SPIRIT OF SUNSET SONG STRUGGLES FOR LIBERTY Quines past and present African American Revolutionaries FREE
The magazine of the National Library of Scotland www.nls.uk No.45 Summer 2021
Fresh ink from new talent Emerging writers respond to 2020
CONTENTS WELCOME
From my reflections on retirement to exciting new digital resources and writing from fresh talent, there’s lots to enjoy in this issue My fond farewell...
Harriet Tubman, credit Library of Congress and sincere thanks 4 NEWS It has been an immense pleasure and a great privilege to serve Find out about cine-poem as National Librarian for these past seven years. I am incredibly ‘Lost Connections’ and our proud of the work that has been done during my tenure to protect, new Climate Action Plan. grow and promote the world-class collections of the National Library of Scotland. When I decided to retire, it was a very tough 8 SUNSET SONG decision to leave the Library, with which I have a long and emotional We look at how the inclusion connection – I first joined as a junior curator more than 30 years of the iconic novel in our ago, before returning years later as National Librarian. digital archive allows us Leaving in October will be a wrench but I will retire with great to view it from a modern fondness for the Library, our wonderful donors and supporters, feminist perspective. our superb staff, and all the people we serve. A highlight in my final months has been reading some of the 10 LEGACY OF CHANGE exceptional submissions for our ‘Fresh Ink’ initiative, when we Dr John Scally discusses his asked emerging writers across Scotland to respond to 2020. decision to retire... and his From poetry and prose to graphic novellas, the works are transformative vision. hard-hitting and emotional and I hope you enjoy the excerpts we are featuring in this issue (pages 13-23). Elsewhere, you can learn 13 FRESH INK about our fascinating new online learning resource, ‘Struggles for Liberty: African American Revolutionaries in the Atlantic World’, We asked emerging writers which features stories of the individual and collective fight for social to respond to 2020, with 10 justice. Learn more about abolitionist leader Frederick Douglass – chosen to receive a bursary. and how Scotland played a crucial role in his life (pages 27-29). Here we feature dazzling Another addition to our digital offering is the inclusion of Lewis excerpts of their work. Grassic Gibbon’s entire published works, with the iconic ‘Sunset Song’ the focus of another new learning resource, which invites readers to 24 YOUNG GAELIC VOICES consider the experiences of “quines” past and present (pages 8-9). See some of the superb So there is a lot to engage and excite you. Enjoy your summer reading works produced by students and thank you for an amazing seven years. inspired by pioneering mountain women.
27 FIGHT FOR LIBERTY Read about our new learning Dr John Scally, National Librarian resource, with stories of the e: [email protected] fight to end slavery. CONTRIBUTORS 30 WHAT’S ON From Muriel Spark to Munros, our exhibits and events have something for everyone.
FIND US ONLINE Professor Celeste- Mel Houston, ACR Yolanda Rona Wilkie Alice Heywood www.nls.uk Marie Bernier Preventive Bustamante Gaelic Language Digital Learning and @natlibscot United States and Conservator Fragile Formats Facilitator Outreach Officer Atlantic Studies, Conservation Intern www.facebook.com/ Edinburgh University NationalLibraryOfScotland www.instagram.com/ natlibscot/ FOR THE NATIONAL LIBRARY EDITOR-IN-CHIEF: Barbara Burke. EDITOR: Lauren McGarry [email protected] www.youtube.com/user/ PUBLISHED BY Connect Publications www.connectmedia.cc ISSN 1751-5998 (print) ISSN 1751 6005 (online) NLofScotland NATIONAL LIBRARY OF SCOTLAND | George IV Bridge | Edinburgh EH1 1EW | TEL: 0131 623 3700 | EMAIL: [email protected] The National Library of Scotland is a registered Scottish charity, No. SC011086
SUMMER 2021 | DISCOVER | 3 NEWS
Frontiers (2019), dir. Eve McConnachie, courtesy of Scottish Ballet and preserved by National Library of Scotland, is featured in Lost Connections.
new archive “cine-poem” about the connections we Lost Connections have lost and gained over the past year has been created by 12 film and Amedia archives across the UK. Through our Moving Image Archive, the Library is one of the curatorial partners collaborating on the ambitious short. Lead curator for the Library, Dr Emily Munro, thinks the 15-minute film will resonate with people for different reasons. “It’s a film about recovery. Though it takes the past as its reference point, the purpose of the project was to say something about our collective responsibility to build better futures. “We might be feeling diminished by the pandemic and there is much to reflect on but there are things to embrace, too. We wanted the film to honour these mixed feelings about our gradual reconnection with each other, our communities and the world around us.” The project is supported by the BFI Film Audience Network as part of Changing Times: New Directions and managed by KH4 (1960s), produced by Smith- Yorkshire and North East Film Archives. Schorstein and preserved by The film is narrated by Hussina Raja and National Library of Scotland, is featured in Lost Connections. edited by Andy Burns. It will screen in cinemas and online this summer.
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NEWS
THE ROAD TO NET ZERO... OUR PLAN TO HELP TACKLE THE CLIMATE CRISIS
‘County of the Clyde’ (1963), preserved by the National Library of Scotland
e’re making the final aspects of our operations, from our waste learners and PhD candidates. So as well as touches to our new management to procurement policies. providing journal titles and book series on Climate Action Plan, However, the plan is not just about the science of climate and its related social a positive vision that making our buildings greener. As a issues, we’re also thinking about other sets out the steps we’ll national library, we sit on a wealth of ways we can engage with people. beW taking to become more sustainable information. This gives us opportunities In September, we will launch the film over the next four years. to help shape the national climate ‘Living Proof’ – a compilation of footage This work couldn’t be more urgent. conversation, but also a responsibility from our Moving Image Archive which Scotland declared a climate emergency in to ensure that conversation is inclusive explores Scotland’s relationship to its 2019 and the effects of the climate crisis and far-reaching. industrial past and the connection it has are becoming more and more apparent, In doing so, we can help to educate the to our present-day crisis. All going well, at home and around the globe. With the public and build resilience in communities we will tour the screenings throughout COP26 climate summit being hosted in across Scotland as the effects of the Scotland this autumn. Glasgow later this year, the world’s eyes climate crisis continue to be apparent. There are lots of ways we can get people will be on Scotland to help implement a That’s why we’ll incorporate climate talking about the climate crisis, from meaningful and just climate agenda. change engagement into our public touring an archival film to publicising a While the actions detailed in the plan programming over the next four years. map collection showing the effects of take us only to 2025, Scotland has set in We’ll never become a truly sustainable climate change on Scotland’s coasts. motion an ambitious target to become and resilient Scotland if access to this We hope these activities will prompt net-zero by 2045 at the latest. In the knowledge is confined to a select few. fresh ideas and start discussions on short-term, the Library is aiming for a Climate information has to be available tackling the crisis. Conversations about 72.5 per cent reduction in greenhouse to everyone and presented in such a way climate change don’t have to be dominated gas emissions by 2025, from our 2008/09 so it is understood by people with different by graphs and data. Film, sound, maps and baseline. The Climate Action Plan will levels of knowledge, from schoolchildren stories all help us understand the complex ensure sustainability is considered in all and undergraduates through to lifelong web of crises related to climate change.
6 | DISCOVER | SUMMER 2021 Collection items on sale would greatly complement some of the treasures we already have. 'Holy Willie's Prayer' in the hand of Burns, left, and 'Waverley' in the hand of Scott, below
The Honresfield Library Saving the literary treasure trove for public use
any of you will no doubt time for the institutions to raise the Burns – in his own hand and containing have read the news that necessary funds. some of his earliest recorded literary one of the most coveted The Honresfield Library has been works - which is known as the ‘First literary collections still largely inaccessible for the past 80 Commonplace Book’. in private hands, the years, its contents examined by only a There is also individual autograph MHonresfield Library, was being put up for few trusted scholars. It was formed at poems (‘Cessnock Banks’ and the ‘Brigs sale. We’re part of a consortium trying to the end of the 19th century by William of Ayr’) and some of the poet’s earliest ensure that this remains with relevant Law (1836–1901), a Rochdale mill owner correspondence, including the only public institutions throughout the UK, living at Honresfield, a few miles from extant letter to Burns’s beloved father. and we will be working hard to bring Haworth, West Yorkshire. The bulk of Fundraising appeals have been peerless Sir Walter Scott and Robert the collection has remained in family launched by the National Library of Burns manuscripts to Scotland. ownership and is largely intact. A private Scotland, with other consortium libraries The bid to save the Honresfield – one library of English and Scottish literature and museums. If successful, ownership of the most important private collections of such significance has not been on the of every individual item will pass to of manuscripts and printed books, open market for many decades – nor is the appropriate national, regional and associated with some of the greatest one likely to appear again. specialist institutions across the UK that writers in the UK – is being led by The Honresfield collection includes will benefit the widest possible public. Friends of the National Libraries (FNL). the complete working manuscript of National Librarian Dr John Scally, We feel that we cannot let these items Sir Walter Scott’s iconic novel ‘Rob Roy’ a trustee of the FNL, said: “Once in a go abroad or into private hands. They and part of the autograph manuscript of generation, a collection of books and should, and must, be in public collections. his verse romance ’The Lay of the Last manuscripts appears from almost We are grateful to the vendors and Minstrel’, his light-hearted travel journal nowhere that is met with a mixture of their representatives, Sotheby’s, for of a voyage off the Scottish coast in awe and stunned silence, followed by deciding to postpone the auction of 1814. There is also a copy of Scott’s concerted action to bring it into public the first part of the library, originally ‘Border Antiquities’, with extensive ownership. The UK-wide consortium is announced for July, in order manuscript revisions, and an determined to raise the funds to ensure to preserve the entire exceptional collection of Scott we can save the Honresfield Library for library as a collection first editions in their original everyone to share and enjoy.” to be allocated to condition. Other Scottish libraries around the material of huge importance For more information or to donate, UK for the benefit of includes an early volume visit our website at nls.uk or email the public, and to give of poems by Robert [email protected]
SUMMER 2021 | DISCOVER | 7 DIGITAL LEARNING SUNSET SONG: QUINES PAST AND PRESENT The inclusion of Lewis Grassic Gibbon’s novel in our digital archive allows students to view this classic text from a modern feminist perspective, writes Digital Learning and Outreach Officer Alice Heywood
8 | DISCOVER | SUMMER 2021 RESOURCE: A sketch map reproduced by permission of the Mitchell Literary Estate
ith Lewis Grassic Scottish fiction and society at Gibbon’s entire large. Through a close reading of published work now some key moments in the novel, digitised and made the learning resource draws available on our attention to themes such as the Wwebsite, ‘Sunset Song’ is the focus of a role of women, identity, and social new learning resource aimed at both class. Other themes like land students and lifelong learners. and nature are discussed, and Consistently voted one of Scotland’s how they are repeatedly evoked favourite books, ‘Sunset Song’ is through Chris’s responses to arguably one of Scotland’s most iconic events. They illustrate her deep novels, read and loved by generations. connection to the landscape, Following the indomitable character a connection which Grassic Chris Guthrie, it tells her story from Gibbon drew heavily on from his girlhood to adulthood as she takes on memories of growing up in the the role of wife and mother. The novel North East of Scotland. is a moving and evocative narrative of a Doric, the language of the small rural community in the North East North East, is also interwoven of Scotland as it comes to grips with the in the resource through changing world of the 1900s and the creative responses to the novel disruption of the First World War. by modern women, or ‘quines’. When the novel was first published Through their songs and in 1932, many readers reacted with words, these modern quines disgust at its frank portrayal of sex show how something of Chris’s and childbearing and its scorn for spirit lives on in all who persevere own reading of the novel and use the rich and powerful. Almost 90 through challenges and adversity it as a springboard for their creative years later, 2021 feels like a relevant with the same tenacity, resilience and responses to the book. By drawing moment to reconsider the novel boldness. We’re delighted, therefore, to attention to the various identities Chris’s through a modern feminist lens and have a contribution by First Minister character encompasses, from daughter point a new generation of readers and Nicola Sturgeon featured in this section. to wife and mother, the resource also students towards considering the Fittingly, the resource also benefitted invites people to consider the lived underrepresented female voice in both from the input of a Robertson Trust experiences of women past and present intern, Stephanie Martin, who the and find threads of commonality in their Library hosted in the summer of 2020. own personal stories. Stephanie provided a fresh and dynamic Other highlights of the resource perspective, selecting passages and include pages from the original contributing to the themes as well as typescript and a hand-drawn sketch making connections to other Library map, as well as audio extracts read by collections linked to in the resource. one of the contributing quines. Learning A self-declared working-class young activities for English students mapped woman, Stephanie is in many ways a to the Curriculum for Excellence have 21st-century mirror to Chris Guthrie’s also been provided to prompt further spirt and intelligence. discussion and study of the novel. By bringing together the voices and reflections of modern women, this To access the resource, visit nls.uk, resource aims to inspire learners of all select ‘Digital resources’, then ‘Learning ages to take a fresh perspective in their Zone’, then ‘Literature and Languages’.
FRIEDA MORRISON, RADIO skelp of land, culture is as potent a force as the soil itself. PRODUCER AND BROADCASTER It’s a wye o livin, a wye o thinkin an a wye o spikkin. Our cultural identity stems fae the land and the sea. I’ve tried to leave the North East a few times – whether He must have been aware of these precious links as via work or by sheer necessity – but I’ve always been he travelled around this district as a farming journalist pulled back, like so many others. And if they couldn’t and someone who grew up here and the Mearns. come back, many have written about this area from ‘Sunset Song’, the first book in his ‘Scots Quair’ trilogy, a distance, such as James Leslie Mitchell, otherwise was the first book I read at school in the rhythm of my known as Lewis Grassic Gibbon. The North East isn’t just a own language. It remains my favourite.
SUMMER 2021 | DISCOVER | 9 RETIREMENT NEWS
transformative journey
The Library has been given a renewed sense of purpose during Dr John Scally’s seven-year tenure
10 | DISCOVER | SUMMER 2021 persuaded the auction house to put it in a later sale, which meant we could raise the funds and we won the bidding war!” More recently, Scally worked with crime novelist Ian Rankin to secure the donation of his literary archive, which is now available at the Library’s reading rooms. “I worked with Ian to convince him to gift it to the Library and he also agreed to put money into having it catalogued. We have some great writers’ archives. So, this was one in a long line of belters.” He is proud of what he has achieved for the Library, as well as of his career overall. The first in his family to go to university, his childhood dream of becoming Spider- Man was followed by ambitions to be a teacher. He spent much time reading at Glenburn Library in his hometown of Paisley, “roaming far and wide” through a mixture of factual and fiction books. His English teacher, Mrs Anderson, was TURNING A NEW PAGE: Dr Scally Some really good foundations had been his inspiration, having given him a copy says it was a “tough, emotional moment” laid. I had the feeling, however, that the of ‘Catcher in the Rye’ by JD Salinger. when he decided to retire from the Library Library needed to set its sights on being “It blew me away,” he said. “I returned it but he knew he needed to simplify his life a truly physical and digital library and to and she said, ‘it’s not my book any more, also break out of Edinburgh.” it’s your book’. It’s my most important Scally’s achievements have included possession, a dog-eared paperback.” the ‘One Third Digital’ initiative, a pledge Having been accepted at Moray House to have a third of the Library’s holdings in in Edinburgh to study English and History, t was a tough, emotional digital format and freely accessible online his honours dissertation was sent to a moment,” National in time for its centenary in 2025. professor at Cambridge who asked him to Librarian and Chief He recently launched the Library’s do a PhD with him and his love of reading Executive of the National Data Foundry — publishing Library and books was cemented. Scally has a Library of Scotland, Dr collections as data for digital scholars. number of research interests, including “IJohn Scally, says of his decision to retire He also oversaw major capital projects this year. “The pandemic changed so totalling £15 million — the redevelopment much for many of us and, turning 60 in of the Library’s Causewayside building I will leave with a March, I decided I needed to simplify my in Edinburgh, and the opening of the life given my wife lived 400 miles away. Library’s state-of-the-art facility at great fondness for We have been apart for many months Kelvin Hall in Glasgow, which houses the due to lockdown.” Moving Image and Sound Collections. the Library and its Scally’s career at the Library has Scally ensured that the transformative superb staff been in two phases. He was the Deputy vision of the Library was supported Head of Rare Books at the Library with funding, both from the Scottish before becoming Director of University Government as well as the Library’s loyal book history, book illustration and early Collections and subsequently Director of patrons and donors. “Funding only follows modern history. He has published on a Library and University Collections at the good ideas,” he explains. “We needed to number of these topics, including a book University of Edinburgh (during which justify that, as well as maintaining our on Robert Louis Stevenson’s illustrators, time the university doubled in size). buildings, we needed to maintain and articles and book chapters on the With further experience and enhanced develop our digital estate – which doesn’t Scottish Parliament before 1707 and the skills, he returned to the National come free. It also enabled us to develop British Civil Wars of the 1640s. Library in 2014. the young workforce in the cultural He is currently writing two books “Your perspective is totally different sector, something our donors really got but also has plans to fill his days during when you’re at the top level at the behind. I enjoyed working with donors – retirement with a barber training course, Library,” he explains. “My responsibility we achieved a lot together over the past a cooking course, a French language was to think about the strategic direction seven years.” course and lots of travel. and to simplify and restate the purpose While his digital work has been “I will leave with a great fondness of the Library. The acquisition of the John significant, Scally has also had a critical for the Library and its superb staff,” he Murray Archive by the previous National role in the acquisition of a number of says. “I have had a privileged position Librarian Martyn Wade and Chair Michael high-profile collections. He was in helping the Library establish a clear Anderson had made a significant impact. successful in securing the second view of its future as a national library for So too had the opening up of the George volume of the Edinburgh Calotype Club everybody’s benefit.” IV Bridge front hall area as a visitor centre photographic album, produced by the and the new Special Collections Reading oldest photographic club in the world. Dr John Scally will retire from his Room, which was pretty spectacular. “I still don’t know how I did it, but I position as National Librarian in October.
SUMMER 2021 | DISCOVER | 11 12 | DISCOVER | SUMMER 2021 FRESH INK
NEW WRITERS RESPOND TO 2020
t was quite a year. In a bid to support award 10 people the £1,000 commission to cry, work which has brought me peace, artists, and to provide a platform for develop work – work which is also being and work which has filled me with awe at Ithe diverse voices that make up 21st added to our literary archives. the talent of the storytelling and art.” century Scotland, we invited emerging All works will be published on our The following pages provide excerpts of writers to respond to the year 2020. website from 12 July. each work, encompassing prose, poetry, We were overwhelmed with the replies Poet, writer and creative practitioner graphic novella, playwrighting and – 250 people applied, pitching a range of Nadine Aisha Jassat worked on the Fresh personal essays. If you find the works as exciting and topical ways to respond to a Ink initiative with the Library. She said: intriguing and evocative as we have, visit most eventful year. We were only able to “I have read work which has made me our website, nls.uk, for more.
SUMMER 2021 | DISCOVER | 13 FRESH INK
NIGHT SWIMMING meanwhile, tolerated my new-found me up when I came in the kitchen each I had another brush with the Italian God love for the interiors of Catholic churches, morning. I sometimes touched them, a and his foreign methods. We went on the flowers that flowed and candles prayer that was bodily, not something holiday to visit Dan’s southern relatives, that melted and folded, undisturbed. that could be put into words. and it was here that I was bewitched by a I peered up at side-show altars, for I tricked myself and I let myself be faith that incorporated acts of creativity, specific prayers to appointed saints, tricked. In the autumn of the next year, stories created in the present moment, and made plans to buy a litter of nativity 2019, I found out I was pregnant. and individual to the believer. In the figurines. I think Dan thought I was only streets of Naples were golden skulls on in it for the accessories. Which was right, little obelisks, to be touched for good luck. just about. I was drawn to this confident I stared at the golden crowns, all worn interference with fate, this sense that we down. I had never encountered a God who might make up the stories of our futures could be wooed like this, who could be ourselves, and best of all, there were persuaded and entertained. physical props to assist this magic. Elsewhere, the ebulliently masculine When we returned home, the sober culture of Naples meant that bodies were Protestant God was waiting. I kept the never far from our minds. Dan’s aunty cornicello in its little red box on a shelf. served us a rum-soaked phallic sponge I felt guilty, for bargaining in bad faith, cake – ‘eat it, it’s good luck!’ and we were trying to force my way. To pray for a child given a cornicello, a red ceramic chilli seemed an ugly act, when I considered pepper. This is hung up in the house that so many people long for a child and to promote virility, good luck, fertility, endure the pain of never having one. prosperity – accounts differed as to what I would never contend that they simply it would bring, but it would certainly hadn’t prayed enough. I returned to my Amy Jardine bring us more. unglamorous, atheistic convictions. Our I loved these potent, symbolic gifts, future was a question, and the certainties I live on the East Coast with my while never allowing myself to touch of the present offered no comfort and partner and son, and our cat. I try to upon the cold truth underneath. At the assuaged no pain. write as often as I can; sometimes time, we were facing up to the reality Then two bright red chilli peppers about small things, like my cat. that we might never be able to conceive arrived in our monthly vegetable box Sometimes about big things: the a child. Under the colossal heat of the delivery. They were cuddled together, internet, creativity, the future, good Campania sun, I felt enclosed in good gleaming. I forbade myself to think about books I’ve read. I’m currently working fortune, certain of future wellbeing. It what I was doing when I tied them with on my first novel. was a magic trick, my very first. Dan, string and hung them up. They cheered
14 | DISCOVER | SUMMER 2021 FRIEND FOUR Working in a shop has shown me who jd stewart Do you sell yeast at work? people really are. I’m afraid when this is Can you get me some? over I’ll be at lunch with a friend and they jd stewart is a gay writer/performer/ will know one of the people who treated digital content creator based in ME me like s–––. On that day I hope I treat Edinburgh. He holds an MFA in The cracks are bigger. I should have them like s–––. Dramatic Writing from New York measured them when I saw them but University and an MSc in Playwriting I am too afraid to step on the ladder. NEWS from the University of Edinburgh. I’m worried that I fall and if I fall I won’t May 12th, 2020: 46,053 Covid deaths. He co-created ‘The One Fifty be able to answer my phone if you call. Marchers’, a UK LGBTQ history I’ll have to drag my body to the door and CUSTOMER ONE podcast with Frazer Flintham. even then I won’t be able to reach the I’m not using the self-service. handle to open it. My door has no handle. Photo © Jake Lee Smith It’s hard to open. Everyone says that. CUSTOMER TWO I’ve not got it. You don’t have to act GRINDR like that. Welcome back, b----! I knew your a–– wouldn’t stay away for long. CUSTOMER THREE What do you mean I can’t come in with NEWS my whole family? April 27th, 2020: 36,480 Covid deaths. CUSTOMER FOUR ME F––– you, I’ve followed all the rules. The guys across the street have moved their living room around. If I look at their ME apartment from my living room I can I am a human punching bag. see the only decoration they have is a Scottish flag. One time I passed them in CUSTOMER ONE PLEASE ANSWER YOUR the street and they are both English. They Why don’t you have any more PHONE, I NEED TO TELL have English accents. I am not attracted toilet paper? YOU THAT I LOVE YOU to them because they look the same. I can’t tell them apart. But one of them CUSTOMER TWO NEWS looks like you. You need to watch your tone when you April 13th, 2020: 21,012 Covid deaths. talk to me. PIGLET ME It’s not me. CUSTOMER THREE I take extra shifts at work to get through It’s my human right to pay with cash and the empty loneliness which greets me ME you have to take it. every morning. Each room feels like its I know that. own cell. I now know this will not last a CUSTOMER FOUR few weeks. I sit in the hall and wait to hear PIGLET I’m going to report you to your manager. someone coming up the stairs. I hope Have you tried to call? that it’s you. Every day I hope that it’s you coming back to me. ME I’m tired. Of waiting. NEWS April 17th, 2020: 26,121 Covid deaths. PIGLET Maybe you should give up. You are good ME at giving up. They continue to clap for heroes. I am not a hero. I have to pay rent. I have to eat. I ME have to live. I tell myself I have to keep That’s not fair. going even though my insides feel numb and the only thing that I want is to feel PIGLET your laughter on my fingertips. I think you are.
FRIEND ONE ME You haven’t answered your phone. I do as well. Are you okay? NEWS FRIEND TWO May 10th, 2020: 45,186 Covid deaths. Did you watch Tiger King? ME FRIEND THREE I hate the clapping. It echoes up the I’ve become a runner. I’m doing 10K every street and into every crack inside my single minute of the day. apartment. I don’t clap for anyone.
SUMMER 2021 | DISCOVER | 15 FRESH INK
“If the prioress hears you at that one speaks, but a soft rustle moves along nonsense she’ll send you back to the trestles as cups stop short of lips, the byre.” bread returning uneaten to the table. To Magrete is undeterred. “And they Ishbel the news comes as no surprise, but appear when death’s on its way, to carry plenty of the older women have clung to away the souls of the dead.” the hope that the channel, or the English Photo © Rhiannon Swan-Price “Best expect a few more, then.” border, or God’s grace alone might save A cool wind stirs the quiet cloister air, them from what’s to come. and a shiver runs down Ishbel’s spine that They’ve all heard the stories. Coughs has nothing to do with the magpie. The and fever that soon turn to blackened priory sits on the pilgrim route between swellings of the flesh, bloody froth on the Whithorn and the Glasgow Cathedral, and lips and a swift, suffocating death. For between spring and autumn fresh news each hopeful tale of survivors, there’s comes with every pair of walking feet. a report of a village where the dead rot This year the same tidings arrive each in their homes with no one left to bury Jude Reid time: the pestilence is creeping from the them. Some say that the plague is God’s Jude lives in Glasgow with her south like a rising tide, and its arrival can judgement on the wickedness of the husband, two daughters, dog, cat and only be a matter of time. world, a second flood to winnow the rabbits, and writes dark stories in The bird turns its head to one side sinners from the righteous. If the stories the gaps between work as a surgeon and takes a casual hop towards them. are to be believed, godly folk are thin on and wrangling her menagerie. Her Magrete makes a little mock-rush at the ground these days. short fiction has been published in it, waving her arms to scare it away. It “We await guidance from the Abbot in numerous anthologies including doesn’t seem much concerned, but its Kilwinning as to where our duty lies. For ‘Haunted Voices: An Anthology of wings beat the air long enough for it to now, we continue as we always have, in Scottish Gothic Storytelling’, ‘Places perch on the stonework, amber eye still service to God and Christ Jesus.” We Fear To Tread’ (Cemetery Gates glittering down at the cloister below. A soft, murmured ‘amen’ passes from Media), and ‘The Corona Book of “It’s an omen, I tell you.” Magrete juts sister to sister. Magrete’s eyes are closed, Ghost Stories’. She is currently her jaw stubbornly forward. “Where the her red knuckles clenched tight around working on her first novel. magpie goes, death follows.” her rosary as her lips move in silent, “You’re havering,” Ishbel tells her. fervent prayer. “Leave omens for the farmyard and stick Nothing stirs in Ishbel, no surge of MAGPIE to your prayers.” divine love, no faith in the rightness of But omen or no omen, death comes to what is to come, not even a renewed Part I: The Sin Selcouth that night, soft as a first kiss. commitment to serve and obey. “The pestilence has reached Ayr,” the Nothing but a heaviness in the pit of her 1350, Selcouth Priory, North Ayrshire prioress informs them over supper. No stomach, a slow-growing, creeping fear. “Do you think it’s an omen?” Sister Magrete asks. A single magpie is standing on the grass in the middle of the cloister. It’s not uncommon to see the birds here, digging for worms or picking at a carcass, but this one is poised and still in a way that makes Ishbel think of an illumination on vellum. It’s bigger than the usual, too, the size of a raven, each fine pinion feather outlined against the next in stark rows of black and white. If it spread its wings it’d stretch a full four foot wide. If Ishbel was prone to fancies she’d swear it was watching them. “The bird? An omen?” Magrete nods, her teeth worrying away at her lower lip. She’s new to the cloister, still learning the shape of days bounded by prayer and contemplation instead of milking and churning, but the work’s hard all the same. A few minutes for a quiet walk is all the peace Ishbel will have until Compline, and the girl is filling it with chatter. “It’s a bird, Magrete. I don’t think it’s an omen.” The girl’s red-raw hands wring at the black skirts of her habit. “My granny says they’re the devil’s bird, cursed because they wouldn’t mourn for Christ.”
16 | DISCOVER | SUMMER 2021 ON STATUES it’s hard to always come in peace when she always comes in pieces, some things age like milk. dismantled by the brutality of strangers tweets trumpeted from an and guided by blood orange gas bag, January 2020’s “best year ever” plans, “is this what dr king was dreaming of?” but racist ideology double dipped this is how they shame and in bronze, invalidate her rage is timeless. that s––– is built to last. unless she doesn’t know what king would say Mae Diansangu because they silenced him with Mae Diansangu is a Black queer you arrive at a generation, tired of fighting spoken word artist from Aberdeen. the same war their grandparents fought. lead as he preached, armed only She is co-founder of intersectional when an object you thought was with peace, in a suit and tie feminist arts platform, Hysteria, and is a member of Scottish BAME immovable is met with an which is why respectability Writers Network’s operational unstoppable force, does it feel doesn’t guarantee safety team. Mae is part of a network like you’re sinking? of Black community activists no matter how softly she treads, her organising under BLM Scotland, and will it ever sink in, skin will be read as and her work often centres on if you shout, social justice themes. “there ain’t no Black in the union jack” threat when The Empire strikes, The People will strike back. the word violence is a battered suitcase, stuffed full of Blackness and fit to burst
historically, the Black Body has been forced into the narrowest of words
ON VIOLENCE and rearranged to spell a different truth “tread softly, because you tread on my fragility” they will make an anagram out of you, but punish anyone who unscrambles this is how they ask her to march quietly violence to find voice
SUMMER 2021 | DISCOVER | 17 Drawing by Candice Purwin © Candice Purwin FRESH INK
Candice Purwin Candice Purwin is a writer and illustrator making comics in Edinburgh. Her work documents everything from social and political movements to the changing of the seasons, finding the human stories and tiny creatures which bind these great, tectonic shifts together.
in your mind the scene that led to the THE UNWILLING empty bottles, Nazmi charred wood and burnt newspapers COMPANION McCartney littering the ground. Three quarters of a year spent Nazmi McCartney is a young poet recall the last hug you had with aimlessly. Walking, walking, shying from Edinburgh. She has been someone dear, away from the next ray of sunshine writing poetry since she was 13, think of all the places your body that will stab and ooze through and much of her work explores pressed against theirs, my bedroom window. Before that loss, loneliness and her search for repeat the words they murmured softly happens, I find myself crawling peace in the inner world. Other in your ear, out the door to another nighttime than writing, she enjoys collecting and feel the wind that rushed over you walk around the same streets. I see colourful socks and sipping when your bodies parted. yesterday’s - or tomorrow’s? - me green tea. across the road, swaying. Is she cocoon yourself in fairy tales and singing or crying? She is clutching universes not your own a year’s worth of diary entries to SMALL COMFORTS meet storytellers and their characters her chest. One by one they escape and imagine how, in another life, from her arms to disintegrate around you might interact with them, what her, but I do not move. I am not her though you have grown numb to your place might be, friend. Gentle wind scatters the anticipation, you wake how you might love and be loved, how remnants of the pages across the and mumble good morning to a new you might be different shadow we cast together. Eventually, day. the same day. and how you might be the same. she lifts her head, turns her gaze to me, and winces. I cannot meet her today, you will: you tumble through your new routine eyes. Not now, not when I counted close your eyes when you hear the until it comes time to run away in the year alone, far from home. seagulls cawing outside to sleep. in the back of your mind you As a chorus of jovial voices rang and pretend you’re watching them soar say goodnight to the world like bells downstairs, she loomed, over your head and urge it to spin a bit faster, because foreboding at the foot of the bed, as your toes sink into warm, soft sand. you know you will wake tomorrow while I lamented in a body unable to to relive the only day your body can move. Now, as I watch her form grow discover a ruined building to roam still remember shapeless and ebb into the air around and revere heaving you through, where you will me, I hope I can look her in the eye as if it were a garden in bloom, and return, yet again, next year. Until then, we will both then conjure to the same small comforts. carry on, walking, walking.
18 | DISCOVER | SUMMER 2021 SUMMER 2021 | DISCOVER | 19 FRESH INK
Photo © Angela Legg THE RECIPE everybody is eating together and together haggis we make a body: (recipe by 衣谷水原) the lungs are the transport system they sheep stomach allow us to travel safely sheep lungs the heart is the houses we visit in order to sheep liver see our loved ones sheep heart the stomach is love oats the liver is processing onion this body comes together with pepper powder other bodies to form a body of bodies - soak lungs, liver and heart in water we wrap ourselves tightly in bodies for an hour for warmth and comfort and Sean Wai Keung - wash the sheep stomach four times food – we eat bodies together Sean Wai Keung is a Glasgow-based - cut the lungs, liver and heart into pieces we create bodies together poetry, performance and food maker. and place in cold water we remember bodies His work often uses food as a starting - boil over high heat, then take out point for explorations of identity - wash oats and put on a baking tray, According to an NY Times article written and migration. His first full-length bake until golden brown by Fergus M. Bordewich and published poetry collection, ‘sikfan glaschu’, - cut onion into pieces on Feb. 12 1984 titled Chinese Hearts In was published by Verve Poetry Press - mash lungs, liver, heart, onion, and Scottish Highlands: “the celebrating of in April 2021. Full credits can be found pour into dish Burns has become a gala event in the via seanwaikeung.carrd.co - add oats and pepper powder People’s Republic of China, where the to the mash poet has been taken on as a patron saint - pour the broth that you cooked the of proletarianism.” lungs, liver and heart in over the mixture - turn the sheep stomach inside out and A few days after my family visit I travel to 25/01/20 tie the head up Dumfries and visit the Burns Mausoleum. For the first time in 76 years - fill the stomach with the mixture, A few streets over, a takeaway serves Lunar New Year and Burns Night fall not too tight, about two-thirds “Authentic Cantonese Cuisine”. I buy on the same day - tie the other end of the stomach up some chips and they’re delicious. Soon - boil for three hours, without a lid, after I return to Glasgow, the first adding more water if needed. lockdown is announced.
20 | DISCOVER | SUMMER 2021 DEAR SONALI bedroom; you could even stretch your it up, because Mama will be leaving in Before all that, what you’re most excited limbs without knocking something over! two more days and you won’t want her for is Mama’s visit. She has spent a few As much as you enjoy proving to her that trip to end on a negative. And I’m so glad weeks in the US and will soon be on her you can take care of yourself, of course that you do. Unbeknownst to either of way to you. It made sense to fly through you’ve already demanded that she cook you, this will be the last time that you’ll the UK en route to India, though a bit you kulcha channa and mattar paneer be together for a year and counting. I only excessive, you thought, since you saw because sometimes there’s no replicating wish you would choose kindness over her not even four months ago. And you’ll her recipes. In return, she’ll enjoy British strife and hug her more fiercely as you be visiting home in another eight months ‘delicacies’ such as crumpets and say goodbye, though your taller-than- or so. But look at our jetsetter mother, scones and snack on as many fat juicy Mama body is still not accustomed to travelling across continents all alone. strawberries as she can get her hands how your figures fit in the reserved-for- You’ve been concerned about her as she on, though you’ll keep reminding her that special-occasions embrace. makes her way around the US in the she has to keep a handle on her pesky frightening climate under Trump, though diabetes. Both of you will travel to places she’s supposed to worry about you as the in the UK that you haven’t seen before, Photo © Alka Misra daughter and she’s visited foreign lands the highlight being the Lake District. by herself before you could even spell She’ll insist that it’s more beautiful than them. No wonder that Little Sonali had big the Scottish Highlands, but your loyalty dreams of gifting Papa a Mercedes and to a nation you’ve lived in for the past few Mama a world tour. Thirty seemed like years will fight that. You’ll take stunning a good age to do this – Papa would still pictures of her in landscapes that could be able to enjoy his drives and Mama her pass off as cardboard backdrops of movie travels in their sixties. Thirty seemed so sets, and she’ll try her best to return the old back then. Thirty painted a picture of favour but she’ll either shake the camera, a proper adult with her own car, house, cut off your feet, or block the lens with a family and career, along with a disposable finger, until you give up entirely and not income with which she could attempt to always graciously. As much as you’d like repay her parents’ love and generosity, to to keep the peace, you’ll bicker about give them the things they’d sacrificed so frivolous things that I can’t recall now. that their kids could have the best start What I do remember is the secrets you Sonali Misra in their lives. both will share that you never could in a Sonali Misra is an Indian author and You and I know better now. I’m turning man-filled house. You’ll also learn to rein PhD researcher in Publishing Studies. thirty soon, and it is bleak. Not only in the confidence that you have moving Her debut non-fiction, ‘21 Fantastic because I can’t tick off any of the Thirty through public spaces, a delirious feeling Failures’, was released in 2020, Checklist Items and thus make for a p––– that you’ve never experienced in India as and her short stories and essays -poor imitation of an Adult, but a woman, when your wallet will be stolen have appeared in British and Indian also because… in – where else? – London. Even after anthologies. She’s the Co-founder You’ve had time to set up your crying for a few hours over the monetary of The Selkie Publications CIC and new place and, unlike the university loss and the invasion, it’ll take several Co-chair of the Society of Young accommodation you stayed in during weeks for you to rid yourself of the Publishers Scotland. your master’s, there will be enough space distrust you develop for these strangers www.sonalimisra.com for both Mama and you to fit inside your in this foreign land. But you’ll have to suck
SUMMER 2021 | DISCOVER | 21 FRESH INK
A MOST PECULIAR WAY housekeeping duties and helping across the planet. The journaling group me perform my toilette whenever is now a weekly Zoom. Whenever my 22-09-2020 - RETROGRADE ORBIT my energies crash. Purrlot oversees throat constricts in a meeting, I hold 965,642 Earth souls lost. rations, sleep schedules, grooming, Freddy-teddy in the crook of my arm and waste management. Wolfe performs and squeeze its paw until the heebie- Our lives revolve around Mission a daily spacewalk after Director jeebies pass. Control’s briefings. Disease replication Sturgeon’s announcements. She’s Kay1234, the cheery administrator, numbers, death statistics, percentages like the One o’Clock Gun for us, but greets the ten of us and leads the group and acronyms punctuate our day. without the panicked tourists meditation. We spend 50 minutes Director Sturgeon urges us to remember squawking and ducking. writing our hearts into our journals. the FACTS protocol ensuring basic Collins sits cross-legged on his bunk Cameras optional. The final ten minutes cleanliness and 2m social distancing. with Wolfe and whispers, ‘The rages is a celebration of members’ insights. My routine starts with medication and despair. I can’t cope.’ We hear everyone with patience and ends with meals and data entry. It’s about me, I think. and empathy. Collins has the additional burden of I clear my throat before entering, ‘Routine is key to surviving feeling weighted down, as if I’ve confinement,’ I say to HellsBells666.
Photo © Suzy A. Kelly swallowed a boulder. ‘I’ve got that Zoom Like me, she’s 45 and propped up by journaling group starting today…’ pillows. She contracted the virus in April, ‘Mmhmm. That’s great,’ says a thin- like Director Johnson in London. She still lipped Collins. He turns his back, like suffers energy loss and brain fog. Her he’s given up on me, and plays with body aches like a bruise. Like me, she’s Wolfe. ‘Where’s your Freddy-teddy? shorn her dark hair short after her arms Where is he?’ struggled to bear its weight. The online ‘Wish me luck?’ I say, ‘I could use a hug.’ newspapers call this ‘Long Covid’ but Collins struggles to smile but he still Myalgic Encephalomyelitis sufferers wraps his arms around me. ‘Good luck.’ recognise kindred patients. Purrlot rolls onto his back and ‘Babywipe bath and fresh pyjamas… demands we cuddle him. Wolfe is my you did great today!’ I say. loudest cheerleader. He tosses his fluffy HellsBells666 and I fist bump the grey teddy towards me, his favourite screen in solidarity. Kay1234 moves possession, and barks when I catch it. around the sharing circle. ‘Thanks, buddy,’ I say. On my turn, I say, ‘I examined my I clutch the stuffed bear with the fears. The lump on Wolfe’s shoulder Suzy A. Kelly ragged nose to my chest. For a moment, has doubled…’ I dig my nails into my the boulder in my belly transforms into talisman’s foot. ‘He collapsed in his Suzy A. Kelly holds an MLitt in a Wolfe-shaped feather. But in my chair bunk yesterday.’ Creative Writing (Distinction) from on the flight deck, I freeze. Stop spinning. 1, 2, 3… the University of Glasgow. Their work Launch the meeting. Act. Make contact. ‘Quick,’ says Collins with a tremor is published in Gutter, Northwords Take a chance? rising in his throat. ‘Wolfe needs us…’ Now, and New Writing Scotland. Suzy I bite my cheek and wave goodbye is currently a postgraduate research 29-09-2020 - WORST-CASE SCENARIO to the group. student and is working on their debut Wolfe shivers. There’s no shine to historical crime novel, ‘Vile Deeds of 1,002,864 Earth souls lost. Over a million his hazel eyes. It’s like he’s leaving us. the Amazing Crab Girl’. deaths in two-thirds of a year while Collins, Purrlot, and I all agree to bunk a second wave of infections surges in with him tonight.
22 | DISCOVER | SUMMER 2021 TREADING WATER of sight. The weight of queasy dreams Photo © Samantha Clark The humpback whale can produce the lingers, even as the morning sun lights up widest range of frequencies of any living my breakfast jam like a jar of rubies. creature. Some frequencies are so low In Shetland, sailors once learned to they can transmit through water right navigate by the feel of the ‘mother wave’ across an ocean. When humpback beneath their boat’s hull, a deep, slow whales were numerous and ship engines underswell beneath the surface chop few or non-existent, the seas must have that told them the direction home, no rumbled and chirped with their songs. matter the weather and wind. Behind In the mornings Andrew gets up first the commotion and squall and chop. The and puts the kettle on for tea, and while mother wave. The undersound. The low he waits for the water to boil he sits frequency song that travels the breadth down at the piano to start his day with of the ringing world. Bach. This morning, a fugue. The aria’s I spent Saturday picking, shelling and tune sings out brightly, opening up the freezing beans and peas, setting out new Samantha Clark morning. In my fug of morning sleepiness seedlings, pinching out the tomatoes. Samantha Clark is a visual artist I hear it unfold its form through the rooms Then as the rain came in, reading, dozing, and writer based in Orkney. Sam of our house with the soft geometry of staring out the window, trying not to read received a Scottish Book Trust New rose petals opening. From inside one the news, reading the news, wishing I Writers award in 2018 and a Scottish arpeggio another one opens up and hadn’t read the news. Dinner, bit of telly, Emerging Writers Residency at Cover spreads itself out. The aria dives beneath shower, bed. Sunday coffee, breakfast, Park in 2020. Her first book, ‘The its own reflection inverted in the left laundry, lunch, clean out the hens. A walk. Clearing’, was published by hand, then breaches the surface again Dinner, bit of telly, shower. Bed. Little, Brown in March 2020. as its notes ripple outwards, echo, turn This Monday morning dress, brush and repeat. Call and response, point and teeth, wash face, coffee, toast, emails, counterpoint, sound and undersound. lunch… round it goes. I walk the usual route Swell and underswell. I hear his fingers from loch to sea and back again, past fields something better, something other running faster to keep up with the of grazing cattle, stubble, barley, wind on than this. sparkling flow of notes, his delight in my left cheek, then on my right. What if I ignored all that wanting and Bach’s cleverness and the satisfying When does contentment slide just looked at this? This ripening field splash of chords that announces the end. into boredom? and this shimmering loch and these Beneath this bright moment there is And then here’s the sheen on the barley swooping terns and hungry bonxies and another one, inverted. Surface chop and coming, the green of it just beginning to downy cygnets and the numbers of the underswell. Images from the news light slide towards gold, shimmering in the dead and the sick and the warming sea up my little screen, people being bundled wind with that soft sea-sound, to wake and the rising graphs and the plots and off the streets of American cities into me up to the moment and drop me back, trajectories and timelines and the here unmarked cars at gunpoint. And the fires. as if startled, into life again. that’s somehow also there, because this Fires again. Fires everywhere. Trees are When I look at the boredom I see always reaches beyond itself and out into burning. Grasslands burning. Peatland it’s really wanting, always wanting the crazy, endless tangle of it all? smouldering. Not here, no, but just out something else, something over there, And I can say I’m bored?
SUMMER 2021 | DISCOVER | 23 GAELIC YOUTH PROJECT Beatagan agus Binneanan
haidh Beatagan agus Binneanan na beanntan. Gach seachdain bha gnìomh across Scotland and studied the culture of a chruthachadh mar phròiseact aig na sgoilearan ri dhèanamh, agus women in the mountains, both historically foghlaim tro mheadhan na fhuair sinn eisimplearan fìor mhath de and in the present time. Given we had Gàidhlig airson a bhith a’ sgrìobhadh, ealain agus ceòl bhuapa. Bha Gaelic, we also looked at the history from sealltainn air an taisbeanadh sinn cuideachd glè fhortanach òraidean the Gaelic perspective, and compared C‘Petticoats and Pinnacles’ aig Leabharlann a chluinntinn bho Paula Williams indigenous and female perspectives of Nàiseanta na h-Alba le taic bho Baillie (LNA), Janni Diez, Dr. Dòmhnall Uilleam the mountains. Each week the students Gifford. Fo stiùir Rona Wilkie, chuir sinn Stiùbhart (Sabhal Mòr Ostaig, UHI) agus had a task to complete, and we received fàilte air sgoilearan àrd-sgoile bho air feadh Dr. Priscilla Scott. excellent submissions of literature, art na h-Alba agus sheall sinn air cultar nam and music, featured on these pages. bàn ’s na beanntan, san latha an-diugh Beatagan agus Binneanan was created We were also very fortunate to hear agus gu h-eachdraidheil. Leis gu robh as a Gaelic Medium educational project talks from exhibition curator Paula Gàidhlig againn, bha sinn cuideachd a’ to consider the themes in the ‘Petticoats Williams, Janni Diez, Dr. Dòmhnall Uilleam sgrùdadh na h-eachdraidh bho shealladh and Pinnacles’ exhibition at the National Stiùbhart (Sabhal Mòr Ostaig, UHI) and Ghàidhealach agus a’ dèanamh coimeas Library. Directed by Rona Wilkie, we Dr. Priscilla Scott. The project was eadar cultaran tùsanach agus boireann ’s welcomed senior high school pupils from supported by Baillie Gifford.
Innes Mac Nèill, Àrd-Sgoil Phort Rìgh
TOISEACHD AN T-SÀMHRAIDH rud a bhios mi a' coimhead air adhart ris aig an taigh - 's e bhith a' dol dhan eaglais 's a bhith a’ seinn òrain luaidh leis na A-nist air 's gu bheil rotach bhreith na h-uain builleach caillich, agus chan urrain dhomh fiù 's sin a dhèanamh shuas seachad, rinn sinn ar slìghe shuas a' mhonaidh às an taigh an seo. 'S na seann laithichean, nuair a bha mi nam nighean againn fhìn a tha shìos cùl a’ mhealbhain air taobh an iar an òg, bhithinn a' coimhead air adhart ris an t-sàmhradh, a-nise eilein, gus do ruig sinn an àirigh bheag eadar Beinn Bhirisg is cha mhòr 's gur e uallach a th' ann. Beinn Mhàrtainn, a chaidh a thogail uaireigin dhan t-saoghal Fionnghuala Nic a' Mhaoillan a' chaidh a' dhìomhchuimhneachadh a-nist. Nuair a rànaig sinn an àirigh, bha an t-sàmhchair 's an sìth a bh' air a bhith na bheannachadh don àite seo airson na bliadhna a chaidh DEALANACH IS TÀIRNEANACH seachad air a mhilleadh, leis a’ chlann ag èigheachd 's a’ sglamhachd 's mo dhuine a' toirt an anaim aiste. Abair staid a ’S ann a bha dealanach, bha taobh a-staigh na h-àirigh, gu dearbh cha robh mo dhuine ’S ann a bha tàirneanach, no mo chlann dol gam chuideachadh ga sgioblachadh. "'S e Gun suaimhneas neo sàmhchair, obair bhoireannaich a tha sin," a chanas iad! Gheibh iad "obair Ach cumhachd ar maighstir. bhoireannaich", seallaidh mise dhaibh “obair bhoireannaich” nuair a thoireas mi dhaibh sgleog air cùl nan cinn. Co-dhiù, Mar sgiorralaich nam bochdainn, cha b' ann fàda gus an do chrìochnaich mi sgioblachadh Air an losgadh ann an Ifhrinn, a-mach an àirigh 's gun robh e deiseil airson cadail ann. Dh'ith Is sòlas àrd-nèamh, sinn stiubh’ 's buntàta an oidhche ùd, ’s iomadh stiubh a' Nuair nach bi ann ach sèimh. dh'itheas sinn mus tìll sinn dhachaigh 's gun urrainn dhuinn iasg no maorach ithe a-rithist. Chan urrain dhuinn a dhol Chan ann ach cogadh dhan eaglais fhad 's a tha sinn shuas an seo, ach bidh sinn a mhaireas gu sìorraidh, fhathast ag ùrnaidh agus a' cumail aifhrinn bheag dhuinn fhìn Eadar ar Tìghearna, gach seachdain, fiù 's mur nach eil sagairt againn an seo. 'S na ’S Rìgh nan Diabhalta. mìosan a tha ri thighinn, tha na gillean a' dol a dhol a-mach a h-uile latha a choimhead às deidh nan caoraich agus mise Ach mu dheireadh thall, air mo cheamhail shuas ann am bothan bheag, a' glanadh Thig e gu gèill, càc nan caoraich far an t-aodach aca 's a còcaireachd biadh O chionn ’s gun e mathas dhaibh fàd an latha gun chuideachdadh no sgàth. An t-aon a shoirbheachas le amharas.
24 | DISCOVER | SUMMER 2021 Ella Rose Ridley, Àrd-Sgoil Sheumais Ghilleasbuig
AIR AN TUATHANAS cho àlainn ris na flùraichean fodha far an robh na seilleanan a’ poileanachadh A-muigh airson àileadh glan. nan neòinean Air an tuathanas, tha a' ghaoth a’ dèanamh osnadh aotram Na faoileagan a’ leum suas a' siubhal tron fhalt agam. às dèidh an uilebheist meacanaigeach a’ tighinn. Na sgòthan a' seòladh Na fiaclan fiadhaich a’ tionndaidh a' coimhead sìos air an t-saoghal gus an achadh a threabhadh. shàmhach. Am feur a’ dèanamh dannsa tlàithe A’ coiseachd tron nàdar. leis na seanganan agus seilcheagan. A' toirt anail a-steach. Air an tuathanas. Na geugan a’ smèideadh ris na h-eòin, A' faicinn, a’ cluinntinn, na h-eòin a tha a’ seinn òran a’ faireachdainn.
Caitlin Wright, Àrd-sgoil Sheumais Ghilleasbuig
A’ MHUIR
Socair, sìth a-muigh air an tràigh. Oir tha’n cuan air m’ òrdagan ’s na faoileagan fuaimneach air fàire.
A-nis tha mi a’ faireachdainn suaimhneach, Làn toileachais nam sheasamh an sin, a’ coimhead fada air falbh, fada air falbh - a-steach don mhuir mhòr ghorm.
1 2 Elissa Hunter Dorans, Acadamaidh Allt a’ Mhuilinn
1. Seo an t-sealladh bhon àirigh a bha air ainmeachadh san òran 'Bha mis' a-raoir air an àirigh'. Tha faclan an t-òran air an sgaoileadh tron dealbh.
2. Seo pìos a rinn mi mu dheidhinn cò leis a tha an fhearann. Air taobh chlì den aodann tha duine beartach aig a bheil oighreachdan ann an Alba. Aig deireadh an wire, tha padlock ann le bratan na h-Alba gus sealltainn gu bheil a’ mhor- chuid den dùthaich prìobhaideach. Air taobh dheas den aodann, tha duine tùsanach a chaill a chuid fhearann air sgath ‘s an duine beartach agus le sin tha deòir a’ tighinn a-mach às a shuil.
SUMMER 2021 | DISCOVER | 25 Scotland’s oldest secondhand and antiquarian boooshop (ee. ) Booos bought & sold | Catalogues issued | noo hooing Typeeronger Booos
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www.asls.org.uk contents Compared to Gaelic poetry, the 1. Rèiteach Mòraig – Iain N. MacLeòid history of Gaelic theatre has not been Morag’s Betrothal – John N. MacLeod a particularly long one, with the first 2. Am Fear a Chaill a Ghàidhlig – Iain examples appearing in the eighteenth MacCormaig century. However, drama in Gaelic The Man Who Lost His Gaelic – Iain began to thrive in the twentieth century, MacCormick and modern Gaelic drama has the power The magazine of the National Library of Scotland 3. Ceann Cropic – Fionnlagh MacLeòid to break down barriers and to touch Ceann Cropic – Finlay MacLeod people across linguistic and cultural 4. Tog Orm Mo Speal – Iain Mac a’ Ghobhainn divides. Give Me My Scythe – Iain Crichton Smith This collection is a celebration of 5. Òrdugh na Saorsa – Tormod Calum this often-overlooked genre, bringing Dòmhnallach The Order of Release – Norman Malcolm together eight Gaelic plays from the start MacDonald of the twentieth century to the present 6. Sequamur – Dòmhnall S. Moireach day. Accessible to non-Gaelic speakers, (A’ Ghàidhlig le Catrìona Dunn) this book contains English translations Sequamur – Donald S. Murray as well as an introduction to the history To advertise in this magazine please contact 7. Scotties – Muireann Kelly with Frances Poet of Gaelic theatre, and to the playwrights 8. Bana-Ghaisgich – Màiri Nic’IlleMhoire whose skill and commitment to their art [email protected] Heroines – Mairi Morrison deserves much wider recognition.
26 | DISCOVER | SUMMER 2021 Josiah and Nancy Henson, photographed in Glasgow THE FIGHT FOR SOCIAL JUSTICE
WORDS: Celeste-Marie Bernier Professor of United States and Atlantic Studies, the University of Edinburgh
Struggles for LIBERTY African American Revolutionaries in the Atlantic World - an online learning resource
SUMMER 2021 | DISCOVER | 27 THE FIGHT FOR SOCIAL JUSTICE
y part has been to tell the story of the slave. The story of the master never “Mwanted for narrators. The masters, to tell their story, had at call all the talent and genius that wealth and influence could command. They have had their full day in court. Literature, theology, philosophy, law and learning have come willingly to their service, and if condemned, they have not been condemned unheard.” These are the hard-hitting words of Frederick Douglass, who was born into the “hottest hell of unending slavery” in Maryland, United States, in 1818, and who became one of the most renowned social justice campaigners, authors, activists, orators and philosophers in world history. Writing in 1892, Douglass was only too painfully and personally aware that the history of white US enslavers – sanitised, censored and repackaged to fit a white supremacist mythology of history – would be the dominant story. Douglass, who lived in the “house of bondage” for the first two decades of his life, was dedicated to the revolutionary power of “words as weapons” in the freedom struggle. Writing and delivering thousands of speeches, letters and essays, he relied on his “living human Harriet Tubman by Benjamin F Powelson, Library of Congress voice” to do justice to the untold and repeatedly silenced “story of the slave”. through books, letters, photographs and as well as interactive maps, highlight Warring against the deadening documents held in the National Library, the central theme of family. Anna Murray stranglehold that he knew would be the Walter O. and Linda Evans Foundation Douglass, a free woman and activist exerted by white racist amnesia, in each Frederick Douglass Collection, and across in her own right, was the cement that of his tellings of the “story of the slave” international library holdings. held the Douglass family together. Douglass bore witness to white racist Dr Walter O. Evans, who in 2018 loaned “International in scope, this learning atrocity, persecution, abuse, torture, items to the Library for the first public resource is an invaluable record of the violence and death. He was not alone. display of his Frederick Douglass family freedom narrative that permeated Douglass was one among untold numbers collection, said: “I was delighted that the the Atlantic world during the long of African American revolutionaries who first public exhibition of the collection 19th century.” dedicated their lives to telling the “story was in Scotland, a country that was so Ernest J. Quarles Esq., of John Hopkins of the slave” in the unending global fight very important to Frederick Douglass. University, added: “This golden resource for equal human rights. “Scotland played a crucial role in enables crusaders for justice and ‘Struggles for Liberty: African Douglass’s life, placing him on an liberation in our global community American Revolutionaries in the Atlantic international stage and helping to forge to learn about a shared humanity World’ is a new online learning resource his world-renowned activism. as evidenced in these histories, which includes interactive maps and “I am impressed with the ‘Struggles for narratives, speeches, etc. By so doing downloadable learning activities for Liberty’ learning resource, complete with they can envision what allyship might teachers, including activities mapped its wide variety of historic materials and look like from an international and to the Curriculum for Excellence. curriculum-specific learning activities. intersectional perspective.” The resource shares the life stories ‘Struggles for Liberty’ will serve as an ‘Struggles for Liberty’ presents the of the individual and collective fight for indispensable and easily accessible “story of the slave” via the words of social justice – not only by Frederick resource for students, teachers and those Frederick Douglass and Harriet Ann Douglass, but by many more enslaved, looking to learn more about the Douglass Jacobs, a self-liberated activist author self-liberated and free African American family and other 19th-century African who had been born into slavery in freedom-fighters living and labouring American freedom-fighters.” North Carolina in 1862. Jacobs published in the “cause of liberty” in the US, Professor Earnestine Jenkins, of the a revolutionary autobiography, ‘The Britain and Ireland in the 19th century. University of Memphis, writes: “The Deeper Wrong; or, Incidents in the Life Here the “stories of the slaves” are told visual resources and written documents, of a Slave Girl’. Sharing her emotionally
28 | DISCOVER | SUMMER 2021 infamy that ever disgraced the Scottish name or blighted Scottish character”. Finally, this resource shares the untold stories of the Anna Murray and Frederick ABOVE: Frederick Douglass, National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Douglass family. A family of freedom- Institute. TOP RIGHT: Annie Douglass’s letter to her father, courtesy fighters – Anna Murray, his wife, Rosetta of The Frederick Douglass Papers at the Library of Congress and Annie, his daughters, and Lewis Henry, Charles Remond and Frederick harrowing experiences with her readers, justice campaigner and the love of his life, Douglass Jr., his sons – shared Frederick she issues a powerful appeal. Jacobs only moments before he goes into battle: Douglass’s conviction that “nothing of declares: “Slavery is terrible for men; “My dear girl while I am away, do not fret justice, liberty or humanity can come to but it is far more terrible for women. yourself to death, oh! I beg of you, do not. us except through tears and blood”. Superadded to the burden common to all, Remember that if I fall that it is in the Here we read the words of the they have wrongs, and sufferings, and cause of humanity.” Douglass’s youngest daughter, Annie mortifications peculiarly their own.” The ‘African American Activists in Douglass. At just 10 years of age, she The ‘History of Black Abolition’ theme Scotland’ theme shows that, over the writes a letter to her father in December of the resource looks at the activism of centuries, Douglass was not the only 1859. She shares the “Anti-Slavery inspirational freedom-fighters Nathaniel African American freedom-fighter to live piece” she learned to recite in school: “O Turner, David Walker and Maria W. and work in Scotland. He was joined by he is not the man for me/ Who buys or Stewart. Born into slavery in Virginia in hundreds of radical reformers including sells a slave.” Scarcely months later, in 1800 and executed by white enslavers in Josiah and Nancy Henson, Amanda March 1860, while Frederick Douglass 1831, Turner was a prophet, philosopher, Berry Smith, Ellen Craft and William was lecturing in Ayr, he received the preacher, radical activist and military Craft, William Wells Brown, and Ida B. devastating news that Annie, the “light general. A world-famous Black hero, Wells-Barnett. While revolutionary and life” of his heart, had passed away. he led one of the most renowned wars Underground Railroad liberator Harriet To this day, Annie Douglass and her against slavery by enslaved people in Tubman, a legendary freedom-fighter mother, father, sister and brothers live on US history. During this period, David born into slavery in Maryland, did not as seven of the renowned and unknown Walker and Maria W. Stewart, both free- visit Scotland, one source of support African American freedom-fighters who born authors, orators, and equal rights for her liberation campaigns in the US have, and continue to, dedicate their lives advocates, published their speeches and South was the financial contributions to the “struggles for liberty” for all past, essays in which they laid the foundations she received from the Edinburgh Ladies’ present, and future generations. for a philosophy of Black liberation. Emancipation Society. * Unless otherwise specified, “Unchain your black hand!”, Douglass’s A trailblazing anti-slavery campaigner, all quotations are the words of command to the US nation, opens the Samuel Ringgold Ward, an author and Frederick Douglass. resource’s ‘US Civil War’ theme. activist who had been born into slavery Here we learn of the revolutionary in Maryland, visited Scotland and held the heroism of the nearly 200,000 Black nation to account for its villainous role as The resource is easy to find on our combat soldiers fighting on the front lines. a “trafficker in human blood”. Writing of website. Visit nls.uk, select ‘Digital We read a letter by Douglass’s eldest son, the nation’s atrocities, Ward condemned Resources’, then ‘Learning Zone’, Lewis Henry Douglass, who writes to the names of white Scottish enslavers as then ‘Politics and Society’. Helen Amelia Loguen, a free-born social “the largest, blackest roll and record of
SUMMER 2021 | DISCOVER | 29 EVENTS WHAT’S ON Since mid-2020, we have moved our events programme online due to Covid-19. Below is just a taste of what’s coming up in the months ahead. For now, it’s best to assume events will continue to be broadcast via Zoom. However, as lockdown restrictions ease, we might resume events at our George IV Bridge building later in the year. For more details and to book, check our website, nls.uk.
TUESDAY, 17 AUGUST, 2PM TUESDAY, 21 SEPTEMBER, 2PM TUESDAY, 19 OCTOBER, 2PM ANIMAL FARM THE MUNROS: A HISTORY SCOTLAND, SLAVERY TRANSLATED INTO GAELIC Seasoned hillwalker Andrew Dempster AND JAMAICA Writer and translator Angus Peter delves into the history of the Munros, Kate Phillips looks at the relationship Campbell discusses translating the from early mapmakers to modern between Scotland and Jamaica from the first Orwell book into Gaelic. record-breakers. 16th century onwards, from Scottish migrants to the enslaved population and TUESDAY, 14 SEPTEMBER, 2PM the conditions that led to the anti-slavery NEWS OF THE DEAD movement and abolition. Author James Robertson discusses his new novel, which displays centuries TUESDAY, 7 DECEMBER, 5PM of change in the atmospheric Scottish DECISIVE MOMENTS Highlands. Renowned photographer Andy Hall offers his expertise on how to identify photographic opportunities and capture them on anything from a professional camera to a smartphone.
Muriel Spark
TUESDAY, 5 OCTOBER, 5PM PRIME OF MISS JEAN BRODIE Norma Allen delivers this year’s annual Muriel Spark lecture.
THURSDAY, 7 OCTOBER, 2PM NATIONAL POETRY DAY Peter Mackay and Jo MacDonald present some of the nation’s 100 Favourite Gaelic Andy Hall Poems, as voted for by the public.
FOR THE MOST UP-TO-DATE DETAILS ON COVID-19 RESTRICTIONS AND TO BOOK, VISIT NLS.UK
30 | DISCOVER | SUMMER 2021 MAJOR EXHIBITION Petticoats & Pinnacles: Scotland’s Pioneering Mountain Women SATURDAY, 10 JULY – SATURDAY, 28 MAY, 2022, GEORGE IV BRIDGE, EDINBURGH. ENTRY IS FREE, BOOKING ESSENTIAL.
Suitable nailed boots were not to be had in this country, and boys’ tweed suits were the only available outfit for women. When I appeared in my boys’ suit (made by Forsyth), and wearing my big hobnailers, my own mother could not endure the spectacle and cried ‘Oh what a fright you look! JANE INGLIS CLARK, ‘PICTURES AND MEMORIES’, 1938.
This major exhibition explores the relationship between women and mountains, focusing on individual Scots who travelled, climbed and responded creatively to mountain environments, both in Scotland and around the world. Through their stories, the exhibition demonstrates the ways in which these women overcame ideals of femininity, masculinity and social convention to pursue their goals and ambitions. Supported by Baillie Gifford.
EXHIBITIONS
COLLECTIONS IN FOCUS The Eye of a Stranger: Henrietta Liston’s Travels SATURDAY, 10 JULY – SATURDAY, 6 NOVEMBER, GEORGE IV BRIDGE, EDINBURGH. ENTRY IS FREE, BOOKING ESSENTIAL.
You have brought me up an excellent traveller, to take what I can get, and be content.
In 1812, Henrietta Liston, aged 60, and her husband Robert, who had been appointed British Ambassador to the Sublime Porte, sailed to Constantinople. They reached Turkey just as Sultan Mahmud II began the fourth year of his reign. Over almost eight years in the Ottoman Empire, Henrietta kept travel journals full of opinion, curiosity and wonderment. These, and Henrietta’s earlier travelogues from North America, will be displayed with letters, maps, invitations and Ottoman documents to tell the story of her travels and her life in international circles during the Age of Revolution.
FOR THE MOST UP-TO-DATE DETAILS ON COVID-19 RESTRICTIONS AND TO BOOK, VISIT NLS.UK
SUMMER 2021 | DISCOVER | 31 DIGITAL RESOURCES DIGITAL SCHOLARSHIP
NEW DATASETS ON This enables those who cannot code to THE DATA FOUNDRY analyse Data Foundry collections which Our Digital Scholarship Service continued would otherwise be impossible to explore. to run throughout all of the Covid-19 We launched our first Notebooks in lockdowns of 2020 and 2021, and we September 2020. These provide initial released a number of new datasets analysis of five datasets, enabling on the Data Foundry, the Library’s open researchers to understand what the data platform for digital scholarship. dataset contains, and to begin to frame A ‘dataset’ includes machine- initial research questions using the data. readable text files, image files and more structured ‘XML’ text files – all of which VISUALISING LIBRARY DATA enable computational research with the Data Science for Design students at collections. One highlight of our recent the University of Edinburgh have been releases is a collection of nearly 1,800 working on data visualisation projects broadsides printed in Scotland between using the Library’s collections. 1650 and 1910. Broadsides were a form They have used our datasets to learn of communication which predated the how to create data visualisations and newspaper, and this collection provides produced websites, videos and ‘data extensive opportunities for further research comics’ exploring a variety of data. into the hot topics and scandals of the day. Find out more about the geographical spread of information in the first eight FROM LOCKDOWN... editions of ‘Encyclopaedia Britannica’; TO JUPYTER! explore historic gender bias and other During the first Covid-19 lockdown topics in the Scottish School Exam Papers in 2020, we recruited an online Digital collection; and find out how Britain Research Intern to create Jupyter presented itself to the outside world Notebooks for Data Foundry collections. through our collection of Britain and Jupyter Notebook is a web application UK Handbooks. which allows people to write and interact ABOVE: A typical broadside, this one announcing William with live code. share-squareTo find our new datasets, Notebooks, Burke’s execution. Noticeably, Burke is misspelt ‘Burk’. Notebooks are often used in a learning or explore the data visualisation projects, ABOVE RIGHT: Anastasia Athanatou, Yidan Yuan, and teaching environment and one of the check out the Data Foundry on our Yongchang Zhu, Jingyi Chu’s visualisation of the Scottish school exam papers includes an analysis beauties of them is that you don’t need to website. Visit nls.uk and select of gender bias in the collection. know how to code to make use of them. ‘Digital resources’.
32 | DISCOVER | SUMMER 2021 CONSERVATION
collections – has been around for over 70 years and the Library has incorporated WE STOP THE BAD good practice into how it looks after the 30 million plus items in the collections. THINGS HAPPENING “The new post lets me help the Library consider how best to stop problems Creating the right conditions is key to ensuring that all of the Library’s before they happen. We try to make sure treasured collections will be enjoyed for many more years to come that our collections have a useable life of at least 500 years and to do this we must Just before the second lockdown make sure everything is stored in the in December 2020, we recruited right conditions – the wrong humidity, Conservation Institute Accredited (ACR) temperature, poor handling or plagues of Mel Houston for a new role as Preventive moths can shorten a book, manuscript or Conservator. Mel is working across the map’s useful life or destroy it altogether. Library to improve how we store, display “I’m concentrating on the stability of and care for our collections. the environment around the collections, As Mel herself says, her role is to “stop working with colleagues to interpret bad things from happening” and ensure the data provided by the Library’s that our fabulous collections remain in environmental monitoring system. great condition for as long as possible. “Another simple thing we can do More from Mel: “I’ve had a soft spot for is provide boxes for collections. This the National Library since spending a lot buffers the contents from changes in of time in the Reading Room in the 1990s environment and protects from dust, and knowing members of the Collections dirt and insects. It might be simple but Care team. I have been impressed with the scale is enormous and, as it has the how the Library carries out its duty of added bonus of allowing us to use less care to look after the collections and or a turtle and thinking this was fun! energy to sustain a stable environment, make them as accessible as possible. So when I saw the job advert for the it is good news for our tortoise (in case “I remember being brought in several new post of preventive conservator you were wondering,) and all tortoises.” years ago to work out whether a piece of I was hooked. Preventive conservation – taxidermy in the collection was a tortoise making sure bad things don’t happen to Mel Houston
Yolanda working at the FROM MY WORKBENCH conservation studio TO THE DINNER TABLE Adapting from on-site to homeworking during lockdown as Conservation Intern at the Library
“Since October 2020, when I joined adapt my work plan and my expectations the National Library of Scotland, my at the start of the next lockdown. placement has been focused on the “I started considering lockdown as conservation of fragile formats, which a window that allowed me to focus includes the Library’s inherently frail on tasks I would not have the time for collections items. It is a wide category, otherwise, for example, networking with allowing for many stimulating projects. other organisations and conservators “Before lockdown, practical work was across the UK, attending a multitude the major part of my duties. During those of webinars, studying and researching, months I worked across the Library’s two helping other team members in creating main collections buildings, in George IV internal policies, becoming familiar with Bridge and Causewayside, in collaboration the work of other departments across the with various members of the Collections Library or, my main project, developing Care team. I had the chance to perform a decision-making matrix for the back in the buildings, I plan to make the treatments on bound and unbound treatment of iron gall inks. most of the rest of my internship, apply materials, learn new binding techniques “If we learnt something from 2020 the tools that adapting from necessity and be part of a ‘conservation for it is to expect the unexpected and the has given me and make up for the time digitisation’ project. importance of resilience. So, lockdown away from my bench.” “As conservators, our natural was turned from a forced impasse, to just environment is the studio, so I had to an unexpected diversion. Now that we are Yolanda Bustamante
SUMMER 2021 | DISCOVER | 33 EXPLORE THE LIBRARY Great Library resources…
MAIN VISITOR CENTRE Where you will find our Join print collections, rare books and YOUR NATIONAL manuscripts, as well as reading LIBRARY rooms and digital facilities. The exhibition space, café and shop TODAY! are also here. George IV Bridge Edinburgh EH1 1EW Phone: 0131 623 3700 Email: [email protected] While restrictions due to Covid-19 are ongoing, many of our facilities are closed and our reading rooms are open on a limited basis. For more information and to book your place, visit our website.
FILM AND DIGITAL COLLECTIONS Ideal for informal browsing or for those seeking a specialist viewing – or if you want access to our outstanding digital facilities. Kelvin Hall 1445 Argyle Street Glasgow G3 8AW Phone: 0845 366 4629 Email: [email protected] While restrictions due to Covid-19 You will need a Library card if you or pick one up in person at George are ongoing, many of our facilities want to use our reading rooms or IV Bridge in Edinburgh. are closed. For more information, order items from our collection. Don’t forget, you will need to visit our website. You can apply for a card online bring proof of identity and at auth.nls.uk/registration confirmation of your address.
MAPS ONLINE AT www.nls.uk Our Maps Reading We have vast and growing Additional conditions may apply in Room is available by resources available on our website, line with our licence agreements. appointment. Come in and see including digital versions of We also hold websites in the UK the world. reference works, full-text facsimiles domain web archive, and articles Causewayside Building and business databases. or chapters from e-books and 33 Salisbury Place If you live in Scotland and register e-journals. Library card holders can Edinburgh EH9 1SL with the Library, many of these view these at our George IV Bridge Phone: 0131 623 4660 resources are freely available. and Kelvin Hall sites. Email: [email protected] While restrictions due to Covid-19 are ongoing, many of our facilities are closed and our reading rooms ALREADY KNOW WHAT YOU’RE LOOKING FOR? are open on a limited basis. Due to Covid-19, you must pre-order material before coming to the Library. You For more information and to book will find our catalogue on our website. If you don’t have a Library card but want your place, visit our website. to enquire about an item, phone 0131 623 3820 or complete our enquiry form on our website at nls.uk. Select ‘Contact’, then ‘Ask a Question’.
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