Ahead of publication of her compelling new novel The Uncommon Life of Alfred Warner in Six Days, Books from Scotland talks to Berlin-based author Juliet Conlin about her love of history, voice-hearing, confronting difficult personal truths, her writing process, and much more.

Introduce us to your new novel The Uncommon Life of Alfred Warner in Six Days…

Alfred Warner knows he only has six days to live. A frail 80-year-old man, he has made the journey from England to Berlin to reveal a secret to his granddaughter, Brynja, which has haunted him his entire life. But when Brynja fails to meet him, Alfred’s only hope is to pass on his family secret to a stranger who takes him in. He tells her how he was tragically orphaned and of his terrifying ordeal at the hands of the Nazis — how he was conscripted into the German army and how he was imprisoned in a POW camp. And he reveals how he built a new life in Britain. Alfred’s story is remarkable. But its telling will reveal the secret which will save his granddaughter’s life…

The central protagonist Alfred hears voices. How did the character of Alfred, and his voice-hearing, come to you?

I’ve had an interest in the experience of voice-hearing for a long time. Several years ago, I was juggling three – to me separate – ideas: a short story (in German) about a German prisoner of war who decides to stay in Britain after WW2, a stream-of-consciousness narrative about a young woman suffering from mental illness, and a story based on Nordic mythology. Through some fluid, obscure, unspecifiable creative-mental process, the three somehow came together one day – and Alfred, Brynja and the Voice Women were born!

You have a keen interest in, and appreciation of, history which both of your novels – The Uncommon Life of Alfred Warner in Six Days and your debut The Fractured Man –  show. What in particular made you choose the wartime period, and the rise of Nazism, as the backdrop to The Uncommon Life of Alfred Warner in Six Days?

A few hundred metres from where I live in Berlin, there are three small brass plaques set in among the cobblestones on the pavement. From a distance, they are hardly noticeable, but up close, you can see that each carries an inscription: a name, date of birth, date of arrest and date of murder. These are small, poignant and very personal memorials to Jewish men, women and children who were deported to concentration camps and murdered by the Nazis. They are called “Stolpersteine” – Stumbling Stones. To date, there are over 7,000 such stones in Berlin, and many thousands more across Europe. In The Uncommon Life of Alfred Warner in Six Days, the protagonist spends several years of his childhood during the 1930s at the Jewish orphanage in Berlin.

My decision to locate these years of Alfred’s life here was influenced by my own background. I was born to a German mother and a Welsh/Irish father. My maternal grandfather was, by all accounts (although no-one really likes to talk about it), a Nazi sympathiser. He was killed in action in 1945. Like every other German, I have been confronted with this aspect of my collective, genetic history, and I have found it by turns frustrating, enraging, difficult and occasionally shameful. So much has been written on this aspect of history, in fiction and non-fiction, so many angles have been examined, so many stories told. But one of the conclusions I have drawn from tackling my own German-ness is that this period must never be forgotten, and that for every story told, there is at least one story as yet untold.

You live in Berlin which centrally features in the narrative as Alfred and Julia’s meeting place, and you also set the book’s action elsewhere including Scotland. How important is creating a sense of place to you as an author, and how did you research the different places for the novel’s settings?

Creating a sense of place is just as important as creating authentic, fully-developed characters. The Berlin setting was straightforward, as I live here. When I was choosing a location for Alfred’s time at a PoW camp, I decided to research PoW camps in Scotland (not least as an excuse for another visit!), and was surprised to discover that of the 600 camps in the UK during and after WW2, at least 25 of them had been in Scotland. I finally whittled my choice down to Kingencleugh Camp near the village of Mauchline in Ayrshire, as the location slotted nicely into my story. Kingencleugh Camp, Camp 112, had housed 500 German soldiers, who were put to work on the surrounding farms before most of them were repatriated to Germany after the war.

I then visited Mauchline to do some research and get a feel for the place, and was delighted by the openness and friendliness of the local residents, and their willingness to stop and have a chat over the garden fence. A few of the more elderly residents could even remember the camp (which is now completely gone, only a rusty Nissen hut remains on a farmer’s field). One old man, listening with interest to my description of the novel I planned to write, gave me a questioning look and said:

“Are ye talking about Joe?”

“Who’s Joe?” I asked.

“Johann,” he replied. “He was a prisoner of war in Kingencleugh, but he fell in love with a local lass and decided to stay.”

“And does he still live here?” I said (my heart beating wildly at having perhaps discovered a true-life Alfred).

“Aye, he does,” the man replied. “But he’s away in Spain with the wife.”

So, sadly, I didn’t have the opportunity to interview Johann, but was delighted at the discovery that life and art are so closely intertwined!

The Uncommon Life of Alfred Warner in Six Days is ambitious in scope in that it tells a whole life – and an extraordinary one at that – within its pages. Did you encounter any challenges when deciding how much of Alfred’s life to narrate and how much detail to give to the reader?

This was a huge challenge! In fact, the first draft of the novel was close to 600 pages and needed several re-writes to whittle it down to the 448 pages it has now. I had to decide on which aspects of Alfred’s life to focus in detail on and which to skim over. So, for example, his final twenty or so years are told in only a couple of paragraphs, but this reflects my own experience: the older you get, the more rapidly life goes by (at a frightening speed!).

Does having studied Psychology to doctoral level influence your writing? If so, how?

Much like writing a novel, the research and writing involved in a PhD are immense. Completing my doctorate gave me a huge sense of confidence and achievement, which I still draw on today when I feel myself falter. Also, the study of Psychology has provided me with a treasure trove of inspiration – I was very lucky to have access to the Centre for the History of Psychology at Staffordshire University when I was doing my MSc – I’m full of ideas! Now I just need the time…

Tell us a bit about your writing process. Do you have a favourite place to write? And do you follow a particular routine?

I approach writing very much like any other job, that is, I go and sit at my desk every morning at around 8 am. Mornings are my most fruitful time for creative writing, so I write as much as I can for a few hours, and save other stuff (e-mails, paperwork etc.) for the afternoons. I write a lot in longhand and need peace and quiet to write. Over the years, I’ve discovered that self-discipline and good time management are just as essential as an inspirational idea.

What advice would you give to aspiring novelists?

The obvious advice: read as much and as widely as you can. Write a lot. But also: get out of your comfort zone – if you normally listen to classical music, try hip-hop; if you are a night-owl, get up very early on occasion and take a ride on public transport at 6 am; if you like watching TV series, go and visit an experimental art installation; if you like hot climates, spend a long weekend in Iceland. It is amazing how your creative brain will respond to different, uncomfortable experiences!

When you’re not writing, what would we find you doing?

I also work as a freelance translator, which slots in well with my creative writing. Working with two languages keeps my brain plastic. I go for a short run every day to keep my joints from rusting. I also have four children who inspire and delight me, and who – importantly – have learned to respect the “Do Not Disturb” sign on my study door!

Do you have a favourite Scottish book or Scottish author that you particularly enjoy?

This might be a tough question, because there is so much fresh as well as established Scottish talent out there – A.L. Kennedy, Kirsty Logan, Louise Welsh, Jenni Fagan, Helen Sedgwick, Sara Sheridan, Graeme Macrae Burnet, John Burnside, to name but a few. But there is one Scottish writer who, for me, is nothing short of genius: Ali Smith. Smith elevates storytelling to its highest art form, and her writing leaves me feeling inspired and in awe in equal measure.

And finally, what’s next for you?

I’ve just finished the first draft of my next novel, Exile Shanghai, which is set in a Jewish ghetto in 1940’s China. This is an absolutely fascinating slice of history – Shanghai was a haven for tens of thousands of Jewish refugees fleeing Nazi Germany, who ultimately ended up in a ghetto on the other side of the world – and is at the same time disturbingly topical.

---

The Uncommon Life of Alfred Warner in Six Days by Juliet Conlin is published by Black & White Publishing on 23rd February priced £8.99. Juliet launches the book at The Edinburgh Bookshop on Thursday 23rd February.

This extract presents the account of the younger sister of the ill-fated Tsar Nicholas II. Her privileged life suddenly changed in 1917, at which time she was working as a nurse, tending casualties of World War I. The February Revolution seemed to come out of nowhere and, as she relates here, she and her family were forced to flee to Crimea. But even there they were not safe…

Extract from 25 Chapters of My Life: The Memoirs of Grand Duchess Olga Alexandrovna, Last Grand Duchess of Russia
By Paul Kulikovsky, Karen Roth-Nicholls and Sue Woolmans
Published by Strident Publishing

8th March 2017 marks the centenary of the start of the Russian Revolution, which saw the end of the Tsarist regime of Nicholas II and the introduction of Communism. The Russian Revolution was really a pair of revolutions – the February and October revolutions. So why the 8th March centenary when it’s called the February Revolution? Simple: in 1917 Russia worked to the Julian calendar, which is 12 days behind the Gregorian calendar that we (and Russia) now use.

The Flight to the Crimea

The news that a revolution had broken out in St. Petersburg came to those of us who worked in our hospital in Kiev like a veritable thunder bolt. We hadn’t heard a word – not even a rumour, but one morning it was all over the newspapers. We read the news over and over again and did not want to believe our eyes. Our patients were just as surprised and terrified as we were ourselves. They stared at us with bewildered eyes, and couldn’t stop asking what would become of them and the rest of us. We hadn’t a notion and barely knew what had happened. None of us could foresee how much it would disrupt all our lives.

My Mother immediately set off by train to the headquarters at Moghilev to see and speak with her eldest son, the Emperor. It was a trying journey for her…and it would have been many times more trying if she had known that it would be the last time she would be seeing Nicky. [Tsar Nicholas II.]

While Mother was away, the general mood in Kiev slowly changed. It was evident that the revolution was on the way. We discussed the situation and realised that we had to change our whereabouts. As soon as Mother returned to Kiev my brother-in-law, Xenia’s husband, suggested that we take her as far away as possible from the danger spot. We should take her to the Crimea where he owned an estate named Ai-Todor. It was situated on the Black Sea and here he believed that we would be in safety. He had already given his wife and children instructions to leave St. Petersburg and travel to the Crimea to join us there as quickly as they possibly could.

The next problem turned out to be how to get down there. The ordinary train connections were highly unreliable, but then with great efforts and through private connections my brother-in-law succeeded in procuring a special train which was made ready for immediate departure. My husband and I decided to accompany Mother and the others to the Crimea, but we intended to return immediately to our duties as soon as the whole family had been installed in their temporary home.

And then off we went. We set out late one night, but it was not from the station where it would have caused a commotion and where hundreds of helpless people were waiting for an opportunity to get away, but from a small wood a short distance from Kiev. We drove out there in the dark, found the train at the appointed spot, got in and away it immediately puffed. We were on our way for two days and stopped at a number of major stations. There our escort of a few soldiers stood at all the doors to prevent the wagons from being taken by storm by the crowds of demoralized people, who had decided to fish in troubled waters and who were waiting for an opportunity to get somewhere else where there was something going on. Thankfully, the journey went as planned, despite the many difficulties. All traffic was in a great state of chaos and we had the feeling that we were just waiting for our train to crash into another one which had been left on the tracks, because the staff could not agree to man it and drive it away. We still cannot really understand how our train avoided accidents and got through safely. It was such an emotional journey. As we approached Sevastopol the train slowed down and stopped at a previously arranged spot some distance from town. There some motorcars were waiting to drive us along the picturesque mountain road – some three hours’ drive – to our destination Ai-Todor […]

[…] After we had been there for three days we slowly started wondering what had become of Xenia and her children, but then they turned up safe and sound after a smooth though arduous journey from St. Petersburg. For the first week or so life seemed quiet and normal. We had the feeling that we had avoided a dreadful storm, and were in safety in our little cosy nook far away from the centre where the revolution was boiling. My mother and my sister would drive out or go for walks and enjoyed the early warm spring sunshine, which was especially early arriving that year as if it felt that we were in extra need of comfort. After a while our tingling nerves started to calm down. In March the chestnut trees were in bloom and wild yellow crocuses pushed their heads up between the stones. It was spring everywhere you looked. The only thing that worried us was the thought of my eldest brother and his family. We wished many a time that we had had them with us. The house wasn’t particularly big but we shared it as best as we could. My husband and I lived in a room downstairs next to one of my nephews. Mother, her maid and my eldest nephew lived upstairs. The rest of the family had moved over to the old house nearby.

But unrest also found its way to our little refuge. One night we were awakened by a violent knocking at our door – then it was opened and we heard the rattling of arms while a voice said: ‘Keep quiet and please put your hands on top of the blanket’. A sailor armed to the teeth stepped in, shut the door behind him and said: ‘In the name of the Provisional Government you are not permitted to leave this room!’ We were much too astonished at first to say anything so just lay there staring at this heavily armed guard.

---

What happened next?

The family survived this episode (whereas Tsar Nicholas II, his wife and children were murdered by the Bolsheviks) and fled to Denmark, only to find the Russian army on their doorstep once more during WWII…

---

25 Chapters Of My Life: The Memoirs of Grand Duchess Olga Alexandrovna, Last Grand Duchess of Russia by Paul Kulikovsky, Karen Roth-Nicholls and Sue Woolmans is out now published by Strident Publishing priced £16.99.

At Books from Scotland HQ we love this vibrant and dynamic book for children, Jill and Lion, by Glasgow-based illustrator and animator Lesley Barnes. In the stunning spreads below, our feisty young heroine Jill and her loyal companion Dog are back and ready for another magical adventure…

---

Lesley Barnes is an award winning illustrator and animator based in Glasgow. Her distinctive, bright and joyful work spans the worlds of fashion, music, children’s literature, film and product design. She is the author and illustrator of three children’s books.

Jill and Lion is published by Tate Publishing on Thursday 19th February priced £11.99.

Solnit’s lucid work offers an affirmative case for hope by tracing a history of activism and social change over the past five decades. This excerpt introduces Solnit’s central thesis, that profound and effective political engagement can lead us out of dark times by offering hope for, and the means to bring about, a brighter future.

Extract from Hope In The Dark
By Rebecca Solnit
Published by Canongate Books

It’s important to say what hope is not: it is not the belief that everything was, is, or will be fine. The evidence is all around us of tremendous suffering and tremendous destruction. The hope I’m interested in is about broad perspectives with specific possibilities, ones that invite or demand that we act. It’s also not a sunny everything-is-getting-better narrative, thought it may be a counter to the everything-is-getting-worse narrative. You could call it an account of complexities and uncertainties, with openings. “Critical thinking without hope is cynicism, but hope without critical thinking is naïveté,” the Bulgarian writer Maria Popova recently remarked. And Patrisse Cullors, one of the founders of Black Lives Matter, early on described the movement’s mission as to “Provide hope and inspiration for collective action to build collective power to achieve collective transformation, rooted in grief and rage but pointed towards vision and dreams.” It’s a statement that acknowledges that grief and hope can coexist.

The tremendous human rights achievements — not only in gaining rights but in redefining race, gender, sexuality, embodiment, spirituality, and the idea of the good life — of the past half century have flowered during a time of unprecedented ecological destruction and the rise of innovative new means of exploitation. And the rise of new forms of resistance, including resistance enabled by an elegant understanding of that ecology and new ways for people to communicate and organize, and new and exhilarating alliances across distance and difference.

Hope locates itself in the premises that we don’t know what will happen and that in the spaciousness of uncertainty is room to act. When you recognize uncertainty, you recognize that you may be able to influence the outcomes — you alone or you in concert with a few dozen or several million others. Hope is an embrace of the unknown and the unknowable, an alternative to the certainty of both optimists and pessimists. Optimists think it will all be fine without our involvement; pessimists take the opposite position; both excuse themselves from acting. It’s the belief that what we do matters even though how and when it may matter, who and what it may impact, are not things we can know beforehand. We may not, in fact, know them afterward either, but they matter all the same, and history is full of people whose influence was most powerful after they were gone.

There are major movements that failed to achieve their goals; there are also comparatively small gestures that mushroomed into successful revolutions. The self-immolation of impoverished, police-harassed produce-seller Mohamed Bouazizi on December 17, 2010, in Tunisia was the spark that lit a revolution in his country and then across northern Africa and other parts of the Arab world in 2011. And though the civil war in Syria and the counterrevolutions after Egypt’s extraordinary uprising might be what most remember, Tunisia’s “jasmine revolution” toppled a dictator and led to peaceful elections in that country in 2014. Whatever else the Arab Spring was, it’s an extraordinary example of how unpredictable change is and how potent popular power can be. And five years on, it’s too soon to draw conclusions about what it all meant.

You can tell the genesis story of the Arab Spring other ways. The quiet organizing going on in the shadows beforehand matters. So does the comic book about Martin Luther King and civil disobedience that was translated into Arabic and widely distributed in Egypt shortly before the Arab Spring. You can tell of King’s civil disobedience tactics being inspired by Gandhi’s tactics, and Gandhi’s inspired by Tolstoy and the radical acts of noncooperation and sabotage of British women suffragists. So the threads of ideas weave around the world and through the decades and centuries. There’s another lineage for the Arab Spring in hip-hop, the African American music that’s become a global medium for dissent and outrage; Tunisian hip-hop artist El Général was, along with Bouazizi, an instigator of the uprising, and other musicians played roles in articulating the outrage and inspiring the crowds.

Mushroomed: after a rain mushrooms appear on the surface of the earth as if from nowhere. Many do so from a sometimes vast underground fungus that remains invisible and largely unknown.  What we call mushrooms mycologists call the fruiting body of the larger, less visible fungus. Uprisings and revolutions are often considered to be spontaneous, but less visible long-term organizing and groundwork —or underground work —often laid the foundation. Changes in ideas and values also result from work done by writers, scholars, public intellectuals, social activists, and participants in social media. It seems insignificant or peripheral until very different outcomes emerge from transformed assumptions about who and what matters, who should be heard and believed, who has rights.

Ideas at first considered outrageous or ridiculous or extreme gradually become what people think they’ve always believed. How the transformation happened is rarely remembered, in part because it’s compromising: it recalls the mainstream, when the mainstream was, say, rabidly homophobic or racist in a way it no longer is; and it recalls that power comes from the shadows and the margins, that our hope is in the dark around the edges, not the limelight of center stage. Our hope and often our power.

---

Hope In The Dark by Rebecca Solnit is out now published by Canongate Books priced £8.99.

Best-selling children’s author Lari Don writes exclusively on why she creates strong female characters in her books for children and young adults. Arguing that the fairy tale tradition of the helpless and passive female is damaging to women of all ages, Lari pertinently suggests that, to enable a true revolution to happen, we must stop telling ‘those old tales with princesses as prizes’.

Lari Don: Why I Write Strong Girls

A maiden is tied to a rock, weeping prettily as she waits to be eaten by a sea monster, then a hero swoops in to kill the monster.

A princess is offered as a prize, along with half the kingdom, to any hero who can slay the local dragon.

A girl ignores her mother’s advice to stay on the path, is eaten by a wolf, then cut free by a man with an axe.

I loved these stories as a girl. I thought those roles were the natural place for girls in fairy tales and legends. But I wanted more for myself, so I read Nancy Drew, I watched Wonder Woman, and I realised I could imagine my own stronger girls.

Now I write strong girls.

I write fantasy adventures for 8-12 year olds, with female protagonists who don’t sit about crying prettily waiting for heroes to save them. I write male characters too, just as brave and smart, flawed and foolish, as the girls. I try to treat my characters (whatever gender, race or species) equally. But in the end, it’s always my child characters who solve their problems, rather than waiting for a passing adult to intervene, and it’s always my female protagonist who saves herself and everyone else, rather than relying on a hero to defeat the monster.

That’s why Helen’s musical skill defeats the fairy queen in Wolf Notes and why Molly’s speed saves her friends in The Shapeshifter’s Guide to Running Away.

In my novels the girl defeats the monster, partly because she’s the main character, so that’s the satisfying way to end the story, but also because I’m still the child who read those fairy tales and wondered if girls could have other roles too.

And I’m not content to settle for weeping, waiting and weddings as the only jobs girls can have in fairy tales. Traditional tales are the wellspring of our culture. If the most popular stories are about passive girls, then boys and girls of every generation have to recognise and resist that message in order to grow up with any expectation of equality.

So I try to look beyond Victorian fairy tales with girls as passive recipients of heroism, and search out older stories with active and confident girls: the Sumerian goddess of war, the Chinese girl who defeats a seven-headed dragon, the little girl in a red cap who escapes from the wolf all on her own…

I don’t just write for girls. In fact I don’t write for girls at all. I write for adventure fans. For readers of any and all genders. It’s important that we all read about physically confident female characters and emotionally intelligent male characters, as well as the other way round.

There’s been a revolution in girls’ roles in fiction. In the 70s I had Nancy Drew and Wonder Woman. Nowadays I would run out of breath listing all the strong girls my daughters can read about and watch (and become!).

But we’re still telling those old tales with princesses as prizes, so perhaps the revolution isn’t over yet…

---

Lari Don is a children’s author and storyteller. Her books include the Fabled Beast Chronicles, the Spellchasers Trilogy (the second Spellchasers novel – The Shapeshifter’s Guide to Running Away  – is published by Floris Books this month) and the collection of heroine tales Girls Goddesses & Giants.

Lari will be talking about creating strong female characters and telling heroine tales on 18^th Feb 2017 at the Scottish Storytelling Centre in Edinburgh as part of the Audacious Women Festival.

For more insight into Lari, check out this interview here on Books from Scotland.

In this exclusive Q&A, Mike McInnes, author of Homo Passiens: Man the Footballer, explains the background to his science faction book which explores the evolution of mankind in relation to football – and ‘footballing genes’ – specifically.

Q. Why is your take on evolution so “revolutionary”?
A. Because it suggests that Homo sapiens is an offshoot of an older form of humans called Homo passiens – which goes against established theories of evolution as recounted in Yuvel Noah Harari’s book Sapiens: A Brief History of Mankind. Rational explanations of human evolution abound – for neoteny (our lack of a distinct adult form), for example, and ludeny (our propensity for adult game-playing); but no-one has provided a rational explanation for bipedalism – our ability to walk on two legs. Until me. Until now. Pretty revolutionary, eh? As is my idea that humans went bipedal and evolved all sorts of anatomical oddities in order to play games like football.

Q. What sort of odd anatomical features did Homo evolve that relate to its football prowess?
A. The narrow pelvis, for starters – with two hinged legs below. This inherent instability means we were/are always on the verge of toppling over, but we can change direction rapidly – backwards, forwards, upwards and so on. Our flat feet are levered for propulsion; outstep and instep, for bending and slicing; non-opposable big toes, for shooting. And our flat neotenous faces, with their non-sloping foreheads and non-protruding jaws, form a dome-shaped head – perfect for heading!

Q. This sounds like serious stuff – especially for a spoof! Is it based on fact?
A. Oh yes. Totally. The anatomy is spot on, and I follow Darwinian principles to the letter, as well as established theories like neoteny and ludeny, courtesy of serious academics like Harari, Huizinga and Jay Gould. Our robot future with Robo passiens? All true. I draw on several real – ologies – such as physiology, pharmacology, endocrinology and genetics – to create fantastic new concepts and biochemicals: the elbow gene for gain-of-function fouling (ELB HIT alpha-1), the cortisol analogue, scortisol; fannabinoids (similar to cannabinoids); scorotonin (very like serotonin); the award-seeking dopamine analogue, hopamine; and the beautiful hopoids (released during high-stress football matches).

Q. But it goes so much further than life science. Your entertaining claims are also backed up by earth science, archaeology and anthropology. Even particle physics! How does it all fit together?A. So easily. I extend existing thinking on human relics and culture across the world, spanning China, Orkney, the Isle of Man… Stenhousemuir… among others. Only with my amalgamated views will you appreciate that prehistoric petrospheres are abstract expressions of ancient football, or understand the significance of the mession particle that binds foot to ball (as discovered recently in the Great Hedron Collider), or value my predictions for the winners of the 2050 World Cup.

Q. You did this so well that, when I read the book, some of the things that I thought were fiction were – in fact – fact. Was this a deliberate
A. Absolutely. Truth is usually stranger than fiction. Even down to the truth behind the First World Cup competition and the coal-miners from West Auckland. This is precisely why the book works so well, because fact merges seamlessly with fiction, which adds immeasurably to the fun!

Q. There is a huge volume of specialist knowledge in this book – and not just about football! So where did you get it from and how do you convey this range of knowledge without readers doubting your credentials?
A. Well, I was a pharmacist and pharmaceutical innovator for many years. I also research in the field of sports physiology and carbohydrate metabolism. I was the instigator of the famous Honey Diet and have developed a formula for forward-provisioning of the brain during sleep. In my spare time, I’m forever delving into human culture, past and present, and of course spectating the beautiful game. To wrap up all this knowledge with aplomb, in a single credible character, I devised polymath and highly esteemed academic, the evolutionary scientist Professor Gordon P. McNeil, nominally from St Andrews University in Fife. He loves to throw his theories about with the slightest encouragement, especially over a pint in the “passiens” taverns (which also feature throughout the book, and were perhaps the hardest part of my research).

Q. Back to reality, then. What was the starting point for the book – the point at which the revolution “kicked” off – if you’ll excuse the pun?
A. Actually it was very specific. I was reading Harari’s book on Sapiens and came to a passage in which he discussed how humans lack genes for football. In his words: “Evolution did not endow humans with the ability to play football. True, it produced legs for kicking, elbows for fouling and mouths for cursing, but all that this enables us to do is perhaps practise penalty kicks by ourselves … human teenagers have no genes for football.” That really got me thinking and, the more I thought about it, the more I protested!

Q. Is the esteemed Professor Harari – author of Sapiens – aware of the revolutionary whirlwind his words have spawned?
A. Oh he is, totally! I sent him Gordon P. McNeil’s reaction to (attack on) his claims about humans’ lack of footballing genes. He loved it!

Q. I can imagine why footballers will love this book; it breathes life into certain mysteries and ideas relating to the gloriousness of football – the game, its players and its fans. Has the book been recognised by the footballing fraternity?
A. Oh yes! All the normal folk love it. And a bunch of those at the Scottish Football Supporters Association. And Irvine Welsh! In fact, somewhere between Trainspotting I and Trainspotting II he found the time to write the Foreword (or Forward) – in which he makes it all sound far more anarchic than I had intended.

Q. I can’t wait to read it properly. But what’s next on the agenda?
A. You’d think I’d outdone myself, wouldn’t you? Proving that penalty kicks are the highest expression of bipedal neotenous culture of mankind … But there is more! The book touches brain energy metabolism, and this relates to Alzheimer’s disease and dementia – a terribly serious issue in real life. That’s where I go next. Watch this space.

---

Homo Passiens: Man the Footballer by Mike McInnes is forthcoming from Swan & Horn.

Out of the many tartans available, Black Watch is undoubtedly one of the most popular. But how did this particular tartan come to exist? Here we reveal the story behind the iconic cloth from past to present.

The Black Watch was formed in the wake of the unsuccessful 1715 Jacobite Rebellion, where James Francis Edward Stuart (1688–1766), son of the deposed James II, fought to put the exiled House of Stuart back on the throne.

From 1725, General George Wade (1673–1748) formed six military companies from the clans of the Campbells, Grants, Frasers and Munros. They were stationed in small detachments across the Highlands to prevent fighting among the clans, deter raiding, and to assist in enforcing laws against the carrying of weapons. In short, they were tasked with protecting the interests of the Hanoverian throne in Scotland.

Wade issued an order in May 1725, for the companies all to wear plaid of the same sort and colour. Their original uniform was  made from a 12-yard long plaid of the tartan that we know now as the Black Watch tartan. They wore a scarlet jacket and waistcoat, with the tartan cloth worn over the left shoulder. The name is said to come from the dark tartan they wore, hence “black”, and from the fact that they were policing the land, hence “watch”.

The Black Watch museum states that the cloth would be wrapped around both shoulders and firelock (a musket type of gun) in rainy weather, and served as a blanket at night.

The Black Watch saw action in the French wars (1745–1815); battles of the Empire (Crimea, Indian Mutiny, Egypt, Sudan, Boer War); First World War; Second World War; and (post Second World War) saw action in Korea; carried out peace-keeping duties in Kenya, Cyprus and the Balkans; and took part in the invasion of Iraq (2003–4). Since 2006, the Black Watch have been the 3rd Battalion of the Royal Regiment of Scotland.

Text © Waverley Books

---

The Waverley Genuine Tartan Cloth Commonplace Notebook in Black Watch is out now priced £9.99. The tartan cloth for the notebook is supplied by and produced with the authority of Kinloch Anderson Scotland, holders of Royal Warrants of Appointment as Tailors and Kiltmakers to HM The Queen, HRH The Duke of Edinburgh and HRH The Prince of Wales.

In this month’s column David Robinson encounters avant-garde artist and AIDS activist David Wojnarowicz through two books: Wojnarowicz’s  forthcoming ‘memoir of disintegration’ Close to the Knives, and Olivia Laing’s The Lonely City, which will both be published by Canongate Books in March. Delving into Wojnarowicz’s pioneering political oeuvre, Robinson makes clear his importance as both innovative artist and defiant activist.

One hundred years after the outbreak of the Russian Revolution – what the Bolsheviks called “the  February Bourgeois Democratic Revolution”, as opposed to their own “Great October Socialist” one  –  it’s easy to be cynical about revolutions and revolutionaries. A century later, the idealism of a few hardline optimists in 1917 has, after all, faded into the plutocracy and cynicism of Putin’s Russia. What’s to celebrate about that?

So I want instead to point to a different revolution and a different revolutionary – so different, in fact, that he might not have thought of himself as one. The one revolution that has made the biggest difference in my own lifetime is the bloodless one that has led to LGBT equality. Among people of my generation, every year that passes makes us look back with greater embarrassment at the “poof” jokes we used to laugh at in the 1970s and the bullying that children growing up gay would invariably encounter in the playground.

Let’s just pause for a while to look at how far we’ve come since then. These days, mainstream culture delights in highlighting the sexual intolerance that we may have on what we missed in our own times or which was completely covered up in the past. Polly Clark’s novel Larchfield, published next month and reviewed in my Books from Scotland column in March, fits perfectly into this pattern: we follow WH Auden’s search for a gay soulmate in straitlaced 1930s Helensburgh and – gay or straight alike – applaud his heroism in staying true to himself, in withstanding the massive gravitational pull of conformity. In the cinema, films such as The Imitation Game, Milk, and Pride – all, incidentally, also based on true stories – make essentially the same point. These are no longer arthouse films, no longer aimed at a niche market. Gay lives, we have quietly and collectively decided, matter.

Next month, Canongate Books will publish a new edition of artist and AIDS activist David Wojnarowicz’s Close to the Knives, the “memoir of disintegration” he first published in 1991, a year before he died. This this takes us right back to a time when, as he saw it, gay lives didn’t matter at all. He was sick and tired, he wrote in 1987, of going to funerals and memorial services of friends who had died of AIDS – as he was to do himself – realising that that their loss had made no impact beyond the room in which the service was held.

“I imagine what it would be like,” he writes, “if each time a lover, friend or stranger died of the disease their friends, lovers or neighbours would take the dead body and drive with it in a car a hundred miles an hour and blast through the gates of the White House and dump their lifeless form on the front steps.”

That’s the side of Wojnarowicz – pronounced Wonna-row-vich – I want to concentrate on here. Olivia Laing’s The Lonely City: Adventures in the Art of Being Alone gives an excellent portrait of his importance as an artist of the hidden side of late 1970s New York, of the squats in the empty buildings by the decaying Chelsea piers by the Hudson where the homeless could gather and gays could cruise, places of anonymous sex and casual crime, and enormous, unfettered freedom. Wojnarowicz’s paintings, film and photography fit neatly into Laing’s thesis about the loneliness and anomie of big city life, and as she writes in the introduction to Close to the Knives, his experience as teenage hustler and rent boy are key to the books vivid depiction of what it feels like to be an outsider in a homophobic world.

Wojnarowicz’s sheer rage, his insistence – against what was, in the 1980s, all the evidence to the contrary – that the lives of gay men dying from AIDS mattered is what makes him a revolutionary. The virus didn’t have a moral code, he insisted, and a society that thought it did was itself sick. Yet in 1987, when his mentor and former lover Peter Hujar was dying, in restaurants he would be asked to pay his bill by putting his money in a paper bag rather than just handing it over and thereby risk contamination with what Andy Warhol called “the gay cancer”. Prejudice  was viscerally real, ubiquitous, tangible: this was a disease for which there was no end in sight, and no promising lines of research, no organised, civilised way of treating those with the virus. The only way to end AIDS, said the governor of Texas, was to shoot the queers. We in Britain might like to think of ourselves as more tolerant, but we weren’t: in the same year of 1987, three-quarters of us reckoned that sex between men was “either always or mostly wrong”.  How did we get from there to here?

I don’t know the complete answer to that. I don’t know to what extent it was because as a culture we grew to love and celebrate the Freddy Mercurys, Elton Johns, and Boy Georges in our midst. In looking back at the social revolution that has all but wiped out anti-gay prejudice, I couldn’t tell you whether it was music, showbiz or the mid-1990s onset of combination drug therapies to treat AIDS that mattered more. Yet I have a feeling deep in my gut that when the recording angel finally gets around to doing the sums, David Wojnarowicz ’s eyeball-blistering howl of rage will be found to be part of the answer too. Because he scraped off the stigma when it still hurt to do so. Because he insisted on not being silent about that stigma both in his life and in his death.

I’ve already quoted from an essay in Close to the Knives where he realised the importance of making each death count, of holding the government accountable. When he died, his friends gathered outside the East Village loft in which he had lived with Peter Hujar. Hundreds of people walked in silence behind a black banner on which angry capitals announced DAVID WOJNAROWICZ 1954-1992 DIED OF AIDS DUE TO GOVERNMENT NEGLECT, and at an appointed spot, read his work and burnt the banner. 8pm, 29 July, 1992 was, notes Laing, “the first political funeral of the AIDS epidemic”.

There’s a coda to this story of a dead revolutionary. In October that year, AIDS activists staged an even bigger political funeral along the lines Wojnarowicz had envisaged. At 1pm on 11 October, they met on the steps of the Capitol, before marching off to the White House. Hundreds brought along the ashes of their loved ones. They dumped them through a chain-link fence onto the White House. David Wojnarowicz ’s ashes were among them. Is it really too sentimental to believe that it made a difference?

---

Close to the Knives: A Memoir of Disintegration by David Wojnarowicz and The Lonely City: Adventures in Being Alone by Oliva Laing are both published in paperback by Canongate Books on 2 March priced £10.99 and £9.99 respectively.

Alice Strang investigates the many women artists – and the many restrictions surrounding their vocation – in Scotland from 1885 to 1965. As artists Joan Eardley, Margaret Macdonald Mackintosh, Phoebe Anna Traquair and others struggled to achieve the same recognition and status as their male peers, the outstanding standard of the work produced by these modern Scottish women, against stifling societal odds, mark them out as trailblazers.

Extract from Modern Scottish Women: Painters and Sculptors 1885-1965
By Various Authors
Published by National Galleries of Scotland Publishing

Foreword: From Annan to Zinkeisen: Forty-five Scottish Women Painters and Sculptors’
By Alice Strang

In 1885 Sir William Fettes Douglas, President of the RSA, declared that the work of a woman artist was ‘like a man’s only weaker and poorer’.

…

As a general rule women were in the minority of [art school] students … Furthermore, the training received by male and female students was different, most significantly in terms of the limited access women had to the life class, considered ‘the bedrock of a professional art education’. In this class, models of both sexes posed, often in the nude, for the purposes of studying and drawing the human figure. It was considered morally degrading for women to view nudity and at most they were permitted to draw from a cast and later from a partially draped model.

…

The question of women students’ access to the life class was embroiled in an established, gendered hierarchy of art genres, in which depictions of the human form were of the utmost importance. Painting was the most exalted, with flower painting broadly considered the most acceptable form for women to practise. As the writer Léon Legrange declared in 1860: ‘Let women occupy themselves with those kinds of art they have always preferred… the paintings of flowers, those prodigies of grace and freshness which can alone compete with the grace and freshness of women themselves.’

…

Women artists’ choice of subject matter was sometimes called into question … Joan Eardley’s Sleeping Nude, a painting of her friend Angus Neil, provoked upset when it was exhibited at the Society of Scottish Artists’ exhibition of 1955. As Christopher Andreae has explained:

It is hard to believe she did not know she was turning an art tradition on its head – a female painter painting a male nude was almost bound to be read as an assault on acceptable convention. No ‘shock horror’ headline would have followed it if it had been a male artist painting a female nude … It received, as Henry Guy describes it, ‘some inane criticism –directed at a “Girl Artist”­­– and poor Angus was likened to “an inmate of Buchenwald or Belsen”.’

Janice Helland has pointed out how contemporary  commentators on the work of Mary Cameron, whose subject matter included bullfights and military scenes, were at pains to assert her femininity despite her subject matter: in an article about her as a ‘Scottish Artist at Work’ in the Scots Pictorial of 29 November 1902, Cameron was described as being ‘of great charm of manner, appearance and personality’, whilst Cameron herself stressed that being an artist ‘means hard manual labour … it means pulling up your sleeves and setting to work.’

Yet, attitudes towards women artists and their work were developing, as seen in a 1942 review in The Times of a women artists’ exhibition in London, whose author wrote: ‘is there any reason, any fundamental difference of outlook, which makes it necessary, or even especially useful, to show pictures painted by women apart from those painted by men? Historically there may have been such a reason, but it is hard to think of one which holds good to-day.’ The review then went on to single out Ethel Walker and Agnes Miller Parker for praise.

One of the most public forms of recognition for women artists practicing in Scotland between 1885 and 1965 was election to the membership of the Royal Scottish Academy … Josephine Haswell Miller was the first woman artist to be elected Associate Member of the RSA, in 1938. This was recalled in her obituary thus: ‘The significance of her achievement lies not only in her acceptance as an equal by her contemporaries and peers into a jealously guarded all male preserve, but even more to the fact that through her outstanding ability and effort she blazed a trail which she and others have followed to the lasting benefit of the Academy.’

…

As the twentieth century advanced, the achievements of women artists were increasingly marked with civic honours, including the award of Honorary Doctorates, such as those presented to Wilhelmina Barns-Graham; she was made a CBE in 2001 for services to art, whilst Ethel Walker was made a DBE in 1943. In 1982 and 1983 Mary Armour was made Honorary President of the GSA and of the RGI respectively. Of the former, she remarked of her first day as a student ‘if you had told me the day [I started at GSA] that one day they would make me president of the place, I would not have believed it, but it’s true.’

…

Overall, the varied experiences and achievements of the Scottish women artists examined here contradict Sir William Fettes Douglas’s opinion of them in 1885, at the same time as helping us to re-evaluate Scottish art history of the period from then until 1965. A century after Douglas’s speech, Cordelia Oliver was able to claim ‘the old imbalance between the sexes does seem to be lessening … by and large, all major exhibitions are open, now, to women on more or less equal terms.’ Perhaps the most pertinent rebuttal to Douglas was Ethel Walker’s declaration in 1938 that ‘there is no such thing as a woman artist. There are only two kinds of artist – bad and good.’

---

Modern Scottish Women: Painters and Sculptors 1885-1965 is out now published by National Galleries of Scotland priced £18.95. All images used here are taken from the book. You can read another excerpt from the book here on Books from Scotland.

MacLean’s extended political poem ‘An Cuilithionn’ (‘The Cuillin’) is featured here. Taking the iconic mountain range in Skye as a symbol for the international revolutionary movement, the poem has a significance which echoes far beyond time, country and language. An extract from this powerful poem is published here in Gaelic and English.

Extract from An Cuilithionn: The Cuillin 1939 & Unpublished Poems
By Somhairle MacGill-Eain | By Sorley MacLean
Published by ASLS

Please note: the poem below is in Gaelic and English

From An Cuilithionn 1939

Agus anns gach coire fòdhpa
gach breugaire sodail chum riù còmhnadh,
a choisinn bàrr am mòr-dhuaisean,
gach bàillidh, fear-lagha is uasal,
a dh’ith ’s a dh’imlich mun cuairt,
a shlaod ’s a spùill agus a ruaig:
bho gach coire agus sgurra
bhàrc an aon laoidh cuideachd:
“An ceann beairteis agus uaisle
gheibhear a-chaoidh ùidh nam buadhmhor;
thig is bheirear dhaibh mar dh’iarrar;
siud an comain ’s an lagh sìorraidh.”
Bhrùchd orm gàir chruaidh an iolaich:
“Tuath na leisge ’s na droch ghiullachd,
claoidh iad, tog iad agus sguab iad,
brist iad, iomain iad is ruaig iad.”
Thòisich na manaidhean air dannsa
’s gum b’ e i siud an iomairt sheannsail,
corranach an t-sluaigh a’ fàgail
an ceann gliongarsaich nan àrmann.
Thar farsaingeachd cuain agus àrainn
fhreagair Franco na Spàinne,
agus Pàp glas na Ròimhe
agus Chamberlain na seòltachd
agus caithream iolach Òdain.
Dhiùchd Bhinn is Barsalòna,
Seangaidh, Hamburg agus Hàirbinn,
Calcat, Boraraig is Lunnainn,
Pràtha is Napalais agus Muinich;
gach seòmar truagh fo roisg na grèine
don tig gaoir nam bochd ’s an èiginn,
mar a’ ghaoir air feadh an t-Sratha
a chuala Geikie is a bhrath e.
’S ged sgoilteadh guth eile an ceathach,
Lenin, Marx no MacGhill-Eain,
Thaelmann, Dimitrov, MacMhuirich,
Mao Tse Tung no a chuideachd,
bhàthadh an caithream diabhlaidh
guth nan saoi is glaodh nam piantan.
’S ged bhiodh neart is misneachd Stàilin
agamsa ri uchd na h-àmhghair,
chlaoidhteadh le sgread na fuaim mi
’s an Cuilithionn mòr a’ dol ’na thuaineal.

Air Sgùrr Alasdair ri lainnir
’s àilleachd airgid na gealaich ,
lean an glaodh ud ri mo chlaistneachd
dhrùidh is mhill e smior mo neairt-sa.
’S ged sheasadh ar Beinn Lì an uachdar
thar gach sgùrr agus bruaich dhiubh,
’s ged a chithinn creagan Bhaltois
a’ toirt bàrr air rèis na h-ealtainn,
’s ged bhiodh Beul Àth nan Trì Allt
mar a’ Bholga làn is mall,
leanadh sgread cruaidh a’ Chuilithinn
ri mo chlaistneachd ’na dhuilghinn.
’S ged chuala mi oidhche an talla
Phort Rìgh mo ghaoil, m’ eòil is m’ aithne
an seann seud, Dòmhnall MacCaluim,
siud a’ ghaoir a-mhàin a mhaireas;
is gus am bi an t-Arm Dearg còmhla
ri caismeachd tarsainn na Roinn Eòrpa,
drùidhidh iorram na truaighe
air mo chridhe ’s air mo chluasan.

Mìltean de dhaoine bochd air cnàmh
’nan closaich lobhte anns an Spàinn,
’s na ceudan mìle anns an t-Sìn,
ìobairt air am faide brìgh.
A liuthad Thaelmann anns a’ Ghearmailt
is “John Maclean” no a dhà an Albainn,
Mac a’ Phearsain fo ùir Chille Chòmhghain
’s an t-Eilean mòr glè rongach,
mise an seo air creagan spòrsa,
Alba a’ lobhadh an suain bhreòite.

From An Cuilithionn 1939 (English translation by Sorley MacLean)

And in every corrie under
every fawning liar who helped them,
who earned the cream of the big rewards,
every factor, lawyer and gent
who ate and licked around,
who stole and drove and plundered.
From every corrie and sgurr
surged the one hymn in unison:
“With wealth and rank
ever goes the devotion of the talented;
all they want will come and be given to them;
‘noblesse oblige’ and eternal law.”
Burst on me the hard cry of their slogan:
“Lazy, inefficient peasants,
oppress them, clear them and sweep them,
break them, drive them and rout them.”
The ghost band began a dance
and that was the auspicious exercise,
the coronach of the people leaving
mingled in the din of the gentlemen.
Over width of sea and march
answered Franco of Spain
and the grey Pope of Rome
and wily Chamberlain
and the revel-shout of Odin.
Appeared Vienna and Barcelona, Shanghai,
Hamburg and Harbin,
Calcutta, Boreraig and London,
Prague, Naples and Munich –
every poor room under the sun’s eye
to which comes the cry and extremity of the humble,
like the wail throughout Strath
which Geikie heard and did not conceal.
And though another voice split the fog,
Lenin, Marx, Maclean,
Thaelmann, Dimitrov, MacPherson,
Mao Tse Tung and his men,
the devilish revelry would drown
the voice of the wise and cry of the tortured.
And though in the face of distress
I had the strength and courage of Stalin,
the screeching noise would oppress me
while the great Cuillin reeled dizzily.

On Sgurr Alasdair, in the glitter
and silver loveliness of the moon,
that cry clung to my hearing,
pierced and spoiled my strength’s marrow.
And though our Ben Lee stood towering
above every sgurr and brae of them,
and though I saw the rocks of Valtos
excelling the birds’ career,
and though the Ford of the Three Burns were
like the Volga, full and slow,
the hard screech of the Cuillin
would cleave to my hearing, a distress.
And though one night in the hall
of my beloved well-known Portree
I heard the old hero Donald MacCallum,
that cry alone will remain;
and until the whole Red Army together
comes battle-marching across Europe,
that song of wretchedness will seep
into my ears and my heart.

Thousands of poor men rotting,
mouldering carcasses in Spain,
and hundreds of thousands in China,
a sacrifice of most distant effect;
the many Thaelmanns in Germany
and the one or two John Macleans in Scotland,
MacPherson in the earth at St Congan’s
and the Great Island languishing,
and I here on sporting rocks,
and Scotland rotting in sick slumber.

---

 An Cuilithionn: The Cuillin 1939 & Unpublished Poems by Sorley MacLean is out now published by ASLS priced £12.50.

We are delighted to feature the Author’s Note and part of the opening chapter from The Jungle, Pooja Puri’s hotly anticipated debut novel, and the first book from new Edinburgh-based imprint Ink Road. Here we meet Mico as he navigates the many dangers of the migrant encampment in Calais, commonly known as ‘the Jungle’, including the merciless ‘Ghost-Men’…  

Extract from The Jungle
By Pooja Puri
Forthcoming from Ink Road

Author’s Note

Much of the action of this story takes place in Calais, France. Here, on the border between land and sea, formerly lay the migrant encampment more commonly known as “the Jungle”. Its inhabitants came from far and wide – some to find a better life for themselves, others to escape political violence and war. The difficulties they endured on their journeys are unimaginable. Life in “the Jungle” was not much better. Facilities were, at best, basic; at worst, non-existent. There was little food. Charities did what they could but resources were limited.

While writing this book, I have tried to present as accurate a picture of the camp as I can. However, it is important to note that this story and its characters are a work of fiction. As such, there may be inevitable distortions between “the Jungle” as it existed in real life and the setting presented in the book. I hope, nonetheless, that in reading about Mico and Leila, readers can start to understand the despair and courage of those willing to risk everything for a brighter future.

Chapter 1

Mico was stealing.

He was lying in the dusty undergrowth, hidden by a screen of dense shrubbery. A thin layer of sweat had collected beneath his clothes; tufts of dirt and leaves clung to him like a second skin.

He inched forward. Ahead of him stood the tent. There were hundreds like it here, rising up from the ground like giant anthills. Small dots of people milled about them, their voices carrying across the air in an endless watery babble. If Mico closed his eyes he could almost imagine he was back home, fishing for squeakers or redfins. Almost.

The tent had been propped open with a bucket for ventilation, leaving just enough of a gap for him to see inside. In contrast to its neighbours, it was kitted out with everything: pans, clothes, a radio, chairs – real wooden ones, not the cobbled scraps used in the rest of the camp. The bread was on a table. Just looking at it made Mico’s stomach hurt.

Slowly he raised himself onto his haunches. He had been careful. He’d waited at the front of the camp until he’d seen the men leave. The newspapers called them people smugglers, but here they had a different name. They were the Ghost-Men. The men with magic; the spirits who could pass through borders without being seen.

There were always two of them. One was built like a crow, tall and beady-eyed; the second was a lizard, short with stumpy legs and stumpy arms. It was him you had to watch out for. Almost unconsciously, Mico raised his hand to his left shoulder. The skin had almost healed but there was a scar there now, a gift from the Lizard’s belt. He narrowed his eyes. One day, he hoped to return the favour.

Sometimes, the Ghost-Men would have other people with them, but today they had left alone. Mico had watched until they were no longer in sight of the camp entrance. He’d counted another five minutes just in case they’d forgotten anything. Then he’d crept the long way round the back of the tents. He’d made sure to stay deep in the bushes so that nobody would see him.

There were always plenty of people waiting for the Ghost-Men. Mostly new arrivals. They’d wash up on Calais hoping the Ghost-Men would help them. But the Ghost-Men were businessmen. Only if you could afford it would they spin their spell and help you disappear. Like him, most of them wanted to start a new life in England. For seven hundred pounds you’d get a place in a truck. It wasn’t the most secure option. Not now there seemed to be police on nearly every single checkpoint. Better to go in a car boot. Officers didn’t like stopping ordinary vehicles so as long as you had a decent-looking driver you’d be safe. But you needed money. A lot of it.

Mico shifted uneasily. He did not want to think what the Ghost-Men would do if they found him in their tent. But the bread was only a few paces away now. He gritted his teeth, readying himself to spring.

Suddenly, there was a movement to the far left of him. Mico dropped down like a shot. He saw the grasses rustle. Little by little, a foot emerged, followed by a hand, then the mud-stained face of a boy. He glanced warily around him, before taking a couple of steps forward. He stopped again, his ears pricked for any sound. Finally satisfied he was alone, he darted towards the tent.

A knife of frustration stabbed through Mico as the boy snatched up the bread. For a moment, he thought about confronting him. He could threaten to reveal him to the Ghost-Men. Force him to hand the bread over. But the boy was a lot bigger than him. A bruise the size of an orange gleamed on his chin. One thing was for certain. Mico wouldn’t be able to make him do anything.

He watched as the boy lay down on one of the camp beds. What was he doing? He had the bread. Why didn’t he leave? But the boy was clearly in no hurry. Snatches of tinny-sounding music swelled into the air as he turned on the radio.

“Get out, stupid,” whispered Mico.

The boy’s head snapped up. Mico instinctively flattened himself against the ground but it was not him the boy had heard. Through the long grass in front of him he saw the Ghost-Men entering the tent. The Lizard came first. The Crow, as always, followed behind.

---

The Jungle by Pooja Puri is published on 16th March by Black & White Publishing’s new YA imprint Ink Road priced £7.99.

In Creating Freedom, Raoul Martinez brings together a torrent of mind-expanding ideas, facts and arguments to dismantle sacred myths central to our society. In this Preface Martinez examines the language of freedom used today which ‘frames the most urgent issues of our time and the deepest questions about who we are and who we wish to be’, to ultimately propose that we must ‘reclaim’ freedom in order to transcend control over profit and power.

Creating Freedom
By Raoul Martinez
Published by Canongate Books

Preface

Free markets, free trade, free elections, free media, free thought, free speech, free will. The language of freedom pervades our lives, framing the most urgent issues of our time and the deepest questions about who we are and who we wish to be. Freedom is a stirring ideal, central to the concept of human dignity and visions of a fulfilling and meaningful life. Its universal appeal, its ability to unite and inspire, have long made it a powerful political weapon. For some it is a clarion call for revolution, for others a justification of the status quo. Academics, think tanks, religions, political parties and activists have recast the concept in different ways. In the scramble to define it, the ideal of freedom has been pushed, pulled, twisted and torn; expertly moulded to suit the interests of those with the power to shape it.

Even as they steer our economies, democracies and judiciaries, today’s dominant conceptions of freedom are unknown to most people. They are part of the conceptual foundation upon which society has been built, framing our thinking on everything from punishment and reward to capitalism and democracy. But this foundation, mixed as it is with myth and illusion, is crumbling. Plagued by civilisational crises – eco­nomic, political and environmental – the towering edifice it supports is not only unstable and unsustainable, but unjust. For too long the lan­guage of freedom has been used as a tool of control, helping to justify poverty, erode democracy and lend legitimacy to barbaric punishment.

As inequality soars, economic crises erupt, people work longer for less, as refugees surge across borders, corporate power intensifies, forests disappear and sea levels rise, it is time to engage in a fundamental reassess­ment of this hallowed ideal. When a society fails on multiple fronts, its foundational ideas must be questioned.

A simple principle animates these pages: the more we understand the limits on our freedom, the better placed we are to transcend them. We may well be less free than we like to think, but only through under­standing the freedom we lack can we enhance the freedom we possess. Ignorance of our limitations leaves us vulnerable to those able to exploit them. Facing up to the limits on our freedom explodes a number of persistent myths – myths surrounding individual responsibility, justice, political democracy and the market. Some of these myths persist because they advance the interests of those in power; others because they flatter us, offering false comfort. All come at a price. The way we think about freedom shapes our view of the present and our vision of the future. It is a lens through which we interpret and evaluate the world, a compass by which we set our course. But not all conceptions of freedom are created equal. Each is based on assumptions about the world, some of which fly in the face of evidence and logic.

A sharp distinction is often drawn between questions of free will and those of political and economic freedom. Traditionally, these concepts have been separated into distinct categories, but this obscures more than it reveals. We dissect reality into manageable parts for study, but, if we do not put those parts back together in order to gain an understand­ing of the whole, we risk losing sight of the big picture. We risk losing touch with reality. This danger is inherent in modern education where the price of progression through the system is specialisation. Too often, where we should discover connections, we are taught to see impassable subject boundaries, but the limitations on our freedom are intercon­nected. A thorough understanding in one area enriches and changes our perception in others. To delve deeply into the meaning of freedom we have to breach disciplinary boundaries along the way. Insights and evi­dence from philosophers, psychologists, economists, historians, scientists, criminologists and environmentalists all play a role in the discussion to come. By building connections and teasing out their far-reaching im­plications, a radical, cohesive framework emerges – one that provides a much-needed overview of where we are and where we could be.

On the one hand, parts of society remain passive and deeply cyni­cal about the possibility of change; on the other, social movements are rapidly growing around the world in response to the interlocking crises facing us. More and more people are questioning the systems that domi­nate their lives and diminish their liberty. Against this backdrop, it is time to reclaim the ideal of freedom for the urgent task of putting people and planet before profit and power.

We need a movement born of a shift in consciousness, one that will challenge the assumptions upon which our society is founded. To value truth – that elusive but all-important ideal – is to try and follow it beyond the shell that encloses our present understanding: to break through the defining labels of our inherited identity, the disciplinary boundaries that characterise our education and the limits set by society on our imagination. This book challenges ingrained assumptions about ourselves and the world and calls for an urgent transformation in our thinking and behaviour. It is a manifesto for deep and radical change. Through the prism of freedom, it examines the limitations of our dominant ideas and the failings of our current system, but it also explores the great potential that exists to create something better. The ideas and means to do this already exist, but we need to share them with each other, connect with each other and act on them. We need a revolution in our thinking that will spark a revolution in the way we organise our lives and structure our societies. A better world is possible, but if we take our freedom for granted we extinguish the possibility of attaining it.

---

Creating Freedom by Raoul Martinez is out now published by Canongate Books priced £20.00.

George MacLeod, founder of the Iona Community, is introduced as a Seanachaidh – Gaelic for storyteller – by Ron Ferguson who traces MacLeod’s journey back to his beginnings in Glasgow, preaching salvation to huge crowds on the streets of Govan.

Extract from George MacLeod: Founder of the Iona Community
By Ron Ferguson
Published by Wild Goose Publications

Tell Me the Old, Old Story

There is a Gaelic term, Seanachaidh (pronounced Shenachay), which fits George MacLeod. It means a story teller, a Celtic bard who tells tales and hands on the oral tradition. These folk tales are not just for interest, though they are truly interesting; they are told over and over, and the retelling helps bind the community together.

Jesus of Nazareth was, on one level, a Seanachaidh. He told vivid stories and parables which gripped the imagination. The tales had punchlines and stayed in the minds of his disciples, and are still retailed two thousand years on. The Sermon on the Mount was a composition of oft-repeated sayings and word-pictures which haunt the imagination. Vividness, concreteness and atmosphere are essential to such stories and sayings, which can be much more easily passed down the generations than can a thesis. St Columba of Iona was a Seanachaidh, his poems and word pictures luminous in the Celtic mist.

George MacLeod was aware of the power of the story. In his lectures to Church of England ordinands in 1936 (he also gave the Warrack lectures on preaching at Edinburgh and St Andrews Universities the same year) he advocated what he called ‘modern parabolic’ preaching – the use of powerful stories and images to engage the imagination. He practiced what he preached, repeating and repeating and repeating until his stories became a community litany.

How did the Iona Community really begin? The Seanachaidh tells it himself. ‘I remember preaching individual salvation in the street in Govan one day – yes to five hundred men on a weekday at 4 o’clock. What else was there for them to do in the market place but listen to curate or Communist? An outspoken man in question time, speaking almost as God spoke to Isaiah, asked: “Do you think all this religious stuff will save?” Very down at heel he was, but very clear of eye. Suddenly, as he was speaking, I realised he was preaching the gospel and not I. I asked him to come up on the platform, but he refused and left the meeting.

‘Some weeks later I received a message asking me to go to hospital and see a man called Archie Gray. I had never heard the name before, but when I reached the hospital I found it was my questioner from the meeting and he was dying of starvation. The man was single, in a whole household of unemployed, which he had left because he felt he was eating too much of the rations. Out of 21 shillings a week he was sending 7/6d a week to a ne’er-do-well brother in Australia. He said he was bitter about the Church, not because it was preaching falsehoods, but because it was speaking the truth and did not mean what it said.

‘Archie Gray was the true founder of the Iona Community.’

Typically, there are several versions of this story with variations and embellishments, all told by George at different times. The facts are now beyond recall: the truth lives on. At the heart of the myth there is the reality of a street encounter between an unemployed man and a privileged upper class preacher, in which the minister suddenly finds himself addressed by God in a moment which changes his life. To hear George retell the story with all the oratorical gifts at his command is first to be drawn into the Govan street crowd, and then to be addressed directly. Thus in the riveting modern parabolic preaching of the theatrical Govan Seanachaidh, a raw Glasgow street encounter becomes living story becomes contemporary Word-event becomes life-changing moment.

The story, and the repetitions of it, provides the main clue to the understanding of George MacLeod as he moves towards the founding of the Iona Community. It points to the burning heart of his conviction: that the Church has the message which the world needs to hear and it must not be apologetic about it in the face of other ideologies – but the message is being denied by the life and practice of the messenger. The story tells us more about George MacLeod than it does about the shadowy figure of Archie Gray. George despairs of the Church precisely because he loves it, and because he believes the Church to be the one body which can point the way forward for the world. The point is made in his lectures on preaching.

‘One of our local Clydeside brilliants, a quasi Communist who has smoked more of my cigarettes than any other man alive, suddenly burst into my room unexpectedly to proclaim, “You folk have got it: if only you knew that you had it, and if only you knew how to begin to say it.” It was his certainty that rebuked me; his implied need that moved me. What in effect he said was, “You know you could save me and you know you aren’t doing it.”

In leaving Govan, then, George MacLeod was seeking to make an experiment which would help the Church be true to its own message and, in a deep sense, to find its message.

---

George MacLeod: Founder of the Iona Community by Ron Ferguson is out now published by Wild Goose Publications priced £14.99.

Longlisted for the Walter Scott Prize of Historical Fiction, A Petrol Scented Spring shines a spotlight on repression, jealousy and love, and the struggle for women’s emancipation. Here we are introduced to sisters Arabella and Muriel Scott as Arabella’s desire to vote fosters a burgeoning interest, and later an active role, in political protest which leads the sisters to a London jail.

Extract from A Petrol Scented Spring
By Ajay Close
Published by Sandstone Press

A Petrol Scented Spring

I think of her as I saw her that day in Kensington, while Bill stopped Hilda from using the hammer she had brought.

That swan-like beauty. Serene amidst shattering glass.

Have you ever really looked at a swan? Curiously self-conscious. They hold their lovely necks so stiff it makes my shoulders ache. But if you rile them and they go for you with their stabbing beaks, they’re not so elegant.

I can’t be certain it was her. But this is my story, and hers was the face that floated into my head when I finally put two and two – or should I say, two and one – together. Hers or another’s, it doesn’t really matter. She’ll have felt the same blend of terror and elation. The suddenly-dilating capillaries. A kick-start from the adrenal gland. I went through something similar ten years later, the first time I performed an amputation, so I know how it feels to bluff your way through the unthinkable. And afterwards, to look in the glass and see the self you always hoped you’d become.

How could he not fall for her?

How can I not imagine myself in her shoes?

 

Arabella Scott.

Second sister in a brood of female brainboxes (with one petted baby brother) but, unlike so many other ambitious, intelligent Scotswomen, not a doctor. She can’t have been squeamish about gore, given what she put herself through, so why follow the more conventionally feminine path of teaching? Why else but ego? All those young hearts in love with her. Or am I being unfair?

She was used to taking a lead. That was the difference between us. The whole country was her classroom. She would instruct, and so improve, us all. What a marvellous chance she was given: to shout and smash and insult and burn in the name of high principle. All the petty irritations, the boredom – and God knows, it was boring, being a young woman then – all of it rolled up into a great yell of injustice. She saw the opportunity, and grasped it, while I went about coveting other women’s hats, and drinking myself lightheaded on Darjeeling, and flirting with young nincompoops, thinking myself quite the heartbreaker.

It starts at university. The old story. A new self. New friends. No one to pull you down, recalling that time the minister caught you watching his spaniel mounting Mrs Lawrie’s pug. If you want to be the very embodiment of high-minded intellect, who is to gainsay you? Then there’s the way your footsteps echo in the Old College courtyard, the freshness of your complexion against the grey stone, your crisp white blouse, the easy sway of your uncorseted gait, your waist so sweetly narrow in the cinch of your not-quite-ankle-length skirt. A bluestocking! A wholly new kind of woman – well, apart from lady novelists and Renaissance queens. The intellectual equal of any man, as rational and purposeful and far-sighted, but with an extra soulfulness. Born to show both sexes how far they fall short.

She has never given a thought to the vote, but now that it’s been mentioned, of course she must have it. And the women who come to speak at the Suffrage Society are so much the sort of women she would like to be. So assured and passionate and imperious. And it’s such fun, getting all dressed up to carry the banner, making speeches on a soapbox, heckling members of parliament.

It helps that she has her sister beside her. Dear Muriel. Clever, but not quite as clever. Courageous, but not in the same reckless way. She can’t remember a time when Muriel was not looking up at her with that admiring gaze. And part of what dear, loyal Muriel so admires is her big sister’s beauty. There’s no getting away from it: a beautiful woman can do things a plain woman had better not attempt. If it’s injustice that galls you, there’s injustice. Why should one pair of eyes, one nose, one mouth, be more pleasing than another? And not just pleasing: more aloof and unknowingly voluptuous, more like a ripe plum weighting down the branch.

Muriel is a solid little thing, her lips a little thinner, her eyes a little more bulbous. Touching in her true-heartedness, but not a beauty. They share rooms while studying at Edinburgh University. They walk to lectures together. They whip each other into a frenzy of indignation over the iniquities of our so-called democratic system. They admire the English heroines who get themselves arrested and starve in gaol, but their own roles are no less necessary. Chalking on pavements, handing out membership forms, waving placards at by-election meetings. In 1909 they travel to London to deliver a petition to the Prime Minister and are arrested for obstruction and sentenced to twenty-one days in Holloway Gaol, where they refuse to eat.

---

A Petrol Scented Spring by Ajay Close is out now published by Sandstone Press priced £8.99. Ajay’s new novel The Daughter of Lady Macbeth is published by Sandstone Press on 16th February priced £8.99.

This guest post from Floris Books highlights the enduring popularity of the traditional Scottish song ‘The Skye Boat Song’ and introduces their new beautifully illustrated take on this dramatic and much-loved ballad for a young audience. You can also listen to a performance of The Skye Boat Song by a traditional Gaelic singer – why not sing along?

Singing History: Speed Bonnie Boat

Speed, bonnie boat, like a bird on the wing,
“Onward!” the sailors cry;
Carry the lad who’s born to be king
Over the sea to Skye.

A few weeks ago, under cold, grey January skies the cast of Outlander were filming at the bottom of the Royal Mile. Unsurprisingly, a sudden flurry of excitement followed as the press and fans rushed to capture a glimpse of the cameras, the crew and the claymores. The popularity of Diana Gabaldon’s creation is one of the key signs of a sudden resurgence in interest surrounding Bonnie Prince Charlie and the Jacobite Rebellion.

Nevertheless, this new appetite for all things Jacobite is not restricted to film and TV. This Spring, Edinburgh-based Floris Books are publishing a new picture book inspired by the Skye Boat Song. Part of the Traditional Scottish Tales series, Italian artist Alfredo Belli has beautifully illustrated this new version, which introduces children to the history of the last Stuart Prince and the ’45.

The book provides a child-friendly introduction to the Young Pretender, his fight for the British throne, his defeat at Culloden and his flight to the Isle of Skye, where he sought refuge with the help of Flora MacDonald.

Some verses of the Skye Boat Song have been sympathetically reworked to adapt it for young readers. As Senior Commissioning Editor, Eleanor Collins notes, ‘This is not the first time that someone has reconsidered the lyrics of the Skye Boat Song. Robert Louis Stevenson wrote his own version in the nineteenth century, and likewise, the Outlander series altered the song for their own purpose, notably changing the chorus.’

Asked to describe the process of reworking such a famous song for a younger audience, Eleanor says ‘The main challenge was to retain historical accuracy while distancing young readers from the graphic horror and carnage of the battlefield. Speed Bonnie Boat gives the original song plenty of space, and also constructs a wide narrative arc that balances lyricism with historical detail. Without sanitising the bloody history of the Jacobite rebellion, this new version acknowledges the loss of many clansmen who died at Culloden, while using vocabulary appropriate to younger children.”

Crucially, the Floris Books version does not end on the battlefield. Instead the reader is left with a sense of calm and peace as they see the young Stuart Prince safe out of harm’s way on the Isle of Skye.

 

Singing Your Way Through History

The music of the Skye Boat Song is a Scottish folk tune that was traditionally used as a rowing rhythm. In the 1870s Anne Campbell MacLeod heard the tune in Skye, and she arranged it for lyrics by Sir Harold Boulton. The song quickly became popular and it remains one of the most well known Scottish songs, at home and abroad.

You can listen to a version of the song here, sung by traditional Gaelic singer, Catherine Tinney.

 

Why not try singing the tune yourself? Below is the sheet music for the main chorus, as well as the melody for each verse. Sing your way through history!

 

 

---

Speed Bonnie Boat will be published by Floris Books on 16th March 2017 priced £6.99.

 

 

 

From the Prologue of Errant Blood, the new novel by Highlands-based author C. F. Peterson, this excerpt takes place in Southern Spain. Joshua, our protagonist, is an African selling wallets along the Costa del Sol. He got off a boat from Africa three years before, and does not know where the boat with his family went. He now finds the trafficker, the ‘fat man’ with the tattoo…

Extract from Errant Blood
By C. F. Peterson
Forthcoming from Scotland Street Press

Prologue

Towards midnight the fat man came out onto the balcony and lit a cigarette. He was drunk now, trying to obliterate the dirty African across the street. He spat and watched. Joshua waited. The man finished his cigarette, went back inside, and came out again in a hurry carrying a cup. He ran down the stairs and across the street and jerked the cup towards Joshua, who flinched as the salt hit his face and made a thousand tiny beats on the pavement. “Vete!” the man shouted, “En el nombre de Jesucristo! Vete!” He pulled a crucifix from a pocket, brandished and then threw it. It bounced off the gate above Joshua’s head and landed on the pavement. Joshua did not move. Somewhere within he felt a strange sensation, all the more strange for being familiar. It was laughter rising, for the first time in three years, recalling faces and bright forest. The man placed his hands on his knees, took deep breaths, then vomited. When he had finished he approached the being that was not a ghost, leant down and slapped a hand against Joshua’s leg and pulled at the arm that covered the lower half of his face. The man still looked afraid, and still did not speak. He took out a pile of notes and tossed them on the ground. Look, he is going away! He thinks he has solved you! Stop him. Say the words.

“Donde Singa?” said Joshua in a loud, clear voice. The fat man stopped with one foot on the pavement on the other side of the street. “Donde Singa?” said the African, louder. The man turned and spoke in Spanish.

“Donde Singa? Where is your Singa? How should I know? The boat has been gone since three years!”

“Donde? Donde barco? Donde Eloissey”

“Dead! All dead! Like you!” he waved his hand as he turned his back, “Vete!” Joshua did not move. As the man climbed the stairs he called out again.

“Donde barco!” like an insult. The fat man paused but continued and slammed the door shut. “Donde Barco?” shouted Joshua. He stood up and shouted again and again at the door, “Donde barco? Donde esta? Donde Eloissey?” Another door opened further up the street, a light went on in the villa behind him and he stopped shouting and sat back down, feeling weak and nauseous, his breath coming in short gasps. But he smiled as he drew up his knees and laid his head in the crook of his arm. He had shouted for the first time in three years. He had almost laughed. He was alive again: alive, and about to faint from hunger and thirst. He was awake. He was no longer dreaming the long dream of begging and hawking up and down the Costa, through the overflowing tide of ghost people in the summer and the ghost towns of winter. And yet the dream world still beckoned. He had a premonition of physical pain, the price he would have to pay if he was to stay alive. As his eyelids were about to fall he got up, crossed the street and climbed the stairs to the balcony.

The television beyond the door blared clapping and laughter. Joshua knocked, waited and then tried the handle. The door opened into a chaotic living room, the details dancing in television light. Beer cans, an overflowing ashtray and a half-eaten meal lay on a low table; piles of clothes lay on chairs and the couch. The man came into the room from the one behind. Joshua watched the fat fists clench and unclench.

“Donde barco?” he whispered from a dry mouth. The man came at him with both hands outstretched and caught him in the chest, knocking him back against the wall. He thought about fighting back, but it would have been pointless. Although drunk, the man was agile and fast and much stronger. The years of near starvation and sleeping in abandoned houses had pared Joshua’s muscles to the last essentials. The man could see this and chose to slap rather than punch. He slapped the beggar to the ground, knelt on his chest and slapped his face until the lips and nose bled. Then he pulled the limp figure upright and threw it across the room. Joshua lay where he fell, expecting more. But the man sat on the couch and lit a cigarette, watching him.

“Donde?” said Joshua. The man threw an empty beer can at his head.

“Where is the Eloissey?” said Joshua. The man threw a full beer can. When he had finished the cigarette he took out a phone and touched the screen.

“It didn’t work. He’s in my apartment. What now? I don’t have a pistol, and even if I did what do I do with the body? He wants to know where the boat went.” He listened. “You serious? What if he does get there?” He listened again, shrugged and touched the screen.

“Listen shitfuck. Do you know where Scotland is?”

---

Errant Blood by C. F. Peterson is published in March by Scotland Street Press priced £9.99.

Irish-born Triona Scully, now a resident of Edinburgh, shares her thoughts on feminism in this guest post which draws on the experience of writing her debut novel, Nailing Jess, while being mindful of, and a passionate advocate for, feminist history.

In the beginning, well not quite the beginning, sometime after the big bang and upright monkeys, but way before stone washed denim, there was the word, and the word became God, which was actually a big leap. But the word became much more than that. It became religion and it became law and it became culture and it became truth and truth had a sex and it was male. Truth, it must be said, before we realised the world was round. You’d think when we figured this out, there might have been a rethink about a few more facts, but nope, as the witch hunts which postdate this knowledge prove, man still clung steadfastly to a deep seated, politically, legally and socially validated belief in his innate superiority.

Feminist history for the masses begins around the end of the eighteenth century and usually breaks down into three waves. First wave got us the vote and some schooling and a bit better pay. Without these conditions, the second wave could never have sat around all day, smoking fat ones, reading books, and working out how badly treated women still were. This education was then put to use writing books, which changed lots of laws and lives, and also introduced some great concepts like ‘androcentrisim’ and ‘patriarchal structure’ into the counter culture revolution. Now, I know they are hard on the tongue, but these types of words form the core of feminist thought. Without an understanding of them, it is impossible to implement any form of meaningful social change.

Or at least that’s how it used to be. Now in the third wave, which could not have emerged without the practical actions of the second wavers, there comes a new, shinier, easier to apply type of feminism. Less rigid than previous incarnations, it aims to be all inclusive and seeks to fight all ‘isms’ everywhere, which is a huge task for an ideology that still hasn’t cleared the desk on its own basic aims. To question their ethos is to get slammed with a ‘phobic’ tag, and truth is, I am afraid. Since the banking fiasco, funding has crashed across the board for women’s support services. They’re cutting our help lines and closing our refuges and refusing us legal aid. They’ve taken our homes and reduced our employment prospects, and worked us harder for less benefits, and why? Because the big boys got a bit chip happy down at the casino. And where were the new-agers when all this went down? Uploading philosophical musings to their bloated social media accounts.  ‘Now, why can’t we all just get along?’ they ask, batting mascara clogged doe eyes at a YouTube camera. And we’re still waiting for a real revolution.

My debut novel, Nailing Jess, looks at the role of gender in the serial killer sex crime genre. Not in a dull, analytical way. More in a ‘Ah, I get it now, that’s why she threw the dinner at me last night’ sort of way. Nailing Jess is a crime novel that knows its feminist history.

---

Nailing Jess by Triona Scully is published on June 17th by Cranachan Publishing.

Providing a modern interpretation of the geological history of Britain by placing this in historic, social and artistic contexts, GeoBritannica explores what nature and humankind achieve when united. We highlight the geology of the Southern Uplands and Galloway and explore the long-standing artistic significance of the region, from Bronze Age cup-and-ring markings, to the ‘Glasgow Boys’ in the twentieth century.

Extract from GeoBritannica: Geological Landscapes and the British Peoples 
By Mike Leeder and Joy Lawlor 
Published by Dunedin Academic Press

Southern Uplands and Galloway

Kirkcudbright County is very beautiful, very wild country with craggy hills somewhat in the Westmoreland fashion…Our landlady of yesterday said very few Southrens passed these ways. The children jabber away as in a foreign Language – The barefooted Girls look very much in keeping – I mean with the Scenery about them…
– John Keats, writing to brother Tom from Auchencairn in the first week of July 1818

I would hope that collectively these arches are a celebration and monument to the Scottish people and the travels they have made, and that they will act as a connection between those who have left and those who have stayed here…
– Andy Goldsworthy speaking of his landscape sculptures, Striding Arches, located in the hills around Cairnhead Glen, Dumfriesshire

This round-peaked, glacially dissected plateau founded mostly in Lower Palaeozoic rocks is mountainous in places and much travelled through; it must be crossed to reach or leave Scotland by land. For northward invaders and colonizers – Romans, Angles, Normans and English – it was the necessary land route into wealthy Midland Scotland. The alternative before turnpikes and railways was by boat along the eastern seaboard, the route a sickly John Keats took back down to London from his Scottish hike in the autumn of 1818.

The steep-cliffed coast here is due to resistant Silurian outcrops, a challenge for construction of this branch of the rail link from Edinburgh to London. From Dunbar to Cockburnspath and again from Burnmouth to Berwick between its numerous cuttings the traveller gets glimpses of spectacular coastal views: folded and faulted Lower Palaeozoic greywackes and the vivid red-brown hues of the Old Red Sandstone – perhaps even a hopeful glance at Pease Bay, towards the site of Hutton’s unconformity at Siccar Point.

Dunbar itself, like Berwick, had a strategic position; with its castle on a volcanic outcrop it was a much fought-over part of Anglian Northumbria for several centuries. Neighbouring East Barns featured a notable Mesolithic site. Here, prior to a quarry extension, geophysical surveys and rescue excavations discovered post-holes for a 6m-diameter roundhouse whose hearth deposit was dated to 10ka, the earliest preserved house in Scotland.

The highest ground over 600m is in the Lammermuir, Ettrick, Lowther and Galloway Hills, all deeply glaciated, the rounded summits with blanket peats, valley-fringing crags and boulder fields. As in Grampian, the Galloway massifs of Criffell, Cairnsmore-of-Fleet, Merrick and Cairsphairn are rooted in resistant granitic and intermediate intrusions. Their corries hosted the nuclei of Quaternary ice that flowed out into the Irish Sea and away southwards, carrying within them the tell-tale igneous stones that became glacial erratics.

Away from the granites, the lower landscapes are pastoral country with scattered NE–SW trending Siluro- Ordovician outcrops – gorse-covered, rock-slabbed ridges that end in skerried shores or coastal cliffs, many of which carry Bronze Age cup-and-ring markings (Fig. 23.3). The foothills of Cairnsmore feature the striking hillside Neolithic court tomb of Cairn Holy, its massive dark exhumed greywacke slabs fanning open to the sky like brutally broken bad teeth. The cliffed fastness of Criffel’s southern faulted margin, with its vivid-pink felsitic and porphyritic dykes, hosts the Iron Age broch of the Mote of Mark. The Novantae here were subdued by Agricola in AD 82. From the Rhinns of Galloway in the far west, he briefly (perhaps optimistically) contemplated a single-legion invasion of Ireland.

The early conversion of the Southern Uplands Brythonic tribes to Christianity was aided by the construction of huge masoned preaching crosses in local stone that stood near main routes or early churches. The largest and unique survivor is the early-seventh-century Ruthwell Cross located close to the coast a few miles east of the Nith estuary. This 5.5m high carved Permian sandstone block has panels that feature both figurative work (e.g. shepherd with lamb,birds eating grapes on the vine) and decorative themes. Most famous of all are the runic lettered inscriptions discussed in Chapter 16. Cultural and architectural scholar Nicholas Pevsner regarded the Ruthwell Cross, together with that at Bewcastle,as‘the greatest achievement of their date in the whole of Europe…’(but he knew nothing of Ireland).

The closeness of Ulster led to the emergence of both Ulster Scots and Galloway Irish as cultural groupings in modern times. Such links originated after Elizabeth I’s ‘plantations’ and later during the Jacobite troubles and the Irish Famine. A stage-coach service subsequently wended its slow way from Stranraer across once notorious roads to Carlisle and southwards, amply documented in the letters of Viscount Castlereagh of Castle Stewart in Down to his wife Emily, staying with her sister at Blickling Hall, Norfolk. By 1859–61 the rail link from Carlisle to Stranraer via Dumfries opened and today the trucks of Ulster carriers roar along the only partially upgraded A75. They bypass places like Tongland, up the River Dee from Kirkcudbright with its striking Telford bridge and a beautiful concrete Art Deco hydro-electric station.

The most efficaceous routes to and from Glasgow and the western Midland Valley are provided by geological structure: low ground along the faulted Permo-Triassic rift basins of Dumfries, Lockerbie and Thornhill. These linked the earliest Roman marching routes, the former a rich source of fine red-brown building and monumental sandstone, notably at the Locharbriggs quarries. The M74 now screeches through the Lockerbie basin into the Lower Palaeozoic core via the Beattock pass, with its nod to glaciated Moffat valleys and headwaters of the Clyde. It was here in the Lowther Hills of south Lanark and northern Dumfriesshire that lead, zinc and gold were worked around Leadhills and Wanlockhead (the highest Scottish villages, around 450m); gold in the sixteenth century and lead/zinc from the early seventeenth century to the 1930s. The lead was blasted and shovelled from vein ores, and the gold panned from valley-floor alluvial deposits. The latter provided coinage and crowns (2 kilograms in total weight) for James V and his Queen, Mary of Guise; the metal may still be panned (by extreme optimists) under licence. In their spare time the lead miners set up an early working-men’s library in the 1740s, supposedly the oldest subscription library in the Island.

From late-medieval times the narrow north–south glens and valleys of the central Southern Uplands hosted important ‘clan’ groups (Humes, Dixons, Kerrs, Johnstons, Scotts, Elliots, Irvings, Maxwells and others). They were cattle-breeding pastoralists with a marked tendency to brigandage and feuding, both with kinsfolk, neighbours and over the border. Pacification by James VI led eventually to a largely legal cattle trade along the drove roads of Nithsdale southwards. One popular route led the skinny but hardy black Galloways from Carlisle far south-east to fatten up on the water meadows of East Anglia prior to sale at Smithfield.

A few decades after Union, numerous market towns were planned and (re)built. Factory industries developed, including boot-and-shoe, weaving and bobbin-making, powered by water and steam. Dumfries and Stranraer were and are the largest towns. Dumfries, the old town constructed from Locharbriggs sandstone, is the cultural and administrative centre of central Galloway. It lies snugly in the hollow of its Permo-Triassic rift basin, shaltered below the smooth leeside slopes of Criffell. Its bloody history, occupied and/or plundered by the English six times between 1300 and 1570, began when the Bruce is said to have murdered his rival the Red Comyn in front of the Greyfriars altar. The town was where philosopher and cleric Duns Scotus took his orders. A supporter of the Bruce, a student in Paris and resident of Cologne, his sarcophagus in that place’s cathedral bears the splendidly European inscription: Scotia me genuit. Anglia me suscepit. Gallia me docuit. Colonia me tenet. (‘Scotland brought me forth. England sustained me. France taught me. Cologne holds me.’). Better known is the poetic genius of the Scottish Enlightenment, Robert Burns, who spent the last third of his life in the town as an exciseman; the thirsty fieldworker can still take a ‘haf-and-ahaf’ in his honour at the bar of his favourite howff.

The port town of Stranraer on Loch Ryan is the administrative centre for Western Galloway, the ferries to Ulster now served from Cairn Ryan. Like Dumfries, its location and anchorages are determined by its location in a fertile lowland Permo-Triassic rift basin. The axe-head shaped Rhinns peninsula of resistant Ordovician greywacke to the west is the flanking upland to the double embayments of Loch Ryan and Luce Bay. At nearby Kirkmadrine the oldest surviving Christian standing stones in Britain are fifth to early sixth century. One has the theological inscription Initium et Finis (‘Beginning and End’); a pronouncement that Playfair and Hutton would doubtless have profoundly disagreed with. Across Luce Bay on the Whithorn peninsula the poorly documented Saint Ninianlived and worked in the early Christian era, founding the first church in Scotland, the Candida Casa (White House) around AD 400.

By the late eighteenth century newly planned settlements and extended medieval towns prospered in the region, from Wigtown in the west to Peebles and Galashiels in the east. The region’s wilder places (Lowthers, Lammermuirs, Solway) grew famous through Scott’s ‘Waverley novels’, a literary output that, with Burns’s poetry, can fairly be said to have created the image of Romantic Scotland, perhaps to its detriment. Once linked into the national rail network, the region became popular amongst the more discerning and wealthy as a touristic and recreational destination. Its towns still have a special relationship with their surrounding agricultural hinterlands and proudly hold on to their special identities, many through the annual fiestas of ‘Common Riding’. Here in the nineteenth-century mill-towns with terrace-rows developed, eventually specializing in weaving fine woollen and silk yarns: Hawick and Galashiels survive; Peebles just; Langholm and others not.

Medieval Kirkcudbright on the Dee estuary became an Edwardian and later artist’s colony associated with the ‘Glasgow Boys’ school of colourists and others, notable residents being E.A. Hornel, Jessie M. King, E.A. Taylor and C. Oppenheimer. Attracted by the quality of coastal light and varied topography, they were part of a more general phenomenon, the trend towards Impressionism and plein air composition. Artists still live and work in the town and its hinterlands, producing landscapes showing play of light and colour from coastal greywacke, craggy granite hillslopes, and estuarine shores and marshes; our favourites are works by Helen Campbell and Linda Mallett. The latter writes: ‘Throughout my working life I have been drawn to border and threshold situations, such as the littoral between land and sea, and the liminal between states of consciousness.’

Landscape sculptor Andy Goldsworthy’s Striding Arches are located on the summits of Ordovician-age greywacke hills around Cairnhead Glen near Moniaive, a glaciated corrie and valley in the central Southern Uplands. Begun in 2002, they are four Romanesque-style barrel arches; 4m high dressed red-brown Permian sandstone from Locharbriggs, each visible from one other. They have inspired further collaborative efforts in landscape art: Alex Finlay, Alexander Maris and Susan Maris celebrate in poetry, photography and sound-sculpture the riverine confluences of Dalwhat Water that runs through Cairnhead Glen.

---

GeoBritannica: Geological Landscapes and the British Peoples by Mike Leeder and Joy Lawlor is out now published by Dunedin Academic Press priced £24.99.

This extract originally appeared in the Revolution Issue of Books from Scotland published earlier in 2017.

In this intriguing extract from Historic Environment Scotland we travel back to nineteenth-century Scotland to explore the radical Victorian vision for improving city living. Envisaged as a means to ‘light up the dark’, urban regeneration in this era saw the architecture of cities become ‘a battleground for the Victorian soul’ and heralded a new age of the Scottish city.

Extract from Victorian Scotland
By James Crawford, Lesley Ferguson and Kristina Watson
Published by Historic Environment Scotland

The Age of the City

In February 1875, Richard Cross, Home Secretary of Benjamin Disraeli’s recently appointed government, presented to the House of Commons a new Bill designed to tackle the inhuman slums plaguing Victorian cities. As he neared the end of his speech, Cross issued a rallying cry to the civic authorities of Britain, ‘I ask you on these dens of wretchedness and misery to cast one ray of hope and happiness; I ask you on these haunts of sickness and of death to breathe, at all events, one breath of health and life; and on these courts and alleys where all is dark with a darkness which not only may be, but is felt – a darkness of mind, body and soul – I ask you to assist in carrying out one of God’s best and earliest laws, – “Let there be light’”.

Ten years before these emotive words filled the House, the councillors of Glasgow had already looked on with horror at their city’s heart of darkness. Poverty, filth, pollution, overcrowding, disease and degradation had overcome the Old Town, imprisoning more than 50,000 of the most unfortunate working classes in 80 acres of stygian courts and closes where typhus and cholera roamed free. ‘No person of common humanity’, declared Friedrich Engels, ‘would stable a horse’ in such conditions.

The city authorities knew something had to be done, but they did not know what. When reports reached them of Baron George-Eugene Haussmann’s ambitious redesign of central Paris, a deputation of Glasgow city elders, including the Lord Provost, the Medical Officer of Health and the City Architect John Carrick, set off on a fact-finding mission to the French capital. What greeted them was a city reborn. The medieval fabric of central Paris had been almost completely demolished, and in its place the visitors wandered a sparkling layout of wide boulevards, circuses, and broad public spaces. Transfixed by Haussmann’s ‘miracle’, they returned to Clydeside with a radical vision for a new Glasgow.

The Glasgow City Improvement Act of 1866 began a programme of work on a scale never before seen in a British city. The ulcerous slums around Gallowgate, Trongate, Saltmarket and Glasgow Cross were swept away, 39 new streets were created, existing ones were widened and realigned, and whole blocks were rebuilt, led by Carrick’s imposition of a unitary style, with guidelines for street widths, building heights and even architectural idiom. The incredible scale of the experiment resonated throughout Victorian Britain – and in particular reached Disraeli’s new administration. It was Glasgow’s remarkable transformation that provided the cue for the Home Secretary’s luminous, biblical instruction to the nation’s civic planners.

This need to light the dark of the Victorian city had been growing ever more desperate as the nineteenth century progressed. Britain was the world’s first industrialised urban society. It gave birth to the modern factory city, and the child was trouble from the start: dirty, ill and wretched, yet at the same time bloated, greedy and ruthless. Contrasts abounded, the result of an incredible conglomeration of people, commerce, traffic, squalor, wealth, misery and noise. The Victorian city was at once Babylon and Hades, a brave new world and the end of civilisation. The gothic spires of imperialist architecture pointed to the heavens, while the steeple chimneys of the mills and factories produced a dark, fiery smoke that eclipsed the sky and seemed to be drawn from hell itself.

The Victorians were firm believers that building design reflected the cultural sentiments of the age. The health of a people and its civilisation could be traced in its streets, houses, churches, halls and monuments. As cityscapes careered out of control at an incredible pace, driven on by the clanging metronome of the industrial machine, they faced the reality that, behind the grand facades built by an unprecedented civic wealth, the faceless utilitarian bulk of innumerable factories – and the shapeless, jerry-built misery of workers’ quarters – revealed a society in desperate need of salvation.

The architecture of cities became a battleground for the Victorian soul. What claims could they make of progress, and what would be their legacy, if the metropolis of the nineteenth century was an organ grinder of human suffering, an environment that debased its citizens and forced them into an urban savagery? The deliberately classical or gothic buildings that came to dominate Victorian cities, from Glasgow’s Royal Exchange to Edinburgh’s Scott Monument, were stone statements of rectitude, an attempt through architecture to create the reassuring morality of an idealised past in the midst of a terrifying new world of dissolute industrialism.

Along with Glasgow’s revolutionary programme of urban renewal, these architectural bids to win civic hearts and minds marked a starting point, not an end. The Victorian era set the riddle of the modern city. Among such a crush of people, why was alienation and loneliness the common experience? As more and more workers stepped on to the industrial treadmill, how could they be elevated above the status of insignificant cogs in the immense machine? And could proud, evocative architecture really help to repair the crumbling bonds of brotherhood and community?

The new age of the city had begun.

---

Victorian Scotland by James Crawford, Lesley Ferguson and Kristina Watson is out now published by Historic Environment Scotland priced £30.

 

Cathy MacPhail is the award-winning and best-selling author of over thirty books for children and young adults. Here Cathy reflects on growing up in a working class family in Greenock and reading – and loving – classic novels but wondering why no characters, or their worlds, were anything like her own. She makes a strong and vital case for the need for diversity in books, so that both children and adults see their own lives reflected.

When I was growing up my favourite book was Little Women. A book about four sisters and their mother and one of them wanted to be a writer. I was one of four sisters and I wanted to be a writer. How would I not identify with them? We were the March girls. They were poor, they were always going on about it,  just as we were poor….

Hey, wait a minute. The March sisters had a servant. My mother was a servant. (Well, she cleaned people’s houses). They lived next door to a millionaire. We lived in a tenement in Greenock. Not a lot of millionaires around at all.

My other favourite book was Pride and Prejudice, another book about sisters, and those Bennet girls never shut up about how poor they were too.

Poor? They didn’t know the meaning of the word. Didn’t matter, of course,  I still loved the books, but it taught me a lot about relative poverty.

Made me realise too that I never read any stories about people with my background. The working class were always servants or background material. Never the main characters. Yet, I loved the Chalet School books and the famous Five and I longed for lashings of lemonade and midnight feasts in the dorm.

This lack of working class characters wasn’t just confined to children’s books. I was an avid fan of Agatha Christie ,  but it was hard not to notice that  the working classes, or the lower classes  were ‘not able to tell the truth’ or ‘gossiped too much’ or were ‘in awe of their betters’. (Mind you, at least none of her working class characters ever turned out to be the murderer.)

But  I never found anything that reflected my life. Living in a tenement with my mother and sister sleeping in a set in bed, my widowed mother a cleaner in a school. Never read anything like that.

And then I read a book called The Grand Man, by Catherine Cookson, which was made into a  film called Jacqueline. Here was a heroine I could identify with. I loved Jacqueline. She could be me. Working class, Catholic, funny. With a widowed dad she cared so much about. First time I realised, that  I could be the main character in a book!  And why not?

And that is what I have tried to do in my writing, I have a reputation for gritty reality, using the voices I know, in locations I recognise. Giving children like me, a chance not only to see themselves in a story, but be the main character who drives the story along.

Every child deserves to see themselves, the people they are, reflected in a story. It’s the wonderful thing about diversity.

---

Cathy MacPhail’s hotly anticipated new novel Between The Lies, a tense thriller exploring teenagers’ obsession with a life lived via social media, will be published by Floris Books on the 20 April 2017.