Category: Uncategorized

I honeymooned in Orkney back in the 1980s. For the geographically-inept, this is the lower of the two island archipelagoes which appear to exist in the boxes in the mouth of the Moray Firth on the map.

After a disastrous first night in the Ayre Hotel, which had builders deconstructing the room next door, we decamped to a friendly B&B in St Ola on the hill above Kirkwall. There, I fell in love with Orkney – and sadly my new husband fell in love with the idea of reliably sunny, warm, dry holidays almost anywhere else.It does not always rain in Orkney – but sometimes it does. We tried another holiday there en famille 20 or so years ago when it rained for an entire fortnight, but still Orkney somehow draws me back. When the vast skies do clear there is nowhere more beautiful and uplifting to be on Earth. It makes my heart dance just to board the Pentalina at Gills Bay and cross the Pentland Firth.I am ashamed to admit that I only attended my first St Magnus Festival two years ago and I was doubly smitten. It provided the hefty hit of immersive international culture I sometimes pine for in the mainland Highlands: I love Scottish music and culture too but once in a while I need more.

And of course attending the festival means an excuse for a few days of complete escapism in a natural and historical environment I love.This year, glory be, the loose theme was 1919 and the aftermath of the Great War – so I was invited to speak.The Festival, founded by composer the late Sir Peter Maxwell Davies, is now in its 43rd year. It is also truly international: not just performers but also many of the audience come from all over the world.

I shared a friendly fish and chips with Linda from Toronto on Saturday night, queuing for them at the ‘good’ chippy along with the rest of Kirkwall (evening meals out can be a challenge) before she headed onwards for Shetland.On Sunday I spoke in the plush cinema at the ‘Picky’ centre – rather a good turn-out – perhaps they thought I was one of the other guest speakers?This time my volunteer ‘victim’ was the lovely Martin, a devoted St Magnus Festival fan of ten years’ standing who comes up from Lancaster every summer. Yes, Reader, I executed him, but he was very nice about it and we shared a fudge brownie afterwards.And oh yes, I did indeed check whether Terry Waite was in the audience before this photo was taken.

Arriving early and signing books at the Orcadian bookshop later in the week meant an opportunity to savour some of the other Festival delights too.Here is a glimpse of the Peace Gardens Trail which enabled us to explore Papdale Walled Garden, Happy Valley (an inspired place to use!) and Woodwick House with a variety of musical and artistic interludes. At the end, a violinist and percussionist on vibraphone played Spiegel im Spiegel with sunlight and birdsong streaming through the upper windows and I sat there listening with tears rolling down my cheeks – I know it doesn’t take much! – but a blissful release from a stressful few months of work.Poet Robin Robertson, author of The Long Take read from his poetic work.Its gnarly roots probe dark and uncomfortable places in Highland culture. Inspired by his lecture, I explored my own metaphor for the St Magnus Festival.

To me it is like a fine tablecloth, spread over the ancient driftwood table that is Orkney, once a year. The table can serve perfectly well as a table without it, and one leg occasionally mutters that it has no need of a fancy tablecloth which is only thrown over it for the benefit of outsiders: but the other table-legs quietly enjoy their bonny annual covering.

Orkney is enhanced and transformed by its time of adornment as the St Magnus Festival.

This is no frilly, frothy, lacy tablecloth either – no lightweight festival this – more a fine white linen, the very devil to iron, embroidered with ever more fantastic and complex designs each year.At the end of the festival the tablecloth is removed, shaken, folded and carefully put away until next year. The memory of it resonates, just as the single notes of the haunting James MacMillan piece I heard performed today at the eery old Town Hall Kirk in Stromness still pulsed, long after the key was struck.

Mary Bevan, Joseph Middleton and William Thomas gave us a superbly chilling selection of Anthems for Doomed Youth.The annual miracle of St Magnus is brought about by an army of volunteers, a quirky selection of venues, some very good performers and the Festival team, led by Alasdair Nicolson, who was always destined for greatness (our paths crossed during our schooldays).My own personal highlights?

A robin turning a Telemann duet into a trio in Papdale Walled Garden.A visceral response to Robin Robertson’s unsettling first poem. Watching the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra percussionists perform Fanfare to the Common Man and other mighty percussive pieces with barely a flicker of emotion: the definition of cool. Spiegel im Spiegel as already mentioned. The sheer ubiquity of trumpeter par excellence Tom Poulson (or should I say the Poulson Twins?).Tomorrow night’s performance of Alasdair Nicolson’s Govan Stones (almost but not quite its premiere).

And then of course watching the ‘Cattieface’ owl and hen harriers hunting across my friend Caroline’s wild field, as starlings mass into hit mobs to startle them, the port of Kirkwall spread out beyond. I have to return to normality tomorrow. If you can come to the last few days of this festival, you won’t regret it.

And if you have never been to Orkney, make your plans for 2020 now…

Happy New Year to all my readers and future readers! I am so grateful to everyone who has already read Major Tom’s War, wherever in the world you may be (India, Canada, America, France, Germany, the Netherlands and elsewhere…). Your feedback has been so kind, constructive and positive. As a début novelist, I am so grateful to each and every one of you.

2019 promises to be an exciting year, with second edition tweaks to get down to and a French edition in my sights. Not to mention the itch of a new novel in a similar genre(which may overlap a little with Major Tom’s War) which simply won’t go away!

After the joys and trials of Christmas and New Year I thought you might like to join me for a bracing winter’s walk through the ancient Mormal forest, not far from Bavay in Northern France. This dense area of woods, slightly smaller today than in 1914 – 1918, but still teeming with deer and wild boar, will require no introduction to those who have completed Major Tom’s War.  For those of you who have yet to begin, here is a brief account of its significance – I hope without too much of a spoiler alert!

Soon after the Great War began in 1914, the small British Expeditionary Force was beaten back fast and hard towards the coast by an immensely powerful and much greater German army.  The retreat became a rout and the Forêt de Mormal split the retreating army into two. Its woodland fringes became a bloody battlefield. Some regiments were ordered to protect the retreat in any way they could. Many men paid the price for this, while a very few, probably those familiar with forests from home, managed to hide in thickets or clamber up trees. They must have watched, unseen, with a combination of relief and terror, as the German army advanced past them.

These Allied soldiers became the concern of certain communities in the area of Northern France occupied for the duration. They managed to remain hidden for some time, fed and protected by local people (perhaps for example the grandparents of the two cheery hunters we encountered on our walk) until the weather turned colder and the leaves began to fall from the trees… but to know what happened next, you will need to read the book.

I was able to explore the Forêt de Mormal with my cousins Pippa and Roger Clegg, who chose the walk from a selection of leaflets offered by our helpful hosts the Mirapel family at the Auberge du Bellevue in Bavay. Locquignol was only a 20-minute drive away.

We placed a small poppy cross at the foot of one great beech tree adjacent to a very deep ditch which we had scrambled across. I wonder if any readers will ever spot it there, in the heart of the forest? I had not walked through this area before writing Major Tom’s War, but even so we all agreed it was like walking through the pages of the novel. This was particularly the case when we crossed the long, straight, Roman roads which criss-crossed the forest, but I cannot explain why without ruining the read.

We skirted the pretty village of Locquignol and enjoyed its quiet pasture edges.

This would have been a more ancient forest with older trees then. Most of the tree cover now dates back no more than a century, but it is still a timeless place, somewhere to walk slowly and wonder at small things.

I hope you have enjoyed this virtual walk – thanks for your company!