Author: veewalkerwrites

I am no poet, but I stumbled across this one written back in 2019 for a very special Landscape Partnership Project in the North Pennines and northern Yorkshire Dales National Park, and I thought someone out there might enjoy it.

THE CALVERT HILL FARM

Inspired by visits to Teesdale and Swaledale

© Vee Walker 2019

This is the farm the Calverts made,

A nameless Calvert with Pick and Spade,

Lost his Bull to the Scots in a Border Raid,

Who builds the Walls, and digs out the Moor,

Who Gets By in Summer but often is Poor.

Who shapes a Cow’us from Stones and a Door.

Who tends his Sheep and herds his Cows

And feeds them in Winter on Ash-tree boughs

This is the farm the Calverts made.

This is the farm the Calverts made,

A later Calvert one day is bade

By his Fine Lordship, ‘go, tunnel for Lead’.

At the Mine Shop they lie three men to a Bed

With a young Lad of nine across their wet Feet.

And dream of their sweet Fields while asleep,

Of a farm that a Woman alone must now keep.

Paid twice a year by His Lordship haughty,

This young Calvert won’t see Forty.

This is the farm the Calverts made.

This is the farm the Calverts made,

Once more a Wife must tend it alone,

For Army Recruiters have hearts of stone,

The Mine’s long closed, but her Man’s still gone

To march in damp boots across the Somme,

And it’s anyone’s Guess whether her man Jack

Will return to the Farm with his Rifle and Pack

Or how he’ll be Changed, when (and if) he gets Back.

This is the farm the Calverts made.

 

This is the farm the Calverts are making,

With climate change, no small undertaking:

Where a Calvert has named each Field and Stone,

Where the Seasons stir deep within the Bone,

And the Land takes root in Flesh and in Blood,

Through plague and pestilence, drought and flood.

May not be worth much in pounds and in pence,

But to value it all pays in common good sense:

Home to the Calverts since times untold,

Home to the Youngsters and home to the Old,

Home to the Lapwing, home to the Lark,

Home to the Barn Owls which fly in the dark;

Home to the Gentian’s little blue Eye,

Colour of Saintliness, colour of Sky,

All of them Seeding

And Breeding

And Feeding

All hefted to place just like any old ewe,

For no other corner of land will do:

 

In spite of it all, still a risk worth taking

Here on the farm of the Calverts’ making.

 

A turning-point in life is reached when the first member of one’s own circle of close friends dies. As an archaeologist, Caroline had of course encountered death many times before and its many legacies became a profession at which she excelled: she was never one to mince her words, hence the lack of euphemism.

Caroline’s family, her friends and her colleagues will all still be in shock at her death, for Caroline always seemed a good deal more alive than most of us. She leaves a gaping hole in so many lives and hearts.

Like many of Caroline’s friends I suspect, I had not understood the serious nature of Caroline’s illness. She had enjoyed Christmas at home, then flown to Aberdeen, which I had thought planned treatment for an ongoing condition and therefore serious, but still routine in nature.

As fate decreed I found out the terrible news from Guille, Caroline’s son, just as I was in hospital being prepped for surgery myself. This was a situation which Caroline herself would I suspect have found darkly humorous (her laughter, her dear kind warm voice, I will miss them so). We shared an ability to see the ridiculous side of many of the bleaker moments of our lives, especially as mothers.

Her academic work may have been formidable, and surely worthy of its own archive, but it is her son Guille who is Caroline’s best legacy. I remember her exciting trip to Chile (at the time she was living in Edinburgh), her relationship with Alejandro Lopez, Guille’s remarkable sculptor father – and then how she settled down to embrace single parenthood and make it her own, at about the same time as I was having Matilda, my elder daughter.

Guille is a talented, sensitive young man who has inherited remarkable gifts from both his parents. He was – still is I am sure – Caroline’s pride and joy and quite rightly so. She would take great comfort in knowing how loved and supported he is at present by both friends and family.

Caroline was capable of bold moves and remarkable reinvention, both personally and professionally as a consultant archaeologist (her work in the latter field others will be better qualified to talk about in detail). Caro and I knew each other from our university days, way back in the 1980s. It is one of those old friendships whose roots are buried so far back I cannot pinpoint a precise point of origin, but it must have been a student coffee at some point. She was a year or two ahead of me. Then our paths crossed again during a Heritage Management postgrad at Ironbridge, and her old friend Jill Harden stayed with my mum in Fortrose for some reason lost in the mists of time, so I think a reconnection with Caroline may have been made then too.

It is hard to remember. Caroline has just always been there.

When Mark (my first husband, whom I met at uni too) and I moved back to Edinburgh from London in 1989 and I began to work for the National Trust for Scotland, our paths crossed once more with Caroline’s. She was generous as ever, helping us settle in as Edinburgh residents and introducing us to interesting friends. There was always a warm welcome at her elastic-walled house in ‘The Dudleys’, a curiously village-like square of flat-topped Georgian houses in Edinburgh surrounding the local bowling green.

We shared a love of cats and I remember how her large and friendly cat (either Kilmory or Harris, can’t recall which) became a Six-Dinner Sid, enjoying the hospitality of at least three other households in the square. Once, when called for his tea, Kilmory (or Harris) trotted straight for home across the centre of the bowling-green where a nail-biting national competition was taking place, much to the amusement of all – except the competitors.

With her lifelong interests in anthropology and archaeology, art and craft, her house in Dudley Gardens was crammed with wonders, each artefact attached to a fascinating or funny anecdote from her travels. Her illustrated lectures from this time were jaw-dropping: I remember visiting both Outer Mongolia and Easter Island with her over the years through her remarkable slides and reminiscences of people and place. Her ability and generosity as a landscape archaeology photographer should be celebrated too.

In those early years Caro was working part-time for the Society of Antiquaries for Scotland as its Secretary, affectionally – and not inappropriately from her tenure there – dubbed ‘The Antics’. I briefly became an ‘Antic’ myself and enjoyed some excellent heritage site visits she organised, notably to the costume collection at the Victorian Gothic Shambellie House, getting to know her interesting, clever parents, who sometimes came along too.

Caroline’s move to Orkney was an inspired one both for her and for Guille. Surrounded by rich archaeology and a kind and nurturing community they both thrived there, Caroline producing some of the definitive archaeological guides to the archipeligo.

Her list of publications – her writing style always curious, accessible and readable – is phenomenal. Her support and advice to other authors, like myself, was unstinting, reassuring and kind, even in the face of archaeological idiocy, and she found our ineptitude (‘but why wouldn’t they have pulled standing stones along upright and from the front…?’) a source more of amusement than of irritation.

I am certain Caroline will become acknowledged as one of Orkney’s great documentors by future generations, as they discover and rediscover her peerless work.

When I was writing Major Tom’s War Caroline was one of my key beta readers. She was so encouraging and gave me some excellent advice, recommending I go with a smaller publishing house and not one of the big boys. We shared a common need to control our work and ensure it was of the highest quality possible.

Caroline was so naturally intelligent and talented that she could often unsettle others in her field less confident of their abilities. At times she found the backbiting (and occasional backstabbing) tiresome, especially when linked to institutional misogyny, but I know she did also rather enjoy ruffling establishment feathers on occasion.

When our children were all small and after I relocated from London back to the Black Isle in the early 2000s, we often holidayed in Orkney. I deeply regret having only been able to come up to stay with Caroline twice in recent years, attending my first St Magnus Festival in (I think) 2017, then 2019, when I spoke on Major Tom’s War. Caroline has been quietly accommodating St Magnus Festival performers and attending festival events for years and was always ready to support community activities in Orkney.

Orkney visits will never be the same again.

Caroline’s other more personal achievements too should be recorded. The purchase of the field beside her house to prevent house construction and to secure wild mouse-hunting land both for her feline friends and the ghostly cattieface owls or hen herriers which glide up and down it at dusk was a huge source of pleasure and pride. She was also beginning to channel her love of the Orcadian landscape into artwork, producing some remarkable felted standing stones in exactly the right shapes and colours. If you have one (I do not, alas) treasure it!

It is a small consolation to me that we did see each other here in the Black Isle fairly recently, as Caroline was able to attend my second wedding in December 2019, a happy small gathering of our very closest friends and family. In her usual practical way Caroline asked me what she could do to help, and we agreed on some flowers for my hair designed by her talented flowery friend Ruth Alder. It was an unimaginable little touch of luxury and I have dried and kept the circlet. We had the only sunny day that winter and Caroline took some of our best pictures on the icy beach afterwards.

I always felt that Caroline ‘got’ me, when not everyone does, and I suspect that is a sentiment many of her friends may share, that ability to relate to us all as a valued individual. All the friends who attended that wedding day are like family to me, and I mourn Caroline now as I would a relative.

The last time I saw her was fleetingly and by chance in Academy Street, Inverness. We had already met up for a late lunch and a catch-up at Storehouse of Foulis during that brief period when early Lockdown eased. She had booked a hotel in Inverness for a few nights just to have a breather from home turf. I was coming out of lovely Leakeys book emporium just as she was going in – a favourite haunt for us both. She looked happy and relaxed and we laughed at the coincidence and then parted, without any idea that it could possibly be for the last time. And COVID of course meant I could not hug my friend goodbye that day.

COVID has deprived us of so much in the way of normal contact with friends and family and I am only relieved that the restrictions had eased enough to allow Guille to be with his mum in hospital at the sudden end of her all-too-brief but loving and brilliant life.

Caroline Wickham-Jones packed more into her years on planet Earth than most centenarians. She should be an inspiration to us all: if there is something you need or want or should do, then do it now, generously and with a smile. Carpe diem, seize the day.

In response to the clamour for maths-related ideas on the Group for Education in Museums e-list I have just photographed the Maths Year 2000 booklet I wrote with project manager Alan Newland (not John Bibby as I first thought, apologies to both lovely gents).

In my defence it was one of my very first consulting contracts more than 20 years ago – the proof, if any were needed, is that the lass holding the River and Rowing Museum salmon below is my daughter, now 26 and training to be a teacher herself.

Bear in mind that most if not all the faces will have changed (and some names are truly the late greats of museum learning), contact details will be out of date and even some museums will be no more (I had a real lump in my throat when it came to The Livesey in Southwark). I have omitted two pages of 2000 event dates but otherwise all is here.

Back in December 1999 many people genuinely believed that all technology would crash at midnight as the millennium turned. Heady times and maths enthusiasts quite naturally took the chance to up the profile of their subject.

I have always struggled with maths myself so I approached this project as though it needed to be fun and not just mathematical. The year’s contract taught me that maths is just another universal language, and one of the most ancient.

This was a free Museums Association publication sent out with Museums Journal in late 1999. I am an MA member and I hope I am not transgressing copyright rules by reproducing it here. If I am, message me and I will take it down right away. It was simply the quickest way to get it to ‘out there’ again to those interested. It seems to me we need another Museum Maths Year…

MATHS THEMES

ORIGINAL PARTNERS/FUNDERS

A – Z of maths case studies in UK museums

Vee Walker is an author and heritage consultant, now living in the Black Isle just north of Inverness. Her WWI novel Major Tom’s War was awarded a prize for military fiction at the SAHR Awards and in the same year she was awarded the Hugh Miller Writing Competition prize for fiction. You can contact her via her website at http://www.majortomswar.com.

The Ancient Greeks have a lot to answer for when it comes to hospital vocabulary.

The prefix hyst- in a word refers to the womb. It was ‘changes in the womb’ which the Ancient Greeks believed provoked hyst-eria – an uncontrollable outburst of laughter or other emotion attributed solely to women, and originating (allegedly) in their womb.

It also gives us the word hyster-ectomy – and yes, I realise most gentlemen will stop reading at this point, since I am now writing, shock horror, about matters Down There. Hysterectomy means the removal of a problematic womb through surgery. I find this squeamishness quite entertaining, since many gentlemen spend a lot of their younger lives trying to get Up There, and many of the issues women can face later in life relate directly to their earlier enthusiasm.

So somewhere in between the manic laughter and the possible removal of a womb we have a procedure called a hysteroscopy, which basically just means ‘having a look in the womb’, often accompanied by the removal of any polyps present and a biopsy. This is the minor surgical procedure I had performed two days ago at Raigmore.

This can be done under a local anaesthetic, but when I hit the ceiling the day he tried my kindly gynaecologist did not proceed and recommended a general anaesthetic instead.

The appointment came through surprisingly rapidly – in fact I was offered two dates over Christmas I could not accept as family were staying and I could not have isolated.

On the day, I was called in for 11am (having not eaten since the previous night) but this arrival time only meant that surgery would take place at some point after this. I came armed with plenty of reading matter. The cheery nurses on 5C settled me into a room looking out over the helipad towards Ben Wyvis. They took a long time checking I was me and what I was having done and this was repeated at every stage. About 1pm I’d be seen, maybe, they thought. I was second on the list.

1pm came and went. I had watched the big red and white chopper land and some poor soul come in on a stretcher. Theatre space is in demand and emergencies must of course take priority.

By 4pm I was pretty hungry, it was getting dark and the room much colder – single glazing dating from the original 1980s tower building at a guess, plus extra COVID ventilation. I ended up putting my jumper back on over my surgical gown and wondered if they were maybe going to have to send me home. The ward nurses had begun to make funny faces at me through the window – great entertainment.

Then my phone rang.

It was the son of a very dear friend ringing to tell me she had just died in Aberdeen Royal Infirmary. An awful shock. I wept, at which point the nurses rushed in thinking I had completely lost it over either their attempts at cheering me up or the op. I explained – and they could not have been kinder – but then suddenly I was on my way downstairs to the theatre reception (forgot my slippers, so clomping along in a flimsy surgical gown and my winter boots).

Once down there I began to feel very shaky and shocked. The theatre reception nurse noticed I was not ok and came and sat and talked, then wrapped me up in a heavenly warm white blanket. She also told everyone else involved in the op from that point onwards. Grief can affect your heart rate, your breathing. I was glad they knew.

Once into the anaesthesia room I clambered on to the trolley and the lovely anaesthetist started gently patting my hand to try to find a vein into which he could insert a canular, a practical port which means you don’t need jab after jab during surgery. I was still a bit cold so the veins weren’t showing and I ended up giving my own hand a good slap which amused the team: ‘oh, we’re not allowed to do it that hard,’ said one, approvingly.

My gynaecologist then came to say hello. They had recognised my name from the Black Isle Noticeboard admin team, so as I drifted into oblivion on a delicious trickle of morphine or something similar through the canular, we were (I think anyway…) engaged in a lively conversation about Black Lives Matter and the lamentable descent into trolling on the noticeboard during Lockdown. Great distraction technique!

Waking up from an anaesthetic and op is never very pleasant and I am usually a bit sick, but the recovery team were kindness personified, as were the staff back up on Ward 5C. Two hours later I was heading for home, feeling a bit tired and sore and of course very sad – but so thankful for the skilled, kind people – from India, from Australia, from Jordan and from all over the Highlands – who have brought together their hard work and skills to use for the good of us all at Raigmore Hospital.

I was given a handful of leaflets about the hysteroscopy as I left. Reading through them the text was well-explained and in nice plain language, but it might have been good to have had them in advance. The cross-section illustration doesn’t name what it’s showing you – it left me with many more questions than answers – here is my tongue-in-cheek annotated version highlighting the problem.

Even after two children I know my own anatomy about as well as the surface of Mars which is really something I (and all women) need to put right.

I am still hopeful of hanging on to my womb – it gave me two fabulous daughters, so I am attached to it in more ways than one – but if I do ever have to proceed to the next ‘hyst‘ on the list, I know I will be in very good hands.

.

A short story by Vee Walker

The Feira do Livro in Madeira had been little more than an excuse to get away, as May Anstice’s literary agent, Millicent, had pointed out. ‘It’s only an hour’s gig, May. They want you to kick off with ten minutes of you reading in English, followed by some nice Portuguese chap reading from the translation, then a bit of chat. Blah blah, easy-peasy. Five days in the Madeiran sun. And they’re paying for your flights. What could be better?’ Her agent had then lowered her voice into what May recognised as its cajoling tone. ‘And you never know, May. You might find Madeira inspiring. It’s time you got away, really, after…’

After. It was still hard for others to say it, she knew; even harder for May to believe that her dull, kind and reliable husband of thirty years had, just a few months earlier and entirely unexpectedly, left her for the woman next door.

May also knew that the word inspiring on Milly’s lips contained more than a hint of a threat. Millicent Carter was one of the best agents in the business. It was now five years since she had launched May’s début novel Terrified, to critical acclaim. It was an epic historical romance set in the aftermath of the French Revolution – la Terreur – which had taken May blood, sweat, tears and seven long years of her life to write.

Terrified had done rather well for both May and for Milly. It had won a minor literary prize, and had subsequently been translated into several European languages – most recently, of course, Portuguese. Hence the trip to Madeira.

Five years is a long time in publishing and although May had begun another novel or two they had all somehow petered out. Publishing was a cruel business. She knew, too, that there were younger, fresher, authors hammering at Milly’s door every hour of every day, authors who were not middle-aged, stale and deserted. Her agent wanted more than she could give.

Terrified was rooted in May’s undergraduate days, studying at the Sorbonne in Paris. Which was of course also where she had met Malcolm, then an earnest PhD student ten years her senior. How could she replicate such intensity in another work? May was well and truly blocked, and even her beloved daughter did not seem to understand why.

Jonquille, known as Quills, had been so phlegmatic about her father’s departure for pastures new that May had suspected her of foreknowledge, which Quills flatly denied. ‘Look Mum, maybe there is a reason why this has happened? I love him, and I know you do, or did, but Dad can be deathly dull. God knows what this Geraldine woman sees in him.’

Geraldine Fawkes and her husband had been their neighbours: she then became a widow who wore her grief with elegance. May had even encouraged Malcolm’s kindness in the early days of Geraldine’s loss, never suspecting that it would lead to an outcome of this kind. She had believed Malcolm to be rather past that kind of thing at 60. He had certainly seemed to have been with May.

It had all been so steelily amicable. As far as everyone else – Malcolm and Geraldine and Milly and even Quills – were concerned, the transition seemed to be done and dusted. And yet May herself continued to relive that terrible day when, after their ritual morning coffee, Malcolm had simply mumbled a few words, picked up his ready-packed suitcase, pecked her on her pale, shocked cheek and moved in next door.

Whenever May saw the pair together (which was almost every day given the circumstances) they positively oozed happiness. Malcolm might look years younger, but May felt decades older. Oh, she could function in day-to-day terms but existed only on automatic pilot, with the words but he promised, he promised pounding at what remained of her heart. She felt unloved, dishonoured, uncherished and yet could tell no-one.

Her plane had made several hair-raising attempts to land in Madeira in the late afternoon, prompting passenger applause when the pilot finally made it down through the storm. As she drove into Funchal from the airport through a dark deluge so fierce she could hear the taxi driver praying aloud, May wondered why on earth she had agreed to come at all.

In the light of all this it would be hard to describe the brief Madeira book festival appearance of the once-bestselling author May Anstice as a wild success. She had even rashly agreed with Milly to speak on the evening of her arrival ‘just to get it over with’.

She found herself in a leaky open air tent being interviewed by someone whose English was so heavily accented that she struggled to make out his words above the din of rain on canvas. A sweet Madeiran youngster read from the new translation of Terrified rather better than she had in English. There were questions, of course, and polite scattered applause, but her audience had no cover and was cold and soggy. Her host kindly offered refreshments afterwards but she could hardly believe he was sincere in this weather and declined, pleading a headache. Instead she trudged through the wet streets (beneath a free bookfest umbrella) clutching the map showing the whereabouts of the apartment of Milly’s friend in Ribiero.

How typical of Milly, she thought, as (soaked in spite of the brolly) she scrambled crossly through the main door of the apartment block with her wheeliecase. Her agent had arranged accommodation through some contact instead of a nice hotel: Milly’s little black book was limitless. God knows what this place would be like.

May found the Residence Arriaga easily enough and had soon collected the key from the elderly porteira. There was a lift, thank God, she had feared the worst. The multiple mirrors reflected back a plump middle-aged face with grey eyes and bedraggled, wild hair. Was this the woman Malcolm had once loved, then come to hate? Little wonder.

The lock was a little stiff but the door finally opened to reveal a spacious and warm apartment. She found the bedroom and ignored the rest, stripping off her wet clothes and leaving them where they lay before getting into bed. Rather a comfortable bed, she registered, just before exhausted sleep claimed her.

She awoke to the sound of more water falling. Did it never stop raining in Madeira? Wrapping a white bath sheet around herself she padded across the polished marble floor to the window, preparing herself for the disappointment of the continued downpour. Instead she sighed with surprise as the warmth of a blue-skied Madeiran late autumn day embraced her.

Below her lay what she would soon discover to be the Jardim Municipal – the Municipal Gardens. Palms swayed over an esplanade and tree ferns cast leafy shade over a pool where three large fountains now played. ‘Wow!’ exclaimed May, impressed in spite of herself. She had noticed none of this in the previous night’s downpour.

‘Welcome,’ read the sheet of notes on the kitchen work surface adjacent to a large bowl of fresh fruit. ‘Have a lovely stay. I’ve popped a few bits in the fridge. Lots to see and do, there are some brochures on the table. Your nearest eatery is the cafe in the park. Bom apetite!’

May, who seldom relaxed and normally lived out of a suitcase on work trips, surprised herself by taking time to unpack, placing her few possessions in the drawers and wardrobe. She then poured herself a large glass of orange juice from the bottle in the fridge and found herself drawn back to the unexpected view from the window. The juice was sweet and tasted fresh. Yellow taxis came and went, Madeirans bustled and tourists strolled in the street below. A tall, thin boy came flying round the corner from up the hill laden with cardboard boxes, whistling cheerfully, and disappeared among the lush greenery of the Jardim Municipal.

Once showered and dressed, and after checking three times that she had the key (Malcolm had always looked after their keys and passports) May went downstairs, this time avoiding eye contact with herself in the mirrored lift. Outside, the gentle sunshine made her gasp with pleasure – it had been just above freezing when she had left home.

She crossed the patterned cobbles to enter the gardens and as she did so, each step gave her the oddest sensation that beneath her feet, the tree roots somehow knew she was there, shifting like snakes deep within the red Madeiran earth. She found a corner table in the shade, still feeling conspicuously alone among the cheery couples and families.

The whistling boy she had noticed earlier approached her table holding a menu. ‘Something to drink, Senhora? Something to eat? You just arrive in Madeira? How long you are stay?’ She told him five days, asked for a black coffee and flicked through the battered menu, settling on a safely dull hamburger.

She thought the boy shrugged slightly as he took her order and when he returned with her coffee (which she sniffed appreciatively – Malcolm had always made their coffee) there was a shiny golden tartlet on the side. ‘I say, young man, I didn’t order this,’ she exclaimed, over-emphasising her very British gestures of error and rejection. If only she spoke Portuguese as well as she did French.

‘You not want? Is gift. My aunt Ana, she makes. Pastel de nata. Very tasty.’

‘Oh. Oh I see. Well, thank you. Please thank your aunt.’ She bit into the warm custard and crisp pastry. My word, but that was good. Three bites and it was gone.

The hamburger was perfectly acceptable when it turned up, if a little unexciting. She ate it more slowly, turning the pages of her disappointing airport novel for company.

‘May I?’ She started and looked up at the sudden voice. A COVID-masked man with silver hair and rather a military bearing stood before her, pointing at the second chair. Was she really so obviously British? She had no real wish to share her table, but the esplanade café was busy and so she gestured to him to take a seat.

‘Forgive me, but aren’t you May Anstice, the author?’ That surprised her into a smile, for few authors can resist the seductive lure of recognition. ‘Yes. Yes I am.’

‘Charles Hamilton.’ He extended his hand then turned it into an awkward knuckle bump. ‘Sorry. It’s so easy to forget about COVID here. I heard you read from Terrified last night. It was… well… terrific.’

May smiled at him. ‘It was terrifically wet,’ she said, with feeling.

‘Yes, that too.’ The young waiter brought him his coffee without being asked, May noted. The boy had added a jug of frothy milk on the side which he then poured into Charles’ cup: a regular, then.

Charles ignored the boy, all his attention on May. He removed his mask, smiled and sipped his coffee.

‘What an absolute stroke of luck, seeing you here,’ he continued. ‘Terrified is some book. I lived in Paris with my wife, years ago. Quite a city too, eh!’

May was reassured by his mention of a wife but still had no desire to outline her own personal circumstances to a stranger. She chose instead to ask him if he too was in Madeira on holiday.

‘Goodness me, no,’ he laughed, revealing good teeth. ‘I live here now. My wife and I arrived on board our yacht seven years ago and we never left. It is five years now since I lost her. Do you sail, Mrs Anstice?’

Which did he mean by lost, boat or wife? ‘I’m so sorry,’ said May, because that would do for either circumstance, adding, ‘No, I don’t sail. And do please call me May.’ Mrs Anstice felt a bit formal for the circumstances: especially now she was (technically) Mrs Nobody.

‘Pity. Wonderful sailing around Madeira.’ Ah. So it was the wife he had lost.

They made small-talk for a few minutes longer and then he stood and took his leave, pleading a phone appointment with his stockbroker. Just as he prepared to go, he seemed to think again and turned back. ‘Look, don’t think this too forward of me, May, will you, but would you care to have dinner with me tonight? There’s a nice little Madeiran-Italian place just over there behind the trees. Portaliano. See it?’

May saw it. She opened her mouth to say she really couldn’t possibly and yes came out of its own accord. They agreed 7pm. She watched as he counted out the exact cost of his coffee in coppers and looked at his expensive watch. ‘Where’s that blasted Diogo got to? Head in the clouds half the time. His uncle runs this little place. Probably nowhere else would have him.’ Charles left the coins on the counter and walked away, turning to raise his hand. May surprised herself by registering in that fleeting moment that blue-eyed Charles Hamilton really was rather a dish.

Once Charles had gone, voices were raised behind the bar. Diogo and his uncle were having a loud exchange of views and, May noticed, kept looking in her direction. She wondered with a flash of insight whether the little pastry had been Diogo’s own initiative. Perhaps his uncle was angry with him. She resolved the matter by leaving the boy a hefty 10E tip on top of the cost of her meal and started walking towards her apartment block, but at the edge of the park she heard footsteps running behind her. Clutching her handbag to her chest she turned to find Diogo waving the note. ‘O Senhora, forgive me, I not mean to fright you. Madeira is very very safe place, you know? But this, this is too much for tip.’ He pressed the 10E note back into her hand. Before she could explain he had darted back between the busy tables and was gone.

I have nothing to wear, thought May, back in the apartment. Her smart bookfest suit was still damp and a bit formal anyway. Nothing else she had brought was suitable, so she decided, on impulse and with mounting excitement, to go to buy a new outfit. Several hours of unaccustomed self-indulgence later she emerged from a boutique in a little arcade nearby with a rather lovely dress in flowing gold wool. It had a belted waist and soft, wide skirt and a smart wrap to match. Just the colour of that custard tart, she thought, as she eased the dress over her head and shoulders. It felt so good next to her skin. She felt good, for the first time in many months, even (if she were being honest) in many years.

The window kept drawing her back to its view of park and vertiginous landscape beyond. She saw that an exotic version of Christmas was starting to fill the Jardim Municipal. A white pigeon sitting on a wire overhead was trying to seduce a mate with a piece of golden tinsel which one of the decorations had shed on the way in. Giant red conical Christmas trees trimmed with hearts and bows stood out uneasily against the authentic tropical plants. Reindeer trotted across the café esplanade, pulling Santa’s sleigh. Diogo was helping someone in official overalls erect the roof of what could only become Santa’s grotto. And yet it was warm, as warm as a sunny summer’s day at home. May could feel herself unfurling in the heat, all rooted in the pleasure of her new frock and a chance encounter.

It did begin as a lovely evening. Charles was waiting at the restaurant door, smart in a dark suit. As he seated her in the window overlooking the eastern boundary of the park, she noticed he was wearing diamond cufflinks and was glad she had bought the new dress. The food was sublime – little savoury dumplings with a crisp filling followed by a madly daring squid-ink pizza for her; prawns and a steak for Charles. They drank a bottle of vinho verde, then another of vinho tinto. When she got up to visit the ladies she felt her head spin. Was the wine somehow stronger here? She seldom drank more than a glass at a time at home.

It was as Charles paid the bill – at his insistence – that his hand brushed her own. Surely an accident? He then told her she looked beautiful, laughed it off and said, ‘Now, what would Mr Anstice say?’

As May wrote under her maiden name, there was no Mr Anstice (and even if there had been a ‘Mr Anstice’ he was no longer of the slightest concern to her). Her book blurb, of course, still mentioned her husband.

She was about to confide all this when a slight movement outside caught her eye. There was the ubiquitous Diogo, balanced on the roof of a tiny candy-coloured cabin intended to represent a traditional Madeiran house. He was trying to twist fairy lights among the branches of a large plant with pendulous white flowers which appeared to change to pink as they aged. ‘Oh look!’ she said.

At that moment Diogo lost his footing and disappeared from view, almost knocking over a camera-laden tourist as he did so. Charles looked out of the window and apparently saw only the tree and the lights. ‘Oh yes. They decorate for Christmas here every year. Pretty lights everywhere. Employs half the island. You’ll just miss the big switch-on, that’s a shame. Can’t you stay a bit longer?’ Again, his hand brushed hers. This time she was less sure it was accidental. She drew back from him a little. What was she thinking? He was a chance acquaintance, no more, and she was behaving like a schoolgirl.

‘I really meant look at the plant,’ she said, trying to distance herself from his burgeoning familiarity.

‘That? Oh it’s just a brugmansia. Very beautiful and all that, but really rather deadly. Be very wary.’ May stood, and clung to the back of her chair, dismayed at how unsteady she felt. She really should not have accepted the large glass of Madeiran rum poncha which Charles had suggested to round off the meal.

‘I must see you safely back to your hotel, May,’ murmured Charles, his soft hand now firmly holding her elbow. ‘Remind me where it is you’re staying?’

She had not told him about the apartment and was suddenly glad she had not. Halfway across the Esplanade, only the café lights still lit up the darkness. Diogo was barrowing the folded umbrellas into the store at the back of the building. He stopped and stiffened when he saw Charles and May approaching. Charles said something sharp in Portuguese and Diogo was about to reply when his uncle barked an order and he turned back for the bar.

‘Diogo, wait!’ May grasped at the lifeline. ‘Charles, do forgive me. I really think I have had a bit too much to drink. I’m not used to it. I’ll stop here for a coffee, if you don’t mind, just to clear my head. It’s been such a lovely evening. Thank you.’ With that, she sat down.

Charles recovered well, but not quite fast enough: she had seen the brief flicker of anger, quickly masked by concern. ‘In that case I shall enjoy one with you, my dear May, and then see you safely back.’ He sat down beside her. Damn.

May looked, she hoped desperately, towards Diogo at the bar. The young waiter soon returned with a tray holding two cups of coffee, both black, plus the jug of frothy milk. He placed the cups on the table and lifted the jug with a theatrical flourish, then appeared somehow to trip over the table leg and lose his balance. May watched as the jug of scalding milk emptied itself instead into her dinner companion’s crotch.

A stream of unexpectedly fluent Portuguese escaped Charles’ lips, which brought Diogo’s aunt Ana scurrying to see its cause. She shouted at the boy for his clumsiness and even in Portuguese May could tell she was saying that Diogo was lucky his uncle was not present. Diogo made apologetic noises to May, to Charles and to his aunt, all the while maintaining steady and reassuring eye contact with May, until the old lady hustled him back behind the bar. Charles was sponging his trousers with a napkin which was now, May saw, staining his expensive khaki chinos blue.

All at once May felt a wobble of guilt. They had had a nice time, hadn’t they, until they had left the restaurant? And he had paid for dinner. Perhaps Charles was just lonely and had come on a bit too strong. And wasn’t she lonely – and more than a bit drunk – herself? She fiddled, awkwardly, with her wedding ring.

Charles, still dabbing his ruined trousers, made his apologies. ‘Such a lovely night ruined by that idiot boy. I must go and change. Shall we meet tomorrow to make amends? Coffee perhaps, but not here, clearly. 11ish? Where shall I call for you?

She searched for a polite way to say no and failed, but did at least avoid telling him the location of her apartment, agreeing instead to meet him on the corner of the park by a statue the following day. I can always not be there, she thought, watching him depart with considerable relief.

Diogo was swiftly at her side, his aunt still watching his every move. ‘Thank you,’ she croaked, her eyes filling with tears. Drat it, she really was drunk. Get a grip!

‘No. No. Senhora. Wait, I bring you more coffee. All is well. This man is go now.’

So he had understood her predicament. ‘Thank you. Do you know Mr Hamilton?’ Diogo shook his head. ‘My uncle and aunt, they, they know this man.’ Could she detect a warning in his words?

‘Does he live nearby?’

He nodded. ‘I think. He is here most every day.’ His aunt said something else and he smiled. ‘My aunt say I must bring you safe to your house when I finish.’ Old Ana smiled her own confirmation from behin the counter. May felt gratitude flood her.

Some time past midnight, once the cafe was secure, Diogo walked beside May for the short distance to her street door. ‘You have key?’

She showed it to him. ‘Thank you, Diogo. I’ll see you all tomorrow I expect.’ She tried not to slur her words, feeling foolish. Once inside, she turned and waved to him through the glass as he walked away.

In the lift she still felt a little queasy. When it stopped she stumbled across the landing to her door and pushed the key into the lock, where it chose that moment to refuse to budge. It had been stiff before, drat it. She rattled it, pulled it out and pushed it back in again but still it would not turn. She was just wondering if she could possibly wake the old porteira at this hour when suddenly her blood ran cold. There were voices. Coming from inside her apartment. She took a step backwards, the key still in her hand as the door opened, just a crack. A stream of Portuguese invective flooded out of the dark hallway within. Oh God. Oh no. Wrong floor. Wrong bloody floor. And of course all the floor layouts in the block must be identical!

Then someone switched on a light inside the doorway and illuminated its occupants.

‘Guten abend, sweetie,’ said the blonde boy behind him, one languid hand resting possessively on the shoulder of another man. A man who said ‘oh hell!’ Just seconds later. It was only once May had stammered her apology and fled back into the sanctuary of the lift that she realised both Charles and his German friend had been clad only in rather inadequate hand-towels.

May now pressed the 4th floor button instead of the 2nd. She tumbled in through the door of her own apartment, slamming it and bolting it behind her. Gasping against its security for some moments, she tried to work out what on earth had just happened. Then she went to the fridge, poured more orange juice with a shaky hand, and again opened the window overlooking the park. As the cool air slowed her pounding heart, she felt unexpected and uncontrollable laughter rise up through her throat and erupt into the Madeiran night. She laughed until tears rolled down her cheeks, great healthy sobbing gusts of hilarity, and thought: that was a narrow escape. Although from what, she was not yet certain.

When she heard the indignant window slam two floors below her, it set her off all over again.

When Milly rang May towards the end of her stay to ask how she had fared, the incident with Charles already seemed like ancient history. She had not seen him again in the apartment block at least. Sitting at the café as she waited for her airport taxi, she was conscious of babbling with enthusiasm about her holiday.

She told Milly all about Diogo and the café and Diogo’s new wife (he had shown her a photograph of his identical twin boys).

Then there was the trip May had taken high through a rutted and thrilling mountain pass in a jeep driven by Diogo’s cousin, all the way to Porto Moniz through ancient laurel forest and down to the rugged coastline beyond.

She raved about the food too: bolo do caco bread, the fruit (she had developed a weakness for custard apple and passionfruit) and even the scabbardfish with local fried banana which Diogo’s aunt cooked to perfection.

The apartment – full of original art and with every possible home comfort – had become a true home from home.

On her last day she had visited the botanic gardens of Madeira, high above Funchal, taking the rickety bus up the steep route rather than the more popular cable car overhead. After a morning spent idling through the terraces and parterres, it was there of all places that she suddenly spotted Charles at a café table, in earnest conversation with a tearful young woman. Struck by a thought, she looked around and, sure enough, not far away, was a familiar tall, blonde German tourist wielding a camera with a very long lens: apparently engrossed in photographing a tree fern – but in reality, doubtless, capturing every intimate moment of the encounter.

God. They must have thought they had struck paydirt when Charles had bumped into May after the bookfest. May was not exactly famous but certainly well known. How much would she have paid to prevent a ‘Mr Anstice’ – or the literary press – from seeing a compromising photograph of her with Charles during a drunken coupling? How much had others paid before her?

And, she reflected, how very awkward indeed for Diogo and his family if the dodgy Charles (if that was his name) were local, and a regular café customer.

May did not hesitate this time. She walked over to the young German and waggled her finger straight into his lens, startling him. He scuttled off at gratifying speed. Then she strolled over to his partner in crime, who had his back turned, and was, she saw, clasping the hand of his latest intended victim as he gazed into her eyes. ‘Oh there you are, Charles darling,’ May trilled into his appalled face. ‘I have to pop home now, so could you just pick up some cereal – for the twins – when you’ve finished here?’ She then turned on her heel with a flick of her golden dress and left them both, without waiting to see the impact of her actions. She had given the girl a chance. It was up to her now.

‘Well. You sound much better,’ said Milly on the phone. ‘Not brooding over Malcolm any more, then?’ May just laughed. She had honestly not thought of Malcolm and Geraldine once since her first visit to the café. She had just thrown a few illicit bits of stale bread to the muscovy ducks on the fountain pond and, as an afterthought, had tossed her wedding ring in after it.

She told Milly that when she got home she planned to put her house on the market. A move was in order. She could go anywhere, live anywhere. She was free.

‘You’re better off without the jealous bastard anyway,’ snorted Milly. ‘He never could bear you earning more than he did.’

Was that it? Was that really it? The final trace of shadow over May’s heart detached itself and evaporated into the clear Madeiran air.

‘And,’ added Milly, as May knew she would, ‘Dare I ask if the muse has struck?’

At that moment Diogo brought May one last coffee, another tiny pastel de nata nestling on the saucer. She smiled up at her friend. ‘Do you know, Milly, I think it has. Thank you, Diogo. Obrigada, Madeira.‘

All characters in this short story are entirely fictitious. All the places are entirely real, including the apartment in the Residence Arriaga where Vee stayed. Feedback most welcome

You are welcome to share this story to friends and family if you have enjoyed it, but please remember it remains her copyright and no commercial use is permitted.

Vee Walker is an author based in the Black Isle in the Scottish Highlands. Her prizewinning WWI love story Major Tom’s War is going down a storm with book groups worldwide. It is available in paperback, ereader and hardback from its publisher http://www.kashihouse.com and from all good booksellers everywhere.

(C) Vee Walker 2021

(with apologies to Lewis Carroll)

 

‘Twas brillig, and the slithy tomes
   Did pulse and glisten on the screen;
All whimsy where the bloggers roam
   Amongst agents, unseen.

“Beware the Jabberword, my son,
   The blurb that bites, the quotes that catch!
Beware the Cov-Cover words; and shun
   The Celebrity Endorsnatch!”

His vorpal debit card in hand
   Went forth the Boy to quest his book,
“Something new,” quoth he, “From a small indie,
   In a real Shop of Books shall I look.”

As down the High Street he didst brood,
   The Jabberword, with deals aflame,
Scrolled through the Amazonian wood,
   Discounting as it came!

One, two! Three, four! A box set! More!
   His card filled up his online shelf;
Once dumped at his door, not one, he swore
   Selected by himself:

” I bought this turd from the Jabberword!”
  

  “Yes, more for less, son, not all bad!
Bargain prices, eh? Caballoo! Caballay!”

  “So it’s bitten us both? How sad…”

 

‘Twas brillig, and the slithy tomes
   Did pulse and glisten on their screens; While unseen books in need of homes…

…Remained the stuff of dreams.

 

Vee Walker (Author of an unseen book or two)

Please consider shopping at your local bookshop. They’re knowledgeable, friendly people who are not driven by an algorithm based on your browsing history.

If you’re too busy, or live too far from a real bookshop to visit, try the wonder that is http://www.uk.bookshop.org. It’ll send you (or your friends/family) a book but channel the benefit through a local bookshop.

Genius. We can slay the Jabberword. #GiveIndieBooksThisChristmas

 

To have watched both The Trick and The Enemy within days of each other is not conducive to optimism about the future of society or even the planet – but these exemplary pieces of drama still need to be seen and discussed.

BBC1’s recent production The Trick stars Jason Watkins as Professor Philip Jones of the University of East Anglia and Victoria Hamilton as his wife Ruth. It is based on the real-life 2009 climate ‘scandal’ which was triggered by a (still-anonymous) email leak of the work of this eminent climate scientist. His life and reputation, and those of his wife, are torn apart as a result. The impact of the trolling which ensues pushes Jones to the outer edge of sanity.

A brilliant but shy academic, Jones has to be coached in the correct way to respond to interrogation by a hostile parliamentary committee of enquiry. That process, although necessary, is arguably more traumatic than his original vilification in the media – but without it his supporters know that the professor will not be believed.

The enquiries which took place in the wake of this artificial ‘scandal’ universally exonerated the real Professor Jones. The time it took to arrive at that conclusion – a decade – may have cost us the future of our planet. Who benefits?

This idea of being caught unawares and powerless at the eye of a media storm is also central to The Enemy, The National Theatre of Scotland’s powerful reworking of Ibsen’s An Enemy of the People.

Ibsen’s original public baths backdrop has been transformed in this production into a luxurious water-park spa resort aimed at regenerating a run-down industrial town. So far so laudable, until the scientist sister of the town’s provost makes an unwelcome discovery. To Kirsten (Hannah Donaldson), their only course of action is clear, but her sister (Gabriel Quigley) has staked her political reputation on bringing the project to fruition. The unfolding of the plot is ugly and divisive, further corroded by an all-too-easily corruptible press and other unscrupulous media figures.

The skilful multimedia back projection to the performance adds a sinister dimension through the easy manipulation by those in power of quick-fire social media responses. This is all the more chilling because the audience cannot help but laugh at some posts to the thread (one from a @Peter_Benchley, supporting a metaphorical running gag). Worst of all, only part of the audience may not realise the complicity in its laughter. Trolling isn’t fun, or funny, at all.

I am an author, so usually discuss and review books here, not film or TV. Why this departure?

Early in Lockdown I became concerned about a local community noticeboard site on Facebook. About 8000 local folk are members. It is the site people use to post about missing cats, dropped car keys and reliable plumbers. Fear and frustration were mounting at the time and needed an outlet: and it was during the #BlackLivesMatter protests, someone misguidedly (and by dead of night) removed pro-#BLM posters made by youngsters from a local High Street. Some heated group posts on the subject were taken down and I was shocked by the vicious response to the admins who had done so. I made contact with the team, eventually stepping up to the role myself rather than see a useful community resource fold, as did a number of others who felt the same way.

Following Police Scotland advice on trolling, we immediately revised our rules about group membership and post content, and then introduced moderated posts. This process delays posting and increases admin time, but does also mean the team can veto anything which breaks agreed group rules.

Moderating posts led to immediate accusations of ‘cancel culture’ and the trolling dates from that point. Someone began a separate private group, ostensibly to encourage greater freedom of speech and ‘speak truth to power’. Instead it provided a poorly-policed platform for trolls, who shared material from my personal direct messages and Facebook posts there. Friends and family members read all this and began to express serious concern for my wellbeing. Worst of all, the trolls began to target some of them too.

The impact of trolling on social media users is to polarise them. The saner, more grounded souls refuse to swim in the toxic swamp at all and delete their Facebook and other accounts. Others observe from the sidelines but say nothing to support the victim because they are too afraid to attract attention to themselves. More still will unthinkingly like and share, with self-justification like ‘oh, it’s just a bit of a laugh,’ or ‘she was asking for it, stuck-up cow,’ or ‘no smoke without fire.’ Others will move from being an observer to becoming sucked into the downward spiral as trolls themselves.

And the impact? As a result of three or four separate episodes of trolling over the past two years, many people within my little community will now have a vague idea that I am somehow racist, or an opponent of mental health advocacy or even, most recently and bizarrely, a champion of illegal unpasteurised milk production. There is nothing whatsoever I can do about this nonsense: what is once read cannot be unread, even once deleted. Trolls watch you from the shadows, waiting for you to make a comment or action which displeases them. Their aim appears to be to pressurise a victim into a response: they will post things like ‘there she goes again, it’s always all about her,‘ or ‘thought we’d got shot of that bitch last time.’ You can delete this stuff, but someone, somewhere, will already have read and absorbed it as fact.

Trolling is insidious. It seeps into the souls of both the trolls, who become addicted, and of the trolled. For a time at the beginning I felt mystified that some in the community I try to serve seemed to have turned on me. Now I have learned that to respond directly in any way is to feed the monster. I am tougher and more phlegmatic (as well as more savvy about social media privacy settings). I believe that what I do for my community is useful and so I stick with it. As an author, too, I have to have a public profile – so deleting everything and stepping away is not an option for me. When trolls denigrate what I do as in some way self-serving, I now think of a phrase my grandfather Tom would use in the trenches: if you stick your head above the parapet then you will get shot at.

Not everyone will be as capable of tholing it, however. Our society depends on volunteering and yet the undervaluing or public humiliation of social media admin teams, community councils (remember the grim spectacle of Handforth?) and other local groups and committees will adversely impact on future recruitment to these small yet essential unpaid roles.

There is no real recourse for the victims of trolling. The police cannot do anything other than advise on limiting it. It took a decade to vindicate poor Philip Jones. Many in my own community – both those who know me and those who do not – may now perceive me in a different way from before, my integrity tarnished in the eyes of some by what amounts to an unanswerable smear campaign.

Who gains from this behaviour? Who knows? It confuses truth and lies. It destabilises the fragile fabric of society. It hurts innocent people. It is normalised – but it is not ok. It is never OK.

This is why I am grateful to the writers of The Enemy and The Trick. Someone else out there has noticed. We need to talk about trolling. Thank you, Owen Shears and Kieran Hurley.

Seeing either or (ideally) both these stellar dramas should encourage each of us to reflect on how we use social media – or rather to take a long, hard look at how it uses us.

The Trick is available to watch on BBC iPlayer. It is 90 minutes long.

The Enemy (National Theatre of Scotland) is also 90 minutes long, with no interval. It will be touring theatres in Scotland until November 12th 2021. https://www.nationaltheatrescotland.com/events/the-enemy

Vee Walker is an author based in the Scottish Highlands. Her début novel Major Tom’s War (now available in paperback from http://www.kashihouse.com), was a prizewinner at the SAHR Military Fiction Awards 2019. She is working on her second novel, The Patiala Letter.

I must start by coming clean: I had been slightly avoiding reading Barbara Henderson’s book on New Scots (will explain why in a moment). Then when our paths recently crossed at a ceilidh in Badenoch and Barbara produced a fistful of them, I thought that perhaps this time it was meant to be.

Why the initial hesitation? Well, the explanation is both personal and political. The double tragedy of the Independence referendum and Brexit votes have weighed heavily on my heart and mind in recent times. I sat in bed sobbing on waking to the Brexit bombshell and will carry that scar for the rest of my days. Like Barbara, I studied at Edinburgh University, but Modern Languages rather than English (and like Barbara I met my husband there). I have lived in France, thought Europe was forever and still identify as European. That terrible morning I felt like my whole world had been dismantled in the name of democracy following a corrupt political campaign.

I therefore thought – quite wrongly as it turns out – that Scottish by Inclination might turn out to be one long wail of grief for a lost Europe – and I wasn’t sure I could take it. While much regret is expressed within its pages there is also however great resilience, adaptability and optimism. I finished the read feeling more positive about Scotland’s future than I had anticipated, precisely because this extraordinary range of European interviewees are part of Scotland’s future.

The greatest (and best) surprise – and it is a surprise, as there is no hint of this on the cover, which is a shame – is that this book is not just an account of choosing to become Scottish, but a modest autobiography of its remarkable Scots-German author. Every individual account is prefaced by a chronological episode in Barbara’s eventful life to date. I found myself enjoying these just as much, if not more, than the other accounts of ‘becoming Scottish’ within it.

I myself am Scots through my mother’s inclination and now by self-identification: my schooling was Scottish from the age of six but I was born in England. It was the era of ‘It’s Scotland’s Oil’ and growing hostility towards all things English. I was bullied in my first primary school for having a posh name and English accent, and like many in this book I became something of a chameleon to survive: I made sure my name and my accent changed at my next primary and I brought my Scots family roots to the fore. Being English then was far worse than being European! There is no English interviewee within Scottish by Inclination: there could have been, as many English people now identify as Scots, and the journey to acceptance back then for English settlers in the late 1960s was much the same.

The word most people summon to describe the Inverness-based author, Barbara Henderson, is energy. She has shedloads of vivacious energy and a blessedly sunny personality with it: a prolific author, she teaches, has a column in a local paper and also juggles a busy community and family life, not least in helping to found Ness Book Festival.

Scottish by Inclination is Barbara’s first work of non-fiction aimed at an adult audience. It began as a pitch to a publisher to collate different accounts from Europeans who choose to live and work here. It was the publisher who (quite rightly) encouraged Barbara to use her own experience as the backbone to the narrative.

I have many German friends who live elsewhere in Europe and the term Vergangenheitsbewältigung – facing up to one’s past – was familiar to me. All German citizens have an unavoidable and unenviable historio-political back story as the defeated instigators of two world wars. Barbara grew up during an era where German history lessons enforced a study of the Third Reich. This aversion therapy caused many of my German friends to move abroad in a conscious attempt to slough off some of their German identity.

With Barbara’s account however I felt she was running towards an alternative destiny rather than running away from her German identity. She has become a true Scot, giving so much to those around her: her family, her pupils, her readers, her community. How ignominious then that anyone who does this with such warmth and generosity of spirit should be forced to apply for ‘settled status’, as though all this giving counts for nothing.

The same is the case for all Barbara’s interviewees, who are people of all ages and of almost every possible European nationality. All have been forced to register to stay in Scotland as part of Great Britain, irrespective of the value of their roles or the depth of their roots here. They expresss anger and resignation and humour and, yes, grief – Portuguese artist WG Saraband describes how on the morning of the result, even though he had expected Leave to win, he ‘felt like he had been punched in the stomach at someone’s funeral.’

The contribution to Scottish society of this selection of interviewees is breathtaking: the fields of academia, science, teaching, medicine, engineering, entrepreneurship, art, craft and music are all represented in these pages. These courageous people who have at one point in their lives chosen to combine their birth nationality with a future as a New Scot come both from Western and Eastern European Countries. All emphasise how welcome they feel in Scotland, albeit not necessarily within the United Kingdom.

Their presence here enriches all our lives. As Scotland looks to its own future, the comment from politician Christian Allard sums up the note of optimism on which this remarkable book ends: ‘It’s not where we came from that’s important, it’s where we are going together.’ Everyone should read this book, and then pass it on to any New Scot who looks in need of reassurance.

I hope Barbara continues her writing for adults with another non-fiction work, or even a novel for an adult audience. We need more of her smiling literary talents as we march onwards into a brave new future for our nation.

First, a wee bit of context, important in any review of a controversial book such as this one. The author describes himself as a ‘collapsed’ Catholic one point and although I am not Catholic, that has resonance for me in terms of my own beliefs. Brian Devlin is an acquaintance, respected in my community as part of the team which helped to establish Black Isle Cares. I already knew of his whistleblowing at NHS Highland – I was bullied myself in a hierarchical workplace many years ago, so I followed his story with interest – but I knew nothing about his earlier life.

Cardinal Sin – a cracking title, isn’t it!  And accompanied by a lurid crimson cover reminiscent of Colleen McCulloch’s The Thorn Birds. Designed, quite rightly, to encourage readers to pick up the book. This is however non-fiction and more about a man sinned against within the Roman Catholic Church than the sinner himself hinted at on the cover.

The term ‘whistleblower’ is not mentioned on the cover of Cardinal Sin but is defined there as one who ‘challenges power abuse’. It hails from the early days of the police, when a whistle was blown to alert others to a crime having been committed. It has a very visual/audible quality, tied up with decency and earnest, plodding Dixons of Dock Green. Modern whistleblowing is rather different. Some view it as a force for good; others – generally those who are the subjects of the whistleblowing or the institutions whose reputations are felt to be undermined by it – consider it the ultimate betrayal of trust.

I had not realised until I read this remarkable and highly readable book that Brian Devlin has something of a whistleblowing pedigree. He is clearly conscious of the way in which a whistleblowing mindset can lead from one working world – that of the Roman Catholic Church – into another – NHS Highland. Whistleblowing is traumatic and can affect mental and physical well-being for the rest of one’s career, and life, as Devlin knows to his cost.

The book is divided into two sections, the first following (more-or-less chronologically) the author’s life from boyhood. This has some very funny and tender descriptions of unwanted adolescent sexual awakening in his fervently Catholic parental home – readers may never quite see Valerie Singleton in the same light again!

An innocent and understandable desire to please his parents leads a clever, sensitive and fragile young man to Drygrange, a seminary for would-be Catholic priests.  A kind of religious Hogwarts, this was a world apart. It was peopled by teachers ranging from the black-cloaked and grimly orthodox – ‘they sat in the freezing chapel like ravens, and swished along the corridors as they went about their business’ – to the informal, kindly and charismatic. One of the latter, an oh-so-cool priest nicknamed K.O.B., the college’s Spiritual Director, seems such a contrast to the more formal ‘old guard’. Soon the young trainee priest and many of his peers come to look up to Keith O’ Brien as an inspiring role model.

What follows is a sequence of events recognisable to anyone with modern hindsight as a process of grooming, but this was a more innocent time when the infallibility of a Pope and all those who served him was a given. After increasingly blatant attempts to control Devlin’s actions and views, O’Brien then makes a clumsy pass at the author. The young and vulnerable student’s response to this is an instinctive one of self-protection; his spiritual and emotional trust have been betrayed by a man with terrifying power over his future in the priesthood. Devlin finds himself questioning everything he has believed in, up to and including the existence of a God who could allow this to take place. At this time, however, like others abused by O’Brien, Devlin says nothing, does nothing. This man is his spiritual director. Who would he tell? Although his fledgling vocation is in tatters, he proceeds to the priesthood, only to find that the increasingly powerful O’Brien becomes archbishop of his St Andrews and Edinburgh diocese. Devlin begins to contemplate somehow escaping it all.

It is only once an accusation is levelled at O’Brien by another student that Brian Devlin and others find the courage to come forward to ‘name and shame’ him, as the tabloids would have it. At first the Church attempts to close ranks and ignore the matter, but the scandal, doggedly pursued by journalist Catherine Devenney fails to fizzle out and risks bringing the might of the Church of Rome to its knees. High-level sexual abuse within the Church certainly seems to have had a bearing on the shock resignation of Joseph Ratzinger, the arch-conservative German Pope Benedict XVI.

We are told little of O’Brien himself (abusers have often themselves been abused) but his arrogance continues beyond his removal from office. Retired and sidelined rather than entirely disgraced, he writes an open letter asking for forgiveness from those he has ‘offended’; a mild choice of words (doubtless fine-tuned by Vatican lawyers) which must smart in the wounds of all those who came forward to accuse him. ‘Offence’ implies that it was a matter of choice on the part of the victim and therefore subtly shifts some of the blame for the crime on to the accuser.

For me, it was the second part of the book which was the more interesting of the two and I was sorry it was not quite as long as the first: I would have liked to hear other views about the potential for reform within the Church. Those who worship as Christians but who consider themselves to have no connection to Roman Catholicism would do well to remember that abuse can happen anywhere, and that the roots of all Christianity today still lie in Rome: Fortrose Cathedral was Roman Catholic for 300 years, from its foundation in 1260 to the Scottish Reformation in 1560. Christianity may have fragmented post-Reformation, and attendance at church may be declining overall, but the Roman Catholic Church is still a mighty force in the world.

In this second part, Devlin explores how – and if – the Roman Catholic Church, a church he clearly still loves even if he does disagree with its more lurid teachings, can move forward and heal itself. Most church congregations are, by definition, conservative: reform – change of any kind – is usually unwelcome. It is clear however that without reform over attitudes towards gender, sexuality, and the priesthood there will always be a risk of sexual abuse within its ranks. The Roman Catholic Church is lagging far behind other churches (and also society in general) in its lack of willingness to reform over issues such as allowing the ordination of married or female priests. Celibacy deprives priests of humanity. Reform relies on ‘old men who promise not to have sex’ to change the rules of the Church to allow greater freedoms among those who will succeed them, and that is a difficult process which will require immense grace. Tradition and ritual are part of Catholicism and change comes but slowly.

Devlin makes a particularly interesting point regarding the involvement of laity (ordinary congregation members) in worship. A pragmatic blurring of boundaries is permitted in other Christian churches where priests may be in increasingly short supply. The Roman Catholic Church has always rejected lay involvement in priestly duties, which the author argues, convincingly, is simply rooted in a desire to retain power and control over its flock. Using unnecessary honorific titles such as Father, Your Grace and even Holy Father can further alienate those who follow the path of priesthood from those they serve, with disastrous consequences for both the priest and his flock. Priests are just ordinary men, or ordinary women, who are called to serve God, and that includes the Pope.

In theory at least, without the intervention of Devlin and the other whistleblowers, the successor to Joseph Ratzinger could have been Keith O’Brien, at which point he really could have done ‘whatever he liked’: a chilling prospect. Instead Pope Francis, seen as a moderniser, initiated a full investigation into the abuses carried out by ‘K.O.B’. His envoy, a canon lawyer named Msgr Charles Scicluna, finally came to interview the author (I much enjoyed the description of the meal Mrs Devlin prepared for this grand visitation). Just as their difficult encounter ends, Scicluna makes a kindly-meant comment about the existence of God. It is poignant that God seems to have become swept aside in the labyrinthine, secret hierarchy and ritual of the Catholic Church.

While statements about the whistleblowers from the Church make great use of the word ‘courage’, it is clear that in certain quarters they are still regarded as traitors, and emotional support for those like the author who have left the priesthood as a result of abuse has been non-existent.

The most powerful line in this book for me, the one which could lance the festering boil at the heart of this and many other abuse-related scandals, reads as follows: ‘the celibate, single sex priesthood needs to be dismantled.’

Amen to that.

Cardinal Sin by Brian Devlin is published in paperback by Columba Books. The author will be signing copies at the Nigg Book Fair on Saturday 25th September at Nigg Community Hall.

Vee Walker is the author of the WWI novel Major Tom’s War, now out in paperback from http://www.kashihouse.com.