edition of Eating Clouds is being retired. That is, the 2008 version published through Lulu will no longer be available.

That edition contained the first version of the later stand-alone novel Dolphin Girl.

But don't worry if you haven't yet picked up a copy of Eating Clouds, because the smaller edition, published in 2009 through CreateSpace, will continue to be the available worldwide.

The later edition is by far the more popular seller and the most widely distributed; the main difference between it and the original is the absence of Dolphin Girl. Removing the novel meant the smaller version could be retailed at a more attractive price, and also made sense as I had started to work on an expanded version of Dolphin Girl, which eventually was released in its own right in 2015.

I have decided to discontinue the bulky, Lulu edition of Eating Clouds as it makes no sense for the outdated version of Dolphin Girl to still be out there. Online retailers such as Amazon are likely to have a few of the old editions in stock, but once they are gone only be the compact edition will be available. As of yet, there is no e-book version of Eating Clouds.

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.

Novel 'Under 25' is gritty and delightful

BOOK REVIEW: Under 25 by Johanna Cordery

The cover of Under 25, a novel by Johanna Cordery

Starting with a forewarning of a tragic event involving a “young un”, Under 25 takes readers on a roller-coaster ride of emotions and suspense as they ponder who among the main characters might become the lost soul.

The ominous foreshadowing within the opening lines masterfully sets the scene for the engaging story that follows; a tale about the intertwined lives of a number of young people growing up in Yorkshire, England, during the 1980s.

With sensitivity, Cordery tackles the subjects of teenage love, pregnancy, dysfunctional families, betrayal and the spectre of young suicide.

At times the language is powerful, pulling no punches. And be warned that the well-crafted dialogue is written to reflect the linguistic quirks, nuances and characteristics of native Yorkshire speakers. This accent on authenticity is at the heart of Under 25’s gritty realism, which is also reflected in the descriptions of the homes and surroundings of the characters.

Ashley Shuttleworth is the key protagonist, and it is mainly through him that we see events unfold. However, Cordery’s engaging style also gives multi-person viewpoints that enlighten the story and add delightful depth along the way.

Under 25 is filled with twists and turns and unexpected developments. There are moments of humour (I laughed out loud many times), and scenes of agonising sadness.

Readers should prepare to become emotionally invested in the characters who are given space to develop and come alive.

When I first started reading Under 25, I was impressed with the realism of the settings. As the story progressed it was the suspense of wondering where everything would lead and where the answers would be found that kept me deeply engaged with this well-structured, fast-paced, dialogue-driven novel.

A refreshing new author has arrived on the scene. I look forward to reading the future works of Johanna Cordery.

Under 25 is available as a Kindle e-book from Amazon.


CLICK TO PLAY: A short promotional film for Under 25

Footnote: I attended college with author Johanna Cordery in the early to mid-1990s.

Tips for promoting an e-book

Dolphin Girl at No.9 in the literary fiction (British & Irish) sub category
 of the Amazon.com Kindle Store on September 28, 2015

One morning in September Dolphin Girl reached the top 6,000 bestsellers in Amazon.com's Kindle Store. At its peak it was briefly No.9 in the British & Irish literary fiction sub category, alongside novels by Salman Rushdie and Mark Haddon.

To date the book has collected eight reviews across the various Amazon sites, ranging from five-star to one-star. Presented here is a short road map describing what I did to initially promote Dolphin Girl. I hope these details might act as a partial resource guide for others who are looking to expand the audience for their books.

As Dolphin Girl was my first venture into the world of e-books, it took me some time to get going with promotion and marketing. I was learning all the way and soon discovered that a key requirement was to attract some reviews on Amazon.

Readers are less likely to buy a book that has no reviews. Reviews generally add a degree of legitimacy and reassurance about the quality and authenticity of a book. However, getting reviews in the first place presents a Catch-22 situation, because if people are unlikely to purchase a book with no reviews, how are you supposed to sell any copies in the hope of generating a few reviews?

If you are fortunate, one or two reviews might come through friends and acquaintances, which is a good start. Beyond that, the avenue I took was to make Dolphin Girl briefly available for download on the Story Cartel website. This is a great, free resource for authors and readers. An e-book is promoted for 21 days, allowing readers to download it for free. The only request is that the reader leave an honest review in return (on Amazon or Goodreads, etc). The review request is simply that, a request. There is no binding obligation. As a result, you might end up with only a fraction of readers following through with a review.

At the same time I ran a small, targeted ad campaign on Facebook, encouraging readers to check out Dolphin Girl on Story Cartel. This generated further downloads from potential reviewers.

Once I had five reviews on the Amazon.com website I was able to move on to paid promotional slots at a number of websites and newsletters. Most required a minimum of five Amazon reviews before they would consider listing a book in a one-day reduced price promotion. The effectiveness of these services varies, and a book's genre also plays a part in how much interest it attracts. I used a number of sites and ran a few "price pulse" promotions, spreading them across different days rather than in one big hit. By doing so I could monitor the effectiveness of the competing sites more accurately.

Most of these promotional outlets charge a fee, varying from $5 to $50. There are some that are free. The results vary from good to barely noticeable. From my experience the best were ENT & FK Books and Tips, Book Gorilla, and Book Butterfly. Others worth considering are Book Sends (with eReaderIQ) and Genre Pulse.

I should mention the "granddaddy" of these sites is BookBub. It has a colossal reach and charges hundred of dollars for a promo slot - and that's if you are lucky enough to be accepted. The current word among authors is that if you don't have at least 50 decent reviews already, you're probably going to be turned down. What BookBub also has going for it is the virtually guaranteed "positive return on investment" for an author, so the number of books they sell covers the cost of the promotional slot with a chunk of profit on top. Dolphin Girl, alas, was not featured on BookBub.

As a further aside, these sites and newsletters do a roaring trade in promoting free e-books. This was not something I did, but the theory behind making your book free, either for a limited time or permanently, is to generate more interest, more readers and more feedback.

On its promotional spotlight days, when priced at $0.99 or 99p, Dolphin Girl moved higher in both the British & Irish literary fiction and the fantasy/magical realism sub categories of Amazon's Kindle Store. It reached the top 50 in these sub categories on a number of occasions, and briefly peaked at No. 9 in the British & Irish category on September 28.

Dolphin Girl peaked in the Amazon.com Kindle Store rankings on September 28, 2015

When the book returned to its normal retail price it occasionally picked up residual sales. This was probably due to its higher sales profile during the previous promotional days. As a further benefit, Dolphin Girl is now occasionally included in the "readers of this book also bought..." section that appears below books as they are browsed by customers on Amazon.

Along the way, the book attracted further reviews. Across all Amazon platforms, Dolphin Girl currently has a total of eight reviews, of which five are 5-star, one is 4-star and two are 1-star reviews. Some people loved it, while others found it unengaging.

Whether good, bad or indifferent, reviews are useful feedback and add to a book's credibility in the eyes of potential customers weighing up whether or not to make a purchase.

All-in-all, the experience of promoting my debut e-book novel was rewarding. Although Dolphin Girl is currently not part of a promotional campaign it continues to pick up occasional online sales.

Other authors have noted that being able to promote more than one book, and ideally having four, five or more available, builds greater sales momentum than can be achieved with a single book.

I'm still learning the ropes regarding promoting and marketing an e-book. I hope this summary will assist others embarking on the same journey.

Dolphin Girl: e-book vs paperback

When Dolphin Girl was released in April it was my first foray into the world of e-books. Considering the explosion in the number of people now reading on devices such as Kindle, Kobo and other tablet apps, it made sense to bring out an e-book version alongside the paperback.

For readers and authors the cost of buying and selling e-books is far more economical in comparison with a physical book, quite apart from the instant availability and convenience of an e-book, which can be bought and downloaded in a matter of seconds from virtually anywhere in the world.

So, I decided to step into the brave new world of e-books with Dolphin Girl - albeit as a latecomer to the party.

To my surprise, all my initial sales were of physical copies of the book, even though the paperback cost three times more than the e-book. I began to wonder if I'd got the sums wrong and my readership simply preferred to have and hold a "book book".

Then, almost four months after Dolphin Girl was published it achieved its first e-book sales. It was a relief to see it finally being downloaded electronically. As a result, it briefly climbed into the top 400 in two sub-categories at the Amazon.com store twice in the space of a week. (Below is the e-book's ranking as it appeared on August 20)

It was pleasing to see Dolphin Girl attracting some attention, even though it has yet to be featured in any major advertising promotion. During the coming weeks and months I will apply some of the things I've learnt, and continue to learn, regarding e-book marketing.

A major factor to being accepted by some of the bigger book promotion outlets is the number of reviews or readers' ratings a book garners. It seems like a Catch-22 scenario - and in a way it is. But there are smaller steps that can be taken to help build momentum and with it the likelihood of a few reviews and ultimately a slot with a promotion outlet.

So I'm thankful for, and encouraged by, the words of the handful of early reviewers of Dolphin Girl.

The marketing and promotion process for Dolphin Girl is still at an early stage, although had I known what I know now it would be much further along the line. I hope to share future progress at a later date.

For now, I would like to thank all readers who have given Dolphin Girl a chance, whether as an e-book or "book book."

Dolphin Girl available here on Amazon, and also on Kobo

Bermuda Gold is a sparkling thriller

BOOK REVIEW: Bermuda Gold by Lee Slonimsky (Moonshine Cove Publishing)

When small-time private detective J E Rexroth agrees to investigate threatening calls made to the wife of a hedge fund manager it seemed like just another job that would bring in some income and help keep the wolf from the door of his downbeat office in Manhattan. But little did he know it was far from a regular case, and that the tentacles of evil reaching out for his new client were also bearing down on his world from another direction.

Rexroth is soon caught up in a murky world where big money, murders and a terrorist plot collide. As creeping paranoia takes hold, he discovers that all he values in life is on the line as he tries to unravel a sinister scheme before it is too late.

Bermuda Gold author Lee Slonimsky has drawn upon his real-life background as a New York hedge fund manager and former educator at a criminal justice college to create a compelling detective thriller that will have readers' nerves jangling as much as those of the characters caught in a web of fear, threats and deaths.

Slonimsky expertly weaves together seemingly unconnected threads as he builds suspense and ensures the reader is with Rexroth every step of the way, from New York to Bermuda and back again, as he tries to evade shadowy, menacing adversaries.

Using his knowledge of the hedge fund industry to carve out believable scenarios that could lurk in the secret world of big money investment deals, coupled with familiarity of police procedures informed from his time at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, the author has created a fast-moving and compelling detective thriller.

The vulnerabilities of the characters are well observed, as are the descriptions of the streets of Manhattan, the splendor of the greater New York environs, and the beauty of the sun-kissed island of Bermuda.

Sprinkled throughout are evocative imagery and turns of phrase worthy of a poet's mind.

There are some books that you never quite get to the end of, while others so grip you set aside extra time to read them, eager to discover how they will end. Bermuda Gold falls squarely in the latter category. It is a rewarding and thrilling read.

Bermuda Gold (Moonshine Cove Publishing) is available from Amazon

Book signing event this month

For those who live in Bermuda and are interested in picking up a copy of Dolphin Girl or Lennon Bermuda (or both). I'll be signing copies outside the Bermuda National Library on Saturday June 27, from 11am until 3pm.

There will be a number of other Bermuda resident authors there also signing copies of their work. The event is being staged by the National Library as it launches its summer reading programme.

The book signing will be on the lower verandah, facing onto Queen Elizabeth Park (formerly Par-la-Ville Park).

Book cover artist coincidence

Kit Foster's cover art

Last summer I mentioned in a blog post a coincidence involving the artist who designed the cover for Dolphin Girl.

I said I'd return to the story once the book was published, so here goes. It begins in March 2013, when I wrote a short play entitled FAE. As the title indicates, it was a play with a faeries theme.

Four months later, unbeknown to me, a novel was published entitled Fae, by writers Colet and Jasmine Abedi (the sisters write under the single name CJ Abedi). It too has a faerie world setting.

By December, the Abedis' Fae had been optioned as a possible future movie by film director Ridley Scott.

I was still unaware of Fae the novel when, in the early summer of 2014, I sought out a professional book cover artist for Dolphin Girl. There was a good chance that the Forth Bridge would feature somewhere (it is the image on the back cover), so having an artist familiar with the iconic Scottish bridge was preferable. I found Scotland-based Kit Foster and he came up with a number of cover designs, including the one which was ultimately chosen.

It was only later that I discovered Kit had designed the cover for CJ Abedi's Fae - a book that by coincidence had an identical title to my play, was published a few months after I'd written FAE, and is now optioned by one of my top five favourite directors.

As John, Riva, Fay and Fae, the characters in the play FAE might surmise, a little faerie magic appears to have been at work.

A useful writing tip

A writer can often become so closely involved in their work that they forgot to step back and take in the bigger picture. An analogy would be a painter or artist engrossed in the details of their latest piece failing to take a few backward steps from the canvas to view the totality of their endeavour.

A writer who doesn't take those metaphorical backward steps to view the bigger picture is missing out on an element of the creative process worth its weight in gold.

I'm currently putting the finishing touches to an expanded version of Dolphin Girl, including an ending that continues beyond that of the original short novel featured in 2008's Eating Clouds.

At the same time I've come up with a blurb to feature on the back of the book. A blurb is the few paragraphs on the back cover that effectively 'sell' the story to a reader. An effective blurb entices and intrigues a potential reader, but equally importantly accurately reflects what the book, and its story, offer.

A reader will soon become disgruntled if they don't find what they expected to find as a result of the blurb. Worse case scenario, a colossal asteroid slams into the Earth. Second worse case scenario, the reader feels conned by the misleading blurb and in future avoids your books.

Dolphin Girl was included at the back of the original Lulu version of Eating Clouds and so never had it own blurb. Now that it is to be a stand-alone novel, it does. That has entailed some contemplation of what exactly the story is about. And as I have gone through this process, and it can take quite a few hours, it has brought clarity into my mind about what the story sets out to portray. In doing so, it has prompted ideas on how to streamline and better highlight the overarching themes.

As I go through the book, tweaking and reordering a few things and adding some new scenes, the process has been made easier knowing exactly what needs to be achieved through the characters and events.

A well-crafted blurb can be a hugely useful blueprint or roadmap to guide a writer through the story arc they are creating.

I've come to the blurb very close to the end of the story-writing process for Dolphin Girl, but I can certainly see the value in having such a guide earlier in the day, perhaps even at the outset.

And, if you want to supercharge the whole thing, pull yourself away from the story-writing and compose both a blurb and a half-page synopsis. A synopsis is a more structured and detailed blueprint of the story.

With a blurb and a synopsis in hand a writer can confidently set forth to tell a tale and avoid getting snagged, and perhaps even lost, in the undergrowth that hides in the woods and forest of the imagination.

Book writing with index cards

Index cards are a feature of my daily routine at the moment. Each day I fill out two more with writing for my next book. In theory, once I have many hundreds of these index cards completed they can be shuffled and arranged and put to use as the blueprint to allow an unbroken 'run' at the first draft.

On the cards I write a basic sketch of a scene, or a section of dialogue, a character description, or occasionally a condensed precise of the overall story. There is a great freedom from this approach as I can write ideas and mini scenes and not get caught up with internal doubts or debates about whether or not this is the right place for this piece of action, or if it is even worth including, etc.

The sifting comes later. At the end of the index carding process all the component parts can be reassessed and then moved around - or discarded - to form a cohesive and natural rhythm to the story.

Another great beauty of this approach is making each card 'eventful' and having an identifiable part to play in moving the story forward. They are like mini episodes of action. Having these at my fingertips when I reach the point of slotting all the pieces together in the first draft should ensure a flowing storyline without much (or any) drag.

For now it is a couple of index cards each day. The 'done' pile is still relatively small, but as I warm up the speed at which I can fill out the cards should increase. The aim is to end up with between 500 and 1,000 good cards (having sifted out the naff ones) before heading into the first draft. In the picture above is my current pile and, for reference, an unopened pack of 100 index cards. There is a fair bit of work still ahead.

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. 

Stormy morning in the middle of summer

A large storm system rolled across the Island yesterday, and for many hours it became stationary above this speck in the North Atlantic.

Having risen for breakfast I was aware of the gathering gloom outside - an unusual thing in summertime in Bermuda. Then the distant thunder began to boom, getting closer as it did.

Flashes of lightning soon danced behind the closed venetian blinds (I keep them closed in most rooms in the summer to deflect the sun's hot rays). As rain pitter-pattered against the windows I finished breakfast and looked outside. From horizon to horizon grey clouds filled the sky.

My daily run would have to wait. I returned to the bedroom to read a chapter or two of my current favourite read, Mary J MacLeod's 'The Island Nurse'. However, the dark clouds so successfully shut out the brightness of day that, even at 9am, I needed to switch on the room light to read my book.

For an hour or so I lay on the bed reading the book and listening to the storm battering away outside. But for the heat it could easily have been a winter's night in mid-summer.

The storm lasted all morning and stretched beyond midday before the rain finally switched itself off. I was then able to venture outside in the fresh, though mightily humid air - thankful for a pleasant piece of metrological variety to break up these long days of summer. And who doesn't like the experience of being comfortable at home, reading a book with a thunderstorm soundtrack beyond the walls and windows?

The runner who ran across Death Valley - twice

While on vacation at the end of last year I came across a new running book by Scott Jurek, the famed US ultramarathon man who appeared in Christopher McDougall's 'Born to Run' bestseller. It was a great read, and I so I have posted my thoughts on the book, in the form of a review, here:

BOOK REVIEW: 'EAT & RUN' By Scott Jurek and Steve Friedman

Some runners do 5K races, others attempt half-marathons and marathons, but there is another breed of runner who go further much further.

How much more?

Six-and-a-half full marathons, back to back, in a single day. That’s what ultrarunner Scott Jurek did, running a staggering 165 miles in 24 hours to set a US record. And if you’ve ever wondered what it takes to run 135 miles across Death Valley in tempartures that don’t drop below 100F even in the middle of the night, then Jurek would be a good person to ask. He’s done it twice. Jurek is one of the world’s best known ultra-runners, due in a large part to his appearance in the best-selling 2009 running book ‘Born to Run’.

But he had made a name for himself long before his ‘Born to Run’ fame, being an established champion in the ultra-marathon scene and regarded as the best in the US. That in turn led to an invitation to pit himself against the long distance prowess of the legendary Tarahumara Indians of Mexico’s Copper Canyon, as chronicled in Christopher McDougall’s ‘Born to Run’.

Jurek has now written his own book about his unlikely path to ultrarunning greatness. In ‘Eat & Run’ he traces his route from his youth, where he originally competed as a skier, to his emergence as one of the greatest ultra-distance runners of the 1990s and 2000s.

“I ran, and kept running, because I had learned that once you started something you didn’t quit, because in life, much like in an ultra-marathon, you have to keep pressing forward,” writes Jurek.

The 135-mile race across California’s Death Valley, the Badwater UltraMarathon, has been labelled ‘the world’s toughest foot race’. When Jurek took up the challenge in 2005 he was already a darling of ultra distance running. But even his impressive string of victories in 100-mile races across mountains and canyons had not tested him to the limit the way Death Valley would.

Jurek’s experience in the Badwater race is a major hook for ‘Eat & Run’, however there is much more. It traces the Minnesota-born runner’s life in fascinating detail, from his childhood troubles to his immersion into the oft overlooked world of ultrarunning and his celebrated races with the Tarahumaru runners and beyond.

Along the way Jurek became a committed vegan. The ‘eat’ in the book’s title refers to the vegan recipes that tail each chapter. Throughout the book Jurek often refers to the meals, and how he discovered them and used them as a competitor.

‘Eat & Run’ is a fascinating read that moves along quickly and reveals what makes an ultra-runner tick, and what drives them to keep running far beyond the limits of most others.

It also contains many tips for runners, whatever their standard, interested in learning how to improve style and form, how to run faster and longer, and how to stay healthy — whether they want to become vegans or not.

Jurek and his co-writer Steve Friedman have done a fine job in making ‘Eat & Run’ an easy to read, compelling page-turner that is likely to appeal to seasoned runners, beginners and even non-runners.