THE BEST OF SCOTTISH BOOKS

Towards the end of his life Charles Rennie Mackintosh gave up his principal career as an architect and moved to the south of France where he devoted himself to painting in watercolour. This book published by the National Galleries of Scotland explores his career as a landscape painter there, placing his work in the context of the modern movement. The paintings inside are vibrant and colourful, and here we share a few of them.

 

Charles Rennie Mackintosh in France
By Pamela Robertson
Published by The National Galleries of Scotland

 

 

 

 

 

 

Charles Rennie Mackintosh in France by Pamela Robertson is published by The National Galleries of Scotland, priced £17.95

 

Christmas wouldn’t be Christmas without a few Bond films on the telly. One Bond superfan, John Rain, cannot get enough of 007, turning his fandom into a podcast and now a book. We asked John about his favourite Bond moments.

 

Thunderbook: The World According to Smershpod
By John Rain
Published by Polaris Publishing

 

First Bond film you saw

Live and Let Die – saw it on TV as a little kid and loved the snake in the bathroom.

 

Last Bond film you saw (this can be a rewatch)

Spectre – for the book!

 

Favourite Bond film

Heart says Licence to Kill, head says The Spy Who Loved Me.

 

Favourite Bond girl

Pam Bouvier – Licence to Kill. She can handle herself, and isn’t afraid of Q’s hands.

 

Favourite Bond gadget

The Lotus Submarine – it’s a beautiful thing.

 

Favourite Bond double-entendre

“I am now aiming precisely at your groin. So speak or forever hold your piece.”

 

Favourite Bond villain

Hugo Drax: face like Dracula’s accountant, dialogue like Shakespeare.

 

Favourite Bond death scene

Bond shooting Elektra in The World is Not Enough. Cold and hard.

 

Favourite Bond theme song

‘Live and Let Die’ – it’s a masterpiece, and a beautiful combination of McCartney and Martin.

 

Favourite Bond

Head says Roger Moore, heart says Timothy Dalton. Love them both so much. Daniel Craig probably the best, though, just hasn’t had the best films.

 

Thunderbook: The World According to Smershpod by John Rain is published by Polaris Publishing, priced £16.99

Following in the footsteps of Jonathan Meades’ documentary, Off Kilter, Alex Boyd travelled to Lewis and Harris to document his own journey around the islands. Armed with his camera, Boyd took many pictures, capturing the rugged, austere spirit of a special place.

 

Extract from Isle of Rust: A Portrait of Lewis & Harris
By Alex Boyd
Published by Luath Press

 

There are many names for the island known as Lewis and Harris (Leòdhas agus na Hearadh), from the poetic the Heather Isle (Eilean an Fhraoich) to the more prosaic the Long Island (an t-Eilean Fada). A few islanders – no doubt affectionately – refer to the third largest island in the British Isles as The Rock. It is a name that does this most diverse of landscapes and habitats something of a disservice, as it so much more than just an outcrop of metamorphic gneiss, granite, basalt and sandstone on the Atlantic edge of Europe.

To my mind, no sobriquet is more apt than that given over a decade ago by Jonathan Meades, who provided us with the title Isle of Rust in his landmark BBC film of the same name. This name, of course, not only refers to the countless corroding tractors, weaving sheds and other visible signs of human settlement but also to the colours of the land: the reds of deergrass and the purple moor grass which make up so much of the moorland. It is a place of great contrast in both light and land, from the largely flat peatlands of Lewis, where the majority of islanders make their home, to the mountains of Harris that rise abruptly in the south, marking out the rocky landscapes so different to the north of the island. It is in settlements nestled in bays and natural harbours or stretched out along seemingly endless coastal roads that Scotland’s largest concentration of Gaelic speakers can be found. It is a place where old traditions such as peat cutting, weaving and crofting sit alongside the modern demands of island life.

I grew up in the Lowlands of Scotland and until I went there, I thought of the Outer Hebrides as being on the edge of the periphery, a place of barren windswept landscapes, of fishing fleets riding high seas, of croft houses and pristine white beaches – a place which had very little in common with the ordered and picturesque farmlands of my native Ayrshire and the once thriving but now rapidly declining coastal towns of the west of Scotland. The opportunity to visit the islands of the northwest would largely elude me until 2013, when I was offered the role of Artist-in-Residence with the Royal Scottish Academy on the Isle of Skye. Based in a studio at the University of the Highlands and Islands at Sabhal Mór Ostaig, I got my first glimpses of the Outer Hebrides while climbing along the Trotternish Ridge in the north of the island, looking west and observing a long archipelago skirting the horizon.

It was a commission to make artwork about the peatlands of Lewis that summer which finally provided me with the chance to experience first-hand the islands I had come to know largely through the eyes of photographers such as Werner Kissling, Margaret Fay Shaw, Gus Wylie and Paul Strand. I had also recently seen Jonathan Meades’ beautiful and bleak Isle of Rust. His vision of Lewis and Harris provided the inspiration for a new series of work which would combine an antique camera, chemicals and rust collected from the land. Leaving Skye to cross the calm waters of the Minch, that great sense of the unknown was further enhanced by Leaving Skye to cross the calm waters of the Minch, that great sense of the unknown was further enhanced by the play of the light – crepuscular rays of light breaking through black clouds and illuminating the Shiant islands to the north. Home to dramatic volcanic columns which bring to mind Staffa or the Giant’s Causeway, they rose from the depths like broken teeth.

Arriving in the harbour at Tarbert on Harris, I drove south, gaining my first impressions of the island as I climbed high over the pass dominated by the Clisham, the highest mountain in the archipelago and part of the range which separates Harris from Lewis. Before the introduction of the road which winds its way over hills and around boulders and lochs, this was once a journey made by sea, explaining why this single landmass has two separate and distinct communities. As I passed Loch Seaforth and the communities of South Lochs, and onward through the village of Ballalan, the rocky terrain gradually gave way to the wider moorland expanses of Lewis and it wasn’t long before I arrived in the harbour town of Stornoway where I would stay for the night.

The next morning began with an early start. I made my way across the winding moorland road to the village of Bragar, where I met local artist and archeologist Anne Campbell. We drove on together to Ness and my first introduction to the Lewis peatlands. We were joined by Anne’s enthusiastic border collie, Bran, who ran ahead of us, stopping only to dig in the mud and occasionally bark at his own reflection in the many pools of water which made up this unfamiliar landscape. In the distance, we observed only a few lonely figures out gathering peat. As we made our way deeper into the moor, with the clouds low and dark above and a featureless horizon beyond, I started to feel a slight sense of oppression, peculiar in such an open landscape. Perhaps it was partly to do with being disorientated, the damp and humid conditions or my first encounter with Lewis’s many insects that flew curiously around us, occasionally biting.

Lining the sides of the road I noticed the many peat banks stretching out towards the water’s edge, the marks of the shovels still apparent. Above them, small stacks of peat awaited collection, laid out in herringbone patterns or scattered around the landscape in rows. Further up the track, we examined peat cut by machine, which, instead of having a pleasing briquette form, was heaped up in piles of cracked and broken cylinders due to being bored from the land. Having seen the industrial-scale destruction that such machines have wrought on the moors of Ireland, Anne and I remarked that they should be banned entirely from the moor. As we began to gain height, we could see the peat road dropping below to reveal a small valley dotted with an eclectic range of buildings: the shieling village of Cuidhsiadar, our destination.

Cuidhsiadar is the site of a practice once integral to island life: transhumance. Islanders would take animals out to graze on the moorland in summer, living there and collecting produce such as milk and butter, which would then help sustain them through the harsh winter months. Structures used to house people here over hundreds of years are now reduced to piles of stones. Around them are scattered a selection of much more contemporary huts, several constructed from tin and some simple wooden dwellings in various states of disrepair. In the far distance, we could see a much older turf-covered structure on the moor, but it was a modern shieling in front of us which drew the most attention. From beneath wooden panels, the vague form of one of the tour buses which used to cross the island could be discerned, gutted and then converted into a makeshift home on the moor. Open to the elements, we headed inside it for shelter and between the upholstery we noticed beds, as well as bags of peat still to be processed. The ingenuity of islanders to re-use and re-purpose items which would long since have been consigned to the scrapheap elsewhere is something I would see again and again.

Following a few days of exploring the island, visiting familiar tourist landmarks such as the standing stones of Callanish, the Broch at Dun Carloway and many journeys back and forward over the Pentland moor road, I started to get a better idea of the landscape that I was working within. Staying in a small post-war croft house in Anne’s home village of Bragar, I began to appreciate the vastness of the moor, the complete absence of trees. Visible from my kitchen window, the North Atlantic stretching uninterrupted to the west. It is an environment where individuals are quietly reminded of their place; of their own smallness in comparison to the sheer vastness of the natural world around them. It is a feeling often lost in towns and cities.

My own experience of moorland had previously been limited to my own wanderings around the south-west of Scotland and my work as a photographer on the vastness of Rannoch Moor, an area claimed to be one of the last true wild places by writers such as Robert Macfarlane, who Anne had guided across the moors of Lewis. Anne had recently published a beautiful collection called Rathad an Isein (The Bird’s Road), a moorland glossary which she had collected along with her sister Catriona, Finlay Macleod and Donald Morrisson. It gives a unique insight into how the moorland is viewed in the Gaelic imagination and experience and includes terms used by those who have worked and cut peat on the moors for many generations. Her offer to accompany me on a walk across the Lewis peatland and to spend a night in her family shieling at the heart of the island was one I immediately agreed to. In the days leading up to the walk, the weather shifted from sunny and pleasant to increasingly cloudy conditions. A change was in the air. As is not unusual on these islands, weather and storm warnings became the main topic of conversation but we decided that we would make the trip out onto the moor regardless. We could only hope that the wind and rain would stay away long enough for us to reach the shieling on the slopes of Beinn a’ Chanaich Mhoir, by the waters of Loch nan Leac.

Looking at an os map our destination seemed remarkably close – only five or six miles away – but with the ground waterlogged and marshy, every step promised to be a torturous effort. The next morning, with a heavy rucksack laden with a camera, food and camping equipment and the prospect of terrible weather and harsh terrain, I still felt energised and enthusiastic about the challenge to come. Leaving the car at the end of the track, I joined Anne and Bran, and we began to make our way along the drowned peat road towards the moor. Our path would follow along the course of the Abhainn Arnol, a shallow river which runs the length of Glen Bragar. To our right loomed Beinn Choinnich (the Hill of Kenneth) while in the distance, the distinctive pyramid form of Stacashal kept my eyes fixed on the horizon.

Passing men loading dry peat into the back of tractors, my eye was caught by something small, box-like and metallic at the edge of the riverbank. On closer inspection, Anne informed me that it was a trap for mink, which, along with hedgehogs, were introduced to the island in the 1950s and ’60s. The mink caused widespread damage to the birds of the moorland and it is only now that many of them are beginning to return in number to the moor. The story emphasises the fragile balance which often exists in such places. Our next pause on the moor was signalled by an excited bark from Bran, who started digging furiously into the peat. Anne explained that we had arrived at her own peat field and that Bran was simply imitating the actions of Anne and her sister, who still dig peat to warm their homes. It was on this site that Anne, whilst digging into a peat bank, found a wooden bowl, the earth giving it up after holding on to it for over a millennium. It was one of undoubtedly many thousands of objects that the moor has held onto, waiting for an archaeologist such as Anne to uncover it and learn something of the people who once made their home there.

It is unfortunate that, unlike the well-excavated and fascinating Céide Fields in the north-west of the Republic of Ireland, little archaeological research has gone into the north of Lewis, an area obviously rich in potential finds. It was this frustration which led Anne to return to university to study archaeology. As part of her Masters dissertation, she walked the land and recorded finds. What she uncovered added hugely to existing knowledge, yet there is still more work to be done. Whatever lies beneath the many levels of sphagnum moss is no doubt well-preserved from the elements, dating from a time when the island was warmer and more densely populated. The villages of the west side suffered worst during the Clearances, a legacy that rings in the phrase ‘Mìorun Mór nan Gall’ – ‘the great ill will of the Lowlander’ – and one I came to understand more deeply in the years to come, as I returned to Lewis to explore township after abandoned township. On a bend in the river, Anne showed me the remains of Thulachan, five grass-covered mounds which were once part of a settlement. Slowly, the river had changed course and begun to erode the site, causing one of the mounds to collapse, spilling its contents into the fast-flowing water. Anne and I explored what was left, finding only charred wood, and then continued on our way, fording the brown, peat-coloured water.

Once across, the landscape stretched out with small undulations to the far hills, with every step across the peat made carefully. I was reminded by Anne that what appears as solid ground on the moor is often treacherous terrain. At one point, my walking pole slid effortlessly down into the bog, disappearing almost completely. The fear of a misplaced step into earth which could swallow me whole helped focus my mind and I followed Anne’s barefoot steps intently. Other dangers included hidden river courses, holes and, of course, being exposed to the elements. Anne told me that on her last trip out, a lightning storm had made its way over the moor and, having known a good friend to have been struck while undertaking a similar expedition (the photographer Finn Ó Súilleabháin), my mind became intent on reaching shelter. We had been walking and exploring now for the best part of an hour. With the weather closing in, wind and rain moving visibly toward us across the open moor, we took shelter and ate a quick snack in the ruins of a shieling with no roof. Sheltering against the high walls and waiting for the rain to pass, Anne commented that this type of easterly weather is known as a ‘Red Wind’ (Gaoth an ear-dheas – Dhearg) in Gaelic. As we listened to the low wind howling around us, I occupied myself by exploring the walls of the shieling, finding rusted pots and an old kettle amongst the long grass. With a break in the rain, we pushed on, at times following the footprints left by Anne from a previous journey made a week before, her tracks still perfectly preserved in the peat.

Passing a picturesque loch ringed by sundews, we stopped by the shieling once used by Anne’s father before making our way onto the final hurdle, going over the top of Beinn Thùlagabhal. Having made it up the muddy flanks, we sat exhausted on the grassy top. Observing the wind and clouds moving quickly over the scene, I saw her family shieling for the first time. Thankfully, it was now close by and I couldn’t wait to get there and find some shelter from the elements. It wasn’t long before we had skirted the edges of Loch nan Leac and were finally sitting inside the shieling, the wind howling relentlessly around us. Having come this far, we decided to erect an improvised roof over the shieling, something Anne had done many times before. Using nothing but plastic piping it wasn’t long before she had created a rigid, skeleton-like frame, which we moved into position on the top of the structure. Standing a few metres above the ground, we teetered on the edge of the building as the wind blew us around, trying to anchor the ribs of the frame using rocks and the heaviest stones we could find. After several failed efforts we finally secured it, something which proved much easier than attaching the roof covering!

The wind caught the canvas roof like a sail, the material whipping around violently as we tried to anchor it. We both danced around the edge of the shieling trying to keep it down, the wind billowing up from the open doors below. After a long struggle – and collecting a few additional rocks – it was finally in place, yet threatened to blow off any time. The rain was now driving hard and the wind getting stronger. Bran refused to come inside the shieling, as he was terrified by the horrendous noise made by the sheets flapping and cracking violently in the wind. It sounded as if a freight train was passing overhead and, although there was only a few feet between us, Anne and I had to shout our conversation to each other. Amidst the chaos of the storm, Anne lit a fire using dried peat and boiled water that she had collected from the loch. After two cups of warm Darjeeling tea, we reached the decision that staying out on the moor in this weather was probably not advisable.

While a quick meal cooked over the peat fire, filling the shieling with smoke, I examined the walls and noticed the carvings for the first time. The oldest – from 1821 – marked the date that the shieling was rebuilt from an earlier structure and another from 1921 commemorated this date. Anne was hopeful that she might add 2021 to the walls of the shieling, which were otherwise bare, save for a carving of a deer and the initials of those who had come before, including the much-loved Gaelic poet, Peter Campbell. Looking out through the open door facing out of the wind, I gazed out onto the moor while slowly starting to warm up. Time seemed briefly to have stopped. With our meal over, we knew that there were only a few hours of light left and that if we didn’t leave soon, we would be forced to walk across the land in darkness, a prospect that could prove dangerous. Still exhausted from our exertions, we packed the roofing materials away and began our long journey back. In my tiredness, I fell into a hollow, my body sinking into a hidden river, a caochan, up to my waist. Completely unexpected, it forced me to focus. Recovering quickly, we forded a succession of rivers and made our way towards the coastline and the village of Bragar beyond. In our tired state, we still managed to make good time.

The light turned from blue to grey to black and as we finally left the moor I had to make use of a torch to see the path in front of me, very thankful that I had Anne as a guide over the unfamiliar terrain. For days after I would be reminded of the journey, as the smell of peat smoke rose again from my belongings; but the memory of experiencing the moor in all weathers I will carry with me for years to come. A few years would pass before I returned to Lewis and Harris, this time with my wife, Jessica. We were on the island to visit friends, to travel out to St Kilda where I was making images for a book, and to spend some time in Stornoway where I’d been offered an interview for a new role at An Lanntair Arts Centre as a curator and help/mentor working with artists from across the Outer Hebrides.

To my great shock, I was offered the job and it wasn’t long before we’d moved our possessions to the village of Bragar, setting up our home in that same croft house from my first visit. We would spend two years on the island, experiencing its stunning summer mornings, with mist hanging above the mirror lochs, through to its harsh winters, where wind and driving rain force you round the fire and keep you indoors for months on end. We slowly began to meet friends, mostly ‘incomers’ like ourselves who had moved to the Hebrides to experience a different way of living. We spent our time with people who had come from across the world to set up homes on Lewis and Harris and received such warmth and kindness during times of both happiness and hardship.

It is the collision of both old and new that makes the Isle of Rust so fascinating to outsiders such as myself and also provides many of the tensions for its inhabitants. It is undeniable that life on the island is changing. The gradual erosion of the influence of the Free Church of Scotland (and Free Church of Scotland Continuing) is accompanied by problems with an ever-ageing population and the greatest issue facing the Outer Hebrides today: that of depopulation, which is far above the uk average. Tourism helps to revitalise island life during the summer months but brings with it many problems, from overcrowded single track roads, to the shortage of housing brought on by second homes and holiday lets, depriving local people of places in which to raise their families. While large parts of Lewis and Harris remain in private hands as sprawling sporting estates, thankfully communities are now taking back control, most notably in Galson in Lewis and the North and West Harris Trusts.

This book then is a collection of photographic sketches I made while living on Lewis, not as a touristic guide, more as a diary made over several years and seasons. It is a visual response to Jonathan’s essay of the same name, which I often had in mind as I explored the themes of ‘Isle of Rust’ in mountains, moors and lochs. Jonathan’s writing has been highly influential on me throughout my life; his essay ‘Death to the Picturesque’ having been a particularly formative influence on my early photographic approach. I’m greatly honoured by the opportunity to include his work within this book and I have tried my best not to deviate from his direction to ‘Emphasise the contrast between natural grandeur and scrap squalor’.

The Outer Hebrides have of course long attracted photographers. However, I have chosen not to follow in the footsteps of Paul Strand, Werner Kissling, Fay Godwin, Gus Wylie and Robert Moyes Adams, who captured the island in stark monochrome, opting instead for colour. I took a truly Calvinistic approach to making images and limited myself to minimal equipment, in this case a camera and two lenses which I could carry across moors or up mountainsides. I photographed things as I found them. There are no attempts to create postcard images, no specialist filters, no long exposures of the incoming tide at Luskentyre, no misguided attempts to create anthropological studies of the islanders. There is only the available light, and the colours as my eyes experienced them. The beauty of the Hebridean landscape and light speak clearly enough without my interventions. This approach does come with its own limitations, the most challenging of which is to communicate the endless changeability of light, the sheer variety of landscape and the complex, multifaceted nature of the place.

It would, as poet Norman MacCaig once said in ‘By the Graveyard, Luskentyre’, take a volume ‘thick as the height of the Clisham’ and ‘big as the whole of Harris’ to even begin to scratch the surface of gneiss, peat and lochan.

 

Isle of Rust: A Portrait of Lewis & Harris by Alex Boyd is published by Luath Press, priced £20.00.

A few of the books we’ve been showcasing this issue celebrate the beauty of Scotland’s landscape. Scotland’s Mountain Landscapes by Colin K Ballantyne is a brilliant guide to how our landscapes were formed through time, perfect reading for hillwalkers everywhere who want to understand more about the ground beneath their feet.

 

Extract taken from Scotland’s Mountain Landscapes: A Geomorphological Perspective
By Colin K Ballantyne
Published by Dunedin Academic Press

 

Mountains represent the essence of Scotland’s scenery. Postcards, calendars, shortbread tins and dishtowels seeking to capture ‘Scotland’ in a single image almost invariably depict a mountainous Highland landscape, sometimes with a loch or castle in the middle distance and a kilted bagpiper artfully (and sometimes digitally) inserted in the foreground. They are a fundamental part of Scottish identity, for though most Scots live in the towns and cities of the lowlands, the mountains are close by on the horizon, a line of purple or snow-covered peaks that reminds us of another Scotland where the interplay of sunshine and cloud over rocky crags, deep lochs, windswept plateaux and lonely moorlands creates a sense of wilderness and an opportunity to escape from our urban hinterland.

And escape we do. When the weather is favourable, thousands of hillwalkers visit the summits of Scotland’s mountains every week, many with the aim of completing the ascent of the 282 Munros (summits over 3000 feet or 914 m). Rock climbers are drawn to the crags and corries of Skye and Glen Coe, skiers to the snowy slopes of Glen Shee and the Cairngorms, and others come to the mountains for fell running, mountain biking and even hang gliding. Outnumbering all of these, however, are the visitors who come simply to marvel at the most wonderful scenery in the British Isles.

Nobody who has explored the mountains of Scotland can fail to have been impressed by their sheer diversity. The isolated sandstone peaks of the far northwest, the serrated gabbro ridges of Skye, the granite high plateaux of the Cairngorms, and the rolling uplands of southern Scotland represent a variety of mountain landscapes that rivals any on Earth. Such diversity
reflects not only Scotland’s tumultuous geological evolution, which has created a mosaic of contrasting rock types, but also the operation of a wide range of erosional processes that have sculpted the underlying rocks into the wonderful topographic variety of Scotland’s mountain landscapes. Some of these processes operated in deep time, many millions of years ago, others throughout the
Ice Age, and many, such as frost action, rockfall and river erosion, have continued to modify mountain landscapes since the disappearance of the last glaciers.

In this book we shall take a journey through time, beginning with the formation of the oldest rocks and ending with the manifold processes that are still operating on high ground. We shall visit past eras when Scotland lay near the Equator, when alpine-scale mountains towered over the landscape, when volcanoes spewed out copious lava flows, when ice covered the land, and when earthquakes triggered major landslides. Mountain scenery is always inspirational; but understanding how mountain landscapes have evolved deepens our perspectives of time and space, and the transience of human existence. Just 12,500 years ago, for example, Scotland looked like high-arctic Svalbard today: a great icefield occupied the western Highlands, a valley glacier was advancing to the southern end of Loch Lomond, permafrost underlay the ground beyond the glaciers and mean July temperatures were no higher than those in November at present. Understanding such events and their effects on the landscape can make a day in the Scottish mountains a thrilling excursion that spans millions of years.

 

The images here are examples of the diversity of Scotland’s mountain landscapes. (a) Suilven (731 m) in NW Scotland, a sandstone mountain rising above glacially scoured gneiss (photograph by John Gordon). (b) Sgùrr Dubh Mór (944 m) and Sgùrr Dubh an Da Bheinn (938 m), Cuillin Hills, Skye. (c) The eastern Grampians, with the Cairngorms on the skyline. (d) The Southern Uplands: White Coomb (821 m) from Hart Fell.

 

Scotland’s Mountain Landscapes: A Geomorphological Perspective by Colin K Ballantyne is published by Dunedin Academic Press, priced £28.00

Eating vegan is becoming increasingly common, but it doesn’t necessarily follow that this healthy diet means no indulgences are allowed. Stefanie Moir, has written an excellent book on vegan eating and fitness, but hasn’t forgotten to put in the treats! Here are two of her very delicious recipes . . .

 

Recipes taken from Naturally Stefanie: Recipes, Workouts and Daily Rituals for a Stronger, Happier You
By Stefanie Moir
Published by Black and White Publishing

 

Tofu Chocolate Mousse

 

I know, tofu and chocolate do not sound like a winning combination but, trust me, this mousse is utterly delicious. Served in cocktail glasses or ramekins, it’s a perfect pudding for dinner parties.

 

Ingredients

300g silken tofu
100g vegan-friendly chocolate
80g maple syrup
1 tsp vanilla extract
pinch of sea salt

 

1. First melt the chocolate in a bowl over a pan of boiling water or in the microwave.
2. Drain and remove excess moisture from the tofu.
3. Add the tofu, maple syrup, vanilla and salt to a food processor and combine until smooth.
4. Then add in the melted chocolate and pulse until well combined.
5. Pour the mixture into ramekin-style dishes, filling up around a quarter of the dish and place in the fridge to set.
6. To serve, top with vegan whipped cream and chocolate – optional!

 

Blueberry and Lemon Pancakes

Ingredients

200ml almond milk
100g oats
35g vegan vanilla protein powder or
substitute with 35g of oats
1 ripe banana
1 tsp baking powder
150g blueberries (plus extra for topping)
juice and zest of 1 lemon

 

1. First, juice and zest the lemon. Set the zest to one side – you’ll use it as a topping for the pancakes later
2. Lightly grease and preheat a non-stick pan over a medium heat.
3. Using a blender or whisk, mix together the oats, protein powder, banana, baking powder, lemon juice and almond milk to form a smooth batter. Then add the blueberries.
4. Once the pan is hot, pour the batter into the pan until desired pancake size is reached.
5. Cook the pancakes until the surface begins to bubble and the edges turn brown then flip and cook on the other side. This should take between 4 and 6 minutes.
6. Remove from the heat and transfer to your plate or into the oven to stay warm.
7. Top with the extra blueberries and lemon zest.

 

Naturally Stefanie: Recipes, Workouts and Daily Rituals for a Stronger, Happier You by Stefanie Moir is published by Black and White Publishing, priced £16.99

Following your local football team, it’s often the hope that kills, but not if you’re Mat Guy. He has travelled the world cheering on the small teams, the teams without the million pound sponsorship deals but with a loyal, loving following. BooksfromScotland spoke to Mat about his travels and his love of the game.

 

Barcelona to Buckie Thistle: Exploring Football’s Roads Less Travelled
By Mat Guy
Published by Luath Press

 

Your new book Barcelona to Buckie Thistle: Exploring Football’s Roads Less Travelled has just been published. What is it about the ‘minnow’ football teams playing out of the limelight that keeps you coming back?

For me they are the very essence of the beautiful game, these smaller teams. Shorn of crowds in the tens of thousands, there is time and space to see the small acts of love and devotion that any given supporter performs on a match day. From passing through a ‘lucky’ turnstile that they first used as a child, hand in hand with a parent or grandparent, to meeting up with old friends on the same scrap of terrace – a spot made sacrosanct by the generations before, who assembled there in days long gone.

The smaller the team, the greater the connection between club and community, who rely on each other to survive and thrive. Meaning, belonging, identity fuels any supporter’s passion for their club or national team. At a club attracting crowds in the hundreds, or low thousands, it is easier to see just how important these sporting institutions really are. How much they really mean. It chimes with my first trips to see my grandfather’s team, Salisbury, as a young boy.

 

The book visits teams from the Scottish Highlands right across to places like the Faroe Islands, Azerbaijan and Liechtenstein. How did you find out about the teams included in the book?

I have always held a fascination for the unknown, fuelled by a box of old National Geographic maps at my Grandfather’s house. We would pour over them and imagine what far away places looked like. When I fell in love with football, I began to do the same to far away national teams, or obscure sounding club sides. They fascinated me far more than the bigger teams. So, in that respect, I have been training all my life to seek out those teams on football’s road less travelled!

In researching for Barcelona To Buckie Thistle, I went back to that tried and tested method, albeit aided by modern cheats such as google maps and Wikipedia! Being the most northerly senior football league in Britain, the Highland League really did stand out to me as a league I needed in my life. I was proved right!

 

So many football teams, whether playing in league teams or not, exist around the world. Have you found many differences in the game being played by teams in different countries?

No matter the cultural or religious differences from country to country, the language barriers in place, as soon as players cross that white line and the whistle is blown, we all speak the same language: football. No matter where I have been in the world in the name of football, I have had immersive, enthralling experiences with people whom I couldn’t understand a word of, and they couldn’t me! Cheers, sighs, gesticulations, smiles, shakes of the head and raised eyebrows – we all understand the passions the beautiful game instils in us. It is a universal, wordless language just like mathematics. It is joyous.

 

Is there a moment from your travels researching the book that stands out for you?

There are so many moments! But one that stands out came from a UEFA Nations League match between Liechtenstein and Armenia.  As the turnstiles opened and the 1,000 or souls brave enough to face down a bitterly cold Alpine night in late November began to file in, two boys stood handing out match programmes. One, so eager to make sure everyone got a copy, had overloaded himself, his arms stuffed. As he tried to hand them out, they began to cascade to the floor. Mortified, he bent down to try and collect them, only for more to tumble! Thankfully a few locals helped him corral them back up – though his colleague didn’t, bent double as he was in fits of laughter!

But it served to highlight to me, this boys desire to do his job well, the pride he had in serving his national team in this menial task. It meant something. Possibly the world to him. Doing it right mattered. Just as fixtures down among the small print in newspapers matter, to the passionate few whose teams and communities live there.

 

This is your third book on the beautiful game – is there anything new that you’ve learned about the sport or from the teams that you’ve met?

I’ve learnt humility from the Bhutanese and Tibetan teams I have met, who bring a unique, Buddhist perspective to the sport. Meeting a Palestinian player whose career was cut short by detention in an Israeli prison certainly opened my eyes to a world I had never seen before. But, ultimately, it is the same precious lessons that I have re-affirmed on almost every trip I take, that football is about community, people, friendship, belonging. It is purpose, pride and identity. Whether at Victoria Park, Buckie, or the Camp-Nou, Barcelona, the meaning is the same. The only difference are the numbers in attendance.

 

Barcelona to Buckie Thistle: Exploring Football’s Roads Less Travelled by Mat Guy is published by Luath Press, priced £12.99.

Andy Howard’s photography books are becoming very popular on people’s Christmas lists, his obvious love for nature shining through in every picture. BooksfromScotland caught up with him to chat to him about his photography career so far.

 

The Secret Life of the Cairngorms
By Andy Howard
Published by Sandstone Press

 

What came first, your love of nature or photography?

My love for nature started at about the age of five when my parents gave me the AA Book of British Birds. It has the edition with a tawny owl on the cover, which I remember vividly. I spent hour upon hour soaking up the images of birds.

 

Do you remember when you first picked up a camera? Did your ‘eye’ come naturally?

My early attempts were with a Kodak box brownie. The results were not special, but the experience gave birth to my present passion for photography. On my sixteenth birthday I progressed to a Minolta SLR, and my first wildlife camera, a Canon, on my eighteenth.

 

How and when did you make your hobby into a profession?

With a leap of faith! I’d been working in Retail and catering for twenty eight years and, by that time, had enough. It was time for a major change in my working life. I formulated a business plan, ran it by some friends, who were also business advisors, and off Lindsay and I went. In the first year I had to combine my new profession with consultancy work and even worked as a’ mystery shopper’ to make ends meet. Luckily, things took off in year two.

 

Do you have any easy tips for capturing perfect moments?

The first and most important is follow your heart. No one succeeds without a passion for the subject. Secondly, my best images are pre-planned, sometimes months, even years, in advance. Thirdly, know your subject, the more you work with a species the more predictable its behaviour will become. Utilise this knowledge! Lastly, master the technical aspects of digital photography. Do all this and your creative juices will start to flow. Remember that photography is an art form.

Your first book The Secret Life of the Mountain Hare had a great reception. How long did it take to put that book together?

The images took approximately seven years to capture, and the process of getting the book onto the shelves took ten months from the first meeting with Sandstone Press.

 

Your latest book widens out to include more Highland wildlife. How often are you roaming the Cairngorms with your camera?

It seems that the busier I get both in my roles as a guide and author, the less time I have to capture new images. It’s now six months since I was in the Cairngorms. Another good reason for my attention being elsewhere is that I am now working on my third book, which takes me to the beautiful islands of Mull and Shetland.

 

The Cairngorms feel like an endless subject for a photographer. How did you whittle your images down?

I’ve learned to take fewer photographs, and be more frugal with my shutter release button. This helps. I find that after a day in the field there is likely to be only one or two images that make the cut. All others get filed on a hard drive, often never to see the light-of-day again.

Do you have any ‘bucket list’ places you’d like to take your camera?

Lindsay and I fell in love with Canada a few years ago and have so far returned twice. I’d love to go to Antarctica, St. Georgia and Svalbard, but would prefer not to be surrounded by hundreds of other wildlife watchers and photographers. That’s one of the many reasons I love Shetland. Through three weeks there in September I didn’t see another photographer. I love the solitude; just me, the wildlife and my camera.

 

What are you looking forward to this festive season?

Time with my family. For the first time in many years we’re making the journey south of the border to be with my mother in the Cotswolds, where a few mince pies may be consumed.

 

The Secret Life of the Cairngorms by Andy Howard is published by Sandstone Press, priced £24.99

Glasgow Museums have an impressive array of ship models in their collections and have gathered them together in a lovely volume that’s an ideal gift for model enthusiasts. We hope you can appreciate the intricacy of the craft in these images, even inspire a trip to their museums in the Christmas holidays!

 

Images taken from Glasgow Museums: The Ship Models
By Culture and Sport Glasgow
Published by Glasgow Museums

 

 

Both of these ships are prisoner-of-war models made by French sailors held in Britain during the Napoleonic Wars, early 19th century; bequeathed by Col CL Spencer.

 

 

This prisoner-of-war model is shown at more than twice its actual size in this picture.

 

The top ship, Finisterre, is a shipbuilder’s display model given by Fairfield Shipbuilding & Engineering Co. Ltd.

The bottom left hand ship, City of Chester, is a shipbuilder’s display model given by Barclay, Curle & Co.

The bottom right hand ship, Kaimanawa, is a shipbuilder’s plating model by Henry Robb Ltd, Leith, for the Union Steam Ship Company of New Zealand Ltd.

 

Glasgow Museums: The Ship Models by Culture and Sport Glasgow is published by Glasgow Museums, priced £35.00

Scotland Street Press have just published a beautiful history of Edinburgh told through the lives of those who have lived and worked in 66 Queen Street. It’s an excellent social history, full of brilliant insights to the little known stories that influenced the city’s great moments. In this extract, we find Robert Louis Stevenson attending the trial of an acquaintance, charged with multiple brutalities despite his respectable appearance. . .

 

66: The House That Viewed the World
By John D. O. Fulton
Published by Scotland Street Press

Enter Hyde

Chantrelle was an acquaintance of Stevenson. His continuous presence for the trial’s duration suggests that Stevenson was keen to gain an insight into the complex alter ego of an educated and talented man who had murdered his wife. Another figure of notoriety, who had fascinated Stevenson as a boy was Deacon Brodie, a locksmith and respected town councillor, who had committed his crimes ninety years earlier. Brodie had confined his activities to armed robbery and more particularly burglary. These were committed at night by him gaining entry to houses through using copy keys he had cut for the new locks he had fitted for his trusting clients. Like Chantrelle, the scaffold awaited Brodie but the nature of their crimes was quite different. A far greater darkness lay within the soul of Chantrelle. He had abused his wife and other women whilst expressing no empathy or pity for those whose lives he had ruined or, in the case of his wife, taken.

To try to understand what may have been the fascination which drew in Stevenson, one needs to look at his early life. He was brought up as an only child in the New Town of Edinburgh by parents who were devout and serious Presbyterians: a situation fortified by his faithful nurse who held strong Calvinistic and folklore beliefs. For her the theatre was the ‘mouth of hell’ and she filled the head of young Louis with, amongst other terrifying images, the blood-drenched religious fundamentalism of the two previous centuries. Her remedy for her charge’s frequent bouts of insomnia was a cup of strong coffee in the middle of the night which, with the ill-health he suffered through a weak chest, induced powerful dreams and nightmares in which reality was bent between the conscious and the unconscious. Even as a student his dreams were so real he felt that he was leading a double life making him fear for his sanity.

. . .

He had gained some insight to Chantrelle’s ‘quite remarkable powers’ during a chance meeting one evening in the street. Chantrelle asked Stevenson if he had seen a mutual French friend’s translation of Molière. Stevenson said that he had but did not rate it. ‘His eyes blazed with hope, had me to a public house; and bidding me name any passage of Molière with which I was well acquainted, offered to improvise without the book a better version than their mutual friend.’ The challenge was accepted and, as far as Stevenson could judge, he did well what he professed. Stevenson said he was in no position to judge fairly and he must be given a written copy before he could, as desired, approach a publisher on Chantrelle’s behalf. Nothing more was heard from him and ‘the spark of hope … must have died out’. The next occasion Stevenson found himself observing Chantrelle was in the High Court of Justiciary when the latter was listening ‘with singular and painful changes of countenance, the evidence of his own trial for murder.’

Chantrelle had been born into privilege in Nantes in 1834. His father, who was a shipowner of some repute, provided his son with an excellent education which led to his son’s attendance at Nantes Medical School where his ability earned him a commendation. For reasons that are not clear but may be associated with his father suffering commercial hardship due to the French Revolution of 1848 Chantrelle was no longer able to continue his studies at Nantes but managed to continue them by attending classes in both Paris and Strasburg. These events unsettled him and his aspirations for a career in medicine faded. Instead, by seventeen, he had become a Republican. In 1851 he manned the barricades in Paris where he was wounded in the arm by a sabre. The success of Louis-Napoleon no longer made France a country he could identify with. America beckoned and he spent several years there although what he did there remains unknown. In 1862 he arrived in England where in different regional cities he worked as a French language teacher. By 1866 he was teaching in Edinburgh and was proving himself an excellent linguist in French and German with a proficient knowledge of Latin and Greek. He had further enhanced his reputation by compiling several textbooks which had been adopted by many of the local schools. It was in one of these schools, Newington Academy, that the thirty-four-year-old Chantrelle, replete with a cultured and polished manner, met the fifteen-year-old Elizabeth Dyer.

Seduced by him Elizabeth fell pregnant and her parents forced Chantrelle into marriage on 11 August 1868. The first of their four children was born two months later. The marriage was not a happy one with Elizabeth regularly being subjected to abuse, both mental and physical, in the knowledge that her husband was systematically unfaithful to her. She fled to her parents repeatedly and, on at least two occasions, the police were called in for her protection. Chantrelle threatened to shoot Elizabeth with a loaded pistol and frequently said he would poison her whilst taunting her that he had the knowledge to do so without medical detection. Poor Elizabeth was caught in a bind. Her parents were not prepared to intercede; and having taken legal advice, although she knew she could sue for divorce on the grounds of adultery, the public shame of doing so and the risk of forfeiting the care of her much-loved children prevented her from taking action.

Chantrelle’s unacceptable behaviour, amplified by drunkenness, took its toll at work. His classes dwindled and financial difficulties and debt set in. It was perhaps an increasing sense of desperation in a man who had lost his self-control that led him to make enquiry of two insurance companies about taking out life insurance policies on the life of his wife and himself for the sum of £1,000 each, and on the life of the maid for £100, all payable in the event of an accident. With the first policy he asked if the company, Accidental Assurance Association of Scotland, were in the habit of insuring women (which they were not) and mentioned that his son had accidentally shot him with a loaded gun which had been sitting on the table injuring his hand. It was this event he said that persuaded him to insure himself and his wife against the risk. With the second company, Star Accidental Insurance Assurance Company, he wanted to know what constituted an accident. Amongst scenarios he mentioned the case of a friend who had eaten Welsh rarebit in a hotel and was found dead in his bed the next day. Would that be covered by the policy? In the circumstances of the case the insurer’s answer was firmly ‘No, certainly not’. The policies were taken out with Accidental Assurance on 22 October 1877. This was done very much against the wishes of Elizabeth who informed her mother that she feared for her life pointing out that her husband had more than once threatened to take it.

At the trial witnesses testified to Chantrelle’s abusive behaviour towards his wife and of her opinion that he visited brothels. It was then that the witness Barbara Kay was called: a person whose presence in the witness box Stevenson would observe with acute interest. For Barbara Kay was the keeper of the brothel in Clyde Street frequented by Chantrelle and only a short distance from the Stevensons’ house. The brothel would have been a destination shared by other respectable gentlemen in town. A heave of collective relief may have been heard from within their number when the Lord Justice Clerk announced that what had already been proved of Chantrelle’s behaviour was quite sufficient for the Crown’s purposes. The gossamer layer between the public perception of good and evil remained unbreached.

Evidence was given that up to New Year’s Day of 1878 Elizabeth had been in good health but that evening, because she was feeling slightly unwell, she retired to bed early in their home at 81a George Street, Edinburgh, where the family lived on the two upper floors. Her servant had been given the day off leaving Elizabeth at home with her children and her husband. On the servant’s return at 10pm she found her mistress in the back bedroom with her baby beside her ‘looking very heavy’ and not well. There was a tumbler of lemonade three-quarters full beside her bed and Elizabeth asked her servant to peel an orange for her. The servant gave her mistress a quarter and left the remaining three segments on the plate. Retiring to bed Chantrelle slept in the front bedroom with his two older children. The next morning, on rising, the servant heard moaning from Elizabeth’s bedroom. The door usually closed was partly open. She found her mistress lying unconscious on the bed with stains of vomiting upon the pillow. She called her master who was in his own bedroom with the three children. He returned with her and tried to rouse his wife; the servant suggested he call for a doctor.

Chantrelle claimed he heard the baby crying and told the servant to attend to it. The servant found the baby still asleep  and returned at once to the bedroom where she found Chantrelle moving away from the window. He said, ‘Don’t you smell gas?’ She did not immediately smell it but after a slight delay did whereupon she turned off the gas at the meter. Dr Carmichael was called and when he arrived the room had a pervading odour of gas. Chantrelle explained there had been an escape. The doctor called for Dr Littlejohn, the city medical officer, ‘to see a case of coal gas poisoning’. Upon Littlejohn’s arrival both doctors because of Chantrelle’s assertions and the smell believed Elizabeth to be suffering from gas inhalation. Remaining comatose Elizabeth was admitted to the Royal Infirmary where the ward doctor diagnosed the case as not one of gas but of narcotics poisoning, probably opium, and he treated the patient accordingly. At 4pm, Elizabeth died without regaining consciousness. The post-mortem examinations ruled out gas as the cause of death but failed to detect the narcotic poisoning indicated by the symptoms. Analysis of the stains of vomit on the bedclothes and the pillow, however, proved the presence of opium together with the orange pulp.

On 5 January immediately following Elizabeth’s funeral at which those present had been deeply moved by her husband’s very public outpouring of grief Chantrelle was arrested for murder and dispatched to Calton Prison. The defence argued that the symptoms of death were consistent with gas poisoning and that the stains were not proved to be the result of vomiting. On the basis of medical evidence alone the Crown might not have had enough to secure a conviction. But it was proved that positioned behind the window shutter, from which the servant had observed Chantrelle retracing his steps as she had re-entered the bedroom, was a disused gas pipe. It was the source of the gas having been freshly broken by being twisted back and forth. Had it been in that condition for any length of time the room would have filled with gas. Whilst Chantrelle denied knowledge of the pipe it was proved that he had been present in 1876 when it was repaired and its location discussed with the workman.

It was further proved that on 25 November 1877 Chantrelle had bought from a local chemist a measure of opium extract for a use which was never established; but he had informed various witnesses that before retiring to bed he had given his wife a bit of orange and some lemonade prior to taking the baby away as Elizabeth was feeling unwell. The jury was not convinced by Chantrelle’s explanations and a unanimous verdict of guilty followed. Before descending into the cells, with the permission of the court, Chantrelle had given a rambling speech in which he ‘demolished the whole fabric of his case by arguing that his wife had taken the opium voluntarily and someone had rubbed the poison on her linen in order to incriminate him’.

The verdict was cheered by a very large crowd pressed into Parliament Square who were hopeful of glimpsing the prisoner on his way to jail. His appearance evoked hisses, groans, hooting and yelling which continued until the prison van had disappeared into the High Street. This execution, unlike the last in the capital thirteen years before as a result of legislative change, would take place in private within the walls of the prison and away from prying eyes seeking entertainment.

 

. . .

 

More than twelve years later when living in Vailima in Western Samoa, Stevenson had no doubt as to Chantrelle’s guilt. He recalls in his diaries of being told by the Procurator Fiscal that Chantrelle had left France because of murder; he had left England because of murder; and already since he was in Edinburgh more than four or five had fallen victim to his supper parties and his favourite dish of toasted cheese and opium. Stevenson concludes that ‘Chantrelle had all the talents to succeed in any trade, honest or dishonest; and though it may be said that he did for a while succeed in that grisly one he selected, it never brought him even a decent livelihood, and to judge from his face, can have contributed little to his peace of mind’.

Eight years after the trial, Stevenson published The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. He claimed it was the product of years of worrying at the same theme: ‘I had long been trying to write a story on this subject, to find a body, a vehicle, for that strong sense of man’s double being which must at times come in upon and overwhelm the mind of every thinking thing.’

 

66: The House That Viewed the World by John D. O. Fulton is published by Scotland Street Press, priced £19.99

 

 

Quality fiction is always a great gift for Christmas, and this new novel from Stewart Ennis fits that bill. A touching coming-of-age tale, Blessed Assurance introduces us to the god-fearing Joseph Kirkland, his devout family and the community around him, as he tries to make sense of life in a small Scottish town as the Cold War steps up a gear. In this extract, he has an encounter with a travelling preacher. . .

 

Extract taken from Blessed Assurance
By Stewart Ennis
Published by Vagabond Voices

 

Benjamin Mutch walked straight out of the Old Testament. From the moment he appeared and began his slow ascent onto the platform, Joseph Kirkland was bewitched. He was all that Joseph had imagined. All he’d hoped for. More. Much more. He was Abraham, Jeremiah, Isaiah, all of them, all the prophets. He was even carrying a shepherd’s crook for goodness sake, the kind they’d have used in the ‘Parable of the Lost Sheep’, the kind Moses himself might have used to part the Red Sea. If anyone was to be the Saving of Joseph Kirkland it must surely be this man. Joseph felt the cold lead dread subside, a little, enough, and sighed the sigh of a drowning man who’d just seen a ship on the horizon. SOS indeed.

Oh, this hollow-cheeked old man was just perfect. He was as tall, thin and craggy as a sea stack, with a long beard and wild mane of hair as white as foam on a breaking wave. He was magnificent, magnetic.

He wore the uniform of the North East evangelist; tweed suit, Fair Isle v-neck jumper, grey flannel shirt, green knitted tie, brown brogues. All of it, all of him, had seen better days, but it was in his milky opal eyes, filmed with cataract clouds, that his splendid decrepitude was most apparent. His long life of long walks and Saving Souls had clearly taken its toll.

He stopped directly on top of the trapdoor and raised himself up to his full considerable height: ‘Ah’ve been stravaigin up an doon the kintra frae Muckle Roe tae Melrose an back again, an noo here ah am in Kilhaugh aince mair.’

Joseph had cousins in the North East but Benjamin Mutch didn’t sound like any of them. Like anyone Joseph had ever met. And neither was this the boom or bellow of those itinerant fire and brimstone preachers Joseph had witnessed at the Templeton Hall. This was a high hoarse whisper that everyone heard because everyone wanted to hear. Benjamin Mutch looked around and quietly chuckled. Chuckling. In the Hall.

‘Ah’ve no been here fur lang an weary. Mmm. Ah wunner why the Guid Lord in His wisdom has led me here…’

For me. You’ve come for me.

 ‘Weil noo. Ah’ve some muckle guid news an ah’ve some muckle bad news, as they say. Ah’ll gie yese a’ the bad news feerst eh? It has been written that the fearfu’ an unbelieving an the abominable an the murderers, an the whoormongers, an warlocks, an idolaters an a’ the liars shall hae their pairt in the loch which burneth wi fire an brunstane: which is the saicant deith.’ Benjamin Mutch considered this, let it sink in, for his own benefit as much as anyone else’s. The heat in the Hall played its part. ‘This is the wey it is. This is the wey it will be. But! There is guid news.’ He chuckled again and shook his big, bearded, lion-maned head as though not quite believing it himself, ‘An it’s gey guid. Gey guid. The guid news is that God sae luved the warld that he gie’d His ainly begotten son – His ain son – think aboot that noo, eh – that whosoe’r believeth in Him shouldna perish, but hae e’er-lastin’ life.’

Joseph was shocked. Not at the descriptions of Damnation and Salvation, which he’d heard often enough, but at Benjamin Mutch quoting scripture in Scottish words. Nobody used Scottish words in the Hall, not like this, and certainly not when quoting Scripture. Gran had little time for Scottish words, which she considered uncivilised and common: It makes good words and profanities sound the same.

 ‘Gentle Jesus, meek an mild, leuk upon this little child. Hou mony o ye chant that in yer bed at nicht afore ye gang aff tae sleep eh?’ Nobody answered. ‘Noo listen, yase’ll need tae say somethin or ah’ll no ken yer there. Wi ma eyesicht it’s foggier in here than it is oot there.’ Was Benjamin Mutch making a joke? Nobody laughed, and he chuckled again, then a few hands went up. ‘An there’s nae point pittin yer hauns up neither. Ah canna see them. Bawl it oot! Wha chants their Gentle Jesus?’

There was a muted chorus of Me. I do. I say it. Benjamin Mutch nodded sagely. Everything he did he did sagely.

‘Weil mind add Benjamin Mutch tae yer list o them ye askit the Lord tae Bless.’

He scratched his beard, licked his lips, closed his eyes and muttered to himself. Some folk looked at each other like he’d gone doolally. But when he opened his eyes they were clearer, his voice stronger, ‘Ah wis in the jyle at the time, at the tap end o a vera lang preeson sentence. Oh whit a dork an drearisome place it wis tae. Ah wis that lost in there. Och dinna misunnerstaun me, ah wis lost lang afore ah went tae the jyle. Ah wis as far awa’ frae the Lord as it’s possible fur a maun tae be. Ah kent the Deil but. Oh aye we were weil acquaintit, masel an the Deil. Ah didna ken Jesus Christ oor Lord though. But ah soon fund oot that he kent me. It wis a chaplain frae ain o the Halls up North wha telt me whit ah needit tae hear. Ah usually avoidit these fowk like the plague, but this yin – oh a richt dour man so he wis, wad hae given Haly Wullie a run fur his money – he saw this tattoo o a blue fish oan the back o ma haun.’ He held out a pale liver-spotted left hand. ‘A bit faded wi salt waater and years o wandrin hither an thither, back an forrit, but yese can still see it eh? Onywey, this chaplain, he kent ah’d been a fisherman an he says tae me, Benjamin, ye ken the vera feerst follyers o Christ had picturs o a fish drawn oan their hauns? An ah says Oh, is that richt? Because tae be perfectly honest wi ye, ah couldna be bathered wi a’ this releegious clishmaclaver. Weil he gie’d me a Bible, the feerst ah’d e’er held. The same auld tattered Bible ah’m haudin in ma haun noo in fact. Read this Benjamin, says he, an he merked it at Mathew’s Gospel chaipter fowr. The Lord’s waitin fur ye Benjamin, says he. Weil that wis me. Oh ah cursed the maun an his God, yasin words ah couldna repeat here in Kilhaugh.’

Disappointment registered in the eyes of the Sangster twins who’d loved to have heard him repeat the words he couldn’t repeat in Kilhaugh.

‘Och ah wis a thrawn crittur back then. Ragin’ at the warld so ah wis, worse wi a drink in me but wickit wi’oot it. Weil ah took his Bible because ye ken in the jyle ye tak onythin that’s gaun free. But ah wis that determint no tae read it. That nicht tho, ah wis in ma peter – ye ken a peter is whit preesoners ca’ their cell – an ah wis sharin it wi anither puir sowl. Auld Joe wis his name. Been in an oot the jyle a’ his days. Auld Joe couldna read nor write an we had nae books in oor peter, so Joe, he says tae me, Whit ye got ther Benjamin? A Bible, says I, an he says, Will ye read me a wee bit o it? An ah thocht, ach whit fur no, ah’ve naethin else tae dae. So ah opened the Guid Beuk for the vera feerst time, at the place yon dour man frae the Hall had merked, an this is whit ah read,’ Benjamin Mutch again closed his eyes. He knew the scripture off by heart and recited it as if he was remembering his own life story, ‘Then wis Jesus led up o the Spirit intae the wilderness tae be temptit o the Deil. An when he’d fastit forty day an forty nicht….’ as if he was there right now in that wilderness and was simply reporting on events. ‘Frae that time Jesus began tae preach, an tae say, Repent: fur the kingdom o heaven is at haun. An Jesus, walkin bi the sea o Galilee, saw twa brethren, Simon cried Peter, an Andra his brither, castin a net intae the sea: fur they were fishers. An he saith untae them, “Folla me, an ah will mak yese fishers o men.” An they straightawey left their nets, an follaed him.’ His eyes sprung open. ‘Weil, ah nearly slammed the Guid Book shut there an then because ah didna want tae be remindit o the fishin days. But auld Joe, he insistit ah cerrit oan. An when ah got tae the end, ah dinna ken why but ah leuked at auld Joe, an ah leuked at the fish tattoo oan ma haun an ah got up oan a chair an keeked through the wee barred windae high up oan the cell wa’ that leuked oot ower the North sea, the vera sea that fur mony years ah yased tae fish an which had been the source o a’ ma troubles. An there wis a storm blawin that nicht. My, whit a tempest it wis tae, the likes o whit Jonah himsel micht hae witnessed. Weil, the wind blew the salt waater in through the wee windae but ye ken ah couldna say whether it wis the salt waater ah wis tastin’ or ma ain teardraps. Fur ah wis greetin like ah’d ne’er gret afore. No greetin’ like a bairn mind. Mair, howlin, like a woundit beast, screichin oot that wee windae intae the nicht, Oh Lord if yer ther, please hear me. Ah couldna haurdly speak fur greetin. Ah ken ah’m a filthy rotten sinner, there’s nae gettin awa’ frae it. But Lord if ye see fit, then ah’m askin ye, please come intae ma hert. An at that moment a muckle great waw cam crashin oan tae the rocks an the waater hit against the preeson wa’ an the spray cam through yon wee windae an waashed ower me. An ah kent. Richt there an then ah kent that ah had been foon. Efter that… efter that…’ He was speaking in a whisper now, ‘…ah wis calm. Ah went tae sleep an ah slept like a babby. An when ah waukent… ah heard things different, ah saw things different, ah felt things different. Ah wis different… a different maun.

A different man? Different, how? Invasion of the Body Snatchers different?

 ‘Ah had been SAVED. Weil the follaein Sunday ah wis baptised, in a tin tub in the jyle, bi yon maun frae the Hall, an whit a glorious day that wis. But that wisna the end o ma journey. In fact, ah wid say it wis ainly the beginnins o it. Ah read scripture evra oor o evra day in ma peter, or daunderin roon the yaird, readin tae masel or tae onynody wha’d listen. The Guid Beuk wis ayeways in ma haun. Bible Benjamin! That’s whit they ca’d me. An whit fur no? At nicht ah cerrit oan readin auld Joe scripture an evra bit o scripture ah read tae him it wis that fittin ye micht hae thocht it had been scrieved jist fur me an him. Weil, efter mibbe twa weeks o this, auld Joe wauks me up in the middle o the nicht. Oh his een were fu o bodement, pished wi’ dreid so he wis. In the jyle ye ken the nicht is the time ye feel it maist, the desolation an despair. An he says tae me, quiet as a moose, Benjamin, ther’s somethin ah need tae say an ah waant you tae hear it, an ah says, Joe ahm a’ ears an he gets doon oan his knees an he closes his een an he says, Lord, it’s Joseph here. Ah’ve ne’er spak wi ye afore but here ah am noo, a sinner, an aboot as coorse as they come. But ahm askin ye tae come into ma hert like ye did wi ma guid pal Benjamin here. Weil, see when he opened his een, maun there wis a licht in them ah hidna seen afore an his sowl wis mair lichtsome tae an ah kent that this wisna the same maun, that the auld sinner Joe had died a deith.’

‘Weil boys an girls ah served ma time an eventually ah wis liberatit. An ah thocht tae masel whit’ll ah dae noo? Weil, as an auld lag, ma options were gey limited eh? There wis aye the fishin boats. But ah wis that feart. Feart that goin back oan the boats wad mean goin back oan the drink. Feart ah wid turn back intae the maun ah had aince been. Weil ah thocht aboot it richt enough. An then ah remembert auld Joe an the scripture yon chaplain had merked oot fur me a’ those years afore an ah realised in a flash that aye ah wid tak up the fishin again. But no fishin fur the cod or the herrin. Na, ah had mair muckle fish tae catch. Ah’d be a fisher o men. An the mair ah thocht aboot it the mair ah realised that ah already wis a fisher o men, fur had auld Joe no been ma vera feerst catch?’

Leaning heavily on his stick, Benjamin sat down. ‘Onybody ony questions?’ Silence. ‘Naebody? Weil, ah’ll tell yese the feerst question ah’d be askin if ah wis a bairn sittin doon there listenin tae some bletherin auld lag up here. Ah’d be askin, whit were ye in the jyle fur Mister Mutch? Eh? Dinna tell me that’s no whit yer thinkin! Weil ah’ll tell yese. Ah wis in the jyle because ah murdert a fella fisherman in a drunken rage. An no wi a knife or a gun or a rope but like a beast, wi ma bare hauns, these same hauns that haud the Guid Beuk.’

He held up those murdering hands and Joseph’s mouth fell open. All the children’s mouths fell open. It had of course been spoken of, but to hear this confession out loud, to see those killer hands!

‘Oh ah wis drunk a lot in them days.’ His eyes were wet. ‘Aye, tak a leuk evrabody, tak a guid leuk. Whit ye hiv afore ye is a convicted murderer. Oh ah’ve repentit. Ah’m still repentin. Ah’ve served ma time but ah’ll be repentin till the end o ma days. The panel that pit me awa is naethin compared tae the panel ah’ll staun afore oan judgement day. But here’s whit ah hiv tae say tae yese a’. The Guid Lord wis crucified tae deith oan yon cross so that sinners sic as me, aye even sic as me, wad no perish but wad hae e’er lastin life! Weil, whate’er sins ye micht think ye’ve committed ah’m shair they’re naethin compared tae mine. An like me ye can be Saved, but ainly – an ah’m talkin tae the aulder bairns amang yese – if ye repent an gie up yer life tae Him. There, ah’ve said whit ah cam tae say. Noo, pick up yer chorus beuks…’

They’d sung this chorus many times, but never in the presence of a real fisherman turned murderer turned missionary:

I will make you fishers of men, / Fishers of men, fishers of men,
I will make you fishers of men, / If you follow Me.

 Benjamin Mutch answered questions about life as a missionary, about his eternal wanderings from village to village, town to town, labouring for the Lord. Most of them had read Heroes of the Cross and Benjamin Mutch sensed their disappointment when it became clear that his missionary work had not taken him far beyond the Scottish borders.

‘Ah suppose yese are askin yerselves whit fur did he no gang ower tae dorkest Africa or dorkest India or dorkest Papua New Guinea or dorkest some ither place ower the sea? Eh? Places whaur they’ll eat yese as soon as leuk at yese! Places whaur the real heathens live eh? Weil ah’ll tell yese!’ He rose to his feet again. His evangelical armoury was extensive. He could do avuncular warmth and wit, child-friendly H.A.P.P.Y., but he had the Old Testament big guns too:

‘Because in the een o the Lord yin unsaved sowl is like ony ither! Because dorkest Africa is nae dorker than darkest Glesga or dorkest Aiberdeen! Nae dorker than darkest Barra or dorkest South Uist. Nae dorker even than darkest Kilhaugh. Evrawhaur has a dork interior.’ He swept the Hall with his shepherds crook, ‘An dae yese ken whaur’s the dorkest interior o a’?’ He punched his heart, ‘In here,’ and tapped his skull, ‘an in here. This is whaur ye’ll fund the Deil an a’ his works. This is whaur ye’ll fund murderin drunkards like me!’ He was stabbing at the air now, ‘This is whaur ye’ll fund puir lost sowls… like Joseph.’

His shepherd’s crook was pointing directly at Joseph Kirkland.

 

Blessed Assurance by Stewart Ennis is published by Vagabond Voices, priced £9.95

It’s been a brilliant year for Scottish books, and you truly are spoilt for choice for books to give as presents. If you’re still undecided, the best people to speak to about gift ideas are our wonderful booksellers. We spoke to a few to ask them what they’ll be recommending to their customers in the run up to Christmas day.

 

Sally, Far From the Madding Crowd in Linlithgow

2019 has been another bumper year for Scottish books, but leaping ahead of the rest is Mary Paulson-Ellis’s second novel, The Inheritance of Solomon Farthing. Set between contemporary Edinburgh and the final, brutal days of the First World War it is once again a study of what happens to those who slip through the cracks of our society. Family secrets are revealed and unravelled like a spool of cotton and there are some simply stunning scenes and fine prose throughout. Paulson-Ellis obviously cares deeply for her subjects and characters; I cannot wait to read her next book. Notable mentions must go to The Sound of the Hours, Karen Campbell’s sumptuous World War Two novel set in Italy and David Keenan’s second novel, For The Good Times which covers the Troubles in his own inimitable style: once read never forgotten with Mr Keenan, long may he continue!

The Scottish book we are recommending most highly is the brand new and utterly gorgeous The Secret Life of the Cairngorms. This is the second year in a row we’re nominating an Andy Howard book with Sandstone Press as our Scottish Christmas title of the year – it is a partnership that’s really working and they are offering a book that pretty much everyone will enjoy. Packed full of stunning photos and thoughtful essays and a front cover that has a red squirrel bounding through snow, I’m very much hoping someone remembers to get it for me to unwrap on Christmas Morning! As always, there are a couple of honourable mentions – this year to the brand new Harveys Complete Collection Maps of the Munros. This is an absolutely stunning collection and pair it with the Munro Pocket Log & Tick List from those clever people at Top Munro for the ideal present for any confirmed hill-bagger!

 

Mairi, Lighthouse Books in Edinburgh

There have been some fantastic books out this year – Scottish publishers like Monstrous Regiment, Knight Errant both had bestselling books for us, Sara Sheridan’s Where are the women? is such a brilliant work of feminist historiography…that said, absolute favourite has to be Wain by Rachel Plummer.  Her LGBT reimaginings of Scottish folktales are gorgeously illustrated and totally magical for readers of all ages – as a bookseller it’s been a book that has led to some of the most rewarding, heartwarming conversations I’ve ever had with readers.

Can I make an honorary mention of Ceremony, a Tapsalteerie pamphlet collection of poetry from the Scottish BAME writers network – it’s a thing of beauty, showing the immense richness and creativity in Scotand’s contemporary writing scene. It’s also a timely reminder that to sideline/ignore/overlook our BAME writers is to do a disservice to our literary landscape as a whole – it is shocking that given the talent & craft evident in this teenie wee book so few have found publishers.

Jemma Neville’s Constitution Street should be read by everyone. At a time of constitutional crisis this book is so full of rational hope for a politics from the ground up that it will inspire even the most disheartened. Jemma’s human interest stories are woven into a shrewd legal and political analysis, showing us that we as citizens can act to strengthen and support our communities. It’s got a snazzy cover and is hugely readable so you can literally give it to everyone this holiday.

If we get fiction requests then Haunt Publishing’s debut anthology Haunted Voices is the perfect book for the dark Scottish nights – a great intro to some really exciting voices in gothic writing, which is such a glorious but undervalued Scottish storytelling tradition!

 

Sarah-Lou, The Highland Bookshop in Fort William

Hands down Scottish book of the year is Surfacing by Kathleen Jamie. It is an unforgettably stunning collection of essays told in Jamie’s powerful prose. She takes us on a textural journey through both her memory and archaeological history where she moulds each chapter into something utterly precious.

The book I’ll be recommending this Christmas is Warriors, Witches and Damn Rebel Bitches by Mairi Kidd. We love, love, love this book. A real celebration of strong Scottish women from history perfectly wrapped up in a fun and modern format that deserves a place under every Scottish Christmas tree this year!

 

Dorothy, The Watermill in Aberfeldy

My favourite Scottish book of the year has been A Breath of Dying Embers by Denzil Meyrick. The latest out for DCI Daley and his side-kick Brian Scott. Very topical with terrorists and drone attacks on the Mull of Kintyre!

Our Christmas recommendations include:

The Munros: The Complete Collection of Maps from Harveys – not one to put in your rucksack for walking but very nice.
The Secret Life of the Cairngorms – only because it has a cute red squirrel on the cover! – seriously there stunning illustrations in the book.
The Way of All Flesh and The Art of Dying – have started reading this series and they’re good blend of history, medical drama and thriller.
And for children, An Illustrated Treasury of Scottish Castle Legends and Three Craws from Floris books, and The Tale o the Wee Mowdie from Tippermuir Books Ltd

 

Greig, Blackwells in Aberdeen

Hand down my favourite Scottish book this year would be Karen Barrett-Ayres eye-catching Doric For Beginners. It has been a delight this year to introduce our regulars, tourists and our world wide student base to this humorous visual guide to the dialect of the North East. Ken fit I mean.

Another local recommendation with Lia Sanders fantastic Unusual Aberdonians: 36 (ish) Lives Less Ordinary in the North East of Scotland.  This local history book chronicles the lives of 36 of most intriguing, bizarre and stranger-than-fiction folk from the North East. The book has been flying off our shelves since launching back in November.

 

Julie, Golden Hare in Edinburgh

I absolutely adored Moder Dy, the debut collection by Shetlandic poet Roseanne Watt. I’ve been reading a lot of poetry this year, and this really stood out for me – there’s a real playfulness with language and a quiet melancholy that really moved me. I keep thinking about it and I love recommending it to people in the bookshop.

There are so many Scottish books that are big hits at Golden Hare – the Theresa Breslin/Kate Leiper folktale collections from Floris, the Muriel Spark novels from Birlinn and many more, but I absolutely love the newly published Illustrated Declaration of Arbroath by Andrew Barr published by the Saltire Society. It’s a gorgeous book about a key document in Scottish history that’s very pertinent to read in our current time –  I’m recommending it to a lot of parents whose teens are interested in history or politics, but to be honest I want nearly everyone to read it.

 

Duncan, Toppings & Co in Edinburgh

My favourite of book of 2019 is Pockets of Pretty (An Instagrammer’s Edinburgh) by Shawna Law – A beautiful guide to help us discover the hidden corners of our stunning new home!

This Christmas, I’ll be recommending Tall Tales and Wee Stories by Billy Connolly – Some of his stage favourites collected for the first time in a book, as essential as old friends and a good dram over the festive period!

 

 

Vivian, Main Street Trading Company in St Boswells

My personal favourite this year was Night Boat to Tangiers by Kevin Barry. Genuinely menacing but also hilarious!

My Christmas recommendation would have to be The World According to Doddie. We could all do to follow a few of his suggestions.

Hannah Lavery is a Scottish poet, playwright and performer. The Drift, her autobiographical spoken word show, was part of the National Theatre of Scotland’s 2019 season and Black History Month 2019. Finding Seaglass: Poems from The Drift was published by Stewed Rhubarb Press in May of 2019. We asked Hannah to talk about some of her poems.

 

Finding Sea Glass: Poems from The Drift
By Hannah Lavery
Published by Stewed Rhubarb

 

The Specials

Hannah: I wrote this poem for my son after he experienced his second racist name calling at the age eight. This poem came out of my struggle to protect and support him in this world which will at times judge him only by the colour of his skin. ‘The Specials’ is a poem about love and mothering, we  want to hold our children close to us and I think we all fear what the world will do to our sensitive beautiful boys.

 

The Specials

It’s written on your face and whilst I can still read you let me take
it for you, take it out and leave it on the step. Here we will be home.
We will open the windows and scream it for the neighbours to keep
or -the rooks!

Aye, let them caw it out.
Its staining your boots son, and whilst I still can, let me scrub them
clean, soak it up, screw it up, rip it up, leave it out on the front step for
the foxes. We will be home here.

We will dance to The Specials in our sock feet before we open the
back door and yell it to the sky. We will grow strong here. Here, sweet
boy. Its shockwaves just- see?

We will dance to The Specials in our sock feet, in the half light,
leave our dirty boots fallen by the back door. It’s written on your face
and whilst I can still read it. Let me whisper our stories so they will
build to myths and legends

for you to emerge from- whole, strong, known. And let’s curse
through the letterbox before sticking it shut with masking tape and
let’s grow strong son, dancing to
The Specials- in sock feet. In our own half light.

 

My Mum Wears Pink Lipstick

Hannah: I was asked to contribute to Ceremony, Tapsalteerie’s anthology of work from members of the Writers of Colour Group at the Scottish Poetry Library and the Scottish BAME Writers Network. This poem explores my mixed race identity and relationship to my white mother. It is a celebration of our lives together.

 

My Mum Wears Pink Lipstick

I’d say you laid me in a sugar pink shawl but I can’t be sure.
You, with your sugar pink lipstick smile, like that sugar pink dress
that the Aunt Betty doll with her porcelain pink cheeks wore

Did we put her upon a cane chair or was it Great-Granny’s chair?
That you wrapped in sugar pink and powder blue fabric wi cushions
and curtains matching. The sugar pink of the Knickerbocker glory

we had after the dentist, matching the pink of it to our scoured gums
and the underside of his palms. We brought out sugar pink icing
for the Saturday tea, an indoor picnic, watching the A-Team.

Stuffing our faces wi sugar pink turkish delight, your sugar pink
lips marking, claiming me. Mornings, I sat at the end of your bed
watching cartoons and reaching under your duvet to tickle

your pink pink toes. Now, I think it is not pink but peach
and looking back not so sweet but fresh. It was a peach
and it was peachy skin and peach melba and it was peaches

we ate from the pedalo sellers that time in Greece, peaches
the size of tennis balls, collected from the waves, your peach
skin wet with the juice, beautiful peach skin turning shade deeper

that sugar pink lipstick dripping on my cheek. I was melon.
A melon colour. Yellow like my yellow towelling shorts with the go
faster stripes. My yellow skin, sandy like your yellow hair before

Henna red, Body Shop paste turning my hands as green
as our Kitchen walls, where we danced on Sundays to the Top 40.
Sugar pink you and me, your melon, melanated girl

and sometimes the sugar pink fell like paint, like raindrops.
Like rainbow sugar drops found in pockets. My mum
wears sugar pink lipstick and I find the stains of it
the sweet, sticky marks of it, everywhere.

 

Scotland, You’re no mine

Hannah: You can also find the poem in Finding Sea Glass.

 

 

Finding Sea Glass: Poems from The Drift by Hannah Lavery is published by Stewed Rhubarb, priced £5.99

Ceremony: An anthology of work from the Scottish BAME Writers Network is published by Tapselteerie, priced £5.00. It can be ordered here.

Throughout the year we have been collaborating with A Year of Conversation with features on the issue of Translation as Conversation. For Book Week Scotland, we have gathered together all these pieces in one handy spot. Enjoy!

 

Our first feature was from Tom Pow, the Creative Director of A Year of Conversation. 

Next, we chatted to Kay Farrell from Sandstone Press about publishing the Man Booker International Winner, Celestial Bodies. (Though at the time it had only been shortlisted!)

Then, we had a feature from Jennie Erdal on her experiences of translation.

We spoke to Vagabond Voices next, who publish many translated works on their list. Publisher Allan Cameron wrote on why translating works of fiction is important for all readers.

Next, we spoke to Tom Pow again about the great Alistair Reid, a brilliant poet at the vanguard of literary translation.

Lastly, we spoke to Fionn Petch who translates for Edinburgh’s Charco Press on how travel and living abroad has helped with his translation skills.

 

For more information on A Year of Conversation, visit their website.

It’s not just humans that are social animals, and Whittles Publishing have just released a book that celebrates the marvellous mongoose. Here, the authors tell us about the social lives of these great creatures accompanied by some brilliant photographs.

 

Mongooses of the World
By Andrew Jennings & Geraldine Veron
Published by Whittles Publishing

 

There are 34 species of mongooses that are spread across the two continents of Africa and Eurasia, on which they live within a wide variety of habitats, from open savannah to dense rainforest. Yet very little is known about these fascinating small carnivores. Apart from a few species that live in Africa, such as the endearing and very popular meerkat, most mongooses are rarely seen in the wild, and several have never been studied by scientists.

Do mongooses live in groups, like a pack of wolves, or do they live on their own, like the solitary cats? In fact, most mongooses are solitary, but several species live in social groups, which highlights the extraordinary diversity of social organisation that exists within this group of small carnivores.

Twenty-three mongoose species live mainly solitary lives, with males and females defending separate territories and only coming together for a short time to mate, a few days at most – just a mother and her offspring will spend any significant time together, up to six months or so, and the father is not involved in their upbringing. Recent field studies, however, have revealed that some solitary mongooses may form groups when there are very abundant food resources, such as human garbage dumps. And one species, the yellow mongoose, usually forages alone during the day, but several individuals will sleep together at night in the same den and may cooperate with each other to raise their young.

Eleven mongoose species live in groups, ranging from 3 to 30 individuals and comprising adult males and females, and their young. These mongooses display many social interactions and individuals in a group will work as a team to raise their offspring, often babysitting, feeding and grooming pups that are not their own. They also cooperate with each other to detect predators, such as jackals, snakes and raptors, and will sometimes bunch together to drive away large dangerous animals. The meerkat and the banded mongoose are undoubtedly the most well known of the social, group-living mongooses.

Why do some mongoose species live in groups, whereas others do not? Cooperative hunting is a common explanation for why large carnivores, such as wolves and lions, form social groups: several individuals, acting together, can bring down prey larger than they could kill on their own, which can then feed the whole group, including any dependent young. But mongooses rarely work together as a team to capture prey that is larger than themselves. Instead, it seems that the availability of food is one of the prime driving forces for mongooses living in groups. Many solitary mongoose species include a large proportion of small vertebrates in their diet, such as small mammals, reptiles, amphibians and birds, and usually, there is just not enough of this type of food in their foraging area to feed several mouths at once. Also, one mongoose foraging alone is less likely to scare away a mouse or a lizard than a large group thrashing through the undergrowth. In contrast, social, group-living mongooses mainly eat invertebrates, such as insects, which can be very abundant in some habitats and are much less sensitive to disturbance by several individuals foraging together; invertebrates can also quickly replenish an area after they have been harvested. So for social mongooses there is enough food to go around for the whole group, and having another individual beside you while looking for food does not completely ruin your chances of finding a meal.

Predation risk is another instrumental factor for driving sociality in mongooses, particularly in open savannah habitat. Mongooses are quite small animals that are vulnerable to large predators, such as larger carnivores, snakes and raptors, and a mongoose moving around in open habitat is particularly at high risk since it is much more visible to preying eyes. Being in a group can then be beneficial through coordinated vigilance for an approaching predator, and group members take turns to go ‘on guard’ to watch for predators by standing on an elevated structure, such as a termite mound or tree. This individual gives a specific call, the ‘watchman’s song’, to inform other group members which mongoose is on guard duty, and upon sighting a predator, it will then give a specific alarm call. This guarding helps reduce mortality within the group, since several dedicated eyes are scanning the horizon at all times. This vigilance system demonstrates the high levels of cooperation and communication that have evolved in social, group-living mongoose species.

The range of social organisations within the mongoose family is quite remarkable and is just one of the fascinating aspects of this amazing group. You can learn more about the natural history of mongooses through reading our new book on these intriguing animals.

 

Mongooses of the World by Andrew Jennings & Geraldine Veron is published by Whittles Publishing, priced £18.99

In his book The Literary Politics of Scottish Devolution, Scott Hames explores the relationship between Scotland’s cultural conversation and our political and constitutional changes. It’s a great overview of modern Scottish life and will inspire a growing list of books to read! Here Hames discusses how James Kelman uses voice.

 

Extracts taken from The Literary Politics of Scottish Devolution: Voice, Class, Nation
By Scott Hames
Published by Edinburgh University Press

 

In a set-piece irresistible to cultural critics, the state opening of the new Scottish Parliament found its ‘truly electric moment, the moment everyone remembers’ when the new intake of MSPs joined in Sheena Wellington’s recital of ‘A Man’s a Man For a’ That’. ‘Part of the frisson’, observed Douglas Mack, ‘doubtless derived from the fact that this old song gives voice to a radical egalitarianism of a kind not usually associated with royal opening ceremonies.’ With its noisy contempt for elite prerogative, Burns’ song is difficult to square with the sanctifying presence of the Queen, the Duke of Edinburgh and Prince Charles, who ‘sat in respectful silence, listening to lines about rank being merely ‘the guinea’s stamp’, about ‘yon birkie ca’d a lord’, about the ‘tinsel show’ of wealth and privilege’. This awkwardness extends to the well-scrubbed parliamentarians, solemnly crooning vindication of their ‘toils obscure’ for the television cameras, ventriloquising the disdain of the powerless.

But as nobody in the chamber (or watching a recording) could mistake, in the moment of song these rhetorical glitches are as nothing – so much ‘a’ that’ to triumphantly set aside. The contradictions of the scene are flushed away in the sensuous mutuality of collective singing. In releasing the sound and experience of latent togetherness – the force of ‘unisonance’ described by Benedict Anderson – this song-pageant manifests a condition of national co-presence emblematised by voice; and on terms far exceeding those of the Scotland Act 1998

. . .

In a 1995 article, Dorothy McMillan notes the authenticating appeal of demotic experience in the ‘new’ Scotland: ‘some engagement with the folk or the people has generally been found necessary in the construction of a notion of nation and it is, of course, in the urban discourses of James Kelman and his disciples that most critics north and south of the border have found the new centre of Scottishness’. Michael Gardiner’s 2005 primer on Modern Scottish Culture installs Kelman at the heart of cultural devolution: ‘dissatisfied with being politically silenced in the 1980s and 1990s, [Scots] had to find a creative solution [. . .] Kelman’s rise came at a time when Scots were literally finding a political “voice” in the form of the new Parliament.’ But Kelman’s best-known novel underscores the limits of conceiving voice as a channel for transmitting ‘given’ identities into pre-constituted representative space. Gardiner’s reading of How late it was, how late as a ‘direct representation of devolution’ therefore strikes me as antithetical; on the contrary, Kelman’s most celebrated novel is forearmed against intercessionary mechanisms of power, and pointedly refuses to conceive power as representation on the devolutionary model. Instead How late constitutes voice as the medium of being, and pungently insists ‘there’s a difference between repping somebody and fucking being somebody’. As in much of Kelman’s fiction, the narration seems to directly embody the subjectivity and ipseity of his characters – of The Busconductor Hines we are told ‘his language contains his brains and his brains are a singular kettle of fish’ – in language which is nonetheless saturated in class, place and Balibar’s ‘common acts’ of exchange.

With extraordinary immediacy How late seems to enact rather than describe the drama of Sammy’s inner life as he navigates the living moment, but in a relational idiom which de-centres his self narration into a form of reportage:

‘Quiet voices quiet voices, he was gony have to move man he was gony have to fucking move, now, he stepped back, pushing out the door and out onto the pavement he went left, tapping as quick as he could, keeping into the wall. He hit against somebody but battered on, just to keep going, he was fine man he was okay except this feeling like any minute the wallop from behind, the blow in the back, the quick rush of air then thud, he kept going, head down, the shoulders hunched.’

This hyper-naturalist effect cannot but flirt with the positivism of ethnographic writing; words that seem to ‘precipitate the culture they purport to describe’. Yet they also, in Kelman, enregister the particularity of the individual’s lifeworld and his freedom from what ethnographic writing (and parliamentary displays of identity) would reify as ‘given’. Sammy is an unemployed ex-convict who wakes up on a patch of Glasgow waste ground, unaccountably assaults some undercover police officers, and is blinded soon after they take their revenge. How late conveys, with overpowering intensity, his efforts to navigate this predicament, one compounded by the disappearance of his girlfriend and acute police interest in friends Sammy may or may not have met during a drinking binge he cannot remember. As he navigates various circles of bureaucratic purgatory, moving from police custody to doctors’ offices to charity clinics via the state social security apparatus, Sammy encounters lawyers, fellow prisoners and his young son. But he remains utterly alone in his struggle, and insists on a personally authenticated confrontation with state power: ‘He had nay intention of using a rep [lawyer]. [. . .] Nay cunt was gony get him out of trouble; nay cunt except himself.’

How late it was, how late is a heroic monument to the freedom and resilience of the individual subject – if any contemporary novelist ‘backs Descartes’, it is Kelman – but the fiction of psychological immersion he achieves is largely divorced from recognisable Scottish society. Traces of contemporary Glasgow are few and cursory, with the important exception of language: the medium of this character’s psychic being, mobilised as a literary device which seems to embody rather than signify social rootedness. In ‘obliterating’ the universalist third-person narrative space from which his characters might formerly have been ‘fixed’ as objects – their lives and speech rendered as mere sociological facts by an external, ‘colonising’ Standard English narrator – Kelman’s narrative experiments severely attenuate the ‘interconnected’ spatiality of the national imaginary. In this respect his narrative experiments aim to realise subjectivity rather than nationality, and his influence on the contemporary novel is not confined to Scotland.

 

The Literary Politics of Scottish Devolution: Voice, Class, Nation by Scott Hames is published by Edinburgh University Press, priced £19.99

Jill Weber and her husband Kirk helped found the Greater Ontario House of Prayer in Canada, and she served as its Abbess for 17 years. Jill is now the Global Convener of the Order of the Mustard Seed, a lay ecumenical religious order, and in her book she explores the many ways we can have a relationship with God.

 

Extract taken from Even the Sparrow: A Pilgrim’s Guide to Prayer, Trust and Following Jesus
By Jill Weber
Published by Muddy Pearl

 

My friend Sue is a cheeky Brit with a silvery pixie cut. Thirty years in Canada and she’s stubbornly held on to her posh London accent. She is equal parts fierce and tender. We first meet at a retreat where we are assigned as roommates. We hit it off from the get-go, never realizing how tightly our lives would be wound together over the next decade and a half. It feels like we are a string of Christmas lights, and when we each get plugged in, we light up!

My relationship with Sue really kicks into gear one day over coffee. ‘So our House of Prayer is trying to figure out how to grow in mission and justice, and it occurs to me that rather than reinventing the wheel and starting something up, maybe I should just chat with you. Can I follow you around a bit?’ We’re sitting in a local coffee shop. Sue is nursing her tea with milk. Her gaze is both sharp and warm. ‘I’m not sure that I will be particularly helpful,’ like a true Brit, she is self-deprecating. ‘But if you would like to come and be with us that would be just fine.’

That Sunday I find myself outside the local homeless shelter and rehab centre where Sue serves as chaplain. A handful of smokers loiter outside – they stare at me as I approach. I take a deep breath and run the gauntlet to the front door.

The staircase leads downstairs to the hall where the chapel service is held. It smells vaguely of sweat and something else, slightly sour and undefinable. ‘Glad you could come!’ Sue beams and shows me around. ‘Here is the kitchenette, there is the ratty little storage closet. And here is my office. Probably a good idea to leave your valuables in here.’ On her door is a painting of Lucy from the Peanuts comic strip, sitting at her booth with a sign that says, ‘The doctor is in.’ There is a line through the word ‘doctor’ and the word ‘chaplain’ has been written in instead. ‘My daughter painted that for me,’ Sue laughs.

Some of the residents arrive and briskly set up chairs and put Bibles and songbooks onto them. ‘We use songbooks and they choose the songs. It’s important that they choose – there is so much going on in their lives that they can’t fix, where there aren’t choices and options. Mostly they like songs that they heard at their parents’ funerals. Those are the ones that they remember.’

‘Number one! I want number one!’ Jackie’s hand shoots in the air. She’s quick on the draw, so we sing number one, which is ‘Amazing Grace’, Sunday after Sunday after Sunday.

I spend the first year hiding behind the coffee table. It provides a safe distance from this group of unkempt strangers but also gives me an opportunity to meet each one of them as they line up for cup after cup of coffee, which they take with spoonful after spoonful of sugar.

They arrive hungry and, before long, I am spending the week baking in preparation. The treats are well received, especially the cupcakes decorated as spiders and hedgehogs. I become an expert forager, gathering leftovers and snacks for our little flock.

…

‘Is there a full moon tonight? Everybody’s restless.’ It’s just one of those days when everything feels out of joint. One of the congregants is particularly agitated and while Sue attempts to speak, he lurches out of his seat. Swaying on his feet, he mumbles an invocation, sweeping his arms towards the four directions of the room. The crowd loses patience and begin to heckle.

Sue breaks into the rumble.

‘No one gets kicked out of my chapel!’

Cowed, the crowd quietens.

Sue then waits until he finishes, gently encourages him back to his seat, and proceeds with the service. I’m in awe. She may look like a tiny Englishwoman, but I see through her disguise. She’s really a Jedi.

I become Sue’s Padawan, her apprentice and shadow. Making coffee. Setting out and stacking chairs. Following her around. Watching everything she does and chatting with her about why she does it that way. Over the course of the next few years I get an indispensable education. How to cultivate safe, welcoming and inclusive space. How to honour the dignity of each individual and how to coax them to share their gifts with each other. I am wrecked for ‘regular’ churchy church.

…

I am dropped off in a neighbourhood that seems to be very much on the wrong side of the tracks. The front door opens to a hall where a bunch of scruffy men are sitting at tables, clutching coffee cups. ‘Here is where we have the soup kitchen and food bank,’ my host is showing me around. ‘Over there we have laundry machines so people can do their wash for free. And we’ve got a clothing bank as well, mainly for the men. Socks are always in demand.’

At the entrance of the prayer room there is an ancient and wispy woman swaying back and forth to the music. She has the gentle and vacant look of someone with dementia. Inside, a few African American children are playing tag amongst the seats and someone is passed out on a pew in the back. On the platform one of the singers is nursing her baby as she sings into the microphone. The singing is interspersed with rap and spoken word.

With a sigh of relief, I settle into a chair. Best pick a wooden chair, don’t know what crawly creatures might be living in the padded ones. My heart feels at home.

 

Even the Sparrow: A Pilgrim’s Guide to Prayer, Trust and Following Jesus by Jill Weber is published by Muddy Pearl, priced £12.99

In 2016, there was much debate over Ellie Harrison’s art project The Glasgow Effect. Now, with the project completed, Ellie has written a book about her experience of that year, her thoughts on why she started the project, and how she feels now about what she learned throughout the process.

 

Extracts taken from The Glasgow Effect: A Tale of Class, Capitalism and Carbon Footprint
By Ellie Harrison
Published by Luath Press

 

Anger and frustration were two of the overriding emotions provoked by The Glasgow Effect. People have every right to be angry in a world where the richest 1 per cent own two-thirds of global wealth and the richest 10 per cent cause half of global carbon emissions (which actually includes nearly all of us here in Scotland where we’re using three times our fair share of the world’s resources every year in order to fuel our carbon-intensive lifestyles), when all the while the ‘people who are poor and powerless bear the brunt’. People have every right to be angry at those in power who are doing nothing to remedy this situation – putting their own selfish interests above all else.

It was alienation, anger and frustration that pushed me into creating The Glasgow Effect in the first place. It was a scream, which was then amplified by the city. Enough is enough, we cannot go on like this! At the very start of 2016, the vitriolic response to The Glasgow Effect became a signal of the direction our world was heading towards.

. . .

This is where we come back to the arts. If art and cultural participation are also seen as ‘middle class things’, then that really is ‘robbery’ from the working classes, as these things can and should offer the antidote to consumer culture – a forum for free ideas and discussion away from the marketplace. It’s using your brain for something challenging like writing or reading, or making or viewing art, which enables you to start to see it as your most important asset, which makes it easier to turn away from drugs and alcohol and to protect it at all costs. ‘Your Health Is Your Wealth’ as Cathy McCormack so wisely said, mentally and physically. And as I discovered in 2015 after breaking both my arms, your health is also your ‘mobility’.

. . .

In the dark days of The Glasgow Effect, when I was cycling through the pissing rain and cursing out loud, or getting stuck in (self-)destructive Facebook wormholes, or waking up in the night with extreme anxiety and ‘home sickness’, I found it hard to remember any good things about this city. I forced myself to think hard. Back to the Scottish Government’s protection of the NHS in comparison to the Tories in England (which had come to my rescue on several occasions and no doubt will do again), to the fact that (unlike England) we still have publicly-owned water, to the free higher education, to the relatively cheap living costs (compared to London), but it was also the huge amount of free culture that I kept coming back to as the one reason why I had stayed here so long.

I kept meticulous records of every meeting, cultural, political or social event that I attended in 2016. There were 571 in total, most of which were free (funded with public money), meaning my annual bill for ‘entertainment’ came to only £129.50, about £2.50 a week. We must create a culture where all these brilliant events are seen as being there for everyone, they must be accessible and inclusive and inviting so anyone can go along. As well as that ingrained class prejudice, there’s a real structural barrier in the form of a shambolic and overpriced privatised public transport system, which means that for many people it’s simply impossible to get into the town, let alone home again, in the evenings. Not only have we created ‘food deserts’ through our failure to address our public transport crisis, we have wilfully created ‘cultural deserts’ as well. It’s no wonder our educational attainment is so poor. Both Carol Craig and Cathy McCormack argue that most poverty in Glasgow is ‘more psychological and spiritual than material’. And because ‘Inequality in arts participation is most closely associated with education’, another vicious circle has emerged.

All of these behaviours – eating unhealthy, expensive processed foods, smoking, drinking, other ‘mindless consumption’, not being able to cycle and rejecting art and cultural participation because ‘it’s no for the likes of us and it’s crap anyway’ – serve to entrench inequalities and reduce well-being amongst the most deprived people in the city. And this ‘aggressive philistinism’ is also potentially shutting people out of a fast-changing ‘labour market’ too, as the skills acquired through a creative education become those least at risk of ‘automation’ and are therefore the ones most in demand in our new ‘knowledge economy’. Likewise, Darren McGarvey and his followers’ resistance to applying for public arts funding for their work is also exacerbating inequalities. One of Loki’s many pieces about middle class people includes the line ‘they can’t be that creative, they’re all subsidised with public funding’. As well as his stated political reasons for not applying for public funding, it is clear his resistance is also about pride and the stigma of accepting any money from the state. It shows the extent to which the poisonous rhetoric of the right-wing media from the ’80s onwards (like the ‘NHS’ insult that I remember from the playground) has created deep shame in accepting welfare payments or other public funding. Neither of these things are a ‘begging bowl’ and if working class people just stand aside and let the city’s growing middle class population cream off all the public money, then they’re actually just helping to maintain the status quo.

 

The Glasgow Effect: A Tale of Class, Capitalism and Carbon Footprint by Ellie Harrison is published by Luath Press, priced £9.99

Good conversation needs good listeners too, but oftentimes, and for various reasons, that skill can allude us. This short story captures this problem excellently, and comes from a brilliant new collection from a new publisher. BooksfromScotland is excited to see what comes next from The Common Breath.

 

‘Good Listeners’ by Brian Hamill
Taken from Good Listeners
By Alan Warner & Brian Hamill
Published by The Common Breath

 

Sitting there and doing nothing – he was just staring out the window. It was still a fair distance home, so no point in being impatient about it, the bus would stop as many times as it had to and people would get on and they would ask the driver stupid questions, does this one go to the hospital son, and people would be getting off and asking the driver stupid  questions again, as if he gives a shite what happens to you once you step off the ledge, and so the thing would crawl all the way to the right stop, the right street, and that would be that. And tired anyway, too tired to get annoyed, because it took energy to get annoyed and he had none, it was these morning starts that did it, the body held up fine but just a weariness, that feeling in the head, his brain going slowly, as if  everything was happening underwater, and affecting the eyes, his eyes that were starting to drop and it was only the early evening.

He became aware of a new noise, in between the sounds of the engine, of people coming in and going out, and the hissing of the door and the wind outside – somebody had started to speak. There had been no talk when he got on. One of those good journeys where there aren’t any folk that know each other, so it stays quiet, tranquil, everybody sitting alone and just shutting up. But now there was this guy, talking steadily, giggling, bits of it could be heard as he droned on and on.

Turning to look down the bus and seeing the guy immediately, the mouth going a mile a minute, stopping only to grin, wink, enjoying his own joke, before going on with the stupid, shitty story. Something about a phonecall, an argument – it being easier to pick up the words now that the fucker was in view.

And who is it he’s talking to?

The girl of course.

The girl that he must have turned round in his seat to start a conversation with, as she’s in the one behind – surely if he had known her, he’d be sitting on the one next to her, if they were friends or whatever. If they’d had relations. Then surely they would have been nestled in together.

As it is the guy’s in front, she’s stuck facing him, and the pair of them are only a few rows away, so that he can see them without it being immediately obvious he’s watching. Which is fortunate. It’s a nice sight. Her wee slim shoulders, the back of her neck, and soft brown hair. Then there’s the guy, who shouldn’t even be twisted round like that, shouldn’t be pestering an innocent lassie; and just the look on his daft fucking face, as he’s leering right in at her, the wee bastard.

Grim.

Continuing to watch them, casually. No need to try and disguise it too much – the guy didn’t look like anything to worry about. He would keep an eye on them in fact, openly, to make sure there was nothing untoward. These young girls, alone, he had heard stories of what can happen. And there’s something about the way the guy was facing her, something in his expression. It doesn’t sit right. The annoying thing is, he had actually noticed her as well when he got on – not having any sort of a good look, but just the passing acknowledgement that the seat was occupied as he went past, and that the occupant appeared to be non-male. It was just the shape, the way she sat, her thin neck, you absorb these things in a split-second, without even glancing really. Yet that’s where it had ended for him; she was keeping herself to herself so he did the same. It was a bus, it was a Tuesday, he wasn’t going to slide up next to her as if they were in a fucking cocktail bar.

But this young gun had. Ok.

Rubbing his eyes briefly, then staring over at the two of them. So either the guy had only got on at the last stop, or worse, he’d spied her and moved over from somewhere else just to give her the chat. She is on the inside seat – is her head actually resting on the glass? It is tilted to the side. And the guy, on the opposite seat in front, turned right round with one leg sticking out into the aisle.

Hard to tell if she’s replying to him. Her ponytail twitches about at the back of her head, but that’s just the motion of the bus, probably. And even so, it proved nothing. She could be uncomfortable. Frightened, even. Considering getting off and walking, or waiting on the next bus, praying that one would be free of such perverts and psychotics. Maybe she’s terrified, hating it, pinned into the wall and desperate for somebody to come over and stop him.

The bloody patter the guy was coming out with, it was not real. That feeling of being embarrassed – for him – of getting a hotness about your own fucking ears and face, and then shaking the head and having to look away for a minute: this, for a person not even known to yourself. Crazy. That’s how fucking bad it was, it was just awful, what he was saying and how he was saying it. That the cunt could keep a straight face!

And there’s no way in this world she doesn’t know what he’s up to. It was impossible not to, an absolute impossibility, there was not a fucking mammal on land that couldn’t have, no no no.

No.

These are the times where it’s good to not be a girl, to never have to put up with this kind of rubbish, this transparent insulting fucking nonsense. He’s looking right at her, this young deviant, right now, for God sake, his head getting ever closer. The eyes he keeps giving her, it’s obvious to the point of being quite threatening. How could she not feel threatened? The beady eyes, moving about on her, burrowing into her – even he could see that and he was rows further back.

If only a message could be relayed to the guy somehow. Maybe to his phone, or into a fucking earpiece, something inreal-time just to say to him, to tell him, so that he would know: LISTEN, YOU’RE DOING TERRIBLE MATE, TERRIBLE, SHE’S EMBARRASSED, AND WE’RE ALL EMBARRASSED TOO, COZ YOU’RE GIVING US A BAD NAME HERE. TOO, TOO BAD. SERIOUSLY NOW, JUST FUCK OFF, OK, LEAVE IT. LEAVE IT AND COUNT YOURSELF LUCKY. OK? FUCK OFF.

But still they’re chatting, at least he is, when a group of new people come in, some going upstairs, some sitting down here. This big, heavy-looking older woman parking herself in the chair in front – he has to move out to the aisle seat just to keep a bloody view of them, on account of this old dame’s giant head with the hair all piled up and this hat perched on the top of it, looking absolutely ludicrous, really, but thankfully able to see them again . . . and having to blink and strain the eyes for a second to be sure, to see it clearly, but aye, it’s there, it was happening, the bastard had snaked his hand over the top of the seat and left it dangling down on her side. Fucking unbelievable! The fingers, so close to her, it was an invasion, but more than that – we were now nothing but a pot hole away from full fake-accidental hand-to-tit contact.

It is too much.

Too far.

He takes a long breath in.

The bus, swaying round corners, but managing to hold the handrails and get down to where they are, and seeing her wee face for the first time, she was quite young as expected, and so saying to him: Right, RIGHT!(to get him to look up, then going on: You leave the lassie alone, right? RIGHT? Don’t give me any shite – and actually having to shout a bit coz of the engine noise – Don’t even try it, you never came on with her, you’re annoying her and you’re annoying me, so go, go wait at the door, you’re getting off the next stop.

The guy’s eyes are opened wide, he tries to laugh, then his mouth moves in response, these words he’s saying, he’s trying to excuse himself, to plead maybe, but there’s too much feeling boiling up for it even to be listened to, nothing is being heard, nothing, there’s just no point to it, whatever daft shite he was saying, it’s only sound in a vacuum; but he’s talking faster and faster, he’s desperate to be listened to. Instead, moving forward quickly to grab a handful of the Bastard’s t-shirt, trying to pull him off the fucking seat since he wouldn’t stand up, but then she says something too and that seems to work, he reacts to her words and starts to rise, slowly, he’s whispering, holding his hands up like he’d a gun pointed at him. The grip of the t-shirt released accordingly. The guy squeezes out, taking care not to make any contact, and goes on down to where the door is. When he gets there he gives this look back, this nasty look with the lips moving again, and there’s a second or two when the thought passes through – the thought that maybe he shouldn’t be getting off so lightly. Maybe he is getting off way too light here. And there’s still time. The driver was not slowing.

But it’s the bloody tiredness.

It’s there again, he can feel it, there in his arms, his shoulders, his eyelids and the sides of his face, even down to his knees and his hips, like he was an old man, ready for the fucking glue factory, and is this guy even worth it anyway, really, when he had already shit himself and went to leave, he was nothing, the guy, in fact he was worse than nothing, he wasn’t anything, a non-person, a non-entity, a fucking waste of skin, you could go on and on about such a guy, but why even bother.

And anyhow: the girl.

He turns and smiles, and she starts speaking now, so the smart move is to sit down, to listen, because she can’t be heard as it is, so noisy on this bus, these fucking sounds, all of them, and all at the same fucking time, it’s just too noisy, it is.

I know, she says. I know.

And I’m sorry about that, what I had to do there, but I could tell he was over trying his luck. I saw you were sitting minding your own business when I got on.

He was ok, she says.

The hiss of the doors again, and that moment, the sweet, sweet beauty of it, when, even without looking, the guy can be seen, having almost forgot him as soon as he was out of sight, but then from the corner of the eye, down on the pavement, his stupid, sickening face, the open mouth, shouting something or other, and the bus pulling away, so slow, the old bus, it’s glorious that it’s so slow, really drawing it out, the engine roaring, stuttering, with him in beside her and the youngster stuck outside. He smiles out at the guy, who is making a gesture with his phone in his hand, waving it around, but it doesn’t deserve a glance really, he just looks so wee and pathetic out there, this young buck, the bold one, no longer important enough to stare at, not even to smile at and shout, enjoy the walk home, fucker! Bye-byeeeeee.

The guy disappears, lost from view.

And here he still is. Right in front of the lassie, smiling.

Her hair is red, it’s red! It had looked brown but now he’s that close and it’s red, the strands so light that it’s hard to believe he couldn’t tell before. She seems to be sort of grinning too. There’s this expression on her face.

Oh, he was ok, was he? Well maybe he was but still, that’s how it starts,eh?

She nods. She just nods. Blinking her eyes a couple of times as she does so, and he notices how long her eyelashes are.

What a situation to be in.

Sitting on the chair that had been his, the young guy’s, but with the hands holding firmly to the top of it, not draped over on the other side. Her side. Not to be going about it like that; that may have been the young bastard’s way of behaving, but it certainly isn’t his.

I’ve seen him on here before, you know, doing the same thing with other people, other girls, you know, trying that old carry-on.

She shrugs, glances at the mobile she has slid out of her trouser pocket. The screen is dark.

You off home then?

Aye. She doesn’t look up. And thanks.

Or it sounded like she said thanks, but her voice was that quiet, so quiet it was hardly a noise. It’s tricky to know for sure.

He lowers his head, just a bit closer in, so that the next thing she says will definitely be picked up.

Did you say thanks there? Was that it?

RIGHT.

The shout so loud it made him jolt in his seat, almost losing his balance. It was another voice, coming from further up the bus. He turns his head sharply to see the speaker.

Somebody standing in front of the back window. Right at the centre of it, the end of the aisle. A man. It had been a man’s exclamation, and it’s a man’s shape now approaching, the light from the window strong on either side of him as he begins to move down the aisle. Squinting to try and see the face but it’s not clear; too much in the shadow.

As the person gets closer he speaks again.

You can leave the lassie alone, RIGHT? Don’t even give me any shite. I saw you going over there and making her pal get off.

He feels himself start to smile as the guy continues. It was unbelievable. Yet this was his life – these moments, these interactions, he doesn’t look for them, they seem to just seek him out, every day, on the bus, wherever he goes. What to do? Evidently this confused person thought he was up to the same disgusting game as the youngster had been.

It was wrong to think that. And to say it, with the bloody lassie in earshot. Trying to catch her eye, but she’s pretending she can’t hear it, she’s keeping her head to the front. Something about that makes him feel so sad and sorry, that she should have to be frightened like this. There was nothing to fear for her, not with him here. Nothing at all.

The new fellow is close. He’s definitely bigger than the young guy was, and still talking on and on, fucking blabbering away; more words, and more eyes looking over, more things being said. None of it is really being heard. The sound is hitting his ears, but he is closed off to it. Inside. He is closed off inside and that’s why there is no need to be frightened.

That’s what these youngsters don’t understand. These fucking idiots he has to deal with, time after time, again and again and again. He sighs.

The bus shakes slightly. He feels the drift of air from one of the side-windows, then the girl’s hand tight on the cuff of his jacket briefly, before it slides back off. That she had touched him – she had actually reached out her hand and made contact with him, and yet he couldn’t say anything, couldn’t even look. Because of the situation. Because of this new guy, who was within an arm’s length. Right fucking there. Occupying the portion of space at the edge of the seat. Blocking the way. Just that alone was threatening, the guy being there, it was a threat.

The tiredness is all gone. He feels like stone. And still this guy speaks. Watching his mouth; the teeth and tongue as they move around. The saliva on his lips. So close now.

Slowly standing up, and looking straight into the guy’s eye. He stares directly in the fucking black dot in the middle of it; right there and nowhere else. The dot staring back. It moves from side to side, shuddering, not remaining still, but continuing to gaze out from the head, returning the look.

The talk keeps going too, but he can sense the guy is backing off. There is suddenly some distance between them.

Another hand is on his wrist.

And he hears nothing.

 

‘Good Listeners’ by Brian Hamill is taken from Good Listeners by Alan Warner & Brian Hamill is published by The Common Breath, priced £7.00.

10 years ago, Jo Clifford premiered her new theatrical production The Gospel According to Jesus, Queen of Heaven where biblical stories are reimagined by a transgender Jesus. Its staging caused a storm amongst theatregoers and beyond, some seeing it as too controversial, many others welcoming its message of love and acceptance. Stewed Rhubarb have published a 10th anniversary edition with the full script, plus reminiscences of those involved or inspired by its various productions across the world.

 

Extracts taken from The Gospel According to Jesus, Queen of Heaven
By Jo Clifford
Published by Stewed Rhubarb

 

Jo Clifford

I remember that on that occasion 26,573 people signed an online petition asking the City of Edinburgh Council to ban the show; and a lonely man with an array of placards that told us THE WAGES OF SIN ARE DEATH keeping a lone vigil outside the Traverse. I remember the bedraggled protestors outside the venue in Belfast, who had brought along a loudhailer, and a man with bagpipes to try to silence my voice.

I remember the man who filmed himself sitting in his car outside St John Chrysostom’s Church in Manchester, a bit bewildered because he was the only one trying to protest against me when ‘the show so clearly breaks the canon law of the Church of England,’ he said indignantly, holding up his well-thumbed leather-bound copy. He’d posted the video on YouTube and the next one to come up was from an evangelical group in America expressing their disgust at the show. ‘And this’ said their commentator, ‘This is the demon responsible for it.’ And up came my picture, and I understood that for many people I am evil incarnate.

Which is strange, given that the show celebrates love. I can’t begin to understand the reasons for the hatred the show provokes. I worry about the dangers my sisters have faced in Brazil in their courageous resistance to censorship. I love the fact they have taken the show in a completely different direction from ours.

We now have two productions: one for theatrical spaces, and one for everywhere else. We can now perform the show absolutely anywhere. And I hope we can continue to do so. We have filmed the production, so that people can see it in private in those many countries where it is dangerous to see it in public.

Right now, we are preparing to perform in Brussels; later this year, it will be in Glasgow again, to celebrate the show’s tenth anniversary. I don’t know what will happen next. I never have. I never thought the show would last so long, or so many people would see it, or that through it I would come to see myself as a performer.

I’m proud of it. Of all the one hundred plays I have written, perhaps it’s this one of which I’m the proudest.

And I think it may be doing some good in the world.

 

Rachael Rayment
Director of the original production

I was drawn to the play because it was so profoundly personal and intimate. For me, the play was about Jo, her Christian faith, her relationship to Jesus, the teachings of the Gospels and a defiant public expression of self. The very act of performing it was, as Jo herself says, a confrontation and exorcism of shame. At its core, it touched upon a deep sense of sacredness, humanity and compassion that was universal.

I didn’t have to be trans, or Christian, to understand and be deeply moved by it.

 

Susan Worsfold
Director, designer and founding director of Queen Jesus Productions

Queen Jesus is a work of devotion. Of devotion to ourselves and to being present with one another. To commune. It is constantly evolving, changing and deepening, dependant on where those of us who create it are in ourselves and where the audience are in their lives. To witness this is an ongoing journey and a continuous barometer of where the personal present meets the politics of its time.

. . .

We don’t bring a play, we bring a world. How we are with one another, how we consider one another, how we love one another directly impacts on how we open the doors to ourselves and to the audience.

This is always the time. This is always the place. This is always where we meet each other.

 

Chris Goode
Artistic director of Chris Goode & Company

The first time I saw Queen Jesus, live and in the flesh, was in 2013. Jo had come to be part of a mini-season I’d programmed at a now-closed (and much-missed) little indie theatre in Exeter. I didn’t know her too well back then, but we were proud to have her with us, and thrilled to be bringing Jesus to town.

. . .

Constantly oscillating between fragility and robustness, there is a level of presence in Jo—a fierce vibration of energy and psychic sensitivity—that feels almost supernatural, but is also profoundly human. Not a transcendence, but a kind of transpondence: a remarkable alertness to the signals alive in the room, the traces, the ghost whispers, invisible but palpable as a prickling on the skin, a shimmering in the mind. This mode of presence is the very essence of theatre as a social and political and spiritual act: but I’ve seldom seen it enacted, embodied, with such absolute fidelity.

What I remember just as clearly, though, is Jo staying with us in the tiny flat that we’d rented down the road from the theatre; the conviviality of decent wine (she insisted on that!) and good companionship, generous laughter and unguarded conversation. And behind it all, the smell of fresh-baked bread, specially made for the evening show. I think perhaps only a female Jesus—a grandmotherly Jesus—would bake her own bread.

 

Fiona Bennett
Minister of Augustine United Church, Edinburgh

The first time I encountered Queen Jesus was through reading the script. Our church (Augustine United Church in Edinburgh, where Jo is a member) planned to put on a performance of Queen Jesus as part of Pride. Given the horrific hatred Queen Jesus has received in Glasgow, Jo wanted me, as the minister, to read the script before we put it on. Reading the script, as someone who wrestles with and interprets scripture all the time, was delightful. Jo’s sense of the nuance, honour and tension in the Biblical stories is very good, but reading the script is only a shadow of encountering it in performance.

For the Pride performance, we sat in a huge circle and Jo enabled us to meet Jesus in a new yet very familiar way. I have seen Queen Jesus performed five or six times now and each time is for me a fresh encounter with the living God.

What is amusing about Queen Jesus is how conventional it is! Queen Jesus offers us teaching and stories very much along the lines brother Jesus did. But her identity as a transwomen (and the glorious craft in the words and performance) make the story intimate, relevant and alive. After the first time I saw Queen Jesus performed I described it as a ‘devotional’ piece, which in my mind is just exactly what it is. It is an expression of Jo’s heartfelt spirituality and sits on the cusp of theatre as liturgy, inviting the audience to taste God’s love and hope as Jesus revealed.

 

James T. Harding
Publisher, editor and designer for Stewed Rhubarb

I was raised by a recovering Catholic who sent me to Protestant Sunday schools and told me it was all nonsense each week when I returned home. The results of this were an aesthetic appreciation for ceremony, a tendency to question authority, and a snooty distain for the type of evangelism that waves a tambourine. In other words, little more than spiritual trappings.

I have been blessed to see Queen Jesus in several of its different incarnations. It has changed much over the time I have been a part of its congregation, both in text and in presentation, but one thing has remained constant: the queer people in the audience. Sometimes it’s literally the same people, who I recognise in the crowds at the book launch, the church, the festival, the theatre. Always, however, there is a glint of solidarity in people’s eyes, a glimpse of a spiritual queer communion which is quite different from the community feeling of a pride event or the party atmosphere of a club.

This, for me, is the power of Queen Jesus incarnate: a spirituality which does better than merely tolerate queer people, it makes the queer part of us a source of spirituality and wisdom.

 

The Gospel According to Jesus, Queen of Heaven by Jo Clifford is published by Stewed Rhubarb, priced £10.99

Rose Ruane’s debut novel, This is Yesterday, tackles how women define and express themselves, the consequences of both action and inaction, and the soul-fatigue caused by carrying around baggage from the past. Lee Randall reviews and finds a novel with much emotional resonance.

 

This is Yesterday
By Rose Ruane
Published by Corsair

 

Billed as a story ‘of a woman’s relationship with her art, her body and desires, her memories, herself,’ Rose Ruane’s debut novel, This is Yesterday, mines themes familiar to fans of her previous work across a range of media (performance, sculpture, drawing, video, and writing). These include emotional manipulation, self mythology, and the idea that a part of us never entirely grows up.

Here, Ruane probes questions that are certain to resonate with contemporary readers: Who has the ‘right’ to create art? Is there a statute of limitations on mistakes made in youth? Whose version of history is the version? Is anyone truly unloveable? If we lack purpose—any kind of purpose—what’s life for?

The novel kicks off with an abrupt wake-up call:  ‘The phone ringing in the dead of night can only mean sex or something terrible. Or maybe both. Even in the deep sludge of sleep her body registers shock. Cold sweat and a kick in the chest.’ Peach is summoned to a hospital where her elderly father, suffering from Alzheimer’s, lies in intensive care, badly injured after being struck by a car.

We’re plunged into a family drama seen from Peach’s perspective. We discover she and her older sister, Bella, haven’t been alone together in 25 years. They are apparent opposites: Bella’s a mildly famous internet lifestyle guru, married to a man Peach disdainfully labels ‘part sperm donor, part hedge fund.’  They have twin daughters and financial security.

At 43, Peach knows what she doesn’t want, but has been less successful in identifying and achieving her heart’s desires. Her whole life ‘has felt like grieving for a better person she never became. . . . Peach never wanted to be called wife, she never wanted to be called Mum; but she always wanted to be called important.’

She has abandoned a promising career in fine art photography, ‘dumping art before it had a chance to break up with her.’ For a decade she’s worked as the gallery assistant for a man who ‘spends the first hour of his day doing yoga and meditating and the next eight throwing tantrums a two-year-old would consider needlessly dickish.’ Where Bella is beautiful and glossy, Peach is perpetually disheveled, seen swiping at the red wine stains peppering her coat as she tumbles into the ICU.

They are joined by younger brother Greg, an outdoors-loving, ‘adequate and practical’ bloke who has been most actively—and resentfully—dealing with their father’s increasing incapacity. Eventually their mother and her second husband arrive, rounding out the family unit and ratcheting up the tension.

Peach is ready for a rapprochement; she longs for one, but the siblings instantly fall into familiar patterns—all angles and sharp corners, glancing off each other without connecting, too afraid to speak honestly. This depiction of the push-pull of familial love/resentment hits the mark.

Push-pull effects characterise the novel overall, seen in the way it ping-pongs between present day and the summer of 1994, the fateful year when long-hidden secrets and sexual tensions crested, then burst like a festering boil, fracturing the family. Everyone blames Peach for what happened. She blames herself most of all, and we discover how the burden of guilt corroded her self-esteem, impeding her progress at every level—professionally, emotionally, intellectually.

The push-pull effect is also there in Ruane’s use of language, an unsettling profusion of short sentences and fragments. The narrative judders and jabs. For example: ‘After that they could not fudge and demur. Worst suspicions confirmed. Dad’s dissolution had a name. A prognosis. They gathered round the luminous blue scan as a consultant pointed out dirty thumbprints on the creamy cauliflower of their father’s brain.’

This technique mimics Peach’s inability to focus in the throes of a crisis, her skittish brain obsessively returning to its memory bank, searching for information to help her process how the past led them to this present and how they became the people they are now. Such language recreates the clicking of a camera’s shutter, capturing life in small, frozen bites. It is often distracting and distancing and may frustrate some readers.

Ruane is notably insightful about the female experience of sex, with all its confusion and ambivalence. Describing Peach’s first time, she writes: ‘No, she told herself; I’ve let him start, I’m losing my virginity: it is happening now. I might as well go through with it. She wondered if there was something wrong with her that she should be so practical in the throes of her first fuck.’

Sex and desire are complicated, and Ruane captures the how and why of that perfectly. Peach thinks: ‘All she wanted was for someone to hold her, to make her feel lovely. Not lovely even—just all right, a miracle of sufficiency.’ At various points we see her as both hunter and prey, victim and antagonist. Her vulnerabilities are never far from the surface.’Peach realised he had been checking her out to see if she would do, whereas now he was checking Bella and Magda out so see who he would do. Peach held Nick responsible for the pain of her own crass thoughts.’ And Ruane excels at conveying how women squander themselves emotionally, giving us a satisfying fist-pump of a scene when Peach ends a relationship by calling out her lover’s emotional cowardice.

Ruane’s Peach is someone you’ll want to shake and cuddle, sometimes simultaneously, for This is Yesterday conveys the messiness of real life—as well as its poignancy.

 

This is Yesterday by Rose Ruane is published by Corsair, priced £14.99