Maggie Craig's Blog: Maggie Craig Scottish Writer, page 2

August in Edinburgh!

The Festival! The Fringe! Street theatre! The Edinburgh Military tattoo and the massed pipes and drums! Glorious sunshine one day, a Biblical downpour the next! It was much the same 200 years ago when King George IV paid an official visit to Edinburgh.

WJ Huggins, George IV’s Arrival at Leith. Courtesy of Heriot Watt University

In August 1822 the entertainment, the bagpipes and the street theatre came from the processions, parades, banquets and balls threaded through his two-week stay in the Scottish capital. Masterminded by Sir Walter Scott, the visit also saw – sort of – a gathering of the clans.  A welcome splash of colour on the rainy days, tartan and Highland dress were everywhere.

Even the King wore the kilt. Unfortunately, the tailor made it too short. His legs didn’t look so good anyway, so he wore pink tights to cover them.  He looks great in this portrait by Sir David Wilkie. The artist may just have flattered him a wee bit.

David Wilkie, George IV in a kilt.

The cartoonists of the time had a field day.  They were savage. 

Cartoon of George IV in his too short kilt.

The contradictions and ironies of the visit were many. You can read more about it in my Historia article.  

The Battle of Glenshiel 10th June 1719

Eilean Donan Castle

Today is the anniversary of the Battle of Glenshiel in 1719. Well, it is if we forget the change in the calendar but we’ll not go into that now. Thought I would give my article on what might be called the forgotten Jacobite Rising another wee whirl. It was published in Historia magazine on the 300th anniversary of the battle in 2019. Also known as the Little Rising, it featured Spanish soldiers sailing to Scotland to fight in support of the Jacobites, the Protestant Wind and the blowing up of Eilean Donan Castle. It was rebuilt much, much later, fortunately in time for Connor MacLeod of the Clan MacLeod to ride out of it in Highlander. 

 

 

 

 

In Conversation at Prestonpans

 

On Thursday 16th June at 7pm, I’ll be in conversation with Dr Arran Johnston at the Battle of Prestonpans Jacobite Museum. This has its home in Prestonpans Town Hall.  Arran and I will be talking about my Jacobite books and lots more.  

Booking is essential. You can buy tickets here. 

 

 

 

 

Podcast on My Writing

I’ve had some good publicity around the publication of the new editions of Damn Rebel Bitches: The Women of the ’45 and Bare-Arsed Banditti: The Men of the ’45. The Sunday Post did an excellent full-page spread, written by Tracey Bryce and using one of my favourite paintings of Jacobite Times to illustrate it. Susan Swarbrick of The Herald asked me to do My Favourite Place in the paper’s Saturday magazine. No prizes for guessing where my favourite place is.

In February I sat down to chat via Zoom with Federica Stefani of Highland News Media. The resulting conversation was great fun. Freddie asked some great questions. You can listen in here.

 

The new editions of Damn Rebel Bitches and Bare-Arsed Banditti are now available to buy from all the usual online and High Street bookshops in the UK. Release dates in other countries may vary but should be over the next few months. Both books are now fully referenced and have stunning new covers by the talented Cathy Helms of Avalon Graphics.

 

 

 

 

If you’d like to sign up to my newsletter – usually quarterly or when I have some BIG news – please click here. As a thank you, I’ll send you with my compliments a selection of my previously published articles in an ebook called Once Upon a Time in Scotland. 

New Editions of Damn Rebel Bitches & Bare-Arsed Banditti

Last year I realized that this year, 2022, would be the 25th anniversary of the first publication of Damn’ Rebel Bitches: The Women of the ’45. I approached the publisher, Penguin Random House, and suggested a special edition to mark this milestone. I’m delighted to say that the new edition will be available from all online and High Street bookstores from Thursday 10th March.

 

 

The bold and dramatic cover was designed by Cathy Helms of Avalon Graphics. As was the cover of the companion volume, Bare-Arsed Banditti: The Men of the ’45. The new editions of both books will be published on the same day, 10th March, 2022.

 

The text in both books is 99% the same as in the older editions. I’ve made a few tweaks where updating was required. The big difference apart from the covers is that both books are now fully referenced, in end notes. Those who want to dig deeper can use these to do so.

It took me nearly four months last summer to add the references, combing through my files of photocopies and notes taken when I was doing the research. It was hard work but I enjoyed once again meeting all the men and women who people the books. I was really grateful that I was able to check so many sources online.

That wasn’t the case when I first started researching, way back in 1995-96. It involved travelling to libraries and archives, finding your way around the different classification systems and humbly asking if you might be permitted to make/request some photocopies. It was hard work but it was rewarding too. There’s a real thrill in reading a letter written by someone 250 years and more before. Here’s a link to an article I wrote for Historia online magazine about the differences between research then and now.  

This article shows the previous covers. I loved them too but it’s good to freshen things up!

A Poem from India by Nimmou Nilakantan

This moving poem is by my friend Nimmou Nilakantan. We got to know each other at the school gates back in the mid 1980s when we were both young mums. Our sons met in the classroom as wee boys and were soon best buddies. Nimmou, her husband Nila and their two lads were in Glasgow for a few years because Nila had been posted there by Coats Viyella.

Nimmou says of the current situation in India, “We live in Bangalore (the Silicon capital of India) and things are as dire as portrayed if not worse.” She describes India as going through hell. Here is her poem:

 

THE PANDEMIC

We called it Pandemic

It was World War 3

Where we fought the Invisible Enemy….

 

We called it Pandemic

But it was World War 3

Every battle fought against the Daily Lonely…

 

We called it Pandemic

Every soldier had one task

To wear the weapon – A Mask….

 

We called it Pandemic

No condition could be worse

When humans became People Averse…

 

We called it Pandemic

It was World War 3

Imprisoned at home, no Longer Free…

 

We called it Pandemic

We wrote ourselves into history

By the failure of Human Society…

 

We called it Pandemic

It was World War 3

When will we ever return To Normalcy?

Nimmou Nilakantan

Launch of One Week in April One Year On

One Week in April: The Scottish Radical Rising of 1820 was launched on 2nd April 2020.

All sorts of live events were planned for the bicentenary of the Rising, (also known as the Radical War). One which went ahead was the inaugural Paisley Book Festival. I treasure my lanyard as a reminder of live events and a hope that they will return. I’ve always loved doing them. In Paisley I started by reading the Riot Act to the audience. It was read several times for real in 1820. Another great pleasure of author events is the informal chat with all sorts of people afterwards. In addition to being a lot of fun, I always learn something.

 

Then, as we all know, Covid struck. We had to think on our feet. Commemorations, talks and book publicity very swiftly became virtual. There has been a silver lining here. With many online events being recorded, people can join in at a time that suits them from all over the world. It was the first time my Canadian nephew and his family had been able to come to one of my talks. His children asked if their Auntie Maggie was now famous!

My publishers, Birlinn Books, rose magnificently to the challenge. There was a launch on Twitter, with a live Q & A session – my fingers have never flown so swiftly over the keys – plus a wee film my husband and I had recorded previously and a dramatic animation of the book’s striking cover, designed by Astrid Jaekel. Birlinn brought the virtual wine. I brought the virtual cake – Victoria sponge. It was delicious.

Later I did a fun interview with comedian Susan Morrison. If you’d like to, you can watch it all here.

I also did an online talk for the National Museums of Scotland in their online strand ‘Scotland’s Forgotten Heroes@. It’s 15 minutes long and you can watch it here. My, how my lockdown locks have grown since last summer.

There are also several posts on different aspects of Scotland’s 1820 Radicals on my blog. 

 

 

 

Inverness Outlanders LIVE

 

 

Very pleased to have been asked by the lovely and dedicated Inverness Outlanders to speak about some of the women I wrote about in Damn’ Rebel Bitches: The Women of the ’45 at an online event. The third Inverness Outlanders LIVE online show happens this coming Tuesday, 23rd February at 7pm on Facebook. You can tune in here.

I’m chatting with Bruce MacGregor of Blazin’ Fiddles and MacGregor’s Bar fame.  The motto of the bar is ‘Macgregor’s Despite Them.’ Love the defiance! 

Damn Rebel Bitches was first published in 1997 and has never been out of print since. It was a labour of love and it’s very satisfying to know that the stories of these brave Scotswomen continue to inspire. You can find out more about the book here. 

The Battle of Falkirk Muir

The Battle of Falkirk Muir, also known as the second Battle of Falkirk, was fought on 17th January 1746 and was a victory for the Jacobite army of Prince Charles Edward Stuart over their Hanoverian adversaries of the British army. The battle was fought in a tempest of rain and wind, as illustrated in this painting by Lionel Edwards (1878-1966). The artist was famous for painting scenes depicting horses and riders.

Battle of Falkirk Muir 1746. (Lionel Edwards)

For an excellent summary of the context of battle and photographs of the memorial to it, see this post on Undiscovered Scotland.

James Johnstone, later the Chevalier de Johnstone, was a young Edinburgh man who fought on the Jacobite side throughout the Rising of 1745. He later wrote A Memoir of the ‘Forty-Five, a vivid account of the Year of the Prince. He escaped from the field at Culloden and after many adventures successfully evaded capture by the victorious Redcoats. You can also read more about him in my book Bare-Arsed Banditti: The Men of the ’45 .

At Falkirk, Johnstone was dispatched up the hill the next day with a sergeant and 20 men, with instructions to bury the bodies and gather up the cannons left behind by the Government troops as they retreated in terror from the ferocity of the Jacobite army. The rain and the wind had not lessened, as Johnstone described in his memoir.

‘The sergeant carried a lantern, but the light was soon extinguished, and by that accident we immediately lost our way and wandered a long time at the foot of the hill among heaps of dead bodies, which their whiteness rendered visible notwithstanding the obscurity of a very dark night. To add to the disagreeableness of our situation from the horror of this scene, the wind and rain were full in our faces. I even remarked a trembling and strong agitation in my horse, which constantly shook when it was forced to put its feet on the heap of dead bodies and climb over them. However, after we had wandered a long time amongst these bodies, we at length found the cannon.’

The memory of that horrific scene and the trembling of his horse haunted James Johnstone for the rest of his long life.

Merry Christmas 2020

Very pleased to have published two books this year, one non-fiction and one novel. Thrilled that the Scotsman newspaper included One Week in April: The Scottish Radical Rising of 1820 in their supplement Scottish Books of 2020.

 

Currently writing the third novel in the Storm over Scotland series. Many thanks to all readers and reviewers (well, most of the latter!)  for their encouragement.

Merry Christmas and here’s hoping the rocky road we’ve been on this year will begin to smooth out as we take our first steps into 2021.