'A Traveller's Guide to Literary Scotland'

Visit Scotland, in collaboration with the University of Glasgow and The Association for Scottish Literary Studies, has produced this very attractive introductory guide which is available for download from the ASLS site .

The guide displays the writers by region and then provides brief biographies (listed alphabetically) before displaying all the locations on a map.

A very useful, informative & handy publication.

'Listening For The Past'

'On the Machair' and 'Tweed' are two pieces of 'docu-music' composed by Cathy Lane.

Cathy is Co-Director of  CRiSAP (Creative Research into Sound Arts Practice) at the University of the Arts, London. Her article 'Listening For The Past' - 'A composer's ear-lead approach to exploring island culture past and present in the Outer Hebrides' is published in the current issue of the journal Shima and can be read here: Volume 5 Number 1 2011 p114-127.

Enjoy!

Many Thanks...

...to those who have answered my plea for editorial assistance.

I am extremely grateful to you and the first pages will be on their way very soon.

(If anyone else wants to take a peek too, please drop me a line.)

Thanks again,

Back to the 'sgrochladh'...

Editors Wanted!

As a result of several terribly kind people repeating their suggestion that I turn some elements of this blog into something more weighty, like a book, I am devoting my creative(?) energies to that task.

I would really appreciate it if some readers volunteered to take a look at bits and pieces as they slide from my typewriter and glide gracefully into a heap on the floor.

If you can spare a few minutes to help then please send me an email with the word 'HARRIS' as the subject and I will reward you with the odd page now and again.

Please don't be shy!

A short life full of tragedy

Esther Bushnell was born in the final quarter of 1856 in Rugby, Warwickshire and named after her mother, Esther Hearnden, the daughter of a Maidstone 'Hardware Man'. Her father, John Bushnell, was the Blacksmithing son of an Ironmonger, a trade that he too would enter in his own right after taking the family to live in Clapham, London. It may have been the growth of the railway that took the family to Rugby from their roots in Kent and it was certainly near to, what remains to this day, the busiest junction in the whole of the British rail network that the family were to move. It may also have been because John's father, Joseph, had been born in Lambeth and the family may be connected to an earlier London Blacksmith called Bushnell. Esther had an older brother, John, whose birth had been recorded exactly a year before her own and a third child, Lucy, was to follow in the Spring of 1861.

In 1861 the family were living in Clapham Old Town in the now-obliterated Terry's Lane. The first house in the lane was home to a 53 year-old widowed Charwoman, Jane Barrett, and next came her fellow widow, the 78 year-old Butcher, Fanny Terry, after whose late husband's family the lane might well have gained its name? The Bushnells were next and finally Henry Blanche, a 43 year-old Greengrocer, and his family. Just four households suggesting, perhaps, either a short row or two-pairs of opposing buildings? A few years ago I did my best to walk in the steps of the Enumerator but, whilst I believe that I located where the lane once stood, I could not discern any structures extant from the 1860s.

And then Something happened...

Come 1871, mother Esther is in service in the Vicarage in Great Limber, Lincolnshire under the employ of the vicar, Thomas Ffoster Chamberlain who is as uncertain as to whether 'Hester' is married or not as he is as regards the spelling of her name which is particularly odd given his calling.

The children, meanwhile, have been separated with 15 year-old John learning the craft of the Blacksmith under the watchful eye of his widower grandfather in Maidstone whilst the two girls are 'Enderd' or inmates at the North Surrey District School in Penge, details of which can be seen by searching for 'North Surrey' - http://www.workhouses.org.uk/ . It must have been a miserable existence for the two girls, separated from their mother by an untraversable distance and from their father by his apparent disappearance from the Earth.

Worse was to come for in the Spring of 1878 that mother, still all those unaffordable miles away in Lincolnshire, died at the age of 42.

Things took their own brief upturn by 1881 when Esther was under the wing of her Uncle, Frederick William Luffingham, a Master Draper living at 104 Hoxton Street in Shoreditch. As an aside, little or nothing is known of this unusual family name and only slightly more of that of the Hearnden family that connected Esther to it. There may be some distant, in both time and space, religious persecution that led to the appearance of these names in the South-Eastern corner of the Country, and they certainly appear to have associated with other immigrant families in the 'rag trade'.

In addition to her own security, Esther had the satisfaction of knowing that her sister was at the Home and Colonial School Society's Training College for Mistresses in Gray's Inn Road training to be a teacher. Also at this time, their brother John was in Cornwall where he appears twice in the Census of that year! Whether or not he was in Calstock or nearby Higher Dimson, he most certainly was an 'Engineer' or 'Engine (Driver)' and one of many such men responsible for running the steam engines at the mines that employed them.

John married in Maidstone 1883 before returning to Cornwall and starting a family, the first two children being born in that part of the World in 1885 and 1887 but Esther would never see her nephew and nieces for in the Spring of 1884, at the age of 27, she died, the death being registered at Tavistock, Devon, Cornwall. What was she doing in Cornwall? Had she found work there, was she just visiting her brother, or was there some other, perhaps romantic reason for her presence there?

Of course, ordering her death certificate might help answer the question, perhaps she fell ill but I prefer to let my imagination roam and see this most unfortunate young lady being as unlicky in love as she had been in life and, in a grand gesture redolent of late 19thC literature set in the wilds of the West Country, falling not under the ravages of TB but into a disused mine-shaft in despair at her lover's rejection...

Although Esther's life was over, there is one more thing to relate. Lucy did indeed become a teacher and is found in 1891 living with John, his wife and three children in the village of Sandling just a couple of miles North of Maidstone. However, by 1901 the 37 year-old is an Inmate of the  London County Asylum, The Heath, Dartford and her occupation reads 'Schoolmistress', with the word 'Ret' added as an afterthought. I have been unable to discover any further record relating to her, whether it be a marriage, an entry in the 1911 Census or her death.

Maybe I should have called this piece 'Two Lives Full of Tragedy'?

On a somewhat happier note, John and his wife had celebrated 55 years of marriage before she died aged 80 in 1938 and he then followed her a year later when aged 84, the pair having lived for half a century in an idyllic spot near the archaeologically active chalk ridge known as the North Downs and the very attractive village of Boxley.

But that is another story...

Something Happened...

...a fantasy:

In 1861, the family of 28 year-old Ironmonger John Bushnell were living in Terry's Lane, a few hundred yards from The Pentagon, in Clapham Old Town, Wandsworth, Surrey, London, where they had moved to at some point in the preceding five years.

By 1871 Mrs Esther Bushnell was in domestic service for a vicar in Lincolnshire, her daughters were at the North Surrey District School (an outpost of the Wandsworth Workhouse), her son was Smithing with her father-in-law back in her home-town of Maidstone and her husband (the census records her initially as 'Unmarried' but that is crossed-through and replaced with 'Married') has disappeared. Something happened...

Esther, holding 4 year-old Lucy in her arms and with John and Esther ready for school and at her skirts, stood at the step watching the childrens' father John and their Servant, William Jeayes, strolling down the lane away from the leafy centre of the village and towards the sprawling warren of soot-soaked alleys that led to the railway. It was the growth of the iron tentacles in this quiet corner of London that had led them here following the years of living in Rugby. John's work there had been fruitful and their domestic situation had harvested them John and Esther in quick succession. But the pull of the the South had been too strong and it had been decided that being back in John's father's family's home county of Surrey, and near both their sets of parents in Kent, would be better now that a third child was expected. Thus it was that Lucy had arrived in Clapham (pleasing the child's grandfather, even though it wasn't quite Lambeth) and also that John had felt it time to employ a young man to train in the smith's art. William was a pleasant companion who hailed from Northamptonshire but had been working in Rugby for a few months before the family offered him the chance to live with them and work in London. He didn't need to be asked twice.

The two men were in high spirits, this was a boom-time in the area with much planned development, and business was brisk. Ironmongery provided, almost literally, the nuts and bolts of industrialisation and demand was high. Inevitably this led to the occasional short-cut but men such as these respected the materials they dealt with and the forces of the forge in which they toiled. They had no reason to be anything but content as they wove their way past the winding workshops down to the railside building that was John's first and, as it transpired, last, venture.

Witnesses would later say that there was nothing unusual in the mens' manner, no clues in their voices, no hints in their gait, nothing to suggest that that day was in any way exceptional. Many remarked on their passage that morning but not one person could recall seeing them return. In fact, after old Mick, the semi-vagrant, self-styled 'nightwatchman' who had seen them on his morning journey to the first hostelry where he could spend attain some senselessness of oblivion, after Mick's sighting of them just yards from the door to John's shop, nothing more was heard, or seen, smelt or felt, of either man again. The shop was still locked when, as the evening began to fade, Esther had asked her neighbour to sit the children whilst she went to find John and William. She was concerned. Her worry began to grow when she felt the brick at the forge-end of the building and found it to be be as cold as the earth from which the bricks had once been dug. Cold and damp where there should have been the dry warmth from a day's toil. She had peered through the small, coal-webbed panes into the interior and seen a dark emptiness without the normal after-glow of the forge. The chimney had confirmed her fears and she began to run to the railway line that curved gently towards her. She looked between the thinning buildings until, at the edge of this bizarre bazaar of businesses, the lines lay before her. The sun was setting fast, casting long shadows from the myriad poles, and posts, sheds and other structures that lined the tracks. but nowhere were there the shadows of John or William. Neither were there any ragged bundles that might have once been men. There was nothing. A goods train hooted and clanked its way along the furthest track, the engine, streaming steam as its iron muscles pumped and pulled the huge load behind it. As the last wagon passed from sight, Esther turned and ran, her heart pounding with an ache beyond exertion, back towards the lane and the house of the Policeman.

Despite all the search parties, all the railwaymen, all the policemen, all the friends and neighbours who looked throughout the district, all the appeals that both her father and John's father paid for in the newspapers, despite all the prayers offered in the churches, all the crying from the three children, all the half-seen faces and part-heard voices, nothing was ever found to tell what had happened to the two men.

With three children to support and no proof that her husband hadn't simply vanished, Esther was forced to find work and, in the circumstances and with all the nasty rumours of what part she might have played in the vanishings, she was fortunate to find a respectable household happy to have her. However, the price paid was huge for, although her son John was taken under his grandfather's wing as an apprentice smith, the two girls had to go and live in the harsh, unremitting regime of the District School. It broke her heart and Esther died, still in service, in Caistor, in 1878 at the age of 42.

And my interest in this mystery of Terry's Lane? Well, John and Esther had a granddaughter that they never knew, and she was my grandmother...

(Note: The reason for this tale is not simply the disappearance from all the records of John Bushnell, but the simultaneous disappearance from the records of his servant, William Jeayes, too...)

William Jeyes was born in 1843/4 in Weedon, Northamptonshire and was the 4th of the 6 children of Cabinet Maker John Jeyes who by 1851 was a Widower living with his children in Weedon Beck. Oddly, in 1901 a William Jeyes, Platelayer, born in Weedon in about 1847, appears in London complete with a wife and 7 children aged from 1 to 20 and I can locate the family in 1881 too when William's birth is given as 1848. It is possible that this is the same person but I cannot find the marriage record, nor William himself in 1871 and 1891. This, together with the discrepancy in ages, and a little poetic licence, is why I consider it possible that both men disappeared simultaneously...)

Scales

I recall the first time I saw familiar territory on a 1:50 000 OS map; land that I thought I knew well in its 1:63, 600 guise seemed stretched, less concentrated in its complexity, barren, almost. This artefact of enlargement, caused because the move to metric hadn't been accompanied by much revision of the data, took a while to overcome. Metrication made sense mathematically but to someone who's map-reading had been honed (OK, subjected to slight improvement!) over several spotty-faced years poring over the familiar density of the old 'one-inch' maps the newcomers were an unwelcome intrusion.

Sometime later I saw my first 1:25 000 map whilst walking in one on Britain's National Parks and I couldn't read it. It was as incomprehensible to me as a text written in a non-Latin alphabet. I can only suppose that my previous internalisation of the 'one-inch' format, which had been to such an extent that I could take-in a scene and imagine the ground lying before me, was sufficiently complete to be completely confused by the unfamiliar details, and space, on the super-scale impostor.

The relevance of all this? Well, all maps are approximations, compromises between the real World in all its dimensions and the paper plane created by cartography. All I had done was to embrace one such approximation and map it onto my mind, forsaking all others. It was a skill, but not one that was as easy to transfer as might be expected. Whilst the 1:25 000 map is a wonder of cartography (although desperately in need of revision), giving the walker hitherto unexpected detail of his surroundings anywhere in the whole of Britain, I still find the 1:50 000 easier to empathise with (my middle-age eyesight certainly no-longer finds the move from 1:63 600 such a pain) and I think the reason for that is context.

I was investigating fancy GPS gear with downloadable maps and realised that one would still need a paper map (and a compass, of course!) in order to make sense of the few square inches of illuminated LEDs. The 'bigger picture' that shows the lie of the land, that puts our place in a wider expanse, that reminds us that it is an appreciation of the whole that truly makes sense of the particular spot in which we are located, is what makes the 1:50 000 map such a treasure.

Oh, and if the option existed, I would still prefer a 'one-inch' map, with contours in feet and, preferably, at the same price as they were 40 years ago!

Notes:

A fascinating site on the development of OS maps - http://www.fieldenmaps.info/info/

An excellent source of downloadable (£) OS mapping - http://www.mapyx.com/

The Knitter

The clicking of her knitting and the soft purrs from the cat beside her raised the room from silence. Even the fire, to which she had added her last peat, was smoking soundlessly. Outside the wind had dropped from the savage storm of the afternoon as if, too, was readying itself for bed.

Her fingers moved themselves along invisible paths in the air, paths they knew so well from years of treading, paths that turned the soft spun fibres into warm, patterned, stockings for others feet to wear when treading much more solid paths.

She had no need for light, save that from the fire, for the moon was full and beaming through the small window at the knitter and her gently breathing cat. Her eyes, no longer as sharp and piercing as in her youth, were not needed for her work so she allowed them to rest and as they did so her mind, which retained those very same qualities that time had drained from her sight, drifted back through the years...

Her father's voice, as he tended to the nets beside his boat, warning her too late of the wave that bravely ventured further up the shore than its fellows, washing the sand from her feet and wetting the hem of her dress with its cold, salty waters. As the wave slunk back to the sea, it dragged a strand of seaware across her toes and she squealed as the thin fibres tickled at her feet. A laugh from her mother, who was further up the beach, carrying the swathed bundle of her baby brother was joined by one from her father and she, embarrassed by the silliness of a moment before, joined her parents mirth...

The needles clicked on.

The young woman was the first to see the postie approaching. They never got mail, it being of little use to her parents and she not having yet met the friends whose travels would render letters necessary. The man saw her but did not wave, confirming her fears as if any confirmation was required. She ran towards the house, reaching the door just after the man had been greeted by her parents, her father slumping, her mother preparing a tear, and all this before the man had passed the piece of paper to them. All four went inside, her father taking the letter from the postie and a penknife from his pocket, she holding her mother's hand as tightly as on the day they had waved her brother off, the brother that the letter, which the postie was now reading, confirmed she would never see again...

The needles clicked on.

There were children round her feet, a seemingly endless thicket of nieces and nephews, the fruits of her two much older sisters marriages. She had never asked her parents why there was this gap between the first two girls being born and her own arrival, the five fallow years being those of famine when many a child had perished, some at birth, some due to their mother's dessication and others through disease and malnutrition. It was something to be borne but not discussed.

The children, for whom being gathered together in one place was a novelty, were excited but respectful. The coffin on the table in the neighbouring room told the story of this rare communion. Her father had died some years earlier, taken by the sea and kept in its unforgiving grip, and now her mother lay next door, her body finally succumbing to the gnawing from within that the knitter had nursed her through for several years. Her mother had blamed herself for her youngest daughter's spinsterhood but, in truth, the lack of young men since the war and the effect upon her mother of losing her only boy-child in that hateful conflict had turned her away from bearing children.

She had always enjoyed her work and, as she was one of the best-known knitters on the island (her work had even won medals at exhibitions on the mainland), she could provide not only for herself but also for her widowed mother. They had been joined for a while by one of her nieces, partly to help her sister who had recently added another little boy to her family and partly to give the girl training. In fact she had proved a diligent pupil and almost as skilled as her ageing aunt and this, together with her liveliness and loveliness, had meant that she was soon someone's wife and moved away.

Her mind found the memory of the funeral, the boat journey, the climb across the island and the interment in the ancient burial ground, too traumatic too bear, so it kindly spared her the agony...

The needles clicked on.

The moon had climbed through the night, moving its beams away from the knitter and her cat and exploring further round the room. The peat that had fuelled her memories now lay char-glowed in the grate. The light had dimmed, the warmth of the room had grown, and the bone-like fingers of the knitter had slowed.

The needles fell silent, slipping from the fingers which then gently followed them onto the her lap.

A strand of wool lay across the knitter's hands, as a strand of seaware had once been lapped across a child's feet by a wave of long ago...

The Immigrant

Her parents wept as the boat set sail, leaving behind the small fertile land at the head of the fjord on its journey to the open sea. They knew she had to go, to make a new life for herself and her man and the swelling that was growing inside her, but that only dulled the edges of the pangs of near-grief that accompanied her departure.

On board, she too was crying as the two specks on the shore diminished in stature before fading from view forever. The men, pulling on their oars, had each made this same journey to the Southern Isles at least once before. That was how it came to be that her man had persuaded her to leave the place of her family and live in the new lands of open space and fertility for plenty. His descriptions of the shell-sand beaches, the bordering strip of bounteous earth, the rugged rocks and the health and vitality of the peoples there had been the stuff of dreams. But they were not dreams they were real and from all over their icy Northlands young couple just like them were emigrating towards these warmer isles.

The wind was in their favour so the men ceased their rowing, shipped the long oars and raised the single sail. She felt the ship come to life beneath her, a gentle kick just like those that her belly had recently been feeling. She ran a hand over the warm roundness and smiled at the thought of the little boy (it was a boy, the wise-woman of the village had assured her) who quite soon would be playing at her feet outside the new house that her man had already built for them. It was, he told her, in a beautiful spot and they had used the best timbers, brought there from the Northland, to construct the roof. She had been astonished to learn of the lack of trees on this paradise and even more astonished when he had explained how not only roofs but also boats were taken there as packs of pre-cut parts that were then reassembled. It seemed an almost impossible idea and she was sure that in time such practices would die-out.

It was not long before the wind carried them to the mouth of the fjord and, for the first time in her nineteen summers, she saw the open sea. It was as if someone had parted the trees in a forest to reveal the space beyond. No longer did the towering cliffs of the fjord blinker the vista but all the ocean lay before her in a dizzying panorama of sparkling blue-green topped by flecks of white and as far as the eye could see. The ship began to rock a little more in response to the currents and waves below but she was determined not to display any weakness to the men. In fact the rocking of the waves, the gentle breeze at her back and the warm morning sun conspired to lull her into a happy sleep.

When she awoke several hours later and looked around she was shocked to see nothing but the ocean around her. The land, as far as she could tell, had dissolved and the whole world was now her, the men and the ship. She felt a slight panic at this new sensation but when she peered more closely to the side she saw the rippling darkness on the horizon. They were certainly far from land but not so far as to have lost sight of it. This, she knew, was the safest way for ships to travel for the waters here were less troubled by the spirits of the sea and by the rocks and shoals that lay nearer to the shore.

The journey South took several days, partly due to the vast distance involved but also because en-route they were to leave two of the men at their own new homes and collect two replacements who, like them were settling in the new isles. This was a common occurrence and the 'leapfrogging' allowed them to combine trade, communication and expansion. She enjoyed seeing the new places and, in one of them, met an older girl from her village who had made the same journey a couple of years earlier. Talking to this happy young mother about living in these new lands was particularly helpful as it convinced her that choosing to join her man in the Southern Isles had been the right decision.

The final leg of the voyage was full of anticipation and, although the sea was particularly rough for a couple of hours, the sight that emerged from the parting storm clouds made any past fears recede. In front of her was a small island and as the ship entered the strip of sea between it and the main island she saw for the first time the seemingly endless beach of pure-white sand, speckled with bright green seaweed and backed by the lush band of crops and the hills beyond. The sun turned the sea into a myriad sparkling mirrors and, as they ship reached the shore, her man put his arm around her waist and said, 'Welcome to Seilibost.'...

Time to Reflect - a (pre)cautionary tale

He nearly walked straight past it. The stallholder was already wrapping her smaller items in newspaper and packing them into the collection of gaudily assorted plastic crates and the car-boot sale was due to end in half-an-hour. He stopped to tie his shoelace for the umpteenth time. It is a little known fact that some laces are particularly unsuited to left-handers and, for some no-doubt highly complex reason involving the way the lace is woven and the physics of knotting, they steadfastly refuse to remain fixed fast. It was whilst he knelt (bending down to touch his toes was beyond the reach of his middle-aged back) that he saw it. The mirror itself was perhaps no larger than a normal photographic print but the deep, dark elaborate frame was huge. The wood was crisply carved into a rain-forest of leaves and flowers and fruits that was so overwhelming in its design and execution that the small pool of tarnished mirror appeared almost incidental. He finished tying the lace (it was always the left shoe that came undone) and lifted the mirror onto the now nearly cleared table. The spotting on the mirror was caused by the silvering on its rear surface having deteriorated over time but it added to the charm of the piece and the small size of the mirror rendered its reflecting properties somewhat secondary to the decorative function that the frame performed in heady, intoxicating abundance. As it happens, this style was something that usually wouldn't appeal at all to his taste which was more often attuned towards the Bauhaus, Mackintosh and the generally unflowered form. Nevertheless he found himself enquiring as to the price and the stallholder, one crate short of a cleared trestle, requested twenty English pounds. Normally he would have haggled but instead he handed her the twenty pound note with the words 'Clydesdale Bank' printed proudly across its surfaces, picked up the naked frame and returned to his car.

Car, mirror and man survived the journey home, despite him swearing loudly about 'English pounds' and reminding himself to replenish the stock of Scottish banknotes that he kept especially to antagonise shopkeepers in England who used the phrase. He took the mirror into the house and placed it on a coffee table. The table was one he'd had made by a female friend who was an extremely talented welder and it replicated in metal one of Mackintosh's designs. They had designed it to be a prototype but the complexity of the construction taught them not to take the project any further. The whole room was decorated in similar vein and the effect was all the more surprising for visitors who stepped through the door of a seemingly regular Victorian brick and slate terrace and into a world of very un-English design. He hadn't been too sure until a call from one of the glossy fashion mags offered him a ridiculous amount of money for doing a 'feature' on the 'property' convinced him that it was all in incredibly bad taste or really rather successful. He gave half the money to his kids and the other half to a candidate in the forthcoming local election. The candidate came last but not without being able to ensure that the neighbourhood was bombarded with literature supporting his cause.

This was the house that the mirror and frame found itself inhabiting and it also soon found itself being carefully dusted with a selection of soft paintbrushes. The man was delighted as the layers of dust were removed and the intricacy of the carving became steadily clearer. It was, quite simply, exquisite. The accuracy of the work resembled that of a diamond cutter and what made it so amazing were the plethora of piercings, many of which had been blocked by grime, that gave the frame almost as much surface on the 'inside' as it presented to the world. The back revealed no clues as to age but equally there were no signs of it ever having been removed. The mirror itself, that tiny, almost insignificant rectangle of glass, must be original. A fact that the discolouration amplified in abundance.

There were two metal loops and a piece of elderly, tired cord from which to hang the object but he decided to install some fresh cord rather than risking the glass to the frail health of the existing stuff. This task accomplished, he took the photograph that hung above the fireplace (one of his own images that had won a National competition) from its hook and replaced it with the mirror.

He stood back to better survey the effect and was extremely delighted. The frame was a wall sculpture, a piece of architectural art and the 'floral' nature disappeared in a tangle of shapes and shadows, forms and figures that defied description. He almost forgot that it was a mirror. However, as he stepped forward and focussed upon the distressed reflection something very strange happened. He saw his room, the door to the left, the large bay window to the right but the walls were papered in some hideous patterned paper, the floor covered by a large and vibrantly coloured rug, the furniture all dark brown and puffed and very, very large. He blinked. The hideous picture was still there, but now there was a man standing at the window and a woman sat sewing in the adjacent seat. He turned from the mirror and the room returned to normal. He turned back and the couple and their furnishings sat within the forest frame. Entranced, he watched as the couple conversed but suddenly the image began to fade and the pockmarks, whose disappearance he had neglected to notice, returned to disfigure the mirror. He sat. He had to sit for he had nearly collapsed in shock. Either he was ill, going mad (possibly both) or the mirror was, well, magical. He sat. And thought. He decided that he would not look at the mirror but would take it into the dining room, hang it there and see what happened. This he did but when he looked into the mirror he saw a range with pots on it, more hideous décor and all the trappings of the kitchen that it once had been. There were no people this time but he was sure he smelt something cooking. He looked away from the mirror and examined the frame intently. The strange foliage writhed this way and that, flowers and fruits displayed in their profusion and then he noticed it. A very small flower in the bottom right hand corner, tucked away towards the rear of the frame but with twelve petals and upon each petal five striations and, surrounding this flower, an almost circular leaf that had a curious notch like a tiny caterpillar bite. He reached forward to the flower, took it gently between his forefinger and thumb and applied some gentle force. The flower rotated. It notched its way around, each time stopping as a new striation aligned with the caterpillar's blemish and as it did so the image in the mirror changed. He was rotating the dial clockwise and as he did so the mirror's reflection revealed a new novelty until, after half a full turn, the room was lit by gas light, the crockery on the dresser was of finer quality, the range had shrunk in size and the ceiling gained in stains. It was still the past, but a more recent past, a more modern past, a newer past. The mirror had taken him forward in time, no, the mirror's image had moved forward in time. He renewed his grip on the flower-dial and rotated it against the clock, against the flow of time and watched as, turn by turn, the mirror took him back until bare, unplastered walls and a roofless void appeared; still further and the walls melted into sky and trees and grass; further and the ground buckled and heaved and water came and went, creatures swam past, primeval forests sped into view before, as his fingers felt the flower stiffen, the rocks themselves melted and he felt himself sinking into the molten warmth.

The fire-fighter said he was lucky. It was only because of the stranger in the window ('Dressed rather weird like') that the lady over the road had dialled 999 and, when the police broke in, they had nearly choked on the fumes from the leaking boiler. The intruder was nowhere to be found but the man had been discovered lying on the dining room floor amongst the fragments of glass and wood from the smashed mirror. Oh, and there was a funny smell, an odd mixture of boiled rabbit and sulphur but they couldn't find where it had come from...

seallaidh-tìre (landscape - a poem, perhaps)

...ice-scoured tongue-scape rising from the sea. Each Gaelic-gifted name-place, of hill, of river, of beach, of bay, of headland, of pass, of time, of space smooth-softened into place. Feet treading paths populated by ghosts, spirits of the land guiding exploration. Low, broad walls whose turf-topped tracks bounded by mortar-less concentric bands of stone stubbornly refuse to fall. Roofless, lifeless testament of attempted genocide.
See? Where? Sea-ware. Kelp-skelped. Ruin.
Children of the Norse clinker-carried upon the sea, cast adrift to cast line, net and pot for salt-seasoned harvest, many themselves cast into the boiling sea. Husbands, sons, brothers, fathers, uncles, nephews lie scattered round the shore. Sacrificial homage paid in exacting price.
Fisher, Fissure, Craic, Crack.
Gneiss, niece of granite, rocks of ages, rocks of eons, rocks of cradles. Peat, moss, heather, moor, run the rig no more. Lazily the rippled land sprouts forth small yielding. Blight. Famine. Laud the land. In ports, import of grain, sustain, but emigration's this season's crop. Seven-hundred souls. A fair return? (no return).
Pest-i-cide, gen-o-cide, you-de-cide. Clear a path. Clear a way. Clear away. Clearance
Clock chimes the quarter
17:45.
Quarter the clans
1745.
Cull them.
Culloden.
Clearance. Clear rants. Clear rats. Like vermin.
Factor in the Factor. Blame is absent. Landlord is absent. Nature abhors a vacuum.
Factor in greed. Blame apportioned. Lord it over the landless. Nature has no dominium.
Improvement.
Plough
till the land
reveals bones long-buried.
Improvement.
Ploughshare
cleaving, displacing,
overturning communities.
Improvement. Impoverishment. Chart the ice-scoured tongue-scape...

Ripples

The last chime faded away as Mary's mind awoke. It was three O'clock in the afternoon of that sunny Sunday and the house, the street, the town were all asleep. Lying in her bed facing the large bay-window in her large semi-detached Victorian villa, Mary's memories began to play...

They knew the men were coming. The reception had been weeks in the planning. When the cry (in truth they were coded bird-calls) went out that unrecognised boats were heading to the mouth of Loch Shell all moved to their positions. The men stood listlessly and languorously in small groups, in pairs or alone. The women, with babes in arms and infants at their skirts, approached the landing site. The official party was met in this manner and, when the women's patience was exhausted, the Factor, the Sheriff and the would-be evictors were chased to their craft and sent back with their tails drooping bedraggled in the waters of the loch. Twenty year-old Mary had been one of those who had seen them off, but shortly after her turning twenty-one the party had returned and this time were met by none but those left to tend the crops.

The whole community had already embarked on their enforced exodus; roofs stripped of thatch and the precious timbers loaded onto boats, other boats held household chattels and a human cargo of the elderly and infirm. The droving parties had departed, taking the beasts to pastures new and, finally, the foot-party of walking women and children, with infants held breast-tight, turned and looked for one last time at the hills of Pairc and the remains of their loch-side homes. No fires, no roofs, the short walls with their grass-topped cavities lying-low within the landscape never again to resonate with the sound of human habitation.

Mary's hand, beyond conscious control, closed tightly on the blanket and a tear formed in her eye.

Steinish. Her memory had jumped, taking the family in an instant to their new home. No familiar hills, no sight of the Shiant islands, no father. A husband. Children. Stornoway.

Life was never easy but she had chosen well. Malcolm was a quiet man, sober in his habits, respected by his adopted town but who only really came alive when he was at sea. The sea. It had given her grandfather his living burning kelp (and taken his sight in exchange), it had nearly taken one of her sons not once, but twice, and it was fitting that the man who's photograph she held had been consigned to lie forever beneath its waves.

News of the first shipwreck, in 1890, had come with the arrival of the vessel's owner at her door. Murdo had first been to tell Alex's wife the news and had then hurried through the wind and rain to let his Master's mother know that her son was safe, whilst the ship and its cargo had been smashed upon the rocks. Malcolm had merely said that, as a Harris man, he should have ignored his wife and piloted their son through the Sound of Harris and Mary silently thought that if that had been the case she could have been facing a double-tragedy that January evening. Alex came ashore at the spot where his grandfather had been born.

The clock ticked on.

A few years later she had given-up on trying to prevent the old man from adventuring with their son and so it was that news reached her in 1898 that Malcolm was no more. The trip to Ireland in December was bound to be difficult but the 76 year-old wasn't going to let Alex face it without him. They had enjoyed several years of coastal trading together aboard the vessels that Alex had owned and the Crest had given good service ever since they collected her from Tobermory and had made Stornoway her home.

Two days into the voyage Malcolm's health had started to give Alex concern and he decided to make for Oban to give his father a rest. In the Sound of Kerrera, at the Horseshoe Sound, Malcolm's diseased heart gave its final beat on the 15th of December 1898. An inquest was held in Oban, the Master and Owner Alex had to wait both for it and the arrival of a crewman from Stornoway so it wasn't until the end of the year that they were able to proceed to Belfast. Carrying Malcolm with them until, when Alex's telescope revealed a glimpse of the hills of Harris on the horizon, his body was given to the sea.

Mary's thumb gently stroked the image and a second tear began to form.

The clock was ticking beyond her hearing and her mind led her to 1903 and the second wreck. Crest. Alex. Kebock Head. Loch Shell. It was the 18th of April when she was lost, driven by the gale onto this isolated, cruel headland and the men had trudged through the night the four treacherous miles that led to the nearest lights. They were those of Orinsay, the place where Mary had been born and from which she had been driven just two months short of sixty years before.

The clock was ticking.

The Sun, lying low in the West and reflected by the wavelets of Bayhead, was casting ripples onto the curtains, the light gently caressing the lids of Mary's eyes. The rippling became that of the waters of Loch Shell and the sound of children playing, of laughter and singing, reached Mary's ears. The photograph slowly slipped from her fingers and was replaced by a familiar hand. She felt his grip and, as the clock reached twenty-past three on March the 22nd 1908, Mary knew that she was now reunited with Malcolm forever...

Note:
The people, places and events described are based upon fact but with embellishment.
Mary and Malcolm were my grandfather's grandparents.
Documents 16-22 in the link below describe the Loch Shell clearances: http://www.angusmacleodarchive.org.uk/browse/index.php?path=%252F2.%2BHistory%2Bof%2BPairc%252C%2BLewis

a'spaidsearachd agus a'meòrachadh

A friend very kindly translated the English phrase 'wandering and wondering' into

Scottish Gaelic for me, hence the new name for this blog:

a'spaidsearachd agus a'meòrachadh

Seasonal Variations of the Eskimo:

A Study in Social Morphology
Marcel Mauss 1904/5

I recall being sufficiently fascinated by this Durkheimian piece of Sociology as to elect to write an undergraduate essay about it. The phenomenon that Mauss was examining was that of the people living in large communal houses during the Winter and then dispersing into nuclear family units for the Summer. The details of what he discovered are beyond the scope of this current piece, but  'A recent study of 183 societies supports the hypothesis 'that different types of rites and the elaborateness of public rituals are determined by social density'
http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/119434122/abstract

What I'm pondering at this moment are possible/probable Norse origins of 'seasonal transhumance' in the Western Isles (the use of summer shielings) and possible links to patterns of ritual behaviour that exist to this day.

Is the traditional pattern of biannual Communion services on the isles vestigial evidence of pre-christian rituals, one at the end of Winter and the other at the end of Summer, that were originally 'determined by social density' which varied during the year?

These 'Communion Seasons' are spread out over several days and are literally a 'coming-together' of families from all over the world to participate in a manner reminiscent of Mauss's study.

That study of 183 societies suggests that we would expect to see some sign of seasonal variations in rituals on the isles, whether or not the communion practices are truly an example remains to be shown.

16/05/2010, 05/16/2010 or 2010/05/16?

A friend recently commented on Word altering, for example, the '4th of June' to the '6th of April' and this stimulated me to explore further into the history of calendar dates:

There is an article here on the Swiftian 'battle' between the UK 'Littlendians', the USA 'Muddledendians' and the Asian 'Bigendians': http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calendar_date

The question as to when and why the USA opted for 'July 4, 1776' (as it is written on the Declaration of Independence) is interesting and some suggestions are to be found here: http://www.answerbag.com/q_view/24913

The film 'Born On The Fourth of July' should, of course, have been 'Born On July Fourth' and a clue is to be found here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Born_on_the_Fourth_of_July , for it comes from the song 'The Yankee Doodle Boy' by George Michael Cohen.

The song is probably best-known from the 1942 film 'Yankee Doodle Dandle' where it is sung by James Cagney and from that performance it is better-known as 'I'm a Yankee Doodle Dandy'.

So, if the format 'Month/Day/Year' was indeed a symbolic act of defiance, then one of America's best-known patriotic songs strangely overlooked that point, or did it?

I have an 18thC Scottish periodical before me, dated 'Wednesday, March 7, 1792'  (the same format as the Declaration of Independence) and the very first article talks of someone who 'was born the 26th January 1707', indicating different formats used  in different contexts, as deemed appropriate, whether in the USA or the UK.

No wonder there's now an International Standard:

ISO 8601 has today as 2010-05-16...

...but it remains 'The 16th of May 2010', in correct English!

Beetling Around

In Scottish Gaelic

The

Cearr-Dubhan

Is

The Sacred Beetle

Whilst

A

Ceàrd-Dubhan

Is a

Dung Beetle

Although it can mean a

Scarab,

Or a

Hornet...

I should have been a

Pair of ragged claws

Scuttling across

The floors of silent seas...

Beetling Around

Rocky Shores

At the Sound

Of Harris...

Refs: Am Faclair Beag - http://www.cairnwater.co.uk/faclair/index.aspx?Language=en

cearr-dubhan (AC) sm The sacred beetle
Original page here: http://www.archive.org/stream/faclairgidhl01dweluoft#page/183/mode/1up

ceàrd-dubhan -ain. sm Dung-beetle 2 Scarabaeus. 3 Hornet. 4 see cearr-dubhan
Original page here: http://www.archive.org/stream/faclairgidhl01dweluoft#page/182/mode/1up

The Love Song Of J Alfred Prufrock, T.S. Eliot
(Which happens to be the only poem that I ever learnt by heart in order to impress a girlfriend...)

All at Sea - Reflective Ramblings Regarding Harris

I am reflecting on my foraging forays into the past of Harris. My aim has always been to attempt to shed a little more light into the dark recesses of the past. If we imagine ourselves journeying to the island from the mainland in the late 18thC, we do so most likely from Skye or Mallaig with Rodel as our destination.

Rodel offers the nearest safe harbour for, although we know of a few fishers and kelp-workers in the Bays of Harris, it is the agricultural areas that our attention is drawn to. The farms lie in a sweep, from Rodel and Strond, through the treacherous Sound of Harris and up the Western, Atlantic seaboard where there are no harbours on Harris to house our vessel. We might choose to see the island farms on Pabay and Taransay but can do so using smaller boats from the shell-sand shores without risking our ship.

Fortunately, we have horses at our disposal so are able to traverse the terrain with comparative ease, compared, that is, to the mass of the population for whom walking is the normal mode of transport. There are certainly many tracks and paths, but no roads as such so whether we will encounter any wheeled conveyance remains to be seen.

In many ways, I am reminded of two books that I read many years ago. The first is Barbara Tuchman's 'A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century', the first history book that awakened my long-dormant interest in the past, a wonderfully evocative account of life in medieval times in Europe. The second, 'The Medieval Economy and Society' by M M Postan was an antidote to the 'Dark Ages' myth that had been foistered upon me as a child. These two tomes revealed the truth of pre-industrial societies as complex, technologically literate and evolving. Those 'Dark Ages' were brimming full of the 'stuff' that was a prerequisite for later developments, just as the medieval technologies were the distant cousins for those that led to our society today.

The significance for Harris is in the change and continuity, from 'Norse-Mill' to 'Carding-Mill', from sea-ware as fertilizer to kelp as pre-industrial alchemy, from the agricultural revolution of the introduction of potato to the catastrophic failures of the potato famines, from Captain Alexander Macleod's 1786 creation of Rodel House, harbour and fishing facilities to Lord Leverhulme's misguided misunderstandings of the topography, climate and, most importantly, values of the island. He was a man who knew the value of labour but nothing of the values of these particular potential labourers.

Disembarking at Rodel, and exchanging our sea-legs for four legs, we allow our small but sure-footed steeds to further our investigations. We would ideally have a copy of 'The Rough Guide to Post-Culloden Harris' but, alas, these turbulent-times have scant written records and it is the rich, sonorous language of the people that acts mainly as the medium for the transmission of culture.

Gaelic is the language with a few men, mainly those have been imported to perform particular roles, whether shepherding sheep or souls, who have any knowledge of the English tongue. Even these few who did contract their business in the language of the Union appear to have been at best negligent and, at worst, steadfastly obtuse, in keeping their records. Worst still, it will not be until the start of the 19thC that a reasonably accurate and detailed map is made.

Rodel Farm will present us with our first, and only, encounter with recognisably rich red soil. The 'Red Dale' lives-up to its Norse name and provides a bounty of barley, a cow-shed of cattle and a scattering of sheep. No great surprise that this is where we find the magnificent medieval church, although its precise location is a statement of both heavenly and earthly power for it commands a view of any attempt at inward invasion from the sea. If you've got to build a tower to get closer to your maker, you might as well take advantage of the vantage-point provided.

We could trek further into the Bays but, although there are those fisher-folk and kelp-workers, the path is difficult and dangerous and passage from Rodel far easier by boat. Retracing our steps past the church we can either take the sparsely populated pass that lies inland to the settlement at An-t-Ob but elect instead the track over the hill to the sea at Borisdale.

This brings us to the Farm of Strond stretching from the diminutive, but useful, Port Esgein to Strond itself. Inland of the inlet of Esgein we see a settlement. A group of 'blackhouses' as they came to be called, arranged in a cluster, a 'township'. People live together for comfort, companionship and convenience. If we have a common purpose, whether it be fuelling a factory or feeding a farm, we live in a community. The suitability of the site, the availability of building materials, the supply of safe water and the impact of the environment are amongst the factors determining where we commune, but commune we will.

We need people to labour on the land, to build our shelters, to shoe us and our horses, to fish our seas, to shepherd our sheep, to mill our meal, to weave our webs and all the other different tasks that give us food and shelter. Even our hunter-gathering ancestors evolved some degree of differentiation, albeit of contribution rather than consumption.

This Farm of Strond extends along a thin coastal cultivatable strip, backed by thinly soiled, rock hard grazings and at Carminish, we find what may well be the earliest sites of habitation. Carminish is a Hammer-head shark's head of a peninsular, a thin, defend-able and dependable neck of land joining the parallel-place to the precious soils of Strond. The presence of the ruins of a Dun/Broche,
a defensive refuge sitting Keep-like in the sea-moated castle of Carminish, speaks to me of ancient ancestors and it must feature high on any archaeologists agenda.

In fact, given the relative lack of other 'concrete' sources of information, the whole of Harris is deserving of intensive archaeological investigation, as are all the Western Isles.

Approaching An-t-Ob we can see the 'Ob' itself, the bay that looks rather like the piece of the land jigsaw that was removed to form Carminish. Perhaps it was. Some Norse giant tore a hammer from the land and, like many a man before and since, 'forgot' to put it back after he'd finished using it?

The cluster of houses here are in An Clachan and their name lives on in the community-run shop that now sits on the site. Most apposite.

However, the thing that strikes us most is how small An-t-Ob is but then we are reminded that, despite it providing shelter from the sea, the sea beyond is the Sound of Harris, an island and shoal-strewn stretch that taxes even the most experienced and knowledgeable of local seamen, including a relative of mine who's vessel foundered there in a late-19thC storm on its way from Stornoway to Carloway.

From Stornoway to Carloway. The modern motorist must look at the map and wonder why? But that is to see the sea with road-tinted spectacles.

I see the horses are tired and, as the weather is looking threatening, it is time to rest awhile before continuing this tale...

(Note: By their nature, these are merely my current perceptions and any significant errors or omissions are apologised for in advance.)

Embers

The lone figure struggled through the coal-black night, the burden on his back bowing him as it took the force of the wind that was blowing, unhindered by land, all the way from the Siberian Steppes and forcing the man-beast he had become to stoop so low...The thought reminded him of the time, many years ago when, as a sallow youth, he, like many of his generation, had read a book about a creature such as this and, mistakenly, assumed it was about him...but in this, his 50th year upon the Earth, it seemed that it might indeed have been written as a warning to be heeded only when circumstances brought him to such moments of reflectivity.

The man was descending the last few steps to the sandy shore below, upon which he hoped to find refuge from the tormenting forces of nature with which he had become embittered by his recent battles...The soft, dry particles gave way beneath his World-weary tread and he sank to his knees in silent prayer as the realisation sank in, like his feet, to the sheltering shore.

From this semi-prone position his eyes, now seeing clearly for the first time in an age, gazed around the gloom, picking out strange dead-men boulders of smooth stone amongst the gently shelving beach that ran to the strangely silent sea below.

After a few moments gathering his breath and his wits, the semi-exhausted wreck rose slowly and ungainly to his feet and, walking parallel to the lofty heights he had just left, made his way Eastwards towards where the Sun, in several hours time, would rise again to mock his shape, his appearance, his ragged-clawed crab-like self.

As he rounded the curving sweep of this coast, this storm-wrenched cliff-closed strip of hope between land and ocean, his foot hit something hard and he let out a cry of pain...As his head bowed to look at where the impact between his bony toes and the rock had occurred, he saw a ring of pebbles, each carefully placed aside it's neighbours and in the heart of this hearth lay the charred remains of sailor-bearing timbers from wrecks of time gone by, the ship-coffins of souls who embarked upon the waves ignorant of swimming and paid the price in sacrifice.

Fire!, this was the remains of mankind's great Promethean gift, the illumination that transformed the night from demon-domained terror, that gave warmth, food and comfort down the generations...but, alas, this one was long-extinguished. He clawed at these vestiges of vessels, tearing at them as he sought, with frantic imperative, the seat of the flames that had once been in this spot.

As his soft-hands, for it was his mind that had done the heavy work all these years, reached further into the bed of burnt offerings, his eyes caught a brief glimpse of colour in the deep, dark blackness of the night-like nest...Again, a speck of deepest red, like a tiny Mars in a Moonless sky...Embers! He reached a hand into the pocket of his once-handsome coat and there, deep in the recesses of the torn lining, felt the lint-like ball of fluff...Withdrawing slowly, he placed the miracle of microscopic fabric next to the spot where the planet of promise had been and then, blowing as gently as if into a lover's ear, as he cupped a hand tenderly behind, he murmured the nearly-extinguished residue into life.

Slowly, but discernibly, the ruddiness spread through the fibres, and suddenly a tiny flame leapt into the air. Swiftly, but carefully, he pulled yet more threads from his coat until, with a smile of relief, he was able to place tiny splinters of wood into the now-glowing, now tiny flaming heart of this signal of hope.

Eventually, after he had gathered more timber from above the high-water mark, a friendly, warming fire was chattering away merrily and the traveller's soul leapt in delight as his good fortune.

Having ensured that all was well, weary but happy, he lay by the hearth and was half-asleep when suddenly he noticed a green glow forming in the midst of the flames and, to his utter surprise, suddenly there appeared a gorgeous lady, dressed in fine green cloth and wearing her blonde locks like a golden crown...but she vanished almost as quickly as she had formed.

Upon waking, he realised that the fire was out so, with the warm Sun on his back, he carefully gathered the glowing embers into a cupped rock, bound the rock to a strong stick using thread from his clothes and carried on his journey, carrying the talisman-torch with him, to be used that night and every subsequent night for so long as he could stir the embers into their magical life as he continued on his journey across this strange, new land...

(Note: I have long-enjoyed reading Hermann Hesse and felt like attempting this brief 'homage'.)

Electric Islands

There are a vast fleet of vessels harvesting the seas around the Western Isles . The resource that they greedily extract for consumption is not fish but something far more valuable and for which the population has an ever-expanding requirement. This resource is carried unseen beneath the waves to the shore where it then snakes its way towards those whose needs it meets. It is electricity.

The isles have become, save for some emergency vehicles and licensed carriers, a petrol-free zone. All transportation, whether by bus, car or via van, is powered by electricity. Further, the cars are not privately owned but operated by a smartcard system that tracks their usage and charges for it accordingly. The GPS monitoring of journeys in real-time enables the system to construct a vast database of patterns of usage so that it can look-ahead for potential problems such as rush-hour shortages as well as alerting users to bottlenecks, breakdowns and other potential problems.

The system employs people offshore constructing and maintaining the power generating system and on land ensuring that the provision of that power is permanent. A vehicle maintenance and supply team deals with the inevitable breakdowns and accidents and also ensures that enough vehicles are available in the right places at the right time.

Consumers can request a vehicle if one is not to hand and the system is sophisticated enough to avoid duplication of journeys by near-neighbours. The integration of buses, taxis and the elimination of the petrol-driven private car combine to provide residents and visitors with a cost-effective, pollution-free and community-friendly transport system.

Visitors will leave their vehicles on the mainland and a new fleet of faster ferries convey them to the isles. Whilst the environmental impact of the new car parks at the mainland ports is controversial it is a price the inhabitants consider worth paying as less of their taxes are spent in subsidising fuel and transport on the islands.

Such schemes have been tried in other places with bicycles. They failed in Cambridge, via vandalism and theft, but still flourish in, I think, the Netherlands. The isles, by their very nature, are the ideal place for such a scheme to exist for powered vehicles to the benefit of all.

Jobs, lasting jobs, would be created. Pollution, whether noxious or 'noise-ious', would be vastly reduced. And the communal spirit of the ancient townships revitalised in a modern manner.

(I am sure that there are several colander's-worth of holes to be found in the above, but the idea of shared vehicles is something that I first considered some 30 years ago when the technologies necessary were science-fiction. Today they exist)

Sounds of Taransay

colour palette,

clearly pleasing.

Clearance

unpalatable