ISSUE 25 WINTER / SPRING 2015 FREE

THE EILDON TREE

NEW WRITING FROM THE SCOTTISH BORDERS & BEYOND THE EILDON TREE Issue 25. Winter / Spring 2015 3 CONTENTS

GUIDELINES 3 THEATRE WHERE TO FIND YOUR FREE COPY OF THE EILDON TREE. cannot guarantee inclusion in the magazine. Please note we are The Editorial Team and Arts Development, Scottish unable to return any review publications. EDITORIAL 4 Gertrude – Carol Norris 29 Borders Council thank all venues and outlets for their support

in promoting The Eildon Tree. The Editors and Arts Development Scottish Borders POETRY FILM AND VIDEO Council are not responsible for the individual views and Scottish Borders Council Libraries opinions expressed by reviewers and contributors. The Eildon Two Fourteens – Michael Davis 5 The persistence of memory – Iona McGregor 29 Borders College Tree is available from all Scottish Borders Council libraries and Scottish Borders Council High Schools a wide range of local outlets throughout the Scottish Borders. Niall of the Nine Hostages Dreams – Ann Egan BOOK REVIEWS 30 u3a Groups The Eildon Tree can also be downloaded: wasps Artist Studios, Selkirk www.scotborders.gov/life/educationandlearning/arts The Modern Paterfamilias – Philip Hutton 6 COMMUNITY Forest Bookstore, Selkirk Masons Bookstore, Melrose The opinions expressed in this magazine do not necessarily reflect The Old Gamese – Philip Hutton Kelso Writers Group 38 Main Street Trading Company, St Boswells Council policy or practice in the arts. Langlee Complex, Galashiels A Fine Couple – Kathleen Mansfield Seven Books Seven Authors Event at Heart Of Hawick, Tower Mill Damascus Drum, Hawick The Armada Box – Bridget Khursheed Borders Book Festival 40 GUIDELINES FOR SUBMITTING WORK TO EILDON TREE Gardens of Peace – Colin Will 7 SCOTTS TREASURE'S 41 Submissions of new writing are invited for inclusion in the next issue of Eildon Tree – Spring-Summer 2015. The FICTION SCHOOLS 47 st Submissions Deadline is 31 March 2015.

The Middle Age – Jane Pearn BIOGRAPHIES 48 Poems, short stories and non-fiction articles of local and national literary interest, as well as short novel extracts, are What the Sixties were like in the West all welcome for consideration. of Scotland – David McVey 8 • A maximum of 4 poems, stories or articles up to 2,500 words, single spacing. St Andrews, Spring 1982– Jennifer McRobbie 10 • Electronic format: Arial pt 12, single line spacing, unjustified margin. In Baltistan – 'Little Tibet' – Sue Hewitt 11 • Book titles and quotes should be italicised, but without speech and quotation marks, unless specified in the Hired Goons – Thomas Clark 12 text quoted. • Include a brief biography, maximum 40 words. Hail the Conquering Heroes– Thomas Clark 14 • Please do not resubmit work which has been seen previously by the Editors ARTICLES • For an informal chat please contact Arts Development Tel: 01750 726400 Seeking out Sin – Melrose in the Eighteenth • Teachers submitting work on behalf of pupils should contact Arts Development for further guidance. Century – Peter Hoad 16 HOW TO SUBMIT YOUR WORK Eildon Tree Article – Reader In By post: The Eildon Tree, Arts Development, St Mary’s Mill, Selkirk, td7 5ew Residence – Tom Murray 18 By email: [email protected]

EVENTS (Please note: All work should be sent to Arts Development and not to individual Editors) Referendum at the Drum– Sara Clark 19 THE PROCESS SARA CLARK JULIAN COLTON IONA MCGREGOR CAROL NORRIS Celebrating 15 years of the • Your work will be sent to the Editors for consideration. Acceptance and inclusion in the magazine is at their EDITORIAL TEAM EildonTree– Sara Clark 20 discretion. Sara Clark, Julian Colton, Iona McGregor, Carol Norris (mbe) • You will be notified when a decision has been made. BEST KEPT SECRET 21 Please be patient, we receive many submissions. PUBLISHING TEAM • If your submission is accepted for publication you will Joy Dunsmore, Cluny Nixon INTERVIEW WITH MARGARET SKEA 22 be sent a copy of the work to proof-read before print. • All contributors will receive a copy of the magazine GRAPHIC DESIGN INTERVIEW WITH ELISE ALDEN 25 • If your submission is not accepted on this occasion, Lillias.co.uk please do not be deterred from submitting alternative Listening for Voices – CABN Peer Support 27 work in the future.

– Jules Horne PUBLICATIONS SUBMITTED FOR REVIEW Publishers and authors may submit publications for review. We do endeavour to review as many as books as possible but THE EILDON TREE 4 EDITORIAL Issue 25. Winter / Spring 2015 5 EDITORIAL Measured by any yardstick, 2014 was an epic, momentous IAIN MACAULAY Of saucy adventures he did boast TWO FOURTEENS year for Scotland: The Year of Homecoming, a hugely successful Close encounters up the Doctor’s back close. Commonwealth games in Glasgow, The Ryder Cup hosted by Yer man MacAulay came to Arts Service To Jean-Paul it was such a must Flags waving, cloudless skies,

Gleneagles, Hibs and Hearts both relegated. Oh, and just the circa ‘97 To take a lady to see the Prisoners’ Bush Khaki, tartan, / POETRY small matter of a Referendum on Nationhood decided just days From somewhere up in the misty Scottish Isles To show her his plans of going to Trust. A wall of smiling faces. before the writing of this editorial. Whether you thought the and Northern Ireland. And now, Iain, as you retire, if you dare The Queen opens the Games, debate and associated events the most politically energising Such schemes that were hatched in St Mary’s Sit with the old men on the bench in Selkirk Square The King issues the call experience of your life or if you believed it to be socially divisive, and Selkirk Deli Watch the world come and go For volunteers. there’s no denying it had people talking, even arguing, in a way Over sixty cups of sixty different types of With Messrs Nichol and Gunn, dogs Dulcie and Oreo “People Make Glasgow”. that’s not been witnessed in Scottish social and political life for coffee: And yes, you’ll stifle half a frown “Kitchener Needs You”. many a year. Who would have thought it – politics: the new cool? Don’t wish to be mean, remember the doomed As down the steps skips the belated Ian Brown. Young men stand in line So whether you backed the winners or losers it’s perhaps wise not Expresso machine? Iain, it’s now your great lot “As swimmers into cleanness leaping”; to be too happy in victory or too downcast in defeat. Life goes on. More success with the Writer-in-Residence To stare up at the statue of Sir Walter Scott. Diving off starting blocks Though many folk, many of whom are creative practitioners, said scheme Oh Iain, one last thing – Like bullets striking water. they didn’t know what they would do with themselves once it was Goodness me, a magazine called The Eildon Have you brought your guitar, are you really, really, going Teams line up, ready for the off, all over such was the attention and emotional energy invested in Tree to sing? Bayonets fixed, mouths turned dry. the proceedings. Well, one thing they might want to do now is A Banksian factory facility – strangely called This is the epic story of what MacAulay did, our man, yer Falling before hurdles of barbed wire; write something over the coming winter months for The Eildon Wasps – man Eyes disbelieving Tree. The magazine is for everyone, so channel that energy and An ‘eclectic mix’ of artists, artisans, scruffs and Light as a feather, man, never mind the weather, man Until the Anthems play. enthusiasm and get writing. toffs. To us you’ll always be……. Emotions break the face, Late into the night Iain was always delighted Business Manager (Transformation) Man. Vacant eyes, enduring image. Someone who has a lot of youthful energy is The Eildon Tree’s To agonise over pictures pixelated So to Iain let’s all raise a full glass James Denny, synchronised diving silver medal; newest editorial recruit Sara Clark. A writer of great promise she Stare at the What’s On and ET proof screen Iain it’s really been quite a blast – Sláinte! James Denny, Kings Own Scottish Borderers, killed at Ypres. is already making her mark on the Borders writing scene as an Digest events in the airy local Arts scene The boxer stands his ground. Bring it on! organiser of events including our inspiring Eildon Tree 15 open Juggle numbers, squeeze facts and figures, “With our backs to the wall…” Bring it on! mic birthday celebration at The Damascus Drum in Hawick quite the wizard Julian Colton And the crowd sings “Flower of Scotland”; in September. A person with a lot of imagination we’re fully Wrote long reports and projections, googled Ross Murdoch, swimmer, gold medal; expecting Sara to bring new ideas and fresh perspectives to the diagrams As the piper stirs the pool. Eildon Tree editorial table. Watch this space. Used big words like ‘loosely connected Ross Murdoch, private, killed the Somme. archipelagos’ and ‘synapses’ “The Devons held this trench… Fifteen years of The Eildon Tree. Who would have thought Not sure even he knew what they meant ‘Plymouth’s Tom Daley wins gold’ it? It doesn’t seem like yesterday since Iain MacAulay arrived But in one banner headline misspelt …the Devons hold it still.” in the South of Scotland to take up the reins of the SBC Arts ‘development’ Charlie Flynn, boxer, lightweight gold medal; Development Section at St Mary’s Mill. One of his first and finest No problem, but that was his own department. Whilst in a thousand foreign fields, initiatives was the creation of a Borders Writer-in-Residence Oh, the things that MacAulay did – Charles Flynn, private, Royal Scots, killed Arras, post- a position ably filled by Tom Bryan, whose presence gave exclamation! Fading through the mist, birth to our glorious magazine. Iain retired earlier this year and The Borders Book Festival, sired all those kids The headstones stand in rows. his support and enthusiasm for arts and culture will be greatly – Spare a thought for roadrunner Donna – missed. There can be no doubting the positive impact he made in Young Paul hanging by his fingertips from Michael Davis all areas of the Borders creative community. It was a measure of Bannerfield Bridge. the great respect and affection Council colleagues, writers, artists Responsibility, it would make you tear your and musicians had for Iain that his leaving do at St Mary’s Mill ever blacker hair out, the burden NIALL OF THE NINE HOSTAGES DREAM was marked by warm, sincere reminiscence, great laughter and, But still, what a deep Joy to work with Joy, fittingly, a considerable amount of poetry. Much of the leg pulling Menzies, Morrison, Denham and Colton. I awoke from a dream in silvered dawn, was at Iain’s expense but he took the jokes in great part and fielded On the lighter side, he always took pride My Hearties, in silvered dawn. well-earned compliments in typically modest laid-back style. Lisa In his ball skills when playing five-a-side. Manannáin MacLir bade me, Denham, Iain’s successor in the Arts Service, paid tribute to his Yes, his plans have always been stunning ‘‘Search horizon’s low ways, high ways. guidance and vision in helping to shape a vibrant arts scene for the Remember when he took up dinner-time Borders. Our editor Julian Colton was commissioned to write a running? Great Niall of the Nine Hostages, light-hearted poem especially for the event and at Lisa’s request we Here’s a given – faster than Storming Norman for waiting somewhere in all glory feature it in full as a celebration of all things Iain MacAulay. All ( who isn’t?) is your Tenth Hostage who’ll bear you, the Best, Iain. Have a long and happy retirement. You’ve earned it. A stronger backhand during the two weeks of fearless leader, riches beyond telling. Wimbledon. Julian Colton On the cobbled streets at Scott’s Selkirk He owns the measure of seabed wealth Carol Norris MBE Standing tall as Frenchman Jean-Paul where creatures toil in moonlight Iona McGregor Beautifully strumming his acoustic guitar when it falls through byeways Sara Clark All in the name of art and satire. of my own sweet ocean kingdom. Jean-Paul – the man with the tickly moustache Editors, The Eildon Tree magazine Kissing many a local lass – at least one called He commands satchels of gold, Agnes – large as the midday sun’s bounty, Over him the ladies of Selkirk did swoon and bright as the northern star guiding swarm sea warriors with their booty. Ooh là là, a tall, swarthy man in French uniform. Seers boast of his wealth, prophesy in runes and stones, THE EILDON TREE 6 POETRY FICTION Issue 25. Winter / Spring 2015 7 POETRY / FICTON POETRY GARDENS OF PEACE THE MIDDLE AGE sing about Bealtaine’s fire of to teach the muses hide-and-seek remembering faces, and with a change of fortune’s gems for his gathering. clothes or a hair-cut, she could be sunk. Or basketball. Let them have their cake Postwar, everything was rationed You always heard about ‘going But the dogs were quite distinctive. A Seek keenly so on every shore and Sky TV if that’s the dish preferred. except fresh air and exercise. through the menopause’ and when it small yappy one tugging a neat woman this mighty one amidst myriads Let’s not teach the kiddies how to live The parks were free, and she had started to happen to Stephanie, with short, business-like hair; a big black of his slaves, his soldiers. having less than conjured that ourselves. took her babies out most days. she’d envisaged striding up a broad path brute with a muzzle. She’d have preferred Look for richest attire, haughtiest eye. Let them rot within us, ancient games. bordered with spring flowers and passing its owner with a muzzle too. Heavily In the back green, between through golden gates to a new life. But tattooed, shaven-headed, with a walk Go with care, with all your cunning. Playtime’s over, but we play on, stay the washing lines, my brother and I it seemed to her that she had staggered that suggested ex-army. Oh well, some Be the seal singing at eventide posing, pausing, longing, lingering were put out to snooze, mornings breathless to the top of a hill, closed her mother’s son, too. She acknowledged of love, loss, memory of better times. so that the children have a difference and sunny afternoons, eyes in expectation and opened them to them with a smile and a weather Be the swallow on the ninth wave.’’ and a distance of their own see – nothing much. Or nowhere that she comment, like taking small change out to gaze through glass upon. as if grass and ozone fancied going. of her purse. It didn’t seem to matter I’ll make you proud chieftains could absorb the city poisons Everything looked the same, perhaps what you said. ‘Nice day’ could apply to of your homelands if you enslave Philip Hutton of coal smoke, dust particles, a little drabber. Martin was just as he had any kind of weather, even, if you chose to this powerful man of gems untold. and the remains of the war. always been, inattentive, preoccupied. inflect it ironically, the wettest, coldest, If you but capture me my dream! He’d barely registered the rising tide of dankest day. A FINE COUPLE Later she walked us for miles – blood that had flooded her face in the She’d crossed two bridges: what on My Hearties, find my tenth hostage. you couldn’t get prams on trams – restaurant last night. But he seemed earth did that mean, ‘don’t cross your bridges I am king of sailors, king of pirates, Diego Rivera loved Frida Kahlo him in the big Pedigree, quite – what? Hardly exuberantly happy, till you come to them’? How could you? I’ve broken men of west and north. Despite her monobrow. me holding her hand. but content. Who could tell? Did he even Now she was back in the town. A row of I bow only to Mannanáin MacLir. Frida Kahlo, pleased, painted know how he felt? The children – what quiet houses with quiet gardens, where Ann Egan selfies - her lonely endow- The Meadows were closest, did one call them when they were grown only the sound of occasional passing ment to the world. grassy slopes and cinder paths, into adults? Offspring? ‘Kids’ seemed cars disturbed the air. In the summer, a the pitch-and-putt course ridiculous for people in their thirties, garden sprinkler had sleepily swept this THE MODERN PATERFAMILIAS She said: I tried to drown my sorrows, but the bastards learned how not yet re-opened. holding down more responsible jobs than lawn, its arc covering the pavement every to swim, their parents ever had. Holding down 20 seconds or so. She’d thought about A boy and girl, six perhaps and eight and now I am overwhelmed by this decent and good feeling. Further afield, she walked us – what an odd expression. She pictured pausing for it to arrive then trying to dash on side-facing tip-up seats, their ironed cuffs to feed ducks on Blackford Pond, her accountant son wrestling his position under the umbrella of sparkling drops suggest suburban troops, so trim and straight. Today, I want a man like Diego or Princes Street Gardens to the ground and sitting astride it. The without getting wet. Then thought better Their gaze is joined and held to further off. who to watch steam trains puff image made her smile. A less macho man of it. If anyone was watching, what felt will hoist those flower petals than Simon it would be hard to imagine. to her like delightful spontaneity might, Dad is slim in shirt and corduroys who under the footbridge. My favourite Nicola was another matter entirely. now that her hair was more grey than and as he turns you see it, huge and hump, will be my team mate and was the Botanic Gardens where, She’d hold down her job as an NHS brown, look like the deranged act of an heroic Sherpa rucksack, as of Himalayan boy who much much later, I’d come to work administrator till it begged for mercy. escapee from the nearby care home. shouldering the whole shebang to canvas camp. will will me stronger, safer, in the heart of my memories. This was one change Stephanie had The trouble was, Stephanie wasn’t who noticed: her thoughts wandered, no ready for all of this, for becoming old He perches mountainously on the luggage rails will kiss my scars with tenderness Colin Will longer travelling in straight lines, but before she’d had a proper chance to blending to the bus, lets by surge and lurch, who distracted by passing fancies, or snagging get older gradually, to grow up. It felt eases the peaked bulk back where space avails, stands imbued with decent and good feeling. on a word or phrase she’d heard for years as if she’d gone from energetic young his front slung sling-child sleeping in its arc. So, to this end, I shall retire, without comment. working mother to inexorable decline Drown my sorrows She’d decided that Going for Walks in one move. Where were the scenes in Hemmed in, he telegraphs an eye and mouths “our stop”. And sing Cheers to my future would be good for her. A way of staving between? Where had she been? Offstage? They slip their seats, induction moves chop-chop. love. off the seemingly inevitable bone- She wondered if her own mother had felt Kathleen Mansfield crumbling, stooping descent into old age. the same. Too late to ask her now: she Philip Hutton Martin didn’t come with her, at her own barely recognised her visitors, sometimes invitation. mistaking them, oddly enough, for THE ARMADA BOX You don’t want to, do you? It'll be the Gestapo, with whom she had had THE OLD GAMES muddy/there’ll be a stile/there’s your knee to no connection whatsoever. She would Cut from a ship of Philip’s fleet think of. angrily refuse to reveal information like On these fine wide lawns that foundered we guess Her walks were circular – she had a what she’d had for lunch, tight-lipped plate-flat to their horizon on the northern coast making its retreat horror of returning by the same route. It and heroic. to the bending shrubs and beds, headlong from the battle’s end made it seem pointless, somehow. There Was this it then? Back to the were we children now and the pirate Drake’s fireships. Here it sits and back for the sake of it. She’d timed waywardness of a two-year-old before what games would we play? a writing box on a writing desk them so she could match them up with the helpless nappy-stage and drooling igniting Scottish flame from Spanish trees. household tasks. This one took two hours: wordlessly? And where had the I asked. But boys, they say the time the bread dough needed for its mid-point been? Had she missed the with such an air, such regretful gazing through the glass Bridget Khursheed first rise. destination or never noticed the moment – play no games on street or grass. Stephanie walked down the hill when she’d turned round and started Smartphones clamp their livelong day. to the river, following its broad sweep, going back? She had a horror of having listening to it as it swept over cans and to return by the same route. There and Just so. Another horseless carriage here to stay. car parts. No buds on the trees yet, but back for the sake of it. It made it seem Moses might indulge a hissy-fit, several had early blossoms of Tesco pointless, somehow. Apollo, step down from a mandorla bags. She recognised a couple of people in the deep sky by their dogs. She’d never been good at Jane Pearn THE EILDON TREE 8 FICTION Issue 25. Winter / Spring 2015 9 FICTION FICTION WHAT THE SIXTIES WERE LIKE IN ‘There’s our art,’ said Sarah, ‘our own and that. It’s that new-fangled video tape musical accompaniment. People would try to avoid causing any I could describe how the Reality People THE WEST OF SCOTLAND art. We can make an impact through ye’d need tae record a life 24 hours a day. inconvenience in their future activities. broke up because of disagreements that.’ But how could work that was It disnae need tae be developed.’ We now had quite an audience, about direction, because one or two of If you can remember the sixties, crafted in a quiet corner of the West of puzzled, mocking and in some cases Good old Tam. It was his words that us wanted to get more radical while the those people say, you weren’t there. But Scotland by beginners who’d been on a ‘But it’s expensive. Only the BBC and near stupefied. The warm weather had must have hooked Scottish Television others wanted to target the mainstream, those people couldn’t have been there course designed for oldies who wanted ITV can afford it,’ said Karen, ‘and telly attracted many Saturday shoppers, when they were reviewing the local or because the authorities saw us as a themselves. If they had been, I’d have to shove together cosy watercolours of cameras are horrible big heavy things, parents and children, young couples press on what must have been a slow threat and began to lean on us. But no, it met them. ducks in the river at Callander ever come anyway.’ and bands of young scamps. Even news week. The next Saturday, Sarah’s wasn’t like that at all. to the attention of anyone who mattered? when we drifted to the usually peaceful was the life on show and we circled For, yes, I was there and I ‘But what we can supply is an audience,’ environment of Peel Park, a small her as we’d done with Tam the week Tam worked in a building firm in remember it all well; the newness, the ‘You don’t actually have to be able said Sarah, ‘and that’ll cost nothing.’ crowd followed us; bemused old women, before and observed and mock-recorded town and he got promoted to site director. sense that things were changing, the to draw or paint very well to make taunting teenagers, scowling old men in and gathered a small contemptuous His time was now filled up, he worked all experimentation, the joy and the an impact,’ said Karen, ‘look at Andy ‘Ur youse gonnae buy ony mair coffee bunnets, laughing youngsters. ‘They’ll be audience and then we realised that a TV hours and the Reality People meant less freedom. Yet I wasn’t in San Francisco Warhol.’ or jist sit there aa night?’ asked Mario, students,’ said one women, ‘students are crew was approaching us, filming away to him. Perhaps in another dimension, or London or any of the main cultural the cafe owner. aa money-wasting dafties.’ merrily, while a reporter was having her he becomes the inventor of reality TV epicentres. There were only four of us ‘Aye,’ I said, ‘and his films are even hair brushed and make-up applied in or is credited as the inspiration for The in our movement, and we all lived in more shite than his paintings.’ The Saturday following this ‘At least they’re no rioting or preparation for interviewing us. Truman Show, but in this one he’s merely Glasgow. Well, nearly. Kirkintilloch, to conversation, we all gathered in the smashing the place up like thae yins in responsible for a lot of the ugliest 1970s be exact. ‘It’s how ye live that’s yer work of art,’ town centre, round a bench in Regent France,’ said her friend. Just a few days later we watched office blocks in the West of Scotland. He said Tam, who thought a lot, read about Gardens. The Reality People had been the STV evening news. After an and Sarah married, and they moved to Like many of the people who made art in the William Patrick Library in Tam’s inspiration so we’d agreed that ‘It’ll come to that,’ said the first introduction about ‘Four young a semi in Bearsden. The Reality People their mark and influenced popular town, and who fancied Sarah something Tam’s should be the first life-as-art to be woman. Dunbartonshire avant-garde artists who were never a free love commune. culture during the decade, we were at rotten, ‘not what ye paint or make.’ presented to the world. are making their home town the San art college. Sort of. Actually, we all had But most seemed to view us merely Francisco of Scotland’ there were some We appeared as a footnote in some proper jobs – I was an apprentice in the After that the group went quiet for Tam stood up, and we surrounded as harmless pranksters, people having a shots of derelict factories, joyless council cultural histories of the period and got council drawing office, for example – a while, and the silence was only broken him, poised in a rough circle, looking bit of a laugh. And they were right. The schemes (including the one where Tam odd mentions on telly programmes. but we were all doing night classes in by the breathy whooshing of the coffee at him intently. He advanced a couple Reality People at heart were a comic and I lived) and the track of our local Tam and Sarah are retired, now, and Hillhead Community Centre, learning machine and the distant chatter of other of paces, onto a small triangular lawn, invention, a means of passing the time, of railway line being torn up. ‘Kirkintilloch,’ have moved over to somewhere near the basics of drawing and art and people at other tables who inhabited and the circle kept pace around him. He playing at being ground-breaking artists said the voice-over, ‘a town facing the Edinburgh. It’s years since I’ve seen brushwork between 7pm and 8pm each other worlds. had plucked a flower from one of the as a temporary escape from lives that ran same challenges as many others in them and I’ve no idea what happened to Tuesday before we all had to pile out of displays – a wee dwarf marigold, I think on tram-lines. Scotland, with old industries closing, Karen; I’d grown to fancy her a lot but the room to make way for Advanced Car ‘Our life is our art...’ said Karen, it was - and he now lifted this to his nose Beeching railway cuts, poverty and she didn’t fancy me. I’m also retired from Maintenance 1. thoughtfully. She worked down the and made a great play of sniffing it and The first published reference to unemployment. But a group of groovy the council but I sometimes lead tours corridor from me, in the council typing relishing the scent. We all continued to the Reality People came the following young cats from the town are turning of Kirkie for pilgrims visiting the home Most of the class were middle aged pool. She was such a competent typist watch, and Sarah formed a 4:3 rectangle Wednesday in the Kirkintilloch Herald: it into a centre of kooky art as if it were of the Reality People. I feel I have to do or retired, people who wanted to learn that she could work on autopilot and with her thumbs and forefingers and Swinging London or San Francisco!’ this, now that there’s this book about the how to do nice watercolours when they dream as she worked. And she dreamed. watched through that, like a film director Local Rowdies Cause Havoc in Town Reality People in which most of the facts were on holiday on Skye or in the Lakes, sizing up a shot. Karen mimed the Centre So much, so cringe-making. But are wrong; we weren’t all lifelong friends, or simply wanted something to help pass ‘That’s it!’ said Tam, ‘Our life is our manual cranking of an early film camera soon Tam’s rasping voice came as his we never took drugs (mainly because we the time until death came along. But we art! Reality is art! If only we could have and peered through the imaginary A group of local young people caused contribution to the interviews was played. didn’t have the money and would have four were much younger and had turned a film or television camera following us viewfinder. chaos in Cowgate Saturday last when ‘We’re the Reality People. We believe had no idea how to get hold of them) and up in order to find out how to get into the all the time, that would record our lives, their bizarre behaviour drew crowds that that art is life and life is art and that our we never wanted to bring down society. art scene, although Tam and I had also our art. Never mind all that bourgeois Then Tam moved off and we kept obstructed public walkways and roads. lives are our canvasses...’ Whoever wrote the book clearly never hoped to meet girls. Sarah and Karen rubbish about painting and sculpting and pace, the circle of three still clamped The rowdies, all local, call themselves the spoke to Sarah or Tam or Karen, and had conveniently appeared. The four of selling stuff for thousands!’ around him; Karen was in front of him ‘Reality People’ and in performing what It lasted about four minutes and they certainly never approached me. us took to meeting in a cafe beforehand and she had to walk backwards while they described as ‘a living work of art’ they our mums and dads were embarrassed and sometimes after the class we piled ‘A film of my life would be like Sarah and I were sidestepping like crabs. disrupted the flow of both foot and vehicle beyond imagining. ‘Why did ye go on I take the groups to the cafe where on a bus into Glasgow to carry on the an Andy Warhol film only even more Tam pulled a hip flask from his inside traffic and caused great inconvenience and telly and talk such a load of old rubbish?’ we used to meet, which amazingly is still conversation in a pub. Kirkintilloch was boring,’ I said. pocket, stopped, and took an ostentatious delay. my dad said, wagging his pipe in my face. operating (‘Uh, like, which table did you famous for having no pubs, then. Good, snifter from it. We gasped and oohed By then I didn’t care, for we were getting guys usually sit at?’), to the community perhaps, for public health and public Reality was Life was Art. At that and aahed and watched and observed and ‘They’re just a nuisance,’ said one letters every day from all over Scotland, centre, to Regent Gardens and to Peel order, but not if you wanted to participate moment we became the Reality People, commented and then scuttled off when bystander, while another claimed, ‘They’re from London, from the States. We were Park and I watch with courteously in the sixties. committed to the idea that a life, a Tam decided it was time to move again, just wanting attention.’ invited to San Francisco, to a ‘Be-in’, as concealed amusement as these earnest person’s progress towards the grave, was to display another concurrence of art and honoured guests; but, then, how would young people of today act out their lives- In that cafe and those pubs we talked itself a work of art in progress, one that life in some other place. The local police finally persuaded the you get from Kirkie to San Francisco in as-art just where we did. They take it so about art and music and Ken Kesey and could never be replicated or surpassed or young people to disperse. One of them, 1968 even if you did have the money? much more seriously. Allan Ginsberg and swapped LPs by Bob stolen or sold. But which, sadly, would go And so we went on, out of the Thomas McGuigan, 23, said, ‘We are Dylan and The Doors and Pink Floyd largely unnoticed. gardens to the pavement along Cowgate, a ground-breaking artistic ensemble Every now and then we did another I often think of Karen and I like to and discussed in reverent tones the great the town’s main street, drawing shouts of and we will bring fame and celebrity to Reality People stunt in Regent Gardens picture her as having stuck to the cause, things that we heard were happening in ‘What about getting hold of a cine ‘Heh, get oot the wey, ye’re in oor road!’ this community if we are allowed to. We or in Glasgow for magazines and perhaps publicly living out her life as a the wider world. ‘We’ll never be part of camera?’ suggested Karen. and the like. As we strove to maintain will be back again next Saturday.’ Police newspapers and once we were even work of art and being one small part of it,’ said Sarah, who worked as a waitress the circle around Tam, walking forwards, Constable Angus Murdoch commented, invited to London (we didn’t go). The the sixties that lives on and will never in another cafe in Kirkie, ‘not stuck here ‘Och, no,’ said Tam, whose mind was sideways or backwards as necessary, we ‘We will not tolerate any activity that Reality People were becoming known change until death ends both the life and in the middle of nowhere.’ now ratcheting away unstoppably, ‘all achieved a kind of choreographed unity; interferes with the free passage of citizens.’ but it wasn’t putting much money in the art. that faffing about, getting it developed I remember feeling we should have Mr McGuigan confirmed that the Reality our pockets. It couldn’t last, but I wish David McVey THE EILDON TREE 10 FICTION Issue 25. Winter / Spring 2015 11 FICTION FICTION ST ANDREWS, SPRING 1982 ice-creams, sandcastles and rock-pool it, and that she consents to participate “Let’s go over to the rock pools.” star signs, but sometimes, watching carry – yet too small to walk this journey.’ foraging. However, the disappointment only so long as she is allowed to do This seems to be acceptable to her. my daughter approach life - side on, Aunty was milking the goat. Scrawny Mrs Lyle (“Call me Linda!”) presents is short-lived: the fog burns to rags on things her own way. I may have played But as we walk, a scene of devastation advance-retreat, advance-retreat - hens clucked and clawed and fought our breakfasts with a flourish, and stands its journey inland, and I begin to feel my my trump card a little early – after pick reveals itself before us. The long, thin something seems to fit. A few weeks ago, for food among the detritus of dried by the table, her hands folded at her waist, excitement, and impatience, rising. ‘n’ mix, where is there to go? But she is homes of razor clams are smashed like Maisie’s teacher asked to see me. Maisie animal dung and inedible scrubby waiting. After breakfast we wander, following finally finished, and brings her paper clapboard houses after a tidal wave on has become rather withdrawn. She’s vegetation stacked and stored during the “Ooh, lovely!” I exclaim obligingly. the town’s three main streets: from bag to the counter. The assistant counts some newsreel. Starfish fling their arms always been quiet, but since Andrew short summer of last year in the hope Maisie gazes at me across the table, North Street, up Market, down South. out the sweets, which come to a grand out in horror, many of them twisted and left she’s been finding it difficult to find there would be enough to warm them blushing miserably. There are beans; she They’re selling fishing nets outside the total of seventeen-and-a-half pence, and broken. All the crabs that were able have her voice at all, even when asked a direct throughout the long, long winter. doesn’t like beans and we asked for one old bookshop on the corner of Church then puts them back into the crumpled fled; the ones that remain are beyond question. She can’t, of course, completely A pair of eagles soared up from meal without them. But one night at the Street and South. The children used bag, before reaching under the counter help. Maisie stops to examine a bivalve accept the idea that none of the mess is their eyrie which clung precariously to Lobster Pot B&B has taught me this to love catching minnows. But Maisie for a damp cloth. She wipes her hands of some kind. A cockle? The creature is her fault. Perhaps my determination is the precipitous cliffs across the valley, much about its proprietress: much like just wants to go into the bookshop itself. with an ostentatious flourish, and the forlornly prodding the sand around itself not enough – perhaps each generation the sudden movement temporarily the startling peroxide through which There’s a children’s section upstairs with faintest look of distaste on her face. This with a thin but muscular tentacle. has its own inevitable burden to pass on distracting Farida from her all- dark roots are beginning to show, her half-a-dozen child size stools for young would have been the point, I think, at “It needs the water!” Maisie exclaims, to the next. consuming grief. The birds of prey circled cheerful appearance is an only partially browsers, though none for their parents, which Andrew would have asked her if and scoops it up, striding off towards the “Aren’t little girls supposed to be higher and higher on rising thermals successful façade for a deep-seated which seems like a bit of a crucial she enjoyed her job, and we would have rock pools. Scrambling over greasy jaws quiet?” I asked the teacher, though it as the sun crested the mountain peaks. misanthropy - the customer is only right oversight. Maisie loses herself in Mallory left the shop trying to stifle our laughter. of rock with sure-footed purpose, she came across as a demand, even to my ears. The pair were calling encouragement to so long as he or she is in agreement with Towers. A small wave of sadness breaks over me. finds a deep pool and, crouching by the “That’s certainly what I was always told, each other to rise up and up until their Linda Lyle. When I can eventually extract her, Now that the anger and self-pity over the side, gently places the small creature in growing up.” Endlessly. enormous wingspans became little more “Oh deary me, is the wee one not we make our way to the ice-cream shop, destruction of our life, our little castle, the water. The tide is beginning to come in. than pinpricks against the sky, their cries hungry?” painfully close to the Pends, our magical have died down, the sadness is what Six years ago, in the four-berth Maisie begins to move handfuls of small muted by sheer distance. This remark is directed at Maisie gateway to the harbour. Twenty minutes clings. This holiday was intended to rinse once more, we were here, this time in a creatures further down towards the ‘Now you have stopped your crying!’ herself, but she doesn’t reply. I feel a later Maisie is still poring over the me clean. It might do, still. little campsite out of town. That was a water: a few yards might suffice, now. said Aunty. ‘Your mother will be back in small rush of protective embarrassment. cardboard boxes of cola bottles, chocolate We find a bench, and I gaze out to departure from family tradition. Granny, She eschews the drama and the tragedy a day or two. You must be a good child.’ She’s getting a bit old to be using shyness mice, jelly beans, space invaders and sea while Maisie tucks into her sweets. in her chair, her energy curdled by the of the razor clams and the starfish, and as an excuse. various liquorice shapes. Not for her the Three years ago, we were here, in the confusion that was blighting more and concentrates her efforts on the stoical Begum Ayub, her back bent almost “Oh, she’ll be fine.” quick and easy satisfaction of the 99 – my old four-berth caravan at Kinkell Braes, more of her days, simply shook her head. cockles. I wonder if there’s not a certain double by the weight of the many seer I give Mrs Lyle my best, most own is almost finished. Maisie picks up Andrew and I savagely slamming playing I felt like a rebel. A small thing, but it economy in this, as the cockles, with of dal and satu she was carrying to the charming and most opaque smile. It a pink sugared shrimp, and puts it back cards down onto the table by the light was our first holiday as a foursome, and their homes still intact, are much more bazaar to sell, missed her husband very was the one I used yesterday when we down again. One of the shop assistants of the one guttering gas lamp, while the it felt important that we should find our likely to survive, even if they are less much. Most of the village women had to checked in, to deflect Mrs Lyle’s attempts drifts by, flashing me a disapproving look, children slept behind a curtain, oblivious. own way. Leave behind old patterns, likely to attract compassion. We work manage alone during the brief summer to glean information about our domestic but I make the effort to not react. This The tension eventually crested in a bout of old family habits. Old mistakes, maybe. side by side on a task that is too big for months now that their men had been set-up. trip will be quality mother-and-daughter toothache for me and the holiday had to Maisie was two. I can see her, looking up one day, or even for one holiday. commandeered to work on the new road (“Your hubby not on holiday with time: I intend to give us both a break be cut short, to my intense relief and the at her father with complete trust as he leading up to the pass that was being you? Difficult, isn’t it, for them to get the from the constant patter of chastisements children’s puzzled disappointment. removed a splinter from her finger; the constructed by the government. Only time off work...”) and encouragements that forms the Maisie wets the tip of her index one wisp of cloud in a seaside holiday of Jennifer McRobbie young boys and old men were now able It’s a close relative of the one I used to soundtrack to our day. Petty instructions finger, and digs into the corner of her frisbee and ice cream, paddling, salt- to help in the cultivation of the terraces use in my teens, whenever I was asked if that frequently contradict each other as paper bag, determined to reach the very and-vinegar fish suppers, rain pattering scratched into the unforgiving slopes IN BALTISTAN – ‘LITTLE TIBET’ I had seen my mother lately, or whenever they trip off my tongue: “Take your time, last dregs of sugar. She looks up and on the caravan roof into the night, and of the mountainsides. The young boys someone innocently wondered who hurry up.” Maisie seems sometimes to reddens, apparently affronted at having waking to wood pigeons calling gently in herded threadbare sheep and goats from exactly it was that I took after, with my soak them up like a sponge, becoming been observed so deep in concentration. the early hours of daylight. Farida sat and howled inconsolably. one meagre pasture to the next along distinctive colouring. Because there was saturated rather than nourished. “Shall we go down to the sea?” I offer. Six years ago, William was five; his Until now, her mother had always treacherous, almost indistinguishable never much of a family resemblance. Maisie was Andrew’s favourite She nods gravely. hair went white in the sun. He’s spending carried the child on her back, swathed rock paths, protecting their herds from It’s April. Many of the students girl’s name - a name that suggested We take one of the ramps down this weekend with Andrew. They will firmly in place by a filthy but practical the depredations of snow leopard or have departed on Easter holidays. freckles and suntans, pigtails, scabbed to the beach. Sand coats the cobbles, bond, easily, over some garden project: woven blanket. Today, this unfamiliar eagle with judicious use of slingshot or “Thankfully,” Call-Me-Linda sighs. But I knees and shorts. The girl he hoped making them slippery. I grip the a wormery maybe, or a ball game at the abandonment had been a shock to lathi. When she joined the jeep track in quite like students. All that freedom. All he might have, perhaps, who could be handle tightly. The beach is a mess. The park. Andrew won’t need to explain the child’s sense of her place in this the valley floor Begum Ayub adjusted that promise. Unburdened by memories easily incorporated into fishing trips and overnight wildness has cast great drifts that nothing has changed – they are still vertiginous mountain home, set high her woven blanket, pulling it tightly of war, by gratitude for all that their kickabouts, provided things didn’t get of seaweed up well beyond the shoreline, partners-in-crime, the makers of mud in the Karakorum. Farida, of course, around the burden placed upon her elders and betters did for them. I look at too rough. And provided she stopped, along with pebbles, shells, driftwood, and disorder for me to clean up. But had no idea of anything beyond the hunched shoulders. Here, spring had not them, and I’m filled with nostalgia for presumably, when it was time to grow up worn glass, a lobster pot and a small pair Andrew takes his mud and sand, his encompassing mountains – not of the quite penetrated. Floes of ice crashed a carelessness I’m not sure I ever had. I and be a proper girl. Andrew’s mother of canvas shoes, tied together by their dirty clothes, elsewhere now. The chaos politics, nor of the history. At this and smashed against each other as the was determined that my own children tried to interest her in ballet, once, when laces. he left behind needs more than Dettol moment, all she knew was that her barely thawed river, its volume massively should not be raised under a cloud of she was five, but she was a stocky little “Do you want to have a wee paddle?” and a cloth. I was the one who stayed, mother had left her here – sitting on this increased by meltwater from above, think-yourselves-lucky. Or one of guilt, thing even then, and the pretty, frothy Maisie wrinkles her nose. Fair marooned, despite Granny’s predictions. charpoy which functioned as table, work roared its way down from the mountains for their forebears’ failings. Like my own tutus which looked so appealing on enough, the water will be cold, still, at Granny who hauled me up – “brought surface, bed and butcher’s block – at to join the Indus on its journey towards generation. other girls made Maisie look like a frilled this time of year. up” sounds a bit on the gentle side – after the low doorway to their rock-hewn the far distant plains. The sound of the Last night, the land shuddered under pillow. “Collect some shells?” Mum returned to Glasgow, leaving hovel. Farida watched and wailed as the river overwhelmed any other noise, but torrential rain and high winds. We got up “Come on then, sweetpea, time to go “Nothing to put them in,” Maisie says behind the man I called Dad, to find, dwindling figure of her mother zigged despite this, the Begum was sure she and looked out of the bedroom window to the beach!” reproachfully. presumably, the man who bequeathed and zagged down the mountainside to could still just hear the echoes of Farida’s to see the haar rolling down North Street, She glares at me through a heavy What an oversight! She adores to me my red hair while “Dad” was away join the jeep track far below in the unlit, cries from far above. swaddling the guest houses and coffee fringe, and I have the feeling, not for the collecting things. I consciously smother fighting for king and country. still frozen valley bottom. Other women, all equally laden shops, threatening to extinguish in its first time, that there is a fraudulence to the urge to add this to my long list of Maisie was born in July, like me. ‘You will stay here with Aunty,’ by burdens of saleable goods, began to chill my fantasies of a long afternoon of this, that my daughter is fully aware of things to feel guilty about. I don’t believe in any of it really, the Mother had decreed. ‘You are too big to appear from scattered hamlets – some THE EILDON TREE 12 FICTION Issue 25. Winter / Spring 2015 13 FICTION pregnant, some carrying small children, arrived to sell or buy or barter the noise like people shushing each other, for much chair with his extended hand. fella’s problems were, he wanted none “Dinnae think ah’d be very… some with older children strong enough level multiplied. The Begum quickly sold the same reason. of it. competitive.” he croaked. Crumb nodded

to make the journey or to carry more her dal and satu and set off to buy the “Please, take a seat.” understandingly. goods, tagging along beside or behind. few necessities she could not provide for “Okiedokie,” he growled, hoisting “Now, I don’t want you to walk out Conversation was pointless here, but as herself. his trousers up by the belt, “Let’s git this Rab ignored that one too. The man that door thinking you’ve lost your job…” “Ah, there’s plenty of other lines the track moved away from the torrent, show oan the road.” He had no reason to lowered himself back into his chair. of work out there for a man of your the women began to chatter and gossip Farida spent the next day sitting dry- say this except that people liked to hear “Whit’d you jist say?” Rab barked, abilities. I certainly don’t want you about how they had survived the winter, eyed on the charpoy, her gaze focused him say these things. As he clumped up “Well, thanks for taking the time suddenly paying attention. Crumb to think that you’re being put out on about who among the children or the downwards to the valley floor. the stairs the bar broke out into a buzz to see us, Mr, erm, Docherty,” he said, winced and tilted his head to the side, a the scrapheap. Every crisis is another elderly had not survived, about their ‘You have learnt patience, child,’ said of thrilled sympathy, an impromptu glancing downwards, “I’m Nicholas neat little move suggesting sympathy. opportunity, hmm? For example, there’s hopes for a good harvest this year. The Aunty. sweepie on whose social calendar was Crumb and this is Miss Anderson.” The always positions available for bouncers at group of women and children stopped to The sun rose and passed slowly on its about to be gravely revised. Forgiveness woman did not look up. “We’re from “Right, well, let me explain this a nightclubs.” rest in the sheltering overhang of a great way overhead; a rock slide – or perhaps an of debtors was a fair enough idea, but it the firm of Edgeworth, Crumb and little better…” rock, fallen from far above years beyond ice fall – crashed down the mountainside was no way to run a business. Crumb…” Big Rab tried to imagine himself memory ago, which took the shape of a farther up the valley. The tumult below He leaned over the table and started chucking a teenager covered in his own great dzo. Here they drank chu from the intensified as the distant river became When he got up to the office, he “Never heard ae ye.” Big Rab snapped. drawing a diagram on a piece of paper, spew down the steps at The Garage, but river and ate their paltry ration of tsampa, increasingly engorged with more and didn’t bother to knock. It was a habit He knew every gang and every firm south upside-down so that Rab could see it he couldn’t manage it. He didn’t know but they dared not tarry long: night falls yet more floes and meltwater. High he had long since got out of, and most of the Renton. Crumb sat back in his right-way up. Loose rectangles with titles what he would need to do in order to get suddenly in the mountains, and they still among the peaks eagles hung effortlessly; people appreciated it. To keep Big Rab chair and smiled ingratiatingly. His teeth like “PROFIT” and “PERSONNEL” by, but it wouldn’t be that. He stood up. had far to travel. snow leopards hunted stealthily and waiting was an unhappy accident indeed, were a mess, a glistening guddle of sharp pointed hither and thither at each Crumb did the same. somewhere along the valley floor Begum and something many of his clients came peaks and overlaps. other like the endless misdirection of a Farida moaned and sobbed Ayub walked patiently towards home. As to feel a great deal of remorse about. struggling magician. Crumb did not look “Aye, well. Thanks fur that. Ye’ve disconsolately. Heavily wrapped in the sinking sun flushed the snow-capped Sparing people that sort of self-reproach “One of the ‘Big Three’ consultancy down at the sheet once but kept his eyes gave me a loat tae think aboot.” He held blankets and skins, and warmed by the peaks with reflected colours of sunset was one of Rab’s little touches, the kind firms in the Strathclyde area, Mr. focussed intensely on Big Rab. his hand out across the table. Crumb radiating heat of the animals in the rough Farida saw a figure in the distance far of thing that made him a professional Docherty, as named by HR Weekly.” He accepted it gratefully. stable below, she was not cold – but this below, zigging and zagging its way slowly rather than just some yahoo with a leant casually to one side and then back “So, as you can see, this is going to was the first time she had spent a night homewards. monkeywrench. Bad feelings were bad again, having evidently forgotten that he be your gross profit, and if this, your “No problem at all, Mr. Docherty. without the comfort of her mother’s for business, bad all round. Best avoided was not sitting in a swivel chair. “In any outgoings, is…” We’re all in the same boat. The days of embrace. Aunty did not offer the same With acknowledgement to Dervla where possible. event, your employer has certainly heard milk and honey are over for everyone, I’m security: her smell was wrong; the Murphy’s Where The Indus Is Young: A of us, which is why we’ve asked you in Rab tried to tune in, but it was just afraid. It’s evolve or die, these days.” breathing unfamiliar. Farida turned Winter in Baltistan (1977) To Rab’s surprise, the man who was today.” patter, a guy selling mince from a van from her. She crawled out from beneath sitting at the table when he walked in down the Barras. A psychic malky is He grinned and pumped Big Rab’s her mound of bedding and urinated just Sue Hewitt was not the boss. It was another man “Zat right.” Rab was beginning to feel what it was, pure and simple, a direct, arm vigorously, like a phonograph being outside the doorway. The moon hung entirely, a much smaller man in a white stupid there, standing next to the desk sustained attack on his capacity to listen, wound up. Rab looked thoughtfully away, high and full in a cloudless sky; the shirt rolled up to the elbows and a blue like a cheeky wean brought in to see the understand, or care. And it would go on then back again. surrounding mountains were lit with an HIRED GOONS pinstripe tie. His suit jacket hung drably headmaster. He sidled over nonchalantly forever, if he didn’t do something about it. eerie glow, the ravines and gullies stark from the back of his plastic chair, and towards the chair and sat down. He raised his hand. “Fact, ah’ve been thinkin aboot this black slashes in the landscape. A leopard “Boss’s goat sumhin fur ye. Personal the felt covering of the table was littered whole holistic approach business. Could coughed somewhere high and far away, nature, likesay.” with bits of paperwork. He glanced up “Mmm. You see, we’ve been brought be jist the very thing ah’m needin. Mebbe the echoes fading out into the distance. fleetingly at Big Rab, then back down in to deliver a holistic review of the “Haud oan. Let’s get this straight. even git in tae this consultancy racket The stars seemed near enough to touch, Big Rab rolled the pint glass between again. entire service. Now, this is all semi- Ye’ve made some cuts, an ye’re giein me masel, ye know?” but it was achingly cold, and the child his palms like kindling. It was so smooth, confidential…” the heave-ho. Zat right? Zat aboot the crawled back to the still warm bed. Bereft so delicate. He thought about how little “Sorry,” he said, “But could you wait size ae it?” By now Crumb’s smile was just of tears, she slept fitfully. effort it would take to crush it between outside?” “Oh aye.” residue, a dead thing washed up on the his hands, as he had done so many other Crumb’s face stirred lifelessly, like beach. His hand was still clasped in Big In the bazaar, Begum Ayub woke, sat times with so many other things; the Big Rab narrowed his eyes, “But we’ve been tasked with cutting a brackish pond absorbing a stone. Rab’s, but it was the watch on his wrist up and began to set out her wares on the protesting screech of the glass as it folded interrogating the room with a gaze. The fifteen percent from the organisation’s Gratified relief, that’s what his expression he was looking at. He glanced up at Rab ground. Many women had endured the in on itself, the Pyrrhic shards, the man, slashing away at some figures with operating costs.” The smile flashed on was going for, but even his body language absently. night’s chills gathered around paraffin blood. Squeezing it in one giant hand he a pen, paid him no further mind, but his face for a fraction of a second, like a was stilted and broken, phonetic readings stoves beneath temporarily erected listened intently, certain he could hear muttered inaudibly to the room’s only subliminal message in a movie. “Now, from a foreign phrasebook. Crumb leered “Yes, well, I’m very glad we could…” shelters, for warmth, company and safety. the mess of microfractures opening up other occupant, a woman in a skirt suit with cuts like that, Mr. Docherty, you for a moment, realised he had meant to The chowkidar and his mastiff hound from lip to base. sitting a couple of yards away, a spiral have to understand, these are not easy smile, and shut his mouth altogether. He was silenced by the sudden force had watched over the market and its pad propped up on her long, crossed legs. decisions to make.” of Big Rab’s forehead rocketing down inhabitants as they slept, to keep away “Aye, ah’ll be there the noo.” Decent enough, Big Rab concluded, but “Well, it’s not quite as bad as all that, at his, an awesome, sickening clash scavenging animals, thieves and worse. It she had certainly seen better days; and, if Crumb stared seriously at him for a Mr. Docherty,” Crumb visibly relaxed, which filled his eyes with colour and his was too early in the year for the ferenghi, He tipped the contents of the glass her frosty expression was anything to go moment, his wide eyes limpid and sad. a practised runner on his final straight, mouth with metallic blood. With a cry he who, with their abundant wealth, could down his throat like it was a living by, wasted them. Rab shifted uneasily in his seat. It was “There’ll always be work for you here, collapsed back onto his chair, his hands afford to pay more rupee than the locals. thing, a desperate oyster clinging to its the same kind of emotional blackmail subject to the same bidding process as our locked over his eyebrow, his fingers There was much bustle and haggle shell, and stood up. The pub was deathly “Okay,” the man said eventually, he’d been hearing day in, day out for the other contractors.” trickling red. Big Rab looked down at in the bazaar, which smelt of paraffin quiet, he noticed with satisfaction. He capping his pen carefully as he rose, last fifteen years. It’s ma mam, mister, she’s him levelly, flicking a bead from his own oil, rancid yak butter, furred or feathered remembered the old joke about how the “Thanks for bearing with us, ehm, Mr…?” no been keepin weel… He’d heard it all Our other contractors. Rab knew what sweaty brow. carcasses of animals and their blood and Queen thinks the world smells like fresh before, how little it took to sink a family’s that meant. Numpties’d torch a whole guts, smoke, badly cured paint, cause there’s always some wee fella “Big Rab.” he rumbled ominously, finances for another month. A grandson estate for a packet of fags, and count the “There’s ma toap-tae-boattom animal skins, latrines, strong tobacco frantically redecorating six yards ahead of ignoring the proffered handshake. The on the white stuff, a taxi up the A&E; fags a bonus. He shook his head. review ae your services. Pro bono, like. and unwashed humanity. As more people her. Big Rab thought that pubs sounded man, unflustered, gestured towards a Rab knew the score. But whatever this Professional courtesy.” THE EILDON TREE 14 FICTION Issue 25. Winter / Spring 2015 15 FICTION hands were itching and ready for a fight. the wee man would be spilling out the John asked, “Ma mam’ll be shouting me Wullie’s voice was forced, scarcely on a washing line. Stevie’s face was blank He glanced over at Miss Anderson, That didn’t happen. It was when they whole story to their mum between guilt- in for my pension…” audible above his breathing. of anything, but his fist thumped with

who was frozen in a tableau of unliving were lugging back library books, carrying wracked sobs. methodical irregularity, carefully picking horror, then turned towards the door. a kite, pushing a bike home after a “Mam said we’ve no to go over the “Aye, but I’ve got my air rifle… I don’t out the join between jaw and skull. John puncture; that’s when Vandy’s smug face “On ye go, then,” he snapped, looking burn,” Stuart said quietly. Wullie turned want tae fight anybody… I mean, he’s remembered being punched there once “Cheers pal,” he said to the pile of would pop over the ramparts of the stairs down the barrel’s sights, “It’s no like on him with a scowl. never done anything tae me…” in a playground spat. For days he hadn’t clothes on the chair, “Don’t bother gittin and spread into a sardonic smile as he anybody’s stoppin ye.” been able to open his mouth but he up, eh, ah’ll see masel oot.” descended. He never had anything worth “You still here? Thought you were John shook his head wordlessly and thought he would die. Vandy’s jaw line avoiding a fight over. In the end, they Stuart didn’t move. They watched away up the road.” Stuart shook his head marched on, the other two still drifting grew a mashed and furious red, his squeal Blood had saturated everything; decided, it wasn’t worth it. They just went in silence as Wullie’s body tensed, then seriously. irresolutely in his wake. spending itself into a gurgling blubber. the white shirt, the blue tie, the mass of the long way around. shuddered. The rifle clicked like a remote Saliva bubbles formed on his lips and contracts on the desk. Even the hand control. Nothing happened. “Aye, but you said the Smileys’d get By now Vandy was close enough for burst into vanilla-coloured falls, running Rab raised in perfunctory farewell was The burn was one of the few me if I was here myself.” Wullie half- them to see the anticipatory pleasure in with the tears across his face. covered in it. As he thumped back down remaining places Vandy couldn’t stop “This is boring, Wullie,” John sighed, smiled, and ruffled his brother’s hair. his face, smell the cheap vanilla of his the stairs, Rab wiped his palms with a them getting to. A murky, wooded creek “Can we no dae somethin else?” ice-cream cone. He crumpled its remains Then it stopped. Joltingly, Vandy was knotted hanky, but it was an amateur’s beyond the park, they were forever being “Whit, with Dead-Eye Drummond and crammed them in his mouth as he ejected from the vice, throwing both mistake and he knew it. He crumpled up warned not to go there. Romantically, Wullie checked his pockets. He oot roamin the woods? They Smileys’ll drew near: his cheeks rotated once or hands to his head to stop it falling off, the handkerchief and chucked it in the they’d decided it must be dangerous, didn’t have much ammo left. be runnin for cover! Two hundred yards twice like a whirlpool before he gulped and lumbering down the hill in one long bin. Debt collection 101; no burns, no and went there as often as they could. isnae far enough! BANG!” Wullie lifted and they were gone. John stopped. So animal moan of hurt. This was pain like cuts, no spilling blood. It just winds up Rumours abounded; suicides, murders, “Alright,” he conceded, “One more the air gun to his shoulder and pretended did Vandy. His eyes danced down John’s parents losing children. It numbed the on everything you touch. drug stashes, dead bodies. A gang shot.” Laboriously, he reloaded his rifle. to fire as the other two laughed. “Bang, body to the branch and back up again. A heart. They watched him as he staggered named “The Smileys” was said to haunt Dead leaves rustled in the swirling air. bang, bang! It’s Smiley-hunting season! shadow of puzzlement crossed his pasty out of sight, his cry still lingering like Thomas Clark the burn at night, slashing grins into the You can run, but ye cannae hide! Bang, face like a lunar eclipse. John stared blood in the ocean. Then silence. faces of anyone who saw them. The boys “It’s that wind,” Wullie grunted, bang, bang! Bang, bang, ban…” at him, breathless to see what would themselves had never met anyone that heaving the recalcitrant rifle back into happen. In the corner of his eye he could “You decked him, Stevie.” Stuart HAIL THE CONQUERING HEROES unlucky, but they all knew someone who shape, “Cannae hit anythin in wind As he waved them around in front of see movement, Wullie. breathed eventually. “Right in the face.” had. like that.” He dropped to one knee and him, the crooked crosshairs of Wullie’s Stevie grunted. Vandy was what they called him, hoisted the unfriendly metal to his cheek. gun fell suddenly on something a “HOOOOOI!!!!!” though where the nickname came The simple fact of being there lent an The pause was long and awesome, the hundred yards away. At the bottom of “Well, he’ll no be bothering ye again, from, nobody knew. He had no family illicit thrill to everything they did. Any click inaudible. Eight feet away, a beer the hill, between the trees, a black-clad The roar converged in on them put it that way. See ye later, boys.” they were aware of, no friends. All day venture which whiffed even slightly of can briefly stirred. Wullie’s face opened figure was stalking towards them like from all points at once, filling the air long he sat, alone, on the stairs outside the lawless, they immediately relocated into an astonished grin. a mantis; in the shimmering air, a dark like colour. Someone else was charging He left them and they walked his house, like a troll beneath a bridge. over to the burn. Today, they were there dot that shocked against the green. up the hill towards them, his grace in back down the hill, Stuart dancing Tall and fragile - delicate, even - with a trying out Wullie’s new air rifle, standing “Did ye see that?! Did ye see that?! Surrounded by summer, it crawled up running dreadful just to watch. and punching the air in whooping face made paler by a mop of black hair, up the untroubled tins on a pellet-riddled Whit did I tell ye?” the slope like the shadow of some awful, reenactment. He had stories to tell, and something about him suggested that he’d log. John had long since given up, and skyborne thing. “STEVIE!” Stuart howled in delight. could not wait for home. The older boys been dunked in syrup and rolled across a Stuart’s single shot had ended in near “Aye right. It was just the wind.” John said nothing, their pale and freckled cinema floor. He looked sticky somehow, disaster, but Wullie was still plugging said dubiously. Wullie stalked over to “It’s Vandy.” Stuart said. Vandy had time to take two backward faces lost in the ground ahead; behind attractive to all the motes and messes away, wrenching open the rifle spring pick up the affected can, waving its beery steps and turn before big Stevie them, as they walked, the stick and the of the air. Even when he was swinging to reload whilst struggling for excuses remnants in his direction. There was a long pause. Sure enough, Anderson from the close fell upon him. rifle they dragged along left scores in the his black-armed fist through the air, the which implicated neither him nor his he was coming their way. A long yowl of horror shaped Vandy’s dirt. The wee lad kept pushing ahead, idea of hitting him back, of so much as new-found pride and joy. “Aye, and did the wind blow a hole in mouth even as the older boy wrapped his willing them to follow, but they could touching him, was deeply unappealing. it as well? Whit a shot!” “Whit we gonnae dae?” arm around his shoulder, like they were not go. Each was at the end of a long and Running away from him was a constant “It’s thae pellets,” he muttered, two drunks about to sing a sea-shanty. tremulous line, gigantic stitches which and embarrassing mystery. snapping the barrel back up and “That hole was there already. You’re a Stuart was running on the spot like a Trapping the boy’s neck in the crook of might have cleaved the earth together, if squinting down its length, “They’re too numpty.” cartoon character, but there was nowhere his elbow and pulling him upright, Stevie only they had not zigzagged so. Day after day he crouched there at heavy. I need some of those dart things.” to go. Anywhere they went, Vandy would slammed his tight fist into the side of the head of the stairs, in the top corner of It was only a small clearing, scarcely “I’m starving.” Stuart cried plaintively. be able to cut them off before they got Vandy’s face; once, then twice, then over Thomas Clark vision, where the friendless and unwary twelve feet across. The growths in this home. There was nothing else for it. John and over again. might not see. He never got bored, never part of the burn were not many, but they “Aye, alright, alright, we’re going.” broke a long branch from a tree with a relented; other bullies might concoct were wild, a rampant tangle of thorns and Wullie held the can out between thumb dry snap. Stevie Anderson didn’t go to school, offences, offer pretexts for the thing roots and bark-stripped branches. Wullie and forefinger like a fisherman, then or do much of anything else. They hardly to come, but Vandy didn’t. He was no crept forward another yard and lifted the turned and whirled it down into the burn “There’s three of us and one of him. knew him. Sometimes, when his dad different from a stray dog. He just chased rifle to his shoulder. in a spray of acrid rain. They clambered We cannae go anywhere else. C’mon.” was out of jail, they’d see him out in the and bit. And they were fed up of it, the back through the undergrowth into what John started off down the hill, Wullie drive, working on a car with the radio three of them. “I’m starving, Wullie,” Stuart was now a summer’s day. In this part of and Stuart following. full blast. When they passed he didn’t whimpered, “We’ve been here for ages the burn, the growths were so thin and say hello, just nodded and stared straight “It’s always when ye’ve got somethin,” and it’s freezing.” rotten they could hardly be called trees. “Whit, are ye gonnae FIGHT him, through them. They had no idea what Wullie had complained once to the John?!” Stuart cried, with fear and he was doing here. By now Vandy was others, “It’s never when ye’re jist walkin Wullie shook his head. It hadn’t “Whit a shot,” Wullie breathed, excitement. wedged so thoroughly into Stevie’s grasp aboot.” been his idea to bring Stuart over with squeezing his eyes shut in delight, that there was no space for him even to them. His wee brother couldn’t keep “You couldn’t have done that in a “No, we’re gonnae fight him. When recoil. He was absorbing the full force John and Stuart murmured in schtum about anything. All it would hundred years.” he sees we’re no running, he’ll crap of every single punch. As his shrieking recognition. It was true. They never take was one particularly sanctimonious himself. We’ll be chasing him up the deepened, his body hung limply from the seemed to bump into Vandy when their episode of Little House on the Prairie and “How many years did it take you?” road!” vice of Stevie’s arm, dangling like clothes THE EILDON TREE 16 ARTICLES Issue 25. Winter / Spring 2015 17 ARTICLES SEEKING OUT SIN – MELROSE IN trouble again, this time with his wife and she were shearing at Dunbar(?) she saw straightforward case of an unmarried been a neighbour of the Meins. There is prosecution were able to present a petition THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY Agnes Mein who were summoned for Geo. Wright go by on the public road with mother when Melrose kirk session no record of his burial, so he may have (20th October 1784) outlining their case.

drunkenness and swearing. James a black eye-browed woman with a bairn reported joined another church. Amongst other evidence, they reported For people today church-going is a Leitham confessed cursing and swearing in her arms riding on a horse close behind Isabel Mein … now residing in South It is interesting that these men clearly what appeared to be the beginning of the voluntary activity and one that need not but Agnes denied both.The elders of him and conversing very familiarly … and Leith … brought forth a child in one of the had the literacy and numeracy skills and affair: encroach too much on their everyday the kirk having been witnesses to their Geo. Maxwell said to her it was Margaret parishes of Edinburgh Canongate or Leith … confidence to pursue this case. It has been established by the oaths of lives. They do not normally try to impose scandalous behaviour in drink and passion, Alexander who was on the horse it is necessary for maintaining the discipline On the 13th May 1784 the hearing William Aillie and Janet Bunzie who were their own rules of behaviour on other the woman was dismissed with a sessional When George Maxwell was about to of the church and that no guilty party may in Selkirk started. The ‘lybel’ (charge) both servants to Mr Maclagan that he kissed people and you certainly do not expect rebuke but the man … to be rebuked before be examined, George Wright confessed escape the censure due to this crime that the covered several offences. Those that and caressed Isabel Mein when alone in his church elders to break into houses the congregation. that his behaviour had been very said Isabel Mein shall be brought before the related to Isabel Mein were as follows: Byre, when she was in his service, that he where they suspect people of having Many other cases relate to Sabbath scandalous, both in deserting his wife proper Court … and make known the father Rev. Frederick Maclagan Stands trysted her to come to his bedchamber the non-marital sex. This is however what breaking including travelling, hiring [ Isabel Wright, who he had married of the child, so that the guilty man may be accused … next morning… that she accordingly went happened at least once in Newstead, a servant, keeping washing on a line, 18/11/1703] and house and in his exposed 1st for the crime of adultery with Isobel to his Bedchamber … and staid there for in the parish of Melrose. In this case bird nesting, allowing a water wheel to behaviour with Margaret Alexander. The She failed to appear before the Mein and has been often admonished and considerable time … and that he threatened they took long enough to beat the door run. Much of this would not nowadays next week he judicially confessed himself Melrose session but did go to the exhorted to give up correspondence with her both servants in a most indecent and horrible down for the man to go up into the loft. be considered wrong at all. Sometimes to being guilty of adultery with Margaret presbytery in Selkirk yet you kept company with her at suspicious manner for mentioning his behaviour. Unfortunately for him, an observant the elders could see these actions for Alexander. she then emitted a declaration solemnly times and places, which has given great Helen Cochrane … in June 1780 she saw Elder saw his feet so that both offenders themselves but they also depended on On 23rd October George Wright and judicially acknowledging her guilt, offence. Isabel Mein and Mr Maclagan in a ditch were hauled before the kirk session. This people who were prepared to inform on was ordered to satisfy for his adultery naming one Robert Bunzie as her partner 3rd You have for the five years past and from six o’clock at night to ten o’clock was a rather an extreme case but does their neighbours. This was especially in sack cloth from the next Lords Day in it … at several times been in use to use horrid William Jamieson … on the 2nd June indicate some of the power of the kirk true of the sexual misdemeanours, which and continuing until the session saw fit Robert Bunzie was a wright threats and menaces against any person who 1780 he saw Mr Maclagan and Isobel Mein after the Presbyterian settlement of 1690. seem to have taken up much of the to absolve him.. This continued for ten (carpenter) who also lived in Newstead might say anything to your prejudice against going into a ditch where they stayed for an The kirk session, consisting of the session’s time and energy. weeks until the 1st Jan when it was agreed and this declaration did not go down your conduct with Isabel Mein , swearing hour and a half … he could distinguish Isabel minister and elders, heard cases of bad A common case was that of an he could be absolved next Lords Day well in the village, which appears to have by God … that you would not leave them Mein from any other woman by the Habit he behaviour (actual crimes would be unmarried woman having a baby. If the provided that he paid the penalties of £5 been the scene of some tumult when a house to lay their head in. You have also saw her in every other day. referred to the Regality or Sheriff courts). father could be identified, which was not Scots and £20 to the officer. the controversy started. According to been in use to carry a dagger or other mortal Robert Paterson, a weaver, swore ‘ that Elders, who at this period were all men, always easy, they would be expected to be This pattern of investigation, of Maclagan’s own evidence later in the weapon in order to intimidate people from even in the House of God Mr Maclagan’s were appointed to different districts in rebuked before the congregation and the collecting witness statements, hoping case … keeping their eyes upon your conduct with looks and gestures to her were grossly indecent the parish where they would seek out father to either marry the mother or pay for a confession and imposing suitable [there were] many people about the Isabel Mein. and highly unbecoming’ delinquents. The cases would be heard maintenance for the child. Much more punishment was therefore well House when Isabel Mein was the night In order to induce Isabel Mein to Robert Henderson, James Sclater and as in a court of law, with strict rules on complicated were cases of adultery where established. It was to be put to the test after the Presbytery when Kitty Bunzie and submit to his embraces, he found a scheme of Anne Mein, his spouse, all swore’ that Mr evidence. People found guilty may have at least one of the parties was married in 1783. Nanny Hunter were there deluding her by making her believe she was Maclagan … heretired with her from a potato been admonished by the session and and there were no illegitimate children. The case against Frederick This was probably the occasion when married to him … and accordingly wrote field repeatedly to the back of a dyke where he possible fined but the normal punishment In these cases the session needed Maclagan 1783-5 Robert Paterson, weaver in Melrose out and signed marriage lines betwixt him remained with her about half an hour each of was to appear for a set number of weeks witnesses of the couple being together in Frederick Maclagan had been …[wrote] a paper imputing that … Mr and her … he separated from Mrs Maclagan these times’ on the stool of repentance in the church. a compromising situation. appointed minister in Melrose in 1768. Maclagan was the father of the said child. for a considerable period through the nights William Walker swore that Mr If a matter was too serious or complicated Sometimes the session depended on Three years earlier he had married This paper, in the middle of a Mob and in and slept in an apartment by himself above Maclagan on the afternoon of the Lords day it could be referred up through the reports from other parts of the country Christian Turnbull in Little Dunkeld, danger of their lives he served on Isabel where her room was and that one night … was in the Prior Wood with Isabel Mein, that various levels of church courts – from and the session was assiduous in chasing where they had their first child. After Mein’s relatives contributing to the very put out at a window and let himself down they were wrapped together in the same plaid Melrose they would go to the Presbytery these up. A good example of this was they moved to Melrose, they were great prejudice of Mr Maclagan with difficulty by handkerchiefs he had tied and that being conscious of the indecency they in Selkirk, the Synod in Kelso and in recorded on 4th September 1709 to have ten more children . It would to the sash. separated when discovered. extreme cases to the General Assembly Geo. Wright in Gattonside having seem, though, that Maclagan was not It is clear that many parishioners At this period in Scotland it was The evidence of Janet Bunzie was in Edinburgh. deserted his wife for some days is suspected satisfied with one partner. By 1780 he did not believe that Robert Bunzie possible to get legally married by obviously important and Maclagan did his This article looks at the kirk session to have bound himself to one Margaret had apparently started an affair with was the father and some of the church ‘declaration’ provided, of course that best to destroy her credibility: records of Melrose (which can be Alexander … a letter to be written to one Isabel Mein. This led to an extremely elders decided to take action against you were not already married. How he 1) She is a woman of most infamous assessed either through the heritage hub John Little, merchant in Lasswade, in whose complicated set of church court hearings the minister. These prosecutors were explained away Mrs Maclagan is not character., having been in the habits of in Hawick or National Records office house it is reported they were some time which we do not have space to explore neither interested parties nor lawyers but clear. adultery, having been kept by a married man in Edinburgh). The first part deals with together. here in detail (a full account can be found craftsmen from local villages. These were: The case was adjourned until from who she received ten pounds St. and a some of the everyday sins encountered in Three weeks later Geo. Wright in Scottish Local History, Summer 2010, George Lawrie (24/7/1748 – September 1784 when Robert Bunzie free house annually. She kept a bawdy house the earlier part of the eighteenth century. acknowledged that he was in John Little’s pp 7-12). For this article we can focus on 22/5/1807), a weaver in Danielton (now denied he was the father of the child and and her brother Robert was in full knowledge The second covers the extraordinary story house … when Margaret Alexander also some of the local people involved. Dingleton, about half a mile north of then of her prostitution when the minister himself was accused of was but he did not meet with her before Melrose); who had been elected as kirk Isabel Mein … in a letter to the 4) she is sister to Robert Bunzie, the adultery in 1783. he came to the house and left her in the Isabel Mein was the sixth child treasurer by the elders on 19th October Presbytery Clerk acknowledged that the declared father of Isabel Mein’s children, has Sin in Melrose 1690-1709 house and knows not where she is now and of Andrew Mein and Janet Atchison, 1783. Declaration was false …she in her brother all her lying money in his hands and has Early on in this period, on 8/1/1691 altogether denied … adultery with her born on 11th September 1757. At one 2) Robert Grierson (27/8/1749 – in law’s house in Drygrange in the presence thereby an interest in this cause. James Leitham and John Halliwall in Being in the same house was hardly time, Isabel was one of the servants of 8.5.1799), weaver in Darnwick, a ‘ruling of her friends calmly and deliberately free 5) She has made her ill will to Mr Gattonside were summoned for unseemly proof of adultery so the session looked for Maclagan and lived in the manse, later elder’ who represented the parish at the Robert Bunzie from the aspersions she had Maclagan such that she has offered to bribe and profane … dancing. The next day more witnesses. she apparently went back to live in her Presbytery and Synod. thrown upon him … she durst not tell who witnesses to swear against him. they acknowledged their fault. James father’s house in Newstead, which is 3) James Pringle (?Stow, 15/6/1729 the Father is as she was in peril of her life. Trying to rubbish a witness’s integrity Leitham was to be publicly rebuked On 2nd October Thos Nesbitt deponed about a mile from the centre of Melrose, – 13/11/1800), mason in Melrose, who This is confirmed by the depositions of several was a key part of these proceedings and before the congregation and John that upon the top of Lasswade bridge … he and had been for several centuries a was the senior of the four and had been witnesses. worked both ways. The solicitor for the Halliwall in regard of his sorrow and met Geo. Wright with a woman with black village of operative masons of which the an elder before the others were appointed This obviously contradicted her prosecution did a similar job on Elizabeth grief at his fault was to pay to the poor eyebrows following close after him Meins and Bunzies were leading families. in 1780. declaration of the previous year and Dodds, daughter to Adam Dodds, weaver 14shillings. Margaret Ferguson in Gattonside aged Isabel first enters the public records 4) William Mabon (?25/1/1750 - ??), threw the whole affair wide open. in Danielton, who appeared as witness for In 1706 James Leitham was in 20 or thereby deponed that as Geo Maxwell in 7th September 1783 as an apparently weaver in Newstead, who would have After the witnesses were heard, the Maclagan on 1st March 1785: 18 ARTICLES EVENTS THE EILDON TREE Issue 25. Winter / Spring 2015 19 ARTICLES altogether inadmissible … she has READER IN RESIDENCE the Public and High School libraries to the Sea - an excellent way to complete the expressed inveterate malice and resentment encourage, maintain and develop the residency. EVENTS

against the Prosecutors and particularly This last year has been one of the connection between reading and libraries. Another main area of the residency against Robert Grierson … she has declared quickest and most enjoyable years of my To do this the residency concentrated was encouraging teenage reading. Again … she would say nothing to serve the Elders creative life. There has been so much on three main areas: we are told young people don’t read even though she could and gave as her reason happening, so many miles travelled, so community, intergenerational and nowadays. That wasn’t my experience. that they bound her up several years ago many enthusiastic readers encountered at teenage reading. I worked in partnership with school In the house of George Vair , weaver in events across the Scottish Borders. The range and scope of the various librarians and English Departments Danielton … she did express malice against At one of those events a young reader events has been enormous and below is a to set up reading groups in most of the the other prosecutors by calumniating and asked what a Reader in Residence did. brief summary of what we’ve been doing. regions High Schools. These continue abusing them and saying everything they ‘Do you sit in the corner of the library Taking the residency out into the to flourish and are one of the main had alleged against Mr Maclagan was a lie and read books?’ four corners of the region via the Mobile legacies of the residency. Working What she was going to say we can Ahh now there’s a thought but no. Library during Book Week Scotland; alongside the young readers was one of never know as the evidence against Below I answer that question touching on Achieving a lifetime ambition of being the most encouraging and stimulating her was so bad that Maclagan gave up some of the events and activities I took Doctor Who (for a day anyway!) at an experiences of the residency. The attempting to use her as a witness. part in working in partnership with the event at Melrose Library—a day of daleks discussions were lively, informative, and The case was too complicated for the library service. and tales of Doctor Who through his educational for me in that I learned of lower church courts and by May 1785 it The Reader in Residence post was one various regenerations. Fans of various authors and books I have never come was before the General assembly. The of only four throughout Scotland in the ages made it a grand day in the Tardis across. case against Maclagan seems to the last year. Managed by the Scottish Book that was Melrose Library. We did These groups are continuing into C Alex Law modern reader to be fairly compelling Trust and funded by Creative Scotland venture out of the Tardis onto the streets the new term with the young readers REFERENDUM AT THE DRUM but the Assembly did not accept the its aim was to encourage reading across of Melrose, Fez atop my head and sonic themselves, with support from the evidence as proof of guilt. It was referred all ages and increased use of the library screwdriver at the ready in case of a school, taking over the running of the The Damascus Drum Café and Bookshop in Hawick is fast becoming one of to their Commission but at the Synod service. Cyberman attack! groups and in some instances acting as the most essential arts venues in the Scottish Borders – and no wonder! In addition meeting at Kelso in October it was Scottish Borders Libraries faced One of the main events held in ambassadors to younger readers in the to their regular open mic music nights, the Drum has also in recent months hosted reported that they had cleared Maclagan competition from libraries all over libraries, Family Centres and schools school. the inaugural Drum Beats poetry slam, the Eildon Tree’s own 15th anniversary and ordered the presbytery to depose the Scotland for this coveted project. It was The Treasure Train. This was an The above is only a taster of all that celebration party and, recently, no fewer than ten short plays on the theme of Scottish elders instead. was my privilege as a writer to partner event which brought generations together, has been happening. It has been a joy for independence, as part of the National Theatre of Scotland’s Yes, No, Don’t Know Many of the congregation , including the library service in its application and grandparents, parents and children in a me and I believe a positive experience for project. The event – part of the NTS’s annual “Five Minute Theatre” programme the elders, did not accept this and simply to work alongside it during the twelve celebration of childhood reading. All the the library service and readers. I have - charged participating actors and playwrights with writing and performing a five refused to go to church. On the 5th months of the residency. generations sharing through discussion encountered nothing but enthusiasm and minute play exploring some aspect of the referendum debate – and with a wealth December 1786 at the Presbytery : I have been a reader and an active and reading from their favourite love of books and the local library. of Borders-based artists rising to the challenge, Hawick not only hosted one of the Mr Maclagan reported a great member of libraries for many a year now. childhood books. Also by drawing or The library is an energetic and regional “hubs” of events, but actually got the ball rolling on the entire project. After disinclination in the people of his parish to What I discovered during the residency writing down memories of their favourite endlessly stimulating place. The Staff a fraught period of planning and rehearsal, a bumper crowd was in attendance at return under his ministry … the ordinances was how many people from eight to characters a Treasure train of family work tirelessly to serve their local the Drum on the 11th May to see a lively mix of both established faces and relative of religion were much neglected, the Sabbath eighty shared that love of books and memories are connected up like the communities and for me it has been a newcomers to the Borders arts scene put on what could only be described as a hugely is not duly sanctified , children are not libraries. That was very encouraging in carriages in a train. privilege to be part of that environment enjoyable and thought-provoking show. baptised , the memorial of the death of Christ a time when we’re been told that books Enid Blyton was a favourite of past during the last year. First up was Hawick writer Thomas Clark, performing his own piece, Uptae. is not celebrated. The Presbytery … agreed and reading are being supplanted by and present generations but there were During the last year I’ve discovered Thomas, who reprised his role as the philosophising ne’er-do-well from his feature to ask his brethren to preach for him and the multitude of competing activities many others. This was an event were and rediscovered books. filmGadaboot , struck just the right note with his picaresque tale of optimism and administer ordinances … to officiate and do including TV and computer games. personal memories created family Article complete, its time for me to resilience. Following on, the audience were treated to a sneak preview of Judy Steel’s every duty for Mr Maclagan whenever he Maybe these activities are not memories through the connection with get the coat on and take a walk to my atmospheric historical drama God Forbid, starring Judy herself alongside the Drum’s desire them. separate to books but part of the ongoing books and libraries. local library. The library is one of the own Anthony Mulligan. The England-Scotland partnership was then given a On 8th June, 1787 Maclagan asked for narrative. They all tell a story in some I also held writers workshops that best page turners there is, you never humorous twist in Jules Horne’s I Still Love You Really, starring Kirsty Jobling and permission to move away from the parish form. One of my main aims was to used the resources of the library to feed know where the narrative might John Nichol as a cross-border couple whose relationship may have hit the rocks. and for an assistant to be appointed to encourage people to explore the vast into the story or poem. This was to take you. Darkest Before Dawn, written by Jennifer Adam and starring Kirsty Boyle, depicted carry out his duties. Finally on 23rd resources of their local libraries. That highlight it was well worth exploring a household left in suspense when a referendum day power cut deprives them of October 1788, George Thomson was includes books, newspapers, magazines, those nooks and crannies of the library Tom Murray news regarding the final result of the independence vote. Firebrand Theatre’s Janet ordained at Melrose. Maclagan moved DVD’s, electronic books and of course to discover inspiration in a section that Scottish Book Trust Reader In Residence to Coulson gave a heart-breaking performance as a woman struggling against her own to Edinburgh but he was still technically the expertise of the library staff. maybe hadn’t been explored before. Scottish Borders Libraries 2013-2014. particular demons in Tom Murray’s By Its Nature Uncertain, before Sara Clark posed minister at Melrose and received his Libraries can be places of relaxation, We held many storytelling events some unsettling questions of her own in the poetic monologue Candidates for Ritual stipend until he died in 1818. The session education, entertainment and research. during the year again bringing families Execution. Paul Finegan and Anthony Mulligan then had the audience in stitches with had finally got him out of the area but not The local library mirrors its members together in the library not only myself political satire Vote Vote Vote For…?, which posited a farcical independence movement out of the accounts. There is no evidence and community in being multi-faceted. telling stories but all the family working set in Yorkshire. Kirsty Boyle’s Yes to the Union, starring local actress Clare Bridges, that he ever publicly repented or wore a During these last months I have together to create their own stories. examined the independence debate from the point of view of an ordinary working- hair shirt. travelled the four corners of the Scottish The region has a thriving reading class family, whilst Kirsty Jobling’s Tit-Tat-Spat cast Anthony Mulligan, John Nichol Borders discovering nooks and crannies group tradition many of which meet in and Firebrand Theatre’s Ellie Zeegan as café workers trapped inside the Drum on Peter Hoad of the region I never knew existed. It has the local library. Visiting the various referendum day when rioting voters take to the streets! The event then concluded been a road map of discovery for me. In groups was a great pleasure of the with Anita John’s innovative piece Vote With Your Feet, which starred the audience a way it coincides with a journey through residency culminating as it did in themselves, who were invited outside the cafe to literally vote with their feet in response your local library discovering corners a Readers Group Day at Galashiels to a series of independence-related questions. of knowledge and imagination that you library; a day of discussing all things It was a truly wonderful occasion which really showcased the wealth and breadth might not have been aware off. books and listening to our guest speaker of talent in the Scottish Borders, but even when the curtain had come down on the On those various journeys I’ve Mark Douglas-Home author of The Sea Drum on the 11th, there was still plenty more to come from our local artists. Anita worked alongside library staff in both Detective and The Woman Who Walked into John’s Vote With Your Feet, which had gone down a storm at the Drum, was reprised EVENTS THE EILDON TREE 20 BEST KEPT SECRET Issue 25. Winter / Spring 2015 21 EVENTS / BEST KEPT SECRET KEPT / BEST EVENTS and filmed as part of an Edinburgh- THE DEMON passions of the eternal spirit of atheism. based hub, whilst Jules Horne’s I Still BY MIKHAIL LERMONTOV The first full version was finally published Love You Really was later to be filmed TRANSLATED INTO SCOTS BY 1856 in Berlin, which makes it the most on location at Carter Bar. Jane Houston FRANCES ROBSON, ILLUSTRATIONS popular unpublished Russian poem of its Green, Carol Norris and Clare Watson BY JOANNA ROBSON time! wrote and performed Spark Goes Out Though subtitled An Eastern Legend, With a Shout, whilst Species of Space, a Mikhail Lermontov was born in it contains many of the elements typical collaborative piece by Borders writers 1814, and a contemporary of Pushkin. of old Scots ballads (eg The Demon organised by Jules Horne, was also He was not only a writer, but also a Lover): the supernatural; love and death; performed and filmed subsequently as gifted painter, particularly of Caucasian good vs evil. This makes Scots the part of the event. The Duns Players also landscapes. Sometimes referred to as the ideal language for translation, with the got in on the act, with Aye But written poet of the Caucasus, he became the most Caucasian background easily transferable by Jock Finnie and performed by Peter important Russian poet after the death into a Scottish setting. Lerpiniere and John McEwen. All in all, of Pushkin in 1837. Inspired by Byron, Suspense is sustained with the many an extremely impressive showing from he is also regarded as one of the greatest twists and turns in the plot, particularly the Scottish Borders. figures in Russian Romanticism. in the dramatic encounter between the In addition to their live Although attempts have been made Demon and Tamara, which is central to C performances, the selected pieces were to link Lermontov with the Borders’ this narrative with an unexpected twist. Joanna Robson Writer Christopher Ryan treats the audience to a sneak preview of his latest novel C Sara Clark then streamed from the National Theatre poet, Thomas the Rhymer, there is little Lermontov sets out this head-to-head of Scotland’s website on June 23rd, where evidence for such a nebulous connection, confrontation in the form of a script, This extract is taken from the climax of the they were viewed by literally thousands of CELEBRATING 15 YEARS OF THE EILDON TREE. despite unsubstantiated claims that which only heightens the dramatic plot: the Demon tries to seduce Tamara people worldwide. Thankfully for those the Earlston area where the Rhymer tension. Unlike many other literary who is trying to avoid him by hiding in of you who missed them (or just want to Traditional and adventurous, The Eildon Tree is an eclectic mix of the old and lived, is really Lermontov’s spiritual devils, this Demon has realised that a convent! watch them all again) the pieces can now the new, and when it came to celebrating its 15th anniversary this September, The home. doing evil just isn’t fun any more! In his be viewed on the NTS website, www. Damascus Drum Café in Hawick seemed like the ideal venue to showcase some of the The truth is more down to earth: his eyes, Tamara’s love seems to offer a kind TAMARA: fiveminutetheatre.com. talented contributors who have made the magazine what it is today. Surrounded by its real ancestor was George Learmonth, of salvation – or, at least, a temporary Whaeivir ye are, ma antrin freen, What was particularly heartening copper pots, hand-woven rugs, gilded mirrors, blown-glass lamps, ornate tables and a soldier of fortune, who came from diversion from the burden of eternal Yer peace has gone agley; about the Yes, No, Don’t Know experience shelves of leather-bound books, a host of local writers stepped up to the mic, ready to Fife! He would have been one of many boredom to which he is condemned. But a saicret blithe, maist unforeseen was not just the range of Borders-based entertain the audience. mercenary soldiers, who left Scotland The Scots translation retains the Gars me hear yer tale o wae. artists who were involved, but also the Host Julian Colton started the event with a thanks to all the past editors of the during the 17th century to join Polish atmosphere, rhythm and rhyme scheme But if yer haiverin a pang-fu o lees, genuine enthusiasm of the audience magazine, whose hard work and dedication meant so much in the early days of its forces in the fight against Russia, where of Lermontov’s poem as far as possible, Or begunkin me fur something foul ….. members who turned out. In the inception, before introducing Hawick News columnist Thomas Clark, who kicked he eventually settled. Lermontov was although a Scots-speaking Tamara Whaur’s the owerhan? Mercy, please! Damascus Drum in particular it was off the event with a chilling rendition of his sci-fi short story And The Noise That They deeply aware of his Scottish background, sounds rather more feisty than her Whit are ye wantin wi ma sowel? ……… standing room only, and sometimes not Made Was Like Laughing. This was followed by a contemplative poetry recital by Narda and longed to visit Scotland. Russian counterpart! But the earthy even that, as audience members crammed Dalgleish, the author of I, Israel, Ask. Bafta award-winning Robert Sproul-Cran He had a rather tragic childhood: nature of Scots, so versatile in the art of DEMON: in to every available nook and cranny, performed next, keeping the audience on the edge of their seats with an exhilarating his father left the family when he was flytin, gives an edge to her seduction. …. But look at the bruikit warld gaun and wound up even sitting up on the excerpt from his hot-blooded thriller Capital Offence, which he recently published three; and he lost his mother when he The 48 page booklet contains four wrang, counter! The event demonstrated that under his pen name, Robert S Scott. was very young. Contact with his father full-page, black and white illustrations Whaur honest blithe is tashed wi grue, not only is theatre alive and well in the Dorothy Alexander’s monologues in Scots gave us haunting insights into the inner was deliberately curtailed by his maternal depicting some of the dramatic highlights An brawness disnae bide fur lang; Borders, but also that there is a genuine lives of her characters, before Christopher Ryan, owner of The Damascus Drum and grandmother, which may have led to him in the poem. Although the style is Whaur a life o crime jist leads tae doom; and appreciative audience out there for author of a novel of the same name, read a heart-warming extract from Satanaya and becoming a lonely, withdrawn individual. quite different from the 19th century Whaur fowk bide wi thowless passion; that theatre. the House of Mercy his novel-in-progress. He developed a skill for drawing witty drawings by the Russian artist Vrublev, Thir frankelt wi fricht in lives sae toom, What was also evident from the event Carol Norris was next on the stage, performing her poetry with poise and gravitas, caricatures of people he encountered in they provide another dimension to this Wi luve an hate, waik an ashen. was the level of support that exists for followed by fellow Eildon Tree editor Iona Carroll, who read an extract from Crying his army career and private life. It was classic tale for the contemporary reader ….. the creative community in the Borders, Through The Wind, which has recently been nominated for the People’s Book Prize. his poem Death of a Poet, written after eg the encounter between Tamara and as not only actors and playwrights but Dougie Morrison’s comic tale of Mrs Thin and Pat Mosel’s excerpt from the the death of Pushkin, that brought him the Demon is illustrated more as a face- But time wull shaw that all is vanity! many other individuals gave up their story Bull’s Hit both put smiles on faces, and Stuart Jones performed his poems from to the attention of the Czar and the off between equals, than a portrayal of An whae culd gainstaund the ferlie time and effort to make the shows a memory with flair and confidence, wowing the audience with his passionate delivery. authorities. This, in turn, resulted in predator and victim. The illustration wunner success. Thanks are due to Firebrand Next up, Sara Clark read an extract from her unpublished novel Bad Parents, his first exile to the Caucasus, a region shows Tamara on a level with the O a brawness nae mortal culd ootrank, Theatre for its practical support of the Selkirk writer Eileen Cummings gave a personal and impromptu performance and he really loved. By all accounts he was Demon: she is a creature with free choice. Agin a forfeucht life that’s a muckle event; to the Damascus Drum and its Bridie Ashrowan’s readings of her subtly contemplative poems cast an air of calm a brave soldier, but felt he was a writer Other illustrations highlight both the scunner, proprietors Chris and Frances Ryan, for around the room. first of all. Because he was out of favour, romance and dynamism of the tale. An willyart drames are sooked doon the hosting both the event and its rehearsals; Poet and playwright Tom Murray, who co-edited The Eildon Tree for almost 12 the Czar refused him discharge from the A short glossary is also included, stank? to cameraman Alex Law for filming the years, read his moving short story Soulmates, which was first published in Issue 2 of army, as well as the military award he which might encourage readers to explore Ma freend, yer weird isnae meant, pieces; and not least of all to everyone the magazine, and Jane Pearn closed the afternoon with her observational poems and deserved for bravery. the Scots language even further! Nor ordeened fur ye tae dwine who showed up to watch and participate. short sketches Without You, Heroes, Hen Party and the much-loved On Silent Wings. The Demon is perhaps one of his most This publication marks the 200th In a lown; not be stucken, nor stent, Congratulations to all writers and It was wonderful to see so many past, present and hopefully future contributors to well known poems, and considered to anniversary of the Lermontov’s birth. Ill-yaised bi fowk, aye gyte tae malign; actors whose pieces were selected for the the magazine gathered in one place. Their sense of community and creative kinship be a masterpiece of European Romantic With his most famous work translated Nor amang the narra-nebbit an nippit, project, and here’s hoping for another big on the day represented a small part of what makes The Eildon Tree so special. The other poetry. Lermontov wrote about six into the familiar language of his Whaur fawse freends fankle wi faes, showing from the Borders in Five Minute part? You. You can now watch all the performances online on the Borders Open Mic different versions between 1829 and ancestors, it represents a homecoming for An wanhowp an fear thegither are Theatre 2015. YouTube channel. www.youtube.com/bordersopenmic 1839. At first he used the title My this Russian poet of Scottish descent. grippit, Demon. After the final revision, it was Trauchlin thro lang an taiglesome days. Sara Clark Sara Clark published only in fragments in 1842 Copies can be ordered from: Ye staund dowie ahint this heich waw, (a year after his death). The poem was [email protected] But yer passions wullnae dwine initially banned as a celebration of carnal Cost: £8.00 + £1.00 postage and packing Amang prayers, jist as far awa INTERVIEW THE EILDON TREE 22 BEST KEPT SECRET Issue 25. Winter / Spring 2015 23 INTERVIEW INTERVIEW INTERVIEW WITH MARGARET SKEA of that period into the book that became the story arc in terms of plot, pace and “” – AUTHOR OF TURN OF THE TIDE Turn of the Tide. structure. Then there are technical edits, I love the research. WINNER OF THE BERYL BAINBRIDGE checking for the overuse of particular BEST FIRST TIME AUTHOR. Why that particular story? First time words, phrases or images; checking In fact the difficulty is writers are often given the advice – ‘write grammar, punctuation and spelling (I Margaret Skea grew up in Ulster what you know’. In a sense I was writing don’t use spell checker); the transitions stopping the research and at the height of the ‘Troubles’, but now what I knew, not of course that I could between chapters; and internal lives in the Scottish Borders, dividing time travel to 16th century Scotland, consistency – that a character doesn’t starting the writing, because her time between writing, church related but having grown up in Ulster during change eye colour mid-story for example! there is always something voluntary activities and presenting talks, the worst of the ‘Troubles’, I had an The final edit is a complete read-aloud readings and workshops on writing emotional understanding of the core of in as large chunks as possible, marking else to discover. related and historical topics. the story I wanted to tell. As a teenager I the text at any point that I think needs An interest in Scotland’s turbulent experienced living in a conflict situation, another look. That read-aloud takes history, led to the writing of an historical and saw folk struggling with diverse about 3 days and gives me a sense of any novel Turn of the Tide, for which she loyalties and trying to live a normal life in parts where the writing isn’t flowing as received the 2014 Beryl Bainbridge the face of an ever-present danger - much well as it should. Once fixed, I’m ready Award for Best First Time Author. as my 16th Century protagonists have to present the ms to the publisher – and An Hawthornden Fellow, she has to do. My normality had been to go out then their editing process begins! For won and been placed in numerous short every day not expecting to be killed, but Turn of the Tide that was a line by line, story competitions, including Neil knowing it could happen at any time. word by word examination of the text Gunn, Winchester, Mslexia, Fish and the I wanted to explore these issues and which I found extremely interesting – I Historical Novel Society and has been the pressures they exert on family, on count myself fortunate in that there was C Joanna Robson published in a range of magazines and relationships and above all, on personal only one chapter where the editor wanted anthologies in Britain and the USA. integrity. Could I have done this through any significant change. For the rest we Fae humanity an the divine. a contemporary story set in Northern argued the toss about specific words and Ocht, naw, ma bonny craitur, Here she talks to Carol Norris about Ireland? Perhaps. But I could write more images, the need for a little clarification Yer thirled tae anither treasure; her writing career. freely about a different time and place, and so on – sometimes I won, sometimes The bidin dool is a different maitter yet essentially the same story. she did! In the howe-dumb-deid o unkennt Many writers say they’ve been writing I still write short stories – mostly pleasure. most of their life. How and when did Turn of the Tide focuses on an historic when I’m ‘stuck’ in relation to the novel, Set by yer auld greenin, howps an desires; you start? feud. How did that come about? and I still love that form. However I tend Leave thir wersh licht tae weird; It may be a cliché, but yes, I’m one Aeons ago (or at least it seems like it) to write them quickly – perhaps 2 days Instead, ah’ll shaw ye the burnin fires of the many. I won a children’s poetry when I was researching the Plantation for a draft and although I do edit, it is a In the cleuch o knowledge, croose an competition when I was 8 and I decided period in North Down in Ulster as much lighter edit than for the novel. revered. there and then I was going to write a background for my Ph.D which dealt An ah shall lead afore yer presence book. Several weeks and a six-page story with the Ulster-Scots vernacular, I Your short stories tend to be Thrangs o servants, aefauld tae duty; about a family of mice later I got my became interested in one of the main contemporary. Is there any connection Lackeys and speerits tae jig in first publisher’s rejection. Can’t think planter families, the Montgomeries, from between them and your novel? attendance, why! The end result was that I reverted Ayrshire. In their family papers I found a The answer is definitely yes. This ah promise, ma bonnie beauty. to writing poetry and didn’t attempt any footnote detailing an 150 year long feud Although the contexts are very different, Jist fur ye, ah’ll wullingly tak prose again until I was well into my teens, dubbed the ‘Ayrshire Vendetta’, and in quite a number of my short stories are The gowden croon fae the mornin stern; when I became hooked on the short story particular a reference to the massacre in set in exotic locations that I don’t have Wi the dew o midnicht flooers ah’ll mak form. 3000 words became my comfort 1586 of some prominent members of that personal knowledge of – therefore as Licht shooers skailin ower field an fern; zone, and I didn’t step out of that until I family. Wanting to write about conflict, far removed from me in space as the Wi the ribbon o rosy gloamin licht began to write Turn of the Tide. that seemed the ideal place to start. novels are in time. So in many ways Ah’ll hap ye up, lik a byous gift, the challenge is the same – to transport An the fresh braith o perfumed delicht What was it inspired you to make the Can you tell us a little about your readers to somewhere neither they Wull poor intae the neebourin lift. leap from short story to novel and why method of working? nor I have ever been and to provide an Ah’ll culyie an coort ye aw the oors did you choose a historical one? I only have a very rough idea of the authentic experience of that place or Wi clarsach, sang an lyre; Although sustaining a story for c story before I start – ideally at least the time. There is also an overlap in terms of Ah’ll big muckle mansions wi lift-scartin 100,000 words seemed for many years beginning and end, though for the book the issues that I examine, whatever the tooers, too daunting a task, I always wanted I’m writing at the moment even that literary form. However, recently I have Whaur turquoise an amber catch fire; to do it. However it wasn’t until a wasn’t clear. The plot develops as I go begun writing historical shorts and am Ah’ll flee ayont the cloods abuin; combination of personal circumstances along. Perhaps that’s why I find writing enjoying the experience immensely. Ah’ll sink tae the howes o the sea; provided me both with opportunity and the first draft hardest, but I enjoy editing Ah’ll gie ye awthin – the earth an the the need to do it that I began. Within and can be fairly ruthless – I call it the An historical novel clearly requires a lot muin – the space of a month in the autumn ‘slash and burn’ stage. In practical terms of research. Is this something you enjoy Luve me! of 2008 the government disbanded I write directly on computer, but edit on or is it a chore, and how do you research? the organization I worked for and the a hard copy. As I edit multiple times that I love the research. In fact the Frances Robson social work department moved the two can be a little expensive on ink, though I difficulty is stopping the research and children I’d been fostering for 3 ½ years do try to be ‘green’, so whenever possible I starting the writing, because there is to a permanent placement. Lack of use scrap paper. always something else to discover. As to employment gave me time, but it was the Each separate edit is targeted at my methods – the ideal for me is to know loss of the children that impelled me, as I different aspects of the writing / story. enough about my period that I can write channeled all the emotions and the pain There are broad sweep edits looking at naturally about it, much as I could if I C Hector Innes Photography, Kelso THE EILDON TREE 24 INTERVIEW Issue 25. Winter / Spring 2015 25 INTERVIEW INTERVIEW was writing about 21st century Scotland from ‘You don’t quite fit our list’ form or Ireland. Hence the majority of my rejections, to personalized letters “” research is done before I begin to write, giving me specific feedback. They were Being a published author is immersing myself in every aspect of the better, but still rejections, so ultimately period from housing, food and clothing dispiriting. One agent I met in person not for the faint-of-heart, but to currency and the current issues of the at a writer’s conference scrawled across day, whether religious, social, economic my synopsis for Turn of the Tide ‘Who I can't imagine anything or political. What is endlessly fascinating cares?’ That was tough to take, but I is that what we may think of as very was determined not to let it stop me else I'd rather do! modern issues are often mirrored in an trying. I did come close at one point, earlier time. For example there were being in discussion with an agent, but lots of regulations governing the quality sadly illness within his family cut that and sale of foodstuffs in the 16th C just discussion short. One notable failure, as there are now. In fact following the which was entirely my own fault, was recent horsemeat scandal I wrote an when I sent query letters to three agents, article Food Standards Agency 16th C which were returned to me three months Style for the English Historical Fiction later, unopened, because I had put Authors blog. The catch phrase ‘nothing insufficient postage on the envelopes! new under the sun’ isn’t far wrong. I’m not exactly haunted by the thought While I’m writing, if an idea comes that one of them might just have been to me and I don’t have the relevant the one, but I can’t help wondering. information tucked away in the back of Following my selection as the Historical my mind, I type that section in red text Fiction Winner in the Harper Collins which flags up my need to check at a later / Alan Titchmarsh People’s Novelist stage, generally when I’m editing. Competition, one of the Harper Collins I use written sources as a starting editors who had been involved in the point and wherever possible I visit short-listing offered to try to help me relevant locations, and of course the find an agent, but when she also drew a internet has opened up many possibilities. blank, I decided to give up on the search. It is important though to recognise that Perhaps there is a happy ending every source is written from a point of of a kind, because it was as a result of view and therefore carries an in-built bias, giving up on agents that I approached so I try to use more than one source for publishers directly and so found any given topic. Capercaillie.

Many novelists’ first published novel You now have a publisher. What is your isn’t actually their first novel. Do you next step? have a ‘bottom drawer’ full of previous I am two thirds of the way through novels that haven’t seen the light of day? a sequel to Turn of the Tide. It’s taking Perhaps unusually Turn of the me rather longer than I’d like and I’m Tide is genuinely my first novel and I finding that it’s much harder to write count myself privileged that I found a than the first novel was. Perhaps that’s mainstream publisher for it. because I wrote Turn of the Tide to please myself, but now having had some Was it your first success? great feedback from readers I feel the No. I was fortunate to have a number pressure of writing to please others of short stories that won or were placed / also. And because I now know that I’m listed in various short story competitions. in this writing game for the long haul, It was that kept me going at the times I’m also looking ahead to what my next when I was struggling writing the novel project might be and casting about for and especially when I faced setbacks in a completely different story to tell. I’m terms of seeking an agent and publisher. fairly sure I will stick with an historical context, but maybe a different period. You mention setbacks. Can you tell I’m also continuing to write short stories. us about some of them and how you overcame them? What advice would you give to aspiring I can certainly tell you about some of writers? them, but it definitely isn’t all a ‘happy Persevere. Write what you are ending’ story. Like many first-time passionate about. Grow a thick novelists I spent quite a long time trying skin. Don’t make silly mistakes (like to find an agent who would represent insufficient postage). And only write if me. It is in many ways a soul-destroying you love doing it. process and can be very time-consuming. I think I approached about 10 different agencies and the responses ranged C Sara Clark THE EILDON TREE 26 INTERVIEW CABN Issue 25. Winter / Spring 2015 27 INTERVIEW / CABN CABN / INTERVIEW LISTENING FOR VOICES – CABN INTERVIEW WITH ELISE ALDEN What are the most exciting aspects of and structural edits, followed by several other people falling in love. Crafting Although Elise’s drafts were raw and PEER SUPPORT being a successful romance novelist for rounds of line-edits, copy edits, proof a good romance novel takes talent and messy, both were struck by her voice. Borders-based Elise Alden is a you? Which are the most challenging? reading check and final read-throughs time, just as it does to write any other What makes an editor (and writing romance novelist who loves to tell stories Every day I wake up thrilled that (backwards and out loud). Months of kind of novel. ‘I prayed like I hadn’t since I was tutor) sit up? Especially if they’ve read of flawed people falling in love against all my novels are published by Harlequin hard work on the same manuscript, lots of slush pile manuscripts and are a odds. Here, she shares her experiences Carina Press, available in the big wide sweating blood and tears and wondering You are clearly passionate about ten years old, back when I believed wee bit jaded? Vivid, distinctive, pacy, of writing romance – from the first spark world. I’m also proud of my smaller, why I’m putting myself through this, and romance novels, and you’re not alone there was a bearded hippie sitting bold – those qualities are definitely part of inspiration that made her set pen to boutique American publisher, SC all to a tight production schedule. Then - what it is about the genre that keeps of it, and Elise’s feisty, flawed narrator, paper, to the qualities of the characters Publishing. Receiving reader e-mails there’s a plethora of detailed forms to fill readers coming back for more? on a cloud listening to my pleas for Paisley, has them in spades. Rhythm and which emerge from her pages. In an and FB messages gives me tremendous in for the marketing team, the cover art Who doesn’t remember what it’s Caroline to get adopted.’ musicality are important too – a voice is interview with Sara Clark, Elise talks pleasure—to know that something I’ve team, the promo team…Dealing with like to fall in love, to feel their heart rate Hate to Love You heard, not read. candidly about her progression to full written has been enjoyed as far away virtual book tours, author branding, soar at the thought of somebody else’s But there’s something more, I time writer. as Brazil and Australia is a wonderful and related admin (spreadsheets: I hate smile? To want to do everything to make think. With a truly engaging voice, the feeling. My debut, Hate To Love You, will you). Add to that writing umpteen blog that other person happy? Readers love ‘I didn’t need the linguistic writing is immersive. We’re pulled into It’s sometimes said that everyone soon also be an Audio book, which will posts, engaging with readers via Twitter, romance because they know they’re going decoder to understand her subtext the writer’s world and see that world, has a novel in them. What made you be a new and exciting experience for me. Facebook and Pinterest, writing more on a bumpy, angst-filled ride, but that – me tall and strong, you short not the writing. John Gardner calls this decide to write yours down? blog posts, keeping my two author at the end the main characters will have the ‘fictive dream’. It’s not that far from Actually, I never thought I had a As for challenges, there are many. website/s up to date…and all of this grown, changed, and experienced the and puny.’ hypnosis – the moment when the words novel inside me, much less the three I’ve Understanding the publishing industry while trying to write the next book under transformative power of love. There’s Black Hole Bounty and the writer become invisible, and written so far! I wrote my first book, and getting to grips with multiple contract. Being a published author is not nothing better than that—over and over readers make their own pictures. Hate To Love You, because I was tired of editing rounds, social media, book tours, for the faint-of-heart, but I can’t imagine again! I’ll be honest. Teaching creative Clearly there are kinds of writing the same old romance tropes. I wanted interviews, etc. have been the most anything else I’d rather do! writing can get you down sometimes. where the words and the artifice are to read about realistic characters, people difficult aspects of this career to manage, Could you give us a sneak peek into Divas, delusions, and the MA pyramid the main focus, and that’s fine, if you’re for whom love and a ‘happy ever after’ and a very fast-paced learning curve. For you, what is the main appeal of your forthcoming releases? scheme are just part of it. But I love striving for that aesthetic. But if you’re wasn’t simply a question of boy-meets- Juggling these contractual commitments writing a story with a happy ending? Writing as Sienna Bronwyn, teaching writers of any stage and writing mainstream fiction where you girl, but a gut-wrenching journey of whilst writing other books is something I I’ve always disliked sad or ambiguous book two in my sci-fi romance trilogy, standard who show three qualities: the want to sweep the reader into your story, transformation. I couldn’t find what I hope to get better at as time passes. endings. However, I don’t shy away Supernova Secret, is releasing in e-book in joy of writing, the drive to dissect and an immersive voice is a great asset. Elise’s wanted to read and when my husband from dark themes or gritty realism in April, 2015 and print in August, 2015. learn, and a compelling voice. written voice is closely aligned to her dared me to write my own book—I did. What has surprised you most about my books. The opposite, in fact. I write Under pen name Elise Alden my next The first two – passion and craft – can spoken voice, and has that same sense the journey to becoming a successful about flawed people with bucketloads Scottish Borders romance, Blown Away, make up for most shortcomings. Plenty of natural flow and pace. It’s funny, How important do you think reading is romance author? of baggage, men and women who will release later on in 2015, but I haven’t of writers manage with just those two. knowing, prickly and made me laugh. when it comes to developing your skills My biggest surprise was receiving believe they don’t deserve to be happy. yet received the date. You can find out Voice is much rarer. It’s elusive, and hard Another quality of her writing is as a writer? offers of publication from every publisher And then I prove them wrong. This, about the novels I’ve written and the ones to describe. But you know it when you surprise. I don’t know much about the It’s essential. Like ‘first do no harm’ to whom I submitted Hate To Love You. for me, is the main draw to writing a on the way at www.elisealden.com and hear it. Especially when it sings out from romance genre but I know the tropes. is to doctors, I think ‘first be a reader’ I’m not a native English speaker, I didn’t romance. Redemption, second chances, www.siennabronwyn.com the mass of white noise. Hate to Love You subverts them all with should be to writers. Read extensively, have an agent and I went the slushpile happiness—all things I strongly believe Elise Alden was one of the first a snoring, drug-taking anti-heroine in many different genres, for pleasure submission route, preparing myself for in. 121s I met as literature advocate for with dodgy morals. The heroine of scifi and also to see how the writers you like months of waiting and form rejections. the Creative Arts Business Network romance Black Hole Bounty has learned tackle things like characterisation, plot Having my choice of publisher was a If you had one message to give to (CABN). This is a chance for peer all she knows about alien behaviour and pace. heady feeling! I’d sent out my second anyone who is thinking of writing a support for Borders writers wanting to from Star Trek and Star Wars – a post- novel, Pitch Imperfect, at the same romance novel, what would it be? work in the professional arena. I’ve been modern twist which is fun and engaging. William Faulkner said In writing, you time as Hate To Love You, and it also Do it! Hone your craft, work hard at lucky to meet some really interesting Both novels pulled me in, and kept me must kill your darlings. What does this received several offers. I told my editor your writing, and polish, polish, polish. writers and projects, and it’s been great entertained. I also learned something phrase mean to you? at Harlequin Carina Press and they read Take a few deep breaths and submit. to keep in touch with their success. Some about Panama’s Kuna Indians along the When taken to extreme I think it’s and offered for it two weeks later. About There’s a huge market for romance novels were already experienced journalists or way. the worst pieces of ubiquitous writing three months after that, I sold my science crafted with strong characters, believable writers in other fields, so it’s no surprise CABN is about peer support, and it’s advice I’ve ever heard. Sure, it’s good to fiction romance trilogy, Black Hole conflicts and emotionally satisfying that they’re getting published. But Elise great that with some of the 121 writers, know when you’ve overwritten a passage, Bounty, to SC Publishing. Another huge endings. With the rise in popularity had no such background, and had only it’s been two-way traffic. I’ve learned a but it’s very easy to leech character and surprise is how quickly my transition of e-books the publishing industry started writing seven months before, on lot from Elise’s editing process with her voice from a story if you follow this advice from reader to first offer of publication is changing, and more publishers are a dare from her husband. She was also publishers, which echoes the process I’ve blindly. came about: under two years. opening their doors to unagented e- worried about not being a native speaker experienced in drama. Different editors submissions of high quality novels. of English, and was about to trash her have come in for structural edits, line What are the essential traits of a good How different is the fantasy of being a current novel. edits and proofing. Writers for Harlequin romantic heroine in your opinion and romance novelist to the reality? Do you feel as though an anti-romance Exactly a year later, in the space of are nurtured through drafts and learn why? Fantasy: I create enjoyable romances, bias exists when you tell others the five heady days, she received four offers self-editing techniques. There’s plenty For me a good romantic heroine working hard and spending long hours genre you write in? of publication from four UK and US of help for writers who get accepted. But should be flawed, but she must have crafting and re-drafting the perfect It annoys me when literary snobs look publishers. it’s a tough, exacting process, and your character traits I can admire. Otherwise manuscript for my publishing house. down at genre fiction, and romance falls So what happened in between? writing voice has to excite them first. I won’t be invested in her as a writer firmly into that category. People might A shedload of hard work, research, and neither will my readers. Whether Reality: I create enjoyable romances, scoff at silly stories about people falling unrelenting focus, and some sound Jules Horne she’s abrasive and crude or willful and working hard and spending long hours in love but love is an intrinsic theme in professional advice. Meeting book impatient, or plain stupid sometimes, crafting and re-drafting the perfect many classic and modern literary novels. consultant Inga McVicar at the CABN Jules Horne is CABN Advocate for Liter- she’s also got to be driven or sincere, or manuscript for my publishing house— Romance is the largest selling genre in E-Publishing Day led to working with ature and Associate Lecturer in Creative funny and compassionate—but never a and then the hard work really begins. the world and there’s a reason for that: professional editor Helen Bleck. Both Writing for the Open University in Scotland push over. Cue often excruciating developmental people love the escapism of reading about have held senior roles at Canongate. THEATRE / FILM AND VIDEO THE EILDON TREE 28 THEATRE Issue 25. Winter / Spring 2015 29 THEATRE / FILM AND VIDEO AND / FILM THEATRE GERTRUDE 2-dimensional projected photographs doctors on a feminine figure, thereby both by Joy Parker & Robert Leach. of Gertrude with the material and defining her and also at times liberating her. physical reality of her granddaughter, But in the end, what remains are only paper Performance – Film – Discussion at and presented imagined moments from cut-outs. Eastgate Theatre, Peebles 11 July 2014 Gertrude’s life. For example, we saw her picking daisies in her youth and cutting Gertrude was part of a larger project out paper daisies repetitively later in the by artist Joy Parker, exploring and asylum, tentatively playing a hymn tune recuperating the life of her grandmother, on the piano, and walking up and down Gertrude Parker (née Fursden). urgently as her breakdown neared. The Gertrude was born in 1898, grew up in yoga mat became a bed, and later her grave the Edwardian period and was sixteen scattered with flowers. CAROL NORRIS when the First World War broke out. There were not many words in the THE PERSISTENCE OF MEMORY: A Subsequently she married and had two production: only two poems and the SELKIRK FILM-POEM children, but when they were still very reading from The Bible which were set young Gertrude had a breakdown and against Gertrude’s own jumbled words entered what was then called Bristol taken from her case notes. Always keen to find new ways to Lunatic Asylum, where she spent the rest This performance was followed by bring local poetry to a larger audience, of her life. Joy Parker’s film, I Call Her Gertrude, film-maker and writer Sara Clark teamed The evening was in three parts. made thanks to a Visual Artist and up with Selkirk poet Julian Colton this First was Gertrude: a Life, a performed Craft Makers Award from South of June to produce a short film entitled The evocation using film and live Scotland in 2013. The film is calm and Persistence of Memory. In the 25 minute performance. The performer was Joy beautiful, dwelling on the long corridors long film, Julian explores the verdant Parker herself, who commenced with of what was the asylum and is now the green heart of The Haining, Selkirkshire the Yoga sequence of the Sun Salutation Glenside campus of the University of on an unusually lovely day, performing in front of a film of the rising sun. This West England. It showed artefacts from his poetry along the way. Selected then moved into old footage of Queen Glenside Hospital Museum, such as a from Two Che Guevaras, the brilliantly of the May celebrations, and, crucially, photograph of the 40 bed ward in which delivered poems are subtle combinations images from World War I, the four years Gertrude stayed, and included a recording of the observed, the imagined and the when she was aged 16 to 20, isolated at of a psychiatrist interviewing another persistence of personal and historical home. Gertrude had been artistic and patient whose name was Mary, in 1961, memory, and Julian performs them with musical, playing the piano and organ, about the benefits of work as therapy, as style and conviction, his deliveries adding and came from a religious background, opposed to ECT or lobectomy. layers of shade and colour to poems and the performance included the hymn Both the performance and film have which were rich with meaning to begin Nearer My God To Thee by Lowell Mason great dignity and yet peace, describing the with. The Haining, with its abundance as well as a reading of the story of Jonah tragedy of Joy’s grandmother’s life. Joy’s of sun-drenched leaves, mossy ruins, and the Whale, from the King James absorption in revealing her grandmother’s luminous rhododendrons and rippling, Authorised Version of The Bible. This was story is original, sincere, and achieves lily-filled loch adds a sense of pastoral of significance during her hospital stay, artistic excellence. splendour to the film, which is a glorious when a repetitive utterance was Why did The third part of the evening consisted celebration of place and poet both. Jonah swallow the Whale? of a very lively discussion when members Kudos to Sara Clark on the editing, A brilliant film, accompanied by of the audience raised a series of relevant filming and direction of this little gem, a score from John Adams’s Fearful issues covering topics such as the use of which follows her feature-length film Symmetries, conjured up her forty-four ECT, the subsequent lives of Gertrude’s Gadaboot, starring its writer, Thomas years of incarceration, as though on children and also the techniques employed Clark as a wandering Glaswegian a train journey (her husband was a in the show. philosopher, and was dubbed by William Stationmaster), with stations replaced The evening was part of a much larger McIlvanney as: Glasgow reflected in a by both private family matters and world project by Joy Parker over the last two broken mirror, through shards of memory, events which occurred during her stay. years or more. This has included visual anecdote and place. The Persistence Of An imaginative work, portraying the art, both paintings and mosaics, and most Memory follows in its storytelling passage of a lifetime in an original way. recently a series of collages exhibited at tradition; Julian’s words painting a The film also listed some of the many WASPS studios in May 2014, entitled romantic, nostalgic path of poetic artists, musicians and writers who have Case Notes. This work, depicting a still colour through the already gorgeous been subject to severe mental illness and human form with words taken from Selkirkshire vale. admission to mental hospitals, including Gertrude’s case notes placed frantically Please keep your eyes peeled for Anne Sexton, who was the same age as over it, clearly relates to the performance at more articles on film in coming editions Gertrude, when she suffered recurrent Eastgate Theatre. of The Eildon Tree, and until then why Manic Depressive illness (now named Joy explained its significance for her: not watch Bi-Polar disorder). Her poem Ringing The only things I have left of my grandmother The Persistence of Memory is free The Bells, written when Sexton was an are the photographs of an apparently calm, online. inpatient, was read by Joy Parker. delicate woman, and her case notes from the The production, directed by Robert asylum where she spent 45 years. This artwork Iona McGregor Leach, was stylised and disciplined, attempts to combine these two contradictory giving great clarity without a trace pieces of evidence by inscribing the striking You can find it on Youtube at the following

C of sentimentality. It contrasted large words of Gertrude herself and those of the link. http://tinyurl.com/odsumv6 Joy Parker Joy BOOK REVIEWS THE EILDON TREE 30 Issue 25. Winter / Spring 2015 31 BOOK REVIEWS REVIEWS BOOK All of these titles can be requested through It is a good story of the times but still A lovely book, very wise and very short. I compost heap. This proves to be of great Cherry House Publishing, 2013 your local library. Please visit www. long-winded, so it was with pleasure couldn’t improve on that comment, so I archaeological significance. Throughout 230 pages scotborders.gov.uk/libraries for details of that I learned that Clan Scotland won’t try. the novel the voice from a long time ago ISBN: 978-0-9575946-5-4 your local library or reserve a copy online. were publishing a shortened version of On my wish- list, I hope that this hints that there is much to learn about Cost: £6.99 Waverley condensed into a readable 112 volume will be the touchstone for a series the material and the spiritual world. A pages by Melrose historian Professor of books by the same team to rekindle delightful mix of the mundane make for This is the second book in the Christopher Harvie and illustrated by interest in Sir Walter Scott as a story- identifiable reading – the agricultural Troubled Times series, but actually I don’t Scoular Anderson’s cartoons. teller par excellence. year, the seasons, love of nature, think you have to have read Book One: The resulting book/booklet is a gardening, baking and preserving, Water’s Edge to enjoy this book, though I compilation of Scott as a man, ballad- Walter Elliot local place names. The characters are do think it helps if you have. collector, poet, lawyer, novelist and contemporary and brought to life by In Power’s Out we catch up with the historian. It is interesting, erudite, wide- believable and seemingly effortless feisty heroine Nairne Grear who is now ranging and occasionally very funny. I dialogue. sixteen. She’s been travelling for over learned a lot from it. All the while the spirit world runs eighteen months with her faithful dog, CAPITAL OFFENCE like a golden thread throughout the story. Dog, and her erstwhile nemesis, but who By Robert S. Scott What Did Scott Do For Us? The arrival of the mystic Avian Taylor, now she regards as family, Paul Unwin. With the publication of Waverley, with her powers of healing and her Climate change has brought the United Northlight Publications, 2014 Scott started a chain reaction of how knowledge of herbs and potions, offers Kingdom to its knees and Scotland, the Paperback 353 pages the world looked on Scotland and the a release from the problems that beset only part of the UK to have a government ISBN: 978-1-78407-641-2 1814, THE YEAR OF WAVERLEY. HOW Scots and how the Scots saw themselves. the characters. Sue Hewitt uses Avian of sorts, is on the threshold of anarchy. WALTER SCOTT’S NOVEL CHANGED A further eight books known as The to question traditional held Christian In this exciting second book Nairne Capital Offence is a thriller where US. Waverley Novels were produced in the beliefs and contemplate the unseen world and Paul find what they think is ‘home’ the action and fast moving dialogue By Christopher Harvie next ten years and Scott-mania swept that the stones inhabit. only to bring trouble following in their keep the reader guessing from the through Europe and America. The The author is clearly biased in favour footsteps. This is a fast, action-packed very first page. Set in an independent THE CUNNING WOMAN’S CUP Clan Scotland Series themes of his novels were taken by many of the rural life and Alice’s son and novel which keeps the reader wondering Scotland, and in a society where drugs Argyll Publishing 2013 famous writers as a thinly-disguised By Sue Hewitt daughter-in-law, modern city dwellers how on earth Nairne is going to get and violent crime have sickened the 124 pages PBK basis of their own works. His books who are caught up in the London rat out of the difficulties she finds herself population to such an extent that the Painted Lady Press 2013 Price £5.99 were translated into other languages and race, are contrasted with the more in. However, brave Nairne uses her death penalty has been re-introduced, 470 pages PBK ISBN-13: 9781908931238. sometimes claimed as their own work preferable country existence. The tension ingenuity and mettle to foil even the two brothers find that the past comes ISBN: 978-1496023452 by the translators. In North America, throughout builds as secrets, both baddest of the bad and scrape through to back to haunt them. And it’s political as Price: £7.30 It is my contention that the greatest Scott’s novels were very popular amongst ancient and modern are linked and live another day. well because one of the brothers, Jamie invention ever made was when some the Scots/Irish/English population; finally revealed. I don’t want to give away any more of is now Prime Minister of the newly person worked out a way to inscribe unfortunately most of the books sold If any reader has visited the I enjoyed this unusual novel and it the plot, but suffice it to say Nairne does independent Scotland. There’s plenty of symbols on stone, hide and latterly on there were pirate copies for which no ancient standing stones of Duddo in proved to me, once again, that modern live to fight another day or we wouldn’t local references in the story, Edinburgh paper, the sounds that humans made royalties were paid. Scott could have used Northumberland, they will quickly fiction doesn’t have to have dysfunctional have Book Three to look forward to, and the Borders feature throughout. with their mouths. Without writing, the money very well. identify with this interesting debut novel angst-ridden heroes and unlikely plots would we? Descriptions of sleazy pubs, drugs and civilisation as we know it simply would His themes were ideal for opera by Sue Hewitt. There is a believable mix to make a good story. Sometimes the I really enjoyed this novel. The criminal life are graphic. This is a story not exist and over the centuries, writers - dramatic plots and grand gestures of characters, an unfolding mystery and ordinary can become an extraordinarily apocalyptic theme is believable, as are the that hits hard. Sex scenes and violence have had an immense influence on the combined well with great music. Rossini, local rural interest. All these elements good read and if this is combined with characters. Nairne is as gutsy as ever and are described with unflinching realism world both for good and ill. Bellini, Donizetti and Bizet produced provide intrigue from the first page. Sue descriptive and well written prose, the we even get the stirrings of love (but not made even more believable as the ever operas based wholly or in part on Scott’s Hewitt’s clever approach to her novel results speak for themselves. There is the smushy kind), which again adds to present dialogue increases the tension. I spent my early years in Ettrick poetry and novels. Rossini’s La Dona del preludes each chapter with excellent something reassuring in being able to both the story and the characters. Right to the last page the reader is kept during the Second World War in near Lago was vastly popular in Naples and descriptive prose reaching back in time to identify with everyman and woman. Although this is aimed at the Young wondering. This is good storytelling. virtual isolation. Everything was scarce the USA where one song Hail to the Chief ’ the stones – I look forward to reading a sequel – Adult market I think adults would enjoy Bigger issues are hinted at and winter nights were spent in reading was adopted for greeting The President. I was Mordwand of the Brigantes. what else can be uncovered hidden deep this too, so don’t be put off by the YA throughout the unfolding of the drama. by the light of a paraffin lamp. We Called Dead and cast out when I was in the compost heap? label. If you have teenagers aged around Corruption, lies and self-interest which owned few books (eight actually) but four To see how Scott was regarded by his alive. People feared me. It was late in the 14-16, who love to read, I think they’d begin at the top levels of society and were novels by Sir Walter Scott. They contemporaries and the famous who were pregnancy of the woman who bore me – too Iona McGregor thoroughly enjoy the book as would their filter down to the very bottom of that were long-winded and long-worded but I inspired by his writings, this book gives late, the old woman said. The old woman parents. same society are portrayed in a vivid managed to skip these minor distractions many instances of which I can give only took payment, laid her down, placed the Now all I have to do is wait for book way. The reader has much to think about to concentrate on the story which usually a taster from different generations and heavy flat stone on her rounded belly, added three Earth’s Descent to find out what here. The clever plot makes the whole galloped along. social strata. more weight – it is but one of the ways. She happens next. Can’t wait! story quite believable. This is not a Walter Scott has no business to write died, but I survived – small, bloody, blue story for the faint hearted with its gritty Although Scott has largely fallen novels, especially good ones. He has Fame and broken. The old woman cringed back Vee Freir portrayal that highlights unsavoury from public favour over the last fifty and Profit enough as a poet - Jane Austen, when I drew breath and I cried into the cold aspects of contemporary life. However, years, the meat of his stories still remain. 1814. air. She left me, she said, to die. But I would the writer succeeds in keeping the reader His first novel Waverley published Karl Marx read Scott to the little not. enthralled to the very end while posing anonymously in 1814, tells the story of a Marxes, reminding them that they were The pace then alters as the story some moral questions as well. young Englishman’s adventures during from Clan Campbell by descent. (I didn’t begins. Alice McCleish, a widow living the Jacobite rebellion of 1745/6. It was an know that). near the stones meets and becomes Iona McGregor immediate success selling five thousand friends with Margaret Allerton, a retired copies in five months and the book by This is a brilliant book and well worth Professor of Archaeology from Durham. The Great Unknown, was hailed as a the modest £5.99 asked for it. Professor Thereafter, discoveries are uncovered POWER’S OUT masterpiece by such diverse characters as Christopher Smout, Historiographer- from ancient times when Brian, BOOK TWO: TROUBLED TIME SERIES The Prince Regent and Lord Byron. Royal in Scotland sums it up very nicely: Alice’s gardener uncovers a cup in the Rachel Meehan THE EILDON TREE 32 BOOK REVIEWS Issue 25. Winter / Spring 2015 33 BOOK REVIEWS REVIEWS BOOK CONCERNING THE ATLAS OF Annie discovers unexpected qualities which, at least on the surface, speaks of verse biography’ centred on the life, to read one of the two new Pow books SCOTLAND AND OTHER POEMS in Mick and a tension arises between a changing Scotland finding its place in times and modern legacy of Dumfries currently available, and reading poetry of them which heightens in unexpected By Tom Pow the world: born forger Thomas Watling. the highest quality is your intention, then ways as the story unfolds. Bernard is Transported to Botany Bay and returned perhaps Concerning The Atlas of Scotland Polygon aware of this and Annie is consumed To mark out space is simply the first step back home to Scotland via Calcutta, is the book to choose rather than A Wild 80 Pages with guilt over feelings that she cannot in controlling what takes place within Watling’s is without exaggeration an Adventure. get rid of and can barely keep to herself. Poetry its borders. No matter what colour incredible and fascinating picaresque ISBN: 978-1-84697-301-7 The years pass; three sons are born, the tale. Disappointingly, the colour and Julian Colton third of them, Oisin, and then a daughter. a country may choose, another’s fiction the hard facts of Watling’s life is often And while these years pass, into the When I first started this reading may drench it in blood. Our times, unmatched by the verse presented narrative appears a mysterious, sharply- beautifully presented book, written as in this, allow for little latitude: here. Adopting a simplistic nineteenth dressed stranger who stands out on his Tom Pow’s response to his experience (The Map) century pastiche rhyming structure, this arrival in Ballybeg like a sore thumb. as the 2013 Bartholomew Writer in collection readily displays predictable CRYING THROUGH THE WIND: THE He is linked to Mick somehow and his Residence at the National Library of But Pow is far too astute a chronicler rhymes and recurring motifs regarding STORY OF OISIN KELLY actions will govern Oisin’s story. Scotland, my initial reaction was ‘here of lives and situations to limit his poetic forgery and inauthenticity to the extent Iona Carroll This is an unusual and intriguing we go again, another residency writing reach to the parochial or close to home. that one finally concludes that perhaps tale, which Carroll tells with empathy project collection neatly timed for the As his subjects all knew - the colourists, poetry isn’t the right medium in which Mauve Square Publishing, 2014, 353 pp. and commitment to her characters. impending Scottish Referendum.’ the engravers, founding father John to tell such a tale. It’s only when Pow £8.99 Aside from the main actors, there are Although knowing from the outset Pow Bartholomew himself – there’s a whole eschews the clunky rhymes that this ISBN: 978-1-909411-30-2 others who stand out in Ballybeg. These is a never less than an interesting and wider world out there. Sometimes I can’t collection promises to lift off. Details are crafted well. Among them is the engaging poet who writes consistently help but feel Pow might just lack that and speculations on life in Dumfries, Set in the Eire of the late 1950s and powerful, censorious Catholic priest, high quality verse, there was also one poem, that glittering line or quirky Botany Bay and Calcutta are interesting, 60s, this is first part of a trilogy about Father O’Malley, who rules the people something predictable about the Blaeu’s turn of phrase, the emotionally intensity even illuminating. Pow is too subtle THIS ROOM IS WAITING: POEMS Oisin Kelly, destined to leave Ireland. of Ballybeg with anger in his soul. Father map cover and the compass direction which takes him beyond the very good a writer to paint his hero in simplistic FROM IRAQ AND THE UNITED Don’t expect to meet Oisin straight-away O’Malley is tormented with graphic page numbering scheme, the almost into the realm of the really exceptional. black and white idealised terms by KINGDOM for the tale opens with Bernard and Mick, lustful thoughts and sexual longings sketchy tone, the individual corner of Still, Concerning the Atlas of Scotland making Watling a kind of Scottish two brothers who work a farm in the west towards the glamorous and attractive the page map titles which didn’t seem and Other poems is a collection making a Robin Hood or Braveheart figure. Freight Books 2014 of Ireland just outside the fictional town doctor’s wife, Mrs Ryan, who befriends to fit the poems. All in all, I thought in full-frontal assault at seizing the crown. Perhaps in his desire to reflect our times Poetry of Ballybeg. Annie. Ma and Pa Murphy run the pub essence this would prove to be a triumph With lovely vintage map vignettes and as much as Watling’s, Pow doesn’t quite ISBN 978-1-908754-49-3 After carrying out a stint lifting in Ballybeg, the witty and come-hither of packaging over enduring substance. fascinating diagrams this would make a bring Watling the man himself fully to 120 Pages tatties in Scotland, followed by building Ma being the fount of longing for most How wrong could I be? It soon becomes wonderful Christmas or birthday present life. He remains a shadowy hard-bitten £9.99 work in London, Bernard, the gentle and of the male population of the town, clear the map titles, seemingly at odds for cartophiles and lovers of poetry alike. apolitical figure rightly mistrustful innocent younger of the two brothers, including the repressed Father O’Malley. with the subject of the individual poem of authority and easy solutions in an Freight’s second book of Arabic meets and marries Annie. Bernard Then there is the eccentric and colourful presented, is a neat and clever trick Julian Colton age of visionaries such as Paine, Blake, translations this year, This Room Is worries about how his dominant elder Anglican ‘reverend’ who cannot have emphasising the universality of all places Wordsworth and Burns. Waiting, features contemporary poets brother will view his marriage but much of a flock in this Catholic area behind and within the particular, and from Iraq working hand in hand with wrapped completely in his happiness, he but who, with his wife, befriends and that the first poems are merely an easing Watling their UK counterparts. Produced as part returns to the farm with Annie. And it understands Mick. They play a key part into the collection backed up by the Painted on. The Flora and fauna of a series of collaborative workshops is through the resilient and resourceful in the development of the plot. The sense author’s confidence in the strength of the in the Kurdish mountain village of Annie that we follow the narrative. of place in Ballybeg is also described well work to follow. This is a terrific thought Were endless: he’d no time for rebel Shaqlawa, this collection not only But while the action is seen from her too, aided by a helpful map which sets provoking collection celebrating the songs. features modern Iraqi poetry translated viewpoint, it is, in fact, Mick, Bernard’s out the key locations in the story. This is former Edinburgh based publishing and Amor Fati – we’re all nothing but into English, but also English works elder brother, who dominates the action an enjoyable tale of human frailty which printing company John Bartholomew & pawns. by Jen Hadfield, William Letford, throughout this first book. will give pleasure to all who read it. Son Ltd. This company produced maps (Watling Envies the So called John Glenday and Krystelle Bamford Annie’s first introduction to Mick of stunning variety covering topics as Martyr Thomas Muir translated into Arabic. Edited by Lauren when Bernard brings her back to the Gwen Chessell diverse as health and sanitation, road Transported for Disseminating Pyott and Ryan Van Winkle, this farm as a new bride shocks her beyond accident incidence, First World War Paine’s Rights of Man.) fascinating volume not only serves as anything in her experience. It is not Crying Through the Wind has been listed trench layout, weather maps, AA maps a worthwhile introduction to modern how she expected to be greeted. She in the Peoples Book Prize Autumn/Winter and all manner of political, social and A Wild Adventure is beautifully poetry in the Middle East, but also A WILD ADVENTURE soon learns how different Mick is from 2014/15. Voting can be done online for this economic cartographical representations. illustrated with Watling’s wildlife as a useful primer on the subject of FRAGMENTS FROM THE LIFE OF his brother and indeed, from others in novel at www.peoplesbookprize.com from You name it and John Barthlomew and artwork, letter extracts and depictions translation generally, particularly to and THOMAS WATLING - DUMFRIES Ballybeg. He is regarded with wariness, 1st September to 30th November 2014. Son Ltd probably published a map about of indigenous Australians, all superbly from Arabic. CONVICT ARTIST not understood, not liked, reckoned to it from 1826 until its demise in 1995. presented throughout. On reflection, Interestingly, it is not always By Tom Pow be mad. He disappears mysteriously for the strongest poems it presents might immediately obvious on first reading days on end on occasion. No one knows Pow takes an individual map as have been better showcased if placed which of the English poems are Polygon where he goes or what he gets up to. Is his starting point, sometimes from in the aforementioned Concerning The originals and which are translations. Poetry he drunk, is he sleeping off a bender? He the National Library’s own collection Atlas of Scotland And Other Poems. The Perhaps because they have worked so 110 pages is an enigma and regarded with caution, such as Robert Louis Stevenson’s map salient raw facts of Watling’s life might closely together, the works of the four ISBN: 978-1-84697-287-4 no one can predict his brooding, uneasy, for Treasure Island or a Soviet military be incredible, but a daily life spent British poets and those of their Iraqi capricious moods. But he is intelligent, map of Edinburgh, and then conjures illustrating dead parrots might not make counterparts (Zahir Mousa, Ghareeb passionate and well-read despite his like a magician both real and imagined Having just read and enjoyed for riveting subject matter. Still, two Iskander, Sabreen Kadhim and Awezan hiding behind ‘a permanent home’ he has lives in front of our eyes. It really is very immensely Pow’s excellent Concerning publications in one year will greatly Nouri) wind up covering much the built for himself. Mick’s shadow is always impressive and it has to be admitted The Atlas of Scotland And Other Poems please Pow fans. Many will disagree same thematic ground. Learning to there. And yet, and yet … there isn’t a weak piece in the entire book. I was expecting great things from this and it might be heresy to some for me live, learning to die – these are the twin As the title suggests, this a collection much lauded collection. A ‘speculative to suggest it, but if you’re only going ideas around which many of these poems BOOK REVIEWS THE EILDON TREE 34 Issue 25. Winter / Spring 2015 35 BOOK REVIEWS REVIEWS BOOK

turn. However, what is also worthy of and philosophy underlies the argument would be quite suitable to be read to feels as if it evaporates in front of our to see the live performances. note is the extent to which the linguistic of the authors of this stimulating tract. younger children as well as for young eyes or slips from our grasp. This is foundations of one nation’s poetry have Moffat is a respected art lecturer and teens to read for themselves. Oliver Eade especially the case in longer more private, Julian Colton seemed to bleed into that of the other. realist-expressionist painter and Riach a is not only a good storyteller, but also a impenetrable poems, and there are quite In the strongest poems, such as Awezan literary critic, poet, who taught in New good writer and manages to engage the a few, which, well, seem to go on and on Nouri’s He’s Not Like Me, a real synthesis Zealand and is now Professor of Scottish reader from the first to the last page. I with little substance or purpose other of imagery, rhythm and language has Literature at Glasgow. enjoyed it a lot. than to appear profound. Throughout definitely been achieved, producing They argue for a national art this collection I found myself wanting work which is neither purely English discourse: unusual in a United Kingdom Vee Freir something to hook on to, for the pieces nor purely Arabic. As works in their which reacts to the market, in proportion to be about something other than what own right, they are often remarkable; to the selling of names. In other words: veers into self-absorption characterised but as illustrations of the potential not much separates Tracey Emin and PR by ‘inner freedom’ or ‘weightlessness.’ of cross-cultural exploration, many mogul Charles Saatchi. And we'll leave The Other Children, As If, Self-Portrait As of these poems are hugely impressive Miss Emin there: a variety-turn on the THE KELPIE’S EYES A Mermaid, Skye, The Glacier Crowfoot, achievements. intricate art of the banknote. Our authors‘ By Oliver Eade and Late November, Fife certainly seem For that reason, readers who are are far different, and ought to engage the to benefit from being less chatty, shorter interested in poetry which is culturally attention of all our citizens. Mauve Square Publishing and more sharply focused. There is no and authentically “Arabic” may be Some will see the shadow of John Young Adult Fiction denying Roxman is a poet of considerable A BIRD IS NOT A STONE: AN advised to look elsewhere. This Room Is Ruskin here, and they will be right, £5.99 165 pages Paperback talent who already has many admirers. ANTHOLOGY OF CONTEMPORARY Waiting does not convey the essential but the evolution of the Moffat-Riach ISBN: 978-1-909411-29-6 Crossing the North Sea would probably PALESTINIAN POETRY voice of Iraq in the same way that A Bird philosophy is more complex: the benefit from repeat reading, to tease out Is Not A Stone (reviewed elsewhere this conviction that graphic art has its own The story starts in Victorian Glasgow. the poetry trapped beneath the sheer Freight Books 2014 issue) conveys that of modern Palestine. value, but also enhances the other arts of Clutching a picture book to her chest, weight of words. Poetry Nor does it purport to. Comparisons life, including the social sciences. Really orphaned Mairi, is running from the 238 pages are inevitable and often odious, but a return to the democratic intellectualism child-catchers. She finds a waterfall and CROSSING THE NORTH SEA Julian Colton ISBN 978-1-908754-56-1 This Room Is Waiting stands strong as implied when you secularise the equality the strange, magnificent Kelpie reveals By Susanna Roxman Price £9.99 a work in its own right, both as a very of souls required by Calvinism. Perhaps himself to her. solid collection of poetry and as a hugely this is exemplified in Raeburns' portrait Meanwhile, Caitlin, is being forced Dionysia Press Ltd Freight Books have for some time interesting experiment in inter-linguistic - almost a companion to Reid - of Niel to go on a walk on her birthday with 87 Pages been pushing the envelope when it collaboration. Gow, a figure expressing musical culture, her father, mother and younger sister, Poetry comes to the exotic and off-beat. In spanning the demotic and the mystical. Rhona. Out at The Mare’s Tail waterfall ISBN: 978-1-903171-44-8 addition to producing Gutter, one Sara Clark What emerges today is not however in the Scottish Borders, Caitlin is also of Scotland’s finest literary mags, Stalinist social realism but the moulding drawn to the Kelpie. And so begins the This is another interesting, well- Freight can boast amongst its authors of the intention of the artist; conveyed in strange, magical story of two worlds and crafted and presented collection from an impressive range of the country’s his (or less frequently her) engagement- two fifteen year old girls whose lives are the Edinburgh based Dionysia Press best and brightest literary stars, politics and converging with the inexorably intertwined. stable of poets. Ostensibly, the themes including Alan Bissett, Denise Mina programmes of democrats concerned A tale of magic, princesses and a and concerns of the poet are wide and and (curiously) former Aberdeen with folk culture in post-revolutionary handsome boy to come to the rescue. range in the first two sections, Portraits footballer Arild Stavrum. A Bird Is Europe and America - in poetic terms But that’s not the whole story. This is and Seasons, from art, nature, festivals, Not A Stone, the first major collection Burns and Whitman, expanding the actually a very clever tale with far more literature, politics to the big themes of of contemporary Palestinian poetry common currencies of the industrial interwoven into it than at first seems. love and death. Clearly, here is a poet BY PETALLED LIGHT translated into English, is not exactly movement. Although it is in the classic fairy tale with a lot to say and who has reflected AN ILLUSTRATED POET’S YEAR hard up for star names either. The big The style of Moffats' painting format of good versus evil, it’s also a tale deeply on life. A third section, Crossings, By Arthur Parsons hitters whose works can be found in this suggests a climacteric in the art of the of sisters, whose love for each other must contains lyrical prose pieces such as In the volume include (to name but a few) Liz Mexican republic and the USAs' New be tested as Rhona, Caitlin’s younger Pouring Rain, which somewhat ironically Illustrated by John Davidson Lochhead, Alasdair Gray, Ryan Van Deal. Yet the contemporary problem, as sister, comes through the waterfall to her is probably the strongest piece in the adhoc Books Winkle and Ron Butlin. A bi-lingual ARTS OF INDEPENDENCE elsewhere in a dysfunctional Scotland, sister’s aid and becomes embroiled in the collection and acts as a kind of statement Poetry edition with poems by 25 contemporary By Alexander Moffat and Alan Riach is a youth culture which expects instant plot. Will she make the right choices or of intent or manifesto: Palestian poets in their original Arabic gratification of computer play, and avoids will she be persuaded by the flutterings These poems, first commissioned by facing translations into English, Scots, Luath Press 2014 the hard graft of technique and practice. of a first foray into feelings of romantic but I want to read about these things, the the andante Chamber Choir as part of a Gaelic and Shetlandic, this is a hugely 221 Pages Tasks too easily handed over to a committee love with Lachlan, the handsome important things, nobody writes about them, concert titled A Choral Calendar, follow impressive undertaking right from the £ 9.99 PBK will rise up to frustrate us. A glance at the Woodcutter’s son? I don’t want to read about exciting events, the seasons month by month through start, and much kudos is surely due to ISBN: 978-1-908373-75-5 index is something of a corrective: the The Kelpie’s Eyes cleverly manages to they bore me nearly to tears, exploding cars, the eyes of Coldstream poet Arthur Freight for taking it on. number of women (nurturers, educators) take the reader on a rollercoaster ride lovers meeting or parting, conspiracies to kill Parsons. Poems intended for such events For those of us to whom the word Above the fireplace in the library of discussed doesn't exceed the low Scottish of suspense as the story unfolds across some politician, they bore me stiff: I want sometimes lose their live immediacy “Palestine” has come to denote a news Kellie Castle, the Fife residence of the average, yet as Ruskin pointed out, two dimensions. A magical sword, an to read about inner freedom, weightlessness, when presented in book or pamphlet story rather than an actual place, international lawyer James Lorimer, housekeeping economics brought their evil Kelpie, a malevolent hummingbird, total happiness, and that pouring rain, all form, as do good old-fashioned virtues these poems will read as surprisingly first to plan a European union, hangs own - largely female - politics. Jenny gnomes, boobries and all sorts come to night, across the mind; such as rhyme and personification, but apolitical. There are no protest poems, Raeburns' portrait of Professor Thomas Geddes and Jeanie Deans figured much play a part in the power struggle for the (In The Pouring Rain) Parson’s idiosyncratic humour and no finger-pointing. There is tragedy, of Reid, the great man of Scottish common in the scenes of the Victorians: they're kingdom with many twists and turns generosity of spirit shine through. With course, and violence, but on a personal sense philosophy. worth a mention here. which keep the reader guessing right to Fair enough, even if the poet/ monochrome illustrations by John rather than a national scale. These Intriguingly Lorimer translates as the end. writer protests just a little too much. If Davidson and a lovely cover by textile are poems which have war as their clockmaker, which suggests affinity with Professor Chris Harvie Oliver Eade has written a Young these are Roxman’s aims she certainly artist Lyn Davidson, By Petalled Light is perpetual theme and background, but Deism - the rational religion of the 1700s. Adult novel that is an exciting page- succeeds. The problem is that in an attractive pamphlet which will appeal focus painfully on individual lives and Such grounding of culture in nationality turner. I would suggest that this book achieving this effect the work often to many, particularly those who managed individual loss. Not just of parents and BOOK REVIEWS THE EILDON TREE 36 Issue 25. Winter / Spring 2015 37 BOOK REVIEWS REVIEWS BOOK children, lovers and friends, but of basic ISBN: 978-0-9547630-9-1 seamlessly woven together in a coherent widow before she is a bride, our sympathy human rights; freedom and innocence, 124 Pages work of imagination, which has a clear with her is tempered by the rapidity with hope and joy. These poems sing of the tone of authenticity and focus. It is a very which she gets over her grief when the ordinary amidst the extraordinary, the Published by Three Cats Press, interesting and well written book about voice of the tempter tells her, Dinnae touching normalities that manage still to Disciplines of War compiles over fifty a period hidden in the mists of time, greet, hen. She is not whiter than white. thrive in the spaces between disasters. years of thematically linked poetry by which explains the important influence She enters a convent but is plagued by To choose highlights amongst such Scottish writer Ian Blake reflecting upon of Cuthbert and his followers both on dark and lustful thoughts. She is all too riches seems arbitrary, but a few pieces the many facets of war. Though largely events at the time and the impact, not open to temptation. Her first reponse to which staked out entirely new spaces written about World War II, Blake’s only on the North, but upon the whole his declarations of love is clear enough. in my head and heart were Apology to poems are concerned with far more than nation. She knows he lies, she wishes to pray and a Martyr’s Grave by Mohammed Lafi the specifics of that particular conflict, Carol Norris she knows that he will be her downfall, (translated by Jim Ferguson), a simple and range back and forth from one era to but still she gives him an opportunity to but deeply affecting apology to the dead another, covering such disparate subjects PLACE OF REPOSE A TALE OF SAINT THE DEMON Say why ye luve me – and mak it gey clear! from the living; Not Only Rivers by Tareq as the Spanish Armada, the First World THE WOMAN WHO WALKED INTO CUTHBERT’S LAST JOURNEY By Mikhail Lermontov Translated into The psychology is uncomfortably real al-Karmy (translated by Alasdair Gray), War, and the failed invasion of Scotland THE SEA By Katherine Tiernan Scots by Frances Robson and it is clear where the relationship is a depiction of community and cultural by Rome. In strong, uncomplicated verse, by Mark Douglas-Home headed, but the suspense lies in how it ties which transcends any linguistic or they tell the long history of human war The Mingaui Press 2013 Frances Robson, Edinburgh, 2014 plays out. national boundaries; and What Pushkin’s from the perspectives of all its varying Sandstone Press 2013 Paperback 188 pages 48pp PBK Scots seems a very natural language Poems Never Said by Bisan Abu Khaled participants; leaders and followers, Paperback 340 pages ISBN: 978-0-9926057-0-4 ISBN 978-1-78280-283-9 for the subject matter. Robson uses a (translated by Magi Gibson), a wistful winners and losers, soldiers and civilians, ISBN: 978-1-908737-32-8 Price £8.99 Price £8.00 (+ £1.00 p&p available from variety of Scots which is accessible, even invocation of national and personal the passionately patriotic and the £8.99 [email protected]) to a reader with a limited knowledge of identity. reluctant conscripts. War poetry, which The author lived near Galashiels Set between 871 and 881 AD, almost the language. Most of the vocabulary I remember hearing once that the all too often winds up reading as pious as a boy. He has moved to writing 200 years after the death of St. Cuthbert, Frances Robson’s translation of The will be familiar and the meanings of people of the Gaza Strip were planning and platitudinous, or bombastic and Fiction from a career in journalism and this account is a creative reconstruction, Demon by the Russian poet Mikhail rarer words are usually clear from the on using a grant of half a million pounds chauvinistic, finds here a middle ground, formerly was the Editor of The Glasgow using such documented history as is Lermontov is a powerful piece of work. It context. In case of any doubt, a glossary not to build roads or create municipal a genuine and sincere attempt to present Herald, which has clearly honed his very available to us. is not often that ‘poetry’ and ‘page-turner’ is provided, but this will probably not services or lay down other forms of war as an actual human experience rather considerable writing skills. He gave an We know about the Saint primarily appear in the same sentence, but this be needed at the first reading. You will infrastructure, but to set up a national than simply as an off-the-hook metaphor interesting talk at Galashiels Library in from the writings of The Venerable Bede, poem certainly has a riveting story-line. want to read the poem more than once theatre. The rationale was that a nation for something else. May about his series of detective novels but we know much less specifics about The plot is not the only good thing about and that is when you may wish to take could yet be a nation without highways The poetry convinces absolutely – with a difference, the difference being the Saint’s last journey when his relics Robson’s translation. Passion, suspense time to consider the word choice of the or railways or public parks, but that a these voices seem real, speaking to us that his detective is an oceanographer. where taken from Lindisfarne in 875 AD and even tenderness suffuse this dark translator. Robson has clearly taken a country without its own art was surely directly from the pages of history. Flight His particular interest is in identifying and carried by bearers around the North tale and the Scots language is eminently lot of care over this. From the many near nothing. These poems movingly, often Into Egypt, an astonishing sequence where bodies washed up on the shoreline of the country for a period of seven years, suited to express these emotions.) synonyms she could have selected from heart-rendingly depict the struggle of a which intermingles the thoughts of an may have come from using his knowledge fleeing from the Danish invaders. From James Hogg’s Confessions of the copious vocabulary of Scots, she has people to find their own voice in the most ageing woman with recollections of of sea currents, winds and tides across The main historical account of this a Justified Sinner to James Robertson’s taken great care to find the one with both inhospitable of environments, against the her service to Germany, includes some the world. The author and his hero in the comes over 200 years later from Simeon Gideon Mack, there is something in the the right nuance and the right sound. most unpromising of backgrounds. For truly chilling reconstructions of Nazi book were inspired by two gravestones whose History of the Church of Durham in Scottish psyche that embraces the Gothic This is a poem to read aloud, savouring many readers, this book will represent officials such as Heydrich, Stuckart and in a remote and beautiful burial ground 1096 is probably based on monastic oral in literature. The Demon is in this vein, the harshness of the Demon’s torment the first arrival of Palestine on Scottish Eichman. Conversely, only a few pages overlooking the sea at Ardnamurchan tradition as there are few written records although at times the reader feels much and lingering over the forlorn lyricism in shores as a living, vibrant, creative away, Mrs. Hudson Reminisces tells, from where the bodies of two men, lost from from the period of the Danish invasion in sympathy for him. Right from the start passages such as this: culture, with much to contribute to the the point of view of his landlady, of the the Arctic Convoys to Russia in World 866AD. This is a general and descriptive of the poem the ootlan demon, hertscaud The muckle kirk oan the heich bra world. For that reason alone, A Bird Is mental disintegration of “Mr. H” of War II, were laid to rest both bearing the account of the bearers’ journey, somewhat tae the core is seen to weary of joyous Whaur thir banes wir blawn bi stour Not A Stone is surely an essential addition 221b Baker Street after the horrors of inscription Known Only To God. lacking in detail and chronology which certainty and immortality and Thro the micht o a haly pooer, to any reader’s bookshelf. World War I. Like so many of the works We learn a considerable amount has been subject to much speculation ever ...as the centuries shauchled by, Yet kythes in the cloods the day. in this collection, these are ambitious about this science effortlessly during the since. Each mair taiglesome than the yin Sara Clark poems which could easily have gone course of the book which adds a lot of Some other events of considerable behind, The pamphlet is enhanced by Joanna dramatically wrong, but in the hands interest being a welcome change from the interest to the general reader occur He felt mair disjaskit, but didnae ken Robson’s sensitive and atmospheric of Ian Blake they emerge pristine and usual graphic criminal forensics. But it is during the journey of the Saint’s relics, of why. illustrations. She depicts the Demon as unforgettable. still a thriller and a very engrossing one which historical documents exist, such handsome in a Byronic way, as tempting It is difficult to emphasise how at that with superbly realised characters as the election of Guthred, a Danish He is the embodiment of evil, but, in appearance as he is in his words. Her far from a “conventional” war poetry with whom we identify, together with slave, as King of York and his Treaty with on top of his ennui and misery, he is illustration of the angel who appears collection this volume is. Sweeping and incisive social commentary. There are a Cuthbert’s people, The Liberty of the torn apart by his love for Tamara, whom near the end of the poem is appropriately comprehensive, the one aspect of war number of layers in the book which are Haliwerfolc or Holy People, the basis for he sees dancing before her wedding. sexless. This parallels the fascination which does carry on from poem to poem deftly handled and the book is highly the County Palatine of Durham which Although he dispatches her bridegroom that the Demon holds throughout the – is, perhaps, the theme of the entire recommended. survived as an autonomous county under without mercy, we want to believe him poem for both the reader and Tamara. collection – is that of loss, losses of every Carol Norris the Prince Bishops until the 19th century. when he swears to reject auld sinful The ending does not bring closure. The kind, losses piled up one after another, Also connected with this story and freenships and declares angel describes Tamara’s soul as fu o licht, from a hat dropped under an air-raid bus well documented is King Alfred’s Ah’m eident tae gree wi heiven the day; but the evidence in the poem undermines to the carpet-bombing of an entire city. A struggles against the Danes in Wessex, Ah’m eident tae luve, eident tae pray; this and The muckle kirk is far from being superb achievement, and a volume well then the only remnant of Britain Ah want tae believe that guidness is true. a place of religious solace. There is no DISCIPLINES OF WAR, worth picking up. unconquered by them and his veneration His declarations of love are simplistic victory of good over evil and by Ian Blake of St. Cuthbert after a visionary dream sometimes simple and sometimes high- dark clouds and ambiguity hang over all. Sara Clark on the eve of the battle of Ethandrun in flown and dramatic, but the directness Poetry which Alfred was victorious. of the Scots vocabulary adds to their Chris Robinson Three Cats Press 2014 The threads of all these pieces are apparent sincerity. Although Tamara is a THE EILDON TREE 38 COMMUNITY Issue 25. Winter / Spring 2015 39 COMMUNITY KELSO WRITERS GROUP two friends, accompanied by their wives, KEEPSAKES have something to drink from. This was The vehemence with which the speaker brief, sometimes to the point of idiocy. transported the thief to the local police the only one left now after all this time. wearing a navy jacket sitting two seats I wondered whether it was to keep This short fiction was written as part station. Still bound and gagged, he sat I keep them, because they were only It hardly seemed like sixty years. How to my left said this, startled me out of the catalogue small and save on costs of a visualisation exercise by writers in the boot of the open-topped Aston used on that particular day: Grandpa time fleetingly passes. Recall set in. She my daydream. A daydream in which or because he didn’t know what he attending the Kelso Writers’ Workshop. Martin. He spent his next night in jail his motley motoring mug and Granny had been drinking from one of the cups my Polish cleaning lady, Victoria with was selling or to avoid argument and Two objects – a motorist’s mug and a and was eventually convicted of theft her opalescent fine bone china cup and when she had her first labour pains and a ‘W’, actually smiles. It had been a potential litigation over mistakes. “£1, miniature china cup and saucer – were and dangerous driving and given a six saucer. They sit side by side on a shelf dropped it as she gasped, startled. Then mistake bringing her here, I thought. thank you, £2, £3….” 2 minutes later we studied and provided the inspiration month sentence. The four friends had a in my kitchen now, gathering dust and there were five. It was the following Her English isn’t good, though it’s a lot were up to £100, and he said “I’ll go up needed to the write these pieces. hilarious second day at the Rally, and all grease, occasionally getting a sousing in day before the baby was born. She better than my 10 words of every-day in £2 steps”. After 5 minutes we were participants joined in the celebrations. the sink. remembered the happiness and pride of Polish and she had misunderstood when I up to £500 and after another 5 minutes, MUGSHOT Such was the drama of this event that a Grandpa loved his old cars, not the occasion, despite the exhaustion that told her where I was going and decided to it was £1,000 in £10 steps. Navy jacket commemorative mug was created, in a that he could ever have afforded to have she felt. accompany me. was apoplectically purple and he got up, I found the mug amongst the bric a limited edition of 100. owned one, but he was a regular at the Her son was three at the time and moving towards the auctioneer. To my brac in a local charity shop. It was priced roadside when the London to Brighton decided that he could make dirt castles While I had been looking at books, relief, he just glared at the auctioneer at £8, a little expensive I thought, but it Eileen Johnston Run puttered past their terraced cottage. with one the cups in the garden. She was I heard her say “She is beautiful, she as he passed and went out. The pace of intrigued me so I bought it, with a view Granny always had the kettle simmering, too late in stopping him from hitting is just the right shape. She’s gorgeous, bidding slowed and one bidder dropped to looking into its origins. just in case one of the vintage or veteran it with a garden trowel. He cried sorely I have to have her.” I looked up in out at £1,400. Another hand went up and It depicted two couples in a vintage WHAT A MUG! vehicles gave up the ghost in their street. when he was scolded, but accidents surprise, she was on the far side of the it continued to £1,650. Everybody was sports car, which looked like an Aston Then Grandpa came into his own, the happen. She smiled. room talking to one of the young male leaning forward in interest; we hadn’t Martin. They seemed to be having great I just didn’t like him. I saw him come accumulated sagacity of a lifetime on his Her husband had gained promotion porters. Was the object of her attention, had a battle like this for ages. I hadn’t fun, laughing and talking animatedly barging into ‘The Motorist’s Rest ‘ café back under a car, or in an inspection pit, at work and gave her an excited hug Mr Kitchen’s shapely micro-skirted expected the bidding to top £400, so as they speeded along with the hood with his pals talking loudly and laughing or under a bonnet burst to the fore. He when he came home while she had clerk ? Apart from Wictoria, she was evidently the naval badge was much down. The odd thing however was that rudely. always had unsolicited words of wisdom been washing the crockery and another the only even faintly attractive woman rarer than I had thought. At £2,000, Mr a gagged man sat behind them in the Customers could pick a mug - all for the marooned driver while Granny one seen the last of it being a useful in the room. I wondered who she was Kitchen drank half his glass of water and car boot. with motoring scenes - to be filled with plied the passengers with tea and biscuits. implement as it squirmed from her soapy talking about, Wictoria was married announced “I’ll go up in £20s.” At £2, I have friends who have attended tea or coffee. To my horror he picked me, Only once did they receive tangible grasp. Now there were only three. Her to a doting husband and they have four 240 the bidding ended and we all clapped. the local vintage car rally for many years. pointing at my finely drawn illustration largesse for their kind-heartedness in the daughter had been playing at being a children. I hadn’t thought she was that The victor looked about 80, I wondered I spoke to Sheila about my purchase and making a derogatory comment. form of the mug and the cup and saucer. shopkeeper with crockery and Agnes way inclined. It didn’t seem right and it how long he would live to enjoy his and agreed to send her a picture of the He chose coffee, far too much milk These arrived snuggly swathed in tissue discovered that another one that she had seemed rather personal information to purchase. mug for her to show it to Dennis. That in my view, and sat with his gang. paper, boxed with care, gift wrapped been using in place of her plastic tea set vouchsafe to an unknown man. I made evening I had a response. Elderly friends I was very uncomfortable about the with a short note of thanks signed simply, had a chip in it and decided that it was notes on the books that interested me and I bought my books, cheaper than I of theirs, also car enthusiasts, owners way he held me; gripping me round the Devonshire. The mug and cup became too dangerous to keep so put it in the wandered over to see which specimen expected. Lot 190 was announced “A of a 1925 Rolls Royce, remembered an middle, not using the handle properly. part of their London to Brighton Day bin. At least she and her husband had of pulchritude had attracted Wictoria’s ceramic mug”, I looked up. I was bid up incident at the weekend rally in 1938. Call me old-fashioned.... ritual. I found the note preserved by a cup each to drink from in their aged attention. However, as I approached, she to £6, a new person bid £7 and I won it On the Saturday night, after merriment It was unpleasant the way he gulped Granny in the pantry among the store of years. She kept them in a top shelf so turned and asked if I had seen everything for £8. It turned out to be a 1950s cream- on the rally site involving copious his coffee and dribbled down my side green tomato chutney and blackcurrant that the grand children could not break I wanted. When I nodded, she said “Let’s glazed transfer-printed mug with an amounts of alcohol, the vehicle owners leaving unpleasant stains. jam. the two remaining treasures. This was a go”. image of a motorist. The next morning, retired to bed, many of them taking He needed to be taught a lesson. I keep the note too. Granny and successful ploy and they remained intact As I drove back, I decided her Wictoria saw it standing on the table. Her taxis to local hotels. A few remained on I waited for my chance. He spread his Grandpa always wondered whereabouts throughout their childhood years, and extra-marital inclinations were none of normally dour face broke into a big smile. site, in caravans. obviously new map over the table and I in Devonshire the travelers hailed from, now that they were adults the two cups my business so I didn’t ask. Wictoria is “I love her. Isn’t she wonderful ? Thank At around 3.30a.m. the owner of a flipped in his hand so that all the coffee I am sure they never knew who their and saucers appeared to be safe from interested in antiques – her grandfather you.” It was then that I realised, with vintage MG was awakened by the sound left was deposited neatly across the map, benefactor was, if they had, I know further damage. in Poland had a collection and she asked relief, that ‘she’ was really ‘it’ and she of a purring engine. He got up and saw running merrily down the folds. With an Granny would have trumpeted the It was at the tea table that they had me whether I liked anything. I told her hadn’t been unfaithful, after all. that his friend’s Aston Martin was being oath he slammed me down on a nearby tidings far and wide. been drinking the last sweet cuppa of about the children’s books and said I slowly driven off site, by a man he did table and grabbed paper napkins to mop the evening when her husband lurched would buy if they went cheaply enough. Peter Munro not recognise. Still in his pyjamas, he up. Sue Hewitt forward in pain when he had a heart She said “I liked lot 190, a pottery mug, dashed out, jumped into his car and I was relieved when the cafe owner attack and scooped it off the table top will you bid for me ?” “How much ?” I AN UNCONSCIOUS ACT followed the Aston Martin, which left quietly collected me. I didn’t want that as he fell. She called an ambulance then asked. “Not more than £10.” I explained the site and proceeded to drive more bloke to take it out on me. In fact he tried to resuscitate him and was glad that about buyer’s premium and she thought A CUPFUL OF MEMORIES quickly along the adjacent lane and onto seemed to be blaming one of his mates the paramedics arrived quickly and took for a while, then said “£9 plus premium.” “Unfortunately, Nurse, Mr the nearby main road. A rather dramatic and it looked as if there might be a him away, but it was too late. Greenham’s reaction to colour is not chase began, and the MG eventually punch-up. Old Agnes poured the boiling water Her thoughts brought her back to “Who” asked the lady in the green necessarily an indication of recovery. You overtook the Aston Martin and blocked I was well out of it. into the fine china cup sitting on the present time. She took another sip and hat sitting on the other side of navy see, red will often draw a response from its path by swinging across the road in Shortly afterwards they all left still matching scalloped saucer. She shuffled wondered if she and the final cup would jacket, “do you want to throttle and why even the least lucid of patients.” front of it. The offending driver jumped arguing. Good riddance. to the table and eased her creaking both end their lives together; after all ?” “Mr Kitchen, the auctioneer, of course. “But he seems so drawn to it. Like he out and began to run but was caught by Now…methinks I see a nice vintage carcase into the cushioned chair. The they were both quite old. At the rate we’re going he won’t get to wants to touch it. Should I pass it to him?” his pursuer, who performed a Citizen’s Jaguar xk120 driving into the car-park. sweet Earl Grey eased her thirst. my lots before lunchtime. He begins at “No. Most definitely not. He should Arrest, tying the thief’s wrists with his That’s more like it: I’ll get serious respect She stared at the cup and placed it Dougie Morrison £1, regardless of the item’s value and it be sleeping. Keep an eye on him and pyjama cord. He bundled the man into from them.’ back in the recess of the saucer, as her takes time; my time, your time, his time, fetch me immediately if there is any his MG and drove to the hotel where mind cast back to the time that she first everybody’s time. Time is money, you change in his condition.” UNEXPECTED LOVE his friend was sleeping. He roused the Ronnie Price received it. Then it was in a set of six that know.” “Of course, Doctor.” landlord and the three men restrained she was given for her wedding present Doctor Nelson left the room, leaving the thief, locking him, bound and from her parents. It was a great start to “Sometimes I want to throttle him, “Lot 171: a pair of World War Nurse Gentry to attend to the patient. gagged, in a spare room. married life she thought at the time, at other times I want to pick him up and I medals plus a naval badge.” Mr The souvenir mug had been gifted by a Early the following morning the least she and her new husband would shake him until his buttons fall off”. Kitchen’s cataloguing was generally friend to remind Mr Greenham of his THE EILDON TREE 40 COMMUNITY SCOTTS TREASURE'S Issue 25. Winter / Spring 2015 41 COMMUNITY THE ABBOTSFORD GASOLIERS days as a member of the Vintage Car disturbed for a very long time. Mary come together in Oliver Eade’s young and queens Club. Even though the bright red sports found a box of documents and letters adult novel. Oliver says he writes for Who looked out upon noble oceans car emblazoned across the mug was a which she patiently worked through. himself — as a child, young adult Only some remain. Converted. In the dubiously rendered caricature, this had Eventually at the bottom of the pile was and adult, so something of him is in When Cook’s men found the Sandwich drawing room, been a thoughtful gift for a comatose a very well written letter dated 1843. everything he writes, with The Terminus’ Islands, one unlikely sun rises amongst miniature man - one intended to encourage a Although the ink was rather faded Mary Gary much like him when the same age. When the Thaddeuscame and Bingham suns. positive response on awakening. could just read it. Hints of power, politics, an expenses saw lands Taps let their rain of lit gas. Made in the “Is it the car you want to see? Shall I ‘ To Miss Gwendoline...... scandal and a relationship under stress cellar pass it to you? Do you want to hold it?” In essence the letter said that come out in Dorothy Bruce’s readings Of savages needing God. Then, it sang of in the time of Scott, there is no supply: Mr Greenham’s hand began to Gwendoline, the black servant girl, from The Seaweed Cage, highlighting bounty a man must invent everything stoking tremble as he tried to reach for the mug. had given birth to a mixed race baby SEVEN BOOKS SEVEN AUTHORS one character’s fixation with beach and In sandalwood and hibiscus bloom, a a furnace with endless coal. Nurse Gentry walked across the girl fathered by the son of the large EVENT AT BORDERS BOOK seaweed; another’s with slugs. beauty TH room to the adjustable table where the cotton plantation owner for whom FESTIVAL 13 JUNE 2014 Pat Mosel relates how Jerusha, who Reflections on the salon ceiling – a mug stood. She picked it up and held she worked. They did not wish to have has reinvented herself as a lady with In lava, mist, the scent of the sea: now it lightbox it towards Mr Greenham who became their reputation tarnished so she was We arrive in Melrose’s Harmony tricks, finds her routine disturbed by sings of loss Contemporary of the regent’s pavilion increasingly agitated at the sight of it. forced to marry a black servant boy. Garden clutching umbrellas, a box heavy the unearthing of a body in her garden And exile, how we dispossess with its oriental “Here. Do you want to look at it?” She Gwendoline and Joseph were then sold with books, a pull-up banner, cameras, somewhere near the festival location. sunbursts and palm trees. Misleading. held it close to Mr Greenham’s hand. to a tobacco plantation owner across and pulling a two-weeks-in-the-sun- From Jerusha’s Tricks she reads of love, its Stories, myths, legends, history, Feminine. Without warning, Mr Greenham the border. Harsh times Mary thought. sized suitcase full of bits and pieces. meaning and a character’s assertion that, The world, ourselves. Let it tell its story: The Chinese wallpaper, a gift from a struck at the mug and sent it crashing to In consideration for her loyal service This is the fourth Borders Book ‘Without love, I am at peace. With love, I cousin and hand-painted, the floor. Gwendoline had been given a set of Festival at which Borders Writers’ am in the wilderness.’ Lei niho palaoa, the melody is coated now with gaseous exudations “Doctor! Doctor! Quickly!” cups and saucers that she had always Forum has had a slot. This year we are 1950s Ireland is the setting for Iona Flows like the ocean, softly, gently, under a cloudy blue sky. Doctor Nelson entered the room admired. Subsequently Mary found them featuring seven members with books Carroll’s Crying Through the Wind, the wisely. accompanied by a woman. He looked carefully preserved in a cardboard box, published in the previous twelve months. book inspired by characters met when, Brian Gourley Gas smells bad. The nauseous price of at the broken pieces of china on the handed down by successive generations, Further information on these can be having wandered from the outback of her first sight. SOPHIA’S HARP floor and at Mr Greenham who was which she had despatched to the UK. downloaded as a booklet from www. native Australia, she landed in the west No one but Scott could tolerate its smoky now reclining peacefully, his eyes firmly Further research proved interesting and borderswritersforum.org. of Ireland. Bernard brings Annie home torpor. closed. established that Gwendoline was Mary’s The lineup for the evening is: as his wife after a visit to London, but she “Papa has got us a most delightful new At table though, virtual – we must “Nurse, this is Mrs Greenham. She’s grandmother of five generations ago. Katharine Tiernan: Place of Repose: A finds his older brother Mick strangely harp from London the other day. It and imagine the delight -gasoliers convert just been explaining to me why her This, with intermarriages, would account tale of Saint Cuthbert’s last journey attractive, engendering guilt in a woman the stand for the books cost £119, so you glitter husband may have been so interested in for her skin and hair colour. Mary felt Robert Leach (with drawings by Joy with strong Catholic faith. may think that it is a very handsome Into cool diamonds. They drip light the mug.” rather pleased about this information. Parker): Minor Chats Our final author whisks us back to thing” (letter from Sophia [Scott], then becomes a curtain raised at the “It’s the car, you see.” Said Mrs To think that her forbears had found the Oliver Eade: The Terminus childhood with her collection of short November 25, 1817) theatre, Greenham. “It’s the same colour as the strength of mind and courage to survive Dorothy Bruce: The Seaweed Cage stories and poems on family relationships, a game over dinner. A cabbage white. one that hit him.” the cruel and harsh treatment that her Pat Mosel: Jerusha’s Tricks love and loss, reading one set in Neidpath Dearest Daughter, research had uncovered. Returning to Iona Carroll: Crying through the Wind: Castle. Anita John likes to explore How it entranced But two hours on in the evening even a Tim Nevil England she looked forward to displaying The Story of Oisin Kelly themes from various angles and different To see your fingers rich man her newly acquired china which would Anita John: Child’s Eye points of view. Stories and poems in Dance like wood nymphs could spare their insidious discomfort enhance her collection. Unfortunately Child’s Eye ‘chat’, as in Robert Leach’s while the perceptive FULL CIRCLE in transportation one cup and saucer had Seven BWF authors pitted against book. Over Erard’s strings. Hogg wryly complains instead of a been broken. Mary thought she could the stiff opposition of Jon Snow (of The hour passes quickly, and before On that March evening painful recognisable brightness. Mary was finally traced. She was never replace these but when browsing Channel 4 News fame) and the finalists we realise it the event is over. We pack up Your countenance The harsh scour raking gentle features now in America having been informed in a charity shop she spotted similar ones. in The Walter Scott Prize, yet we have and leave the marquee to be made ready Shone in the black and gold. into high definition: every pore, that she was the beneficiary of her late Would they match because her china had attracted a good audience, looking eager for Kirsty Wark’s late evening event. every defect. Facial hair revealed grandmother’s estate. Mary, an orphan, come all the way from the States? The to hear our hand picked words in poetry In the garden, with its backdrop of The notes flowed like the Tweed in spring, had not known her grandmother but only way to find out was to look. Close and prose. Melrose’s ancient abbey and the Eildon When you played those six ballads like Swift’s coarse ropes; she was anxious to trace her roots. She inspection showed that not only did the Russell Bruce, Chair of BWF, Hills, the rain has passed, leaving a warm Over claret and whisky clothing rarely laundered now garish looked down at the skin on her arms, colour and design match but it bore the launches the evening before Katharine June evening, a smell of damp, bruised For Ticknor the Bostonian; spattered with the grease of appetite pale brown; then she pulled her fingers same date and stamp. Tiernan reads a passage about St grass, and seven satisfied authors. and the make-up of women designed through her tight dark curly hair. She She learned, later, that a lot of china Cuthbert’s funeral from her book A Place He proclaimed he’d never heard a music for candlelight play had always wondered why she was a made in the Staffordshire potteries from of Repose. Although Katharine grew up Dorothy Bruce As fine in all his days on earth. a melting mask. little different from other members of 1793 was exported to America. Her china close to Lindisfarne, the inspiration for It was enough to make anyone the family. Soon after arriving she set then, had come full circle. her book came from a trip to the British Blush in your presence Scott had no sense of smell to work trying to sort all the possessions Library in London where items that SCOTTS TREASURE'S But he knew how things looked. When that were now hers and which she hoped Pat Watts had belonged to the saint grasped her When Lady Hume demanded Rob Roy. the gasworks packed up would aid her research. This was an imagination. ROYAL NECKLACE/LEI NIHO PALAOA You ran across to me the only peace of the evening and as an opportunity not to be missed. The Kelso Writers meet fortnightly at 2.30 Sounds, scents and sights of India And I told you to play open window carried the reek After many hours she had found pm – 4.30 pm on Tuesday afternoons at the come alive as Robert Leach reads his It hangs on this rain-darkened wall; Any other ballad right out away to Tweed’s soft sound and nothing to help her mission, then Abbey Row Community Centre, Kelso. poems of a journey around the country. This elegy for a Hawaii that fell, night. accidentally she stumbled on a blocked www.kelsowritersworkshop.blogspot.com His written words ‘chat’ in his book with That could be found like Waverley. Candles must be lit now, and fire a tired up door. Managing to get this released, and Facebook at Kelso Writers Workshop. the drawings of Joy Parker. Minor Chats A sperm whale tooth on a ring Ticknor listened to your Johnnie Faa, man to her surprise, behind it was a flight of recalls the similar experiences of two Of hibiscus fibre and women’s hair. A He is back in America tinkering with volumes after dark. steps. These opened at the bottom into people expressed in different artforms. thing And writes to ask after you. a large store. Dust and cobwebs were a Time travel into the twenty third Bridget Khursheed clear indication that nothing had been century and the London Underground Of majesty around the necks of kings Brian Gourley THE EILDON TREE 42 COMMUNITY Issue 25. Winter / Spring 2015 43 COMMUNITY THE WRITING SLOOP with a pride that say’s, I too write books, Tollbooth keys, wrote the tales that haunt the house that And held it in ma haund Watches, weighs, my every move Holding centre stage on the fireside wall, a blunderbuss and Raeburn’s portrait Scott built. And it is cauldlik an auld haussbane Quiet, kind, but proprietorial. On a polished expensive mahogany desk hangs a portrait of Scott’s son, he pouts with dogs, Camp and Percy. Against This is the key that sat in the lock that And ma wee haundis cauld and chill With my wary black brown French eyes Sits a wooden and leather sloop bold and tall, invasion locked the door that sealed the prison And ma wee hertis stopped and still and tastes Through the large window silver light posing in uniform alongside his grey he bought up land, transformed his house that barred the prisoners all shaven and And ma wee song maunend An exotic fish in alien Tweed water. filters dapple, and furiously wrote while drawing all shorn that sat in court before the sheriff A changeling noo lives in ma steid Casting long shadows o’er obscure words under architectural themes of Roslyn about him. that wrote the tales that haunt the house And sups at mither’sbriest Broken English grates against gauche A mysterious, imaginative magnet Chapel. And though it’s all still there he barely that Scott built. And I live in a bonny green bower Border accents Inspiring Sir Walter Scott works lived This is the skull that hangs in the hall And never mair will rest Suspicions of a warring British nation. Dentil cornice bands above the book two decades at his beloved Abbotsford. that houses the treasures that hold the O if eeseithe bonny taidstane Despite my lovely view to the Northwest Cathie Forbes shelves, key to unlock the sheriff that wrote the Will siller set for luck How I sometimes miss my homeland surround and Imprison grotesques and Jane Aldous tales that haunt the house that Scott built. Keep it frae your bonny wee bairn France elves, This is the spell that lives in the book that Or your pare hertmaunbrik Crave excitement, artifice, refinement. KEY chiselled in stone glaring fearful sits on the shelf that lives in the cupboard grimaces, THE WRITING CABINET all locked and barred that’s filled with Jules Horne Oh, these petites-bourgeoisies I turned in the lock where a thousand peering from a celestial ceiling, ugly tales that don’t exist except for the Abbotsford is grand, but a construction fingers held me tight, firmly gripped and gurning faces, ‘Afflavit Deus et dissipantur’ sheriffs that live in the city that own the Inspired by Scott’s Treasures and the Abbots- A bold statement wrapped in la mystique. moved my head, my long, slim body while mischievous cherubs on chairs ‘God blew and they were scattered’ books that sit on the shelves all locked ford toadstone, which mothers borrowed to Scots Baronial bricks and mortar sliding smoothly, oiled and sleek, turning recline and barred that inspired the sheriff that protect their newborns from sorcery. transcends round, rolling swiftly, whirling and upon carved arms in leafy vines all (Inscribed on a silver plate on wrote the tales that make the house that Buttresses the personal, the social, twirling, until I suddenly stopped twisted and twined. Sir Walter Scott’s writing cabinet) Scott built. political. BONNIE PRINCE (IN MINIATURE) with a click – and opened the door This is the spell that inspired the sheriffs The writer, controller, auteur to let him in An octagonal table in the room’s middle, This is how it might have been. that live in the city and own the books all His portrait will always be larger than holds trinkets and treasures for eyes to Sixty-three galleons of theSpanish locked and barred to build a spire to sing This discreet portrait of the Bonnie mine Edwina Lugg dwindle. Fleet once shipwrecked by fire-ships and soar to mark the sheriff that wrote Prince My ever changing face frozen in this dark A domed glass bay looking over the lake, and stormsafter the Armada’s defeat the tales that make the house that Scott The framed small squall of vivid colour picture no matter the season a breath for to take, were cast up on to Albion’s shores. built. Saxton – not renowned Raeburn or THE HEAD OF ROBERT THE BRUCE a quiet niche for contemplation to write And picked from the tangle of flotsam This is the spell that came to the woman Suggests more than casual sympathy Landseer or read, some waterlogged and splintered timbers, that stood in the house that Scott built. For a cause or a writer’s own mythology. Expression lacks natural youthful Sitting upon the mantle shelf, while nearby runs the rush of The River came many years later, into the hands flamboyance. Is a cast of that man himself. Tweed. of a cabinet maker. These pieces of Jules Horne The ’45 rebellion: salvaged mahogany and calamanderthen Curated Oui, he observes me now Looking at this skull I’m feeling, The background tempered by clàrsach’s crafted into a legend, into the finest of Displayed Senses, feels my unease THE TAIDSTANE a sense of ancestral healing. enchantment, writing boxes, Contained? Knows I’ll surely put him and the under foot on the ground lies soft all the way from fifteen eighty-eight into a ballad children first. Scotland’s crown was John Comyn’s rite, sumptuous carpet. the Regencyera. Sometimes a story is In the crisp, yellow pages of Heart of How he disregards our constant fears and but Bruce slew him with premeditated Everything Scott’s ears heard and eyes too good to forget, becomes as real as an She pit the taidstane tae her neck Midlothian worries might. saw, exquisite, writing cabinet. And tied it as a charm Problem His mushrooming debts, fame and exudes wealth through wonderment and That her braw bairn micht never dee Reasoned reputation On that day was committed a mortal sin, awe. Jane Aldous Nor never come tae herm Reconciled? Is slowly killing us all– Anne, Sophia leaving the Comyn bloodline running Intellect bathed in imagination, lameness O mither, whit’s yon bonny taidstane and me. thin. unimpeded, Wi siller set sae grand? Condensed to a single portrait for this man’s mind was well tilled and THE HOUSE THAT SCOTT BUILT O mither mine, giemei the stane A dynasty placed squarely in the past But the loyal distaff, female line Lying cold on that Kirk floor, carefully seeded. Tae haud in ma wee haund Left snug on a hall wall for posterity? Will endure, hold everything together closed for good my Royal door. This is the house that Scott built. Oh no braw bairn, the bonny taidstane Carry him into the glorious future Eileen Cummings These are the tales that haunt the house Maun stay aboot ma neck Julian Colton Support his legacy beyond time’s clouded I do not dwell on what might have been, that Scott built. Sae that ee will never dee horizon. for there is no envy in being Queen. This is the sheriff that wrote the tales that And never hae ill luck Oh, the irony, the paradox LADY SCOTT, NÉE CHARLOTTE THE FLIBBERTIGIBBET OF A HOUSE haunt the house that Scott built. O mither, whit’s yon bonny taidstane We ghosts persist by mutual association. MARGARET CHARPENTIER (1770- Eileen Cummings This is the chair all battered and worn Wisiller set sae bricht? 1826): ‘I’ll be safe when I’m enclosed’ Sir Walter that held the sheriff that wrote the tales O mither mine, giemei the stane Julian Colton PORTRAIT BY JAMES SAXTON (FL. Scott’* that haunt the house that Scott built. Or ma wee hert will brik 1795-1828) SIR WALTER SCOTT’S LIBRARY (Sir Walter Scott’s motto carved into the This is the box that sat in the pulley that Oh no braw bairn, the bonny taidstane RAEBURN’S SCOTT PORTRAIT’S gateway at Abbotsford.) raised the blade that severed the necks Maun stay aboot ma breist RESPONSE TO THE RETURN OF The library is full of musty pages, that left the heads all bloody and torn Sae that ee will never dee They have hung me back in the House CHARLOTTE’S PORTRAIT TO THE locked away behind gilded cages, Within the bounds of his rambling that haunt the tales that haunt the house Andnever be laid tae rest again. CHINESE DRAWING ROOM they encapsulate time, making history, residence he assembled books in that Scott built. O mither, whit’s yonbonny taidstane Such a relief after Visitor Centre heat. (IN HAIKU) telling tales of woe and fantastical thousands, countless treasures, This is the bairn the newly born that Wisiller set sae fair? Here I can breathe, in this airy, light- mystery, his talismans, many intimate, some fake: wears the stone all shiny and worn that O mither mine, giemei the stane filled room bygone days that still remain, Byron’s urn full of Greek bones, a lead comes from the toad that doesn’t exist Or I’ll no sing naemair Amid the beautiful, green Chinese Ah, so there you are run through the print these books musket ball from Culloden, Rob Roy’s that lives in the tale that haunts the house Oh no braw bairn, the bonny taidstane wallpaper They managed to bring you back contain. skean-dhu, that Scott built. Maun be your mither’s charm Pneumatic pump, gaslight and I missed you, my dear. a black and gilt harp by Sebastian Erard, This is the oatcake all forlorn that fills the Sae that ee will never dee chandelier. A bust of Scott towards Shakespeare a skull sporran that lies in the case that graces Nor never come tae herm And the dogs they too looks, cast from Robert the Bruce, two the room that inspired the sheriff that O mither I’ve tane the bonny taidstane The great man himself on the central wall Wondered where Charlotte had gone. THE EILDON TREE 44 COMMUNITY Issue 25. Winter / Spring 2015 45 COMMUNITY TOADSTONE AMULET Camp regards your face Someone in the blue future will criticise of putti, flower and fruit. the chestnut trees, Pass me by if you will. Forget you are just a mortal man the little steps, uneven now, lead to the With dog affection Whose features will be carved in I would have putti at my elbows I am water’s edge Armed chair, with soft Sitting, hiding my club foot smoothest marble and in my palms, putti embracing toadstone where you would have landed from the cracked leather, For all of this time. Like William Shakespeare’s and perhaps on the stretcher at my heels. ugly, ancient rocking boat, outturned feet, my own. a simple against poison and plague and set your hand upon that slender, I supported the man. I did some writing Should my head nod as I relax, rusting rail? Dark with age I And more deep contemplation imagining the slow unfolding I am your old house was sleeping, eyes closed reflect his moods. While you were away Julian Colton of Scott’s latest tale, an amulet towards the sun prized above jewels and thick yew hedges hugged us while His hands rested You know I’m thankful the putti on their chiselled leaves a protection from evil we sat on my arms, his fingers You were a very good wife would nudge me awake – time- and watched the ponies graze the sprang alive, took up the quill. And fine mother too. CHINESE WHISPERS travelling - I am greening grass. My skin groaned under the weight to hear their master’s voice. shaped as a heart I could almost hear your footfalls whisper as he leant towards the desk Yes, I know, I know PLANTING FLOWERS ON THE mottled blood-red as you passed and wrote. The things that I put you through EASTERN EMBANKMENT, Putti: cherubs edged in leaves of silver along the path that runs around the It has been a trial a poem by Po Chu-I, translated by Arthur house... T. reith Waley, is quoted below in italics. Laurna Robertson I am trees along the river banks are full, and A man has one life around her throat pale lush green, CHEZ WALTER He grasps opportunity CHUNG-CHOU 819 when a woman bright buttercups and daisies weave THE SPEAK-A-BIT Or falls by wayside goes down into childbirth patterns through the grass, (Charlotte’s thoughts on Scott’s green ram’s Banished to Chung-Chou, Po Chu-I the river mutters over stones tossed by horn snuff mull) He has his deep drive bought fruit trees Mr Coutts can knock at the door as loud I lie years of flow Or he has nothing at all and planted by the stream ... all mixed up as he likes. on the infant‘s chest and flood, and flood again, until all is You held it in your hand, This I do believe. together, I heard his horse clatter up and sent Tom - stone on new skin - polished, smooth, ram’s horn polished to jade shine, apricot, peach, plum, a hundred trees, a Purdie down until the mother‘s milk floods in and yet another year has passed. prised up leaf and thistle lid, So many questions: thousand branches. to say the maister's no' in his study. reached inside and pinched a peck Did you enjoy the journey? Wandering bees discovered these, sweet He'll not find me. Laurna Robertson Pim Claridge of baccy marrow, your pride; And did you love me? birds came to roost. your neb-sniff of ideas, milled fine. I've stepped into the Speak-a-bit, where Attar of rose, clove, and jasmine, NAPOLEON’S WRITING SET WHERE CORDED TASSELS SWING Ah, yes, I suppose ABBOTSFORD 1822 I come scented your head with fragrant stories. I always put myself first. to call up dialogue, changing places and But now the mull lies beached But then, don’t all men? Hugh Scott brought hand-painted voices Although Napoleon’s pen case and his perhaps you sat here once inside your ‘nicknackatory’, wallpaper from China to field both sides of lively conversations blotter and looked on deep green against pale Toujours votre constant, My womb-like study: for Lady Scott's drawing-room. or to speak in private with messengers Lie under glass in the library at stones mon chéri. Did debt and books shut you out Turquoise-green walls from the town. Abbotsford and hedges, clipped and secretive, and For eternity? flowered with unfading blossom on trees the letters that commanded Empire were roses Yvonne Crossley visited in a perpetual I am closed inside the Speak-a-bit. Six all sent long ago. Through the window sprawled from arches mellowed in the Julian Colton summer by Paradise Flycatchers and carved saltire panels, a meadow unrolls flat to the edge of sun? MARY’S QUAICH Crimson Sunbirds. a window and door form an octagon no Tweed a hush lies deep where old leathered larger than a bed. a rectangle of green silk velvet, books MEN OF MARBLE If Po Chu-I had stumbled on these scenes These carved posts are said to come from embroidered with grasses etched in gold, still miss your feel, your You never supped from me, my lady, (WORDSWORTH CONTEMPLATES he would not the Queen o' Scots' worked in gold wire and fringed with touch, But you knew me once, lang syne, SIR WALTER BY THE ETTRICK AND have felt lonely; the river bank, garden four-poster in Jedburgh where she lay beads of gold while in your evening-shadowed hall Sheltered beneath my boughs. TWEED) terrace and tea pagoda close to death the shining river netted in gold filigree a late sun slants on silver swords are populated with lovers playing lutes, after her jaunt to Hermitage. and in spandrels within scrolling foliate, still wrapped loud in battle songs Scott welcomed me, set me on display, Someone in the blue future will criticise nurse maids and infants, a ribbon of Napoleonic bees. They swarm beside steel helmets, spears and guns, Treasured my carved history, Believe this is mere gardeners taking instructions and old There's a tale needs telling. between life and the underworld, the and shields embossed with brass My connections to you, Queen Mary. Swirling space, distance, nerve ends men playing Go. I'll find the words, the wind, the gallop bees and horns, from Africa where air lies Hydrogen, stones, atoms. here in the Speak-a-bit. from Mycenean tombs, bees from the warm “Ay, fair and stately tree,” he bade you say, Laurna Robertson tomb on sunbaked, night-dimmed plains. “There thou standest, gay and goodly...” Someone in the blue future will criticise The Speak-a-bit is the space off Scott's of Childeric the Frank, dry, warm, beside the window, framed by curtains “Though thou hearest the sounds of war...” Think the very worst of you study and under the stairs in the turret at golden faded red These flawed pieces of prose and verse, ITALIAN BAROQUE CHAIR Abbotsford the immortal bees a pair of heavy corded tassles swing I may be old now but I will never die; your and whisper secrets of another age, Ingrained within my growth rings, Vain efforts, prayers, desires by Andrea Brustolon in the Library at CLAUSUS TUTUS ERO carved in Lindy Barbour and did the floorboards then as now Hides my weathered chronology. Doubt your sincerity, integrity. Abbotsford an arch above the gate creak beneath the passing feet, as you sat I 'LL BE SAFE WHEN I AM with windows wide to the river’s song Evergreen ripples to be unlocked FOOTFALLS Someone in the blue future will criticise ENCLOSED : Anagram of WALTER as a soft dusk fell, and a pale moon shone? And shared, in welcome or farewell, This flowing water, air If I could sink into the yellow of this SCOTTUS Inside a kindness cup of Craigmillar yew. By empty fields, river, trees, sky chair I put my hand upon the gate that you Pim Claridge How it floats in nothingness I’d gaze beyond the garden to the Tweed. Laurna Robertson once opened years ago Yvonne Crossley Broken promises, sores, blood then walked along the river’s edge below SCOTT’S CHAIR Discarded love, disappointment, despair. The arms are carved in the Venetian style Sir Walter Scott, in his novel The Abbot, from root wood in scrolls and whorls chapter 37, sets Mary Queen of Scots watch- THE EILDON TREE 46 COMMUNITY SCHOOLS Issue 25. Winter / Spring 2015 47 COMMUNITY / SCHOOLS COMMUNITY ing the defeat of her followers at the battle WARD AGAINST WITCHCRAFT GEORGIAN ARMCHAIR IN SCOTT’S of Langside from a yew tree at Crookston (Toadstone Amulet) LIBRARY Castle. Her speech is quoted above. Quaichs were made from both Crookston For one thousand merks you may You’re different. yew and Craigmillar yew. Yew trees are borrow me The arms and feet of other chairs symbols of everlasting life. to place around the sweet, plump turn inwards: enclose and shield. neck of your new-born babe. But you! Your arms stretch away MARY I will protect her from fairies, for I in padmasana, open the heart and cumplurimisaliis am toad lungs killed on wood and what is toad remains toad. I will to send breath to those you love, skull bound with gold thread not the blade-smith’s axe allow spite and sadness to enter her transform into the sure necks translating, by his own hand, cradle. of eagles, ready to face whatever may sovereign relic Wear me and she will not prick her come, hair bone heart-string finger, watchful both left and right. torn eat the poisoned apple, eye-witnesses salvaged impressions be sequestered away in the secrecy of Below your feather-dressed seat circumstance mechanism history night. your four clawed feet all human ornament destroyed at the hold gently onto four round eggs. execution One thousand merks, you say? beads cross wound-colour velvet Am I not worth it? For I am bufonite, Were you Charlotte’s chair? black satin adorned with day’s recess cast from the head of a living toad, placed in ritual on the red-cloth bed. Anita John Dorothy Alexander You have your doubts? cumplurimisaliis as with many others Oh, but I will smooth your brow, [Words of poem all found in Scott’s watch over your whelp while crows Treasures poetry workshops handout.] clamour. Dalgleish Azaria Narda Look! See how they caw, caw overhead, THE WALLACE CHAIR call for a change, a changeling?

Read the oak chair in Walter Scott’s Anita John close room, that one man, done to death by felon hand was guarding well his father’s land. Wallace, SCHOOLS Elderslie Knight, born of a common bond These poems were shortlisted for a local Heather crowded hills and grassy fields to break the cords of Lion’s rule competition hosted by Scottish Borders lure you into a trance, At the crack of and bring such wrath upon himself Youth Legacy Ambassadors to promote dawn emerald grass drips delicately fresh as no-one would wish on anyone else. the Commonwealth legacy themes of a sparkling dew, Then dusk falls like snow Trace the carve of thistle, heather, flourishing, sustainable, connected and onto beautiful Scottish landscape. leaf, rock, active Scotland. All entries were received all that remains now of Robroyston from pupils at Howdenburn Primary Poem 2 by Gareth Williams, P7 House. School, Jedburgh. Stirling keeps his sword, Scotland his heart. BORDERS FROM THE SKY His death place is scarred by BORDERS Smithfield Mart. Abbeys stand alone - only a gust All men adored must also endure Highlands beautiful wildlife, of wind to accompany it. Leaves float hate; wonderful hills. Sheep in scotland, furry through the ocean - forest with a vast sea alive must also die. For all who fall, white artistry. Reivers killed so they of greenery. Leaves rustle the hunters which man can full forgive while he could live. Many farms in scotland with out. Scamper scamper goes the doe over still cries? grounded clouds. the yellow floor. The autumn breeze

Narda Azaria Dalgleish Azaria Narda blows the thistle over the Border only to Anita John Poem 1 by Dylan Riddell, P6 be halted by the rose.

Italicised words are taken from part of the Poem 3 by Keegan McGeown, P6 inscription HEART OF THE BORDERS on the Wallace Chair at Abbotsford House. Stumps and dirt fly everywhere as horses raid the forest, Deer prance in scented green over heavy hearted terrain, THOMAS CLARK KATHLEEN MANSFIELD BIOGRAPHIES Thomas Clark is a Glaswegian writer and filmmaker now based Kathleen Mansfield, a teacher at Galashiels Academy, has in the Scottish Borders. His work has been widely published, been undergoing treatment for cancer. During her treatment and his Glaswegian retelling of Alice in Wonderland was Kathleen decide to document some of her thoughts and feelings. published by Evertype earlier this year. He can be found on the Her submission is from a collection of writing she produced internet at www.thomasjclark.co.uk. during this time. MICHAEL DAVIS JANE PEARN Originally from Plymouth I now live in the southern uplands Jane moved to the Borders from the Isle of Man in 2005. of Scotland with my partner and springer spaniel. I currently Individual poems, stories and articles appear in print or online work as a civil servant in Glasgow. from time to time and she has two published – Matters Arising and Further To. ANN EGAN Ann Egan, a multi-award winning poet, has held many FRANCES ROBSON residencies in counties, hospitals, schools, secure residencies and prisons. Her books are: Landing the Sea (Bradshaw Books); Most of my working life has been in teaching (UK and overseas). The Wren Women (Black Mountain Press); Brigit of Kildare I have been writing and translating for several years, with (Kildare Library and Arts Services and her latest is 2012’s work published. I now live in Edinburgh where I do voluntary Telling Time (Bradshaw Books). She has edited more than translation work (Russian). twenty books including, ‘The Midland Arts and Culture Review’, 2010. COLIN WILL SUE HEWITT Colin Will is an Edinburgh-born poet with a background Sue Hewitt was born in Kent, but has lived in the Scottish in botany and geology. Seven collections of his poetry have Borders for the last 25 years. Her debut novel, The Cunning been published, the latest being The Propriety of Weeding (Red Woman’s Cup was published in March 2014, and she is currently Squirrel Press, 2012). A full-length collection of haibun, The working on her second book. Book of Ways, is due from Red Squirrel in late 2014. he chairs the Board of StAnza, Scotland’s international poetry festival. PHILIP HUTTON Philip Hutton was born in Peebles and has lived on the High Street for thirty-three years. He studied painting at Grays School of Art, Aberdeen, and has exhibited and taught art in the Borders. He is a participant in the School of Poets, based at the Scottish Poetry Library. JENNIFER McROBBIE I’ve been living in Selkirk now less than two years, and I’m already finding the Borders an inspiring place to live and (try to) work. My background is in history, but my first love is writing fiction. DAVID McVEY David McVey teaches Communication at New College Lanarkshire. He has published around 100 short stories, a number of academic papers and non-fiction that focuses on history and the outdoors. He enjoys hillwalking, visiting historic sites, reading, watching telly, and supporting his home- town football team, Kirkintilloch Rob Roy FC.