Maggie Craig's Blog: Maggie Craig Scottish Writer, page 9

Book Week Scotland 2015

I’m delighted to be taking part once again in Book Week Scotland, a country-wide celebration of books and the written word.

This year I’m at Alford Library in Aberdeenshire for a Meet the Author event and hosting a table at a Readers’ Dinner in Kirkcaldy organized by Fife Libraries.  See below for more details and how to book.

Meet the Author, Alford Library, Aberdeenshire:

Saturday 21st November, 2.30 pm.

Readers’ Dinner, Adam Smith College, Kirkcaldy:

Friday 27th November 2015, 6.30 pm.

 

Neil Munro and the Language of the Garden of Eden

Neil Munro was a Scottish writer who lived from 1863 to 1930. A busy journalist, newspaper editor, loving father and husband, he wrote a clutch of highly-enjoyable and highly-regarded historical novels, which include The New Road, John Splendid and Doom Castle.

He’s remembered by many Scots for his humorous Para Handy stories where the crew of a Clyde puffer, The Vital Spark, fall into

 

a  series of adventures while shipping supplies to the islands and coastal communities of the Firth of Clyde and the West Highlands of Scotland. Two very popular TV series were made.

Munro came from the West Highlands. He was born in Inveraray and his first language was Gaelic. Although he wrote in English, it’s underpinned by what many Gaels refer to as the language of the Garden of Eden. The combination makes for a lyrical result, especially in Munro’s collection of short stories, The Lost Pibroch. 

Pibroch is a style of Highland bagpipe playing, very hard to master.

Here are a few enchanting examples of Neil Munro’s writing, the first from the story that gives the collection its title:

“To the make of a piper go seven years of his own learning and seven generations before. If it is in, it will out, as the Gaelic old-word says; if not, let him take to the net or sword. At the end of his seven years one born to it will stand at the start of knowledge, and leaning a fond ear to the drone, he may have parley with old folks of old affairs.”

From the story of The Fell Sergeant:

“It is ill enough to have to die in Glenaora at any season, but to get the word for travelling from it on yon trip in the spring of the year is hard indeed. The gug-gug will halloo in your ears to bid you bide a wee and see the red of the heather creep on Tom-an-dearc; the soft and sap-scented winds will come in at the open door, and you will mind, maybe, of a day long-off and lost when you pulled the copper leaves of the bursting oak and tossed them among a girl’s hair.”

From the story entitled War, describing how the Campbells of Inverary went off to fight against the Jacobites at Culloden:

“On the belts of the older men, loth to leave the fire-end, mothers and wives were hanging bags with thick farls of cake, and cheese, and the old Aora salve for sword cuts.”

From the same story, with the added poetry of place names:

“Far up the long Highlands the Campbells were on their way. Loch Sloy and Glen Falloch, Rannoch’s bleakness and Ben Alder’s steepness, and each morning its own wet grass and misty brae, and each night its dreams on the springy heather.”

And I was inspired to write this post courtesy of Bookshelf Fantasies Thursday Quotables. It’s good to share words that we love!

 

 

 

 

 

Remembering The Jacobites of 1715

The Jacobite Rising of 1715 had its formal start on 6th September 1715 when the Earl of Mar raised the standard at Braemar. Prior to the rising of 1745, this was the most significant attempt to win the British throne back from the House of Hanover and restore the House of Stuart.

Three hundred years later, on 6th September 2015, some of us foregathered at the NTS visitor centre at Culloden to remember the Jacobites of 1715. It was a bright, breezy and gloriously sunny day.

A temporary exhibition was unveiled by Katey Boal, Learning Manager with the National Trust for Scotland at Culloden.

This is a joint project between NTS Culloden and The Fifteen, The Northumbrian Jacobite Society, initiated with great enthusiasm by NTS Property Manager Andrew Mackenzie and John Nicholls, MBE, chairman of The Fifteen, The Northumbrian Jacobite Society. John is glimpsed here to the left of the handsome display boards.

The Jacobites of 1715 don’t have nearly as high a profile as their counterparts in 1745 but they’re just as interesting and many of their stories are equally poignant.

Take James Radcliffe, 3rd Earl of Derwentwater, executed for treason on Tower Hill in London early in 1716 at the age of 26. From his point of view there was no treason. He was loyal both to his Catholic faith and to the man he saw as his rightful king, James VIII and III, Bonnie Prince Charlie’s father.

A beautiful old lament remembers Derwentwater and his commitment to the cause of the House of Stuart. Listen here to The Corries’ version, with the late and sorely missed Roy Williamson accompanying himself on the hauntingly-beautiful Northumbrian bagpipes.

John Nicholls (seen here more clearly with his wife Elizabeth), is passionate about remembering the Jacobites of 1715, especially those who came from the North of England. At Culloden in September 2015, he read out the names of many of the men who took part and the places they came from. It was a very moving moment. One of those men was George Collingwood, who is mentioned in Derwentwater’s Farewell.

John also laid a beautiful wreath and, preceded by a piper, led a group out to the entrance to the visitor centre, where a replica of the Jacobite standard of 1715 was raised.

As John says: “Apart from its being a once-in-a-lifetime anniversary that should not go unnoticed, we felt also that it would add to the visitor experience at Culloden by giving them some indication that there wasn’t only just the ’45 and that this was the culmination of several previous plots and risings, of which the ’15 had the best chance of success.”

Find out more about the Jacobite Rising of 1715 and The Northumbrian Jacobite Society, who also have a Facebook page.

 

 

 

Always a thrill to see my books on the shelf

It’s always a thrill to see my books on the shelves, especially when I’m in such good company as I am here at the National Trust for Scotland visitor Scotland at Culloden. I was there last week to sign copies of my Jacobite romantic suspense novel, Gathering Storm. The gift shop at Culloden has just stocked up on those.

I’m pictured here next to my Jacobite non-fiction, Damn’ Rebel Bitches: The Women of the ’45 and Bare-Arsed Banditti: The Men of the 45.

Maggie with her books at NTS Culloden

I’m honoured that my non-fiction Jacobite books sit next to John Prebble’s masterly Culloden. That was the first serious history I ever read about the Jacobites and the 1745 Rising. The first novel I ever read on the subject was DK Broster’s classic adventure, The Flight of the Heron.

Also in the picture is No Quarter Given, otherwise known as the Muster Roll. This labour of love was compiled by members of the 1745 Association and is the Bible for anyone looking for a specific name and regiment of an ancestor or person of interest who served in Bonnie Prince Charlie’s Jacobite army. For a researcher, it also offers the broader picture of who the men were, what they were to trade and where they came from.

After signing the books, we drove into Inverness and had lunch by the river. Inverness looked glorious in the summer sunshine!

Lunch alfresco in Inverness

Dance to the Storm

Fair chuffed that the cover for Dance to the Storm, my next novel, has reached the finals of a cover competition.

http://indtale.com/polls/creme-de-la-...

If you'd like to add your vote, feel free!

Dance to the Storm is the sequel to Gathering Storm and follows the further adventures of Scottish Redcoat officer Captain Robert Catto and Edinburgh apothecary and committed Jacobite Christian Rankeillor. The book will be published in Spring 2016.

The striking cover for Dance to the Storm was designed by the very talented Cathy Helms of Avalon Graphics.

Dance to the Storm

Fair chuffed that the cover for Dance to the Storm, my next novel, has reached the finals of a cover competition.

http://indtale.com/polls/creme-de-la-...

If you’d like to add your vote, feel free!

Dance to the Storm is the sequel to Gathering Storm and follows the further adventures of Scottish Redcoat officer Captain Robert Catto and Edinburgh apothecary and committed Jacobite Christian Rankeillor. The book will be published in Spring 2016.

The striking cover for Dance to the Storm was designed by the very talented Cathy Helms of Avalon Graphics. 

Escape from the Jacobites at Doune Castle

Doune Castle near Stirling

Doune Castle near Stirling has starred in Monthy Python & the Holy Grail and the pilot episode of Games of Thrones. In Starz TV’s adaptation of Diana Gabaldon’s phenomenally successful Outlander novels, Doune plays Castle Leoch.  As itself, this mighty mediaeval Scottish castle played host to a daring escape of prisoners in January 1746. One of those men was a future signatory of the American Declaration of Independence.

The Reverend John Witherspoon was 23 years old and already a Church of Scotland minister in Beith in Ayrshire. Opposed to the Catholic Bonnie Prince Charlie and his plans to regain the British throne for the Stuarts, Witherspoon raised a militia from his congregation. He rode off at its head, ready to fight on the side of the Government and the House of Hanover. He seems to have fallen into Jacobite hands before he could get the chance.

The Battle of Falkirk in January 1746 was a victory for the Jacobites. Although they failed to build on their success, they did take some prisoners before they headed back north to the Highlands. Doune Castle near Stirling must have seemed impregnable, especially for anyone trying to break out of this imposing fortress. Its solid stone walls still soar up to the sky.

Witherspoon was a prisoner there with several of the pro-Hanoverian students of Edinburgh’s College Company, including John Home. Home later published The History of the Rebellion in Scotland in 1745, in which he describes how a group of them made up their minds to escape. The plan was a bold and risky one.

They were kept high up in the castle, just below the battlements, with a drop of over 70 feet between them and the ground below. In classic style, the young men tied together their blankets to fashion a rope.  At about one o’clock in the morning they began to lower themselves down.

It was a moonlit night but there was no guard posted at that part of the castle walls. Four made it down safely. The fifth man was taller and heavier and the rope broke under his weight, leaving a shortfall of 20-30 feet. At the cost of a painful fall, a sixth man made it down. The seventh was not so lucky. He survived the fall but died later of his injuries. His name was Neil MacVicar, son of the manse on the island of Islay.

John Witherspoon, John Home and the others got away safely. Home too became a minister and also a playwright, known for his play Douglas. Witherspoon crossed the Atlantic, helped found the University of Princeton and became one of the signatories of the Declaration of Independence.

Historic Scotland plans to re-enact the plotting by Witherspoon and his friends of the daring escape from Doune Castle in August 2015.

 

 

 

Creative Writing Masterclass at Eden Court Theatre, Inverness.

Really looking forward to leading a workshop on writing fiction at the Eden Court Theatre in Inverness on Thursday 12th March from 7 pm to 9 pm. It’s a bonus to be doing so in one of my favourite cities. I’m at the Eden Court as part of a series of classes led by different writers. You can check us all out here:

Eden Court Creative Writing Masterclasses

 

 

Book Week Scotland 2014 & Love Letters to Libraries

I had a lovely time during Book Week Scotland which runs through the last week in November. I gave talks in a couple of Aberdeenshire’s Libraries, including New Pitsligo and Balmedie.  There was a great turn-out at both and some really interesting questions.

New Pitsligo was a very appropriate place to talk about the gallant Lord Pitsligo of the 1745 Jacobite Rising as he lived near there. A loyal supporter of Bonnie Prince Charlie and the Jacobites, Alexander Forbes was also a scholar and a gentleman and an enthusiastic advocate of education for girls and women. Check out my brief blogpost on him: Lord Pitsligo

The organizers of Book Week Scotland are the Scottish Book Trust, who are a very lively bunch, always looking for ways to promote reading. One brilliant idea they had this year was to ask writers and readers to send a love letter to their local libraries. This initiative really caught the imagination and there are some wonderful examples on here.

Write a love letter to your library

Here’s my contribution: Love Letter to Libraries

 

Lord Pitsligo of the 1745 Jacobite Rising

I have to confess that I’m a wee bit in love with Alexander Forbes, 4th Lord Pitsligo. He was a scholar, gentleman and man of honour. He fought in the ’15 and went out again in 1745, despite being 67 years old and a chronic asthmatic. He was a great asset to Bonnie Prince Charlie and did what he could to mitigate the suffering of those on the other side. When Charles and the Jacobites occupied a hostile Glasgow over Christmas 1745, it was Cameron of Lochiel who stayed the Prince’s hand when he threatened to sack the city. I suspect Pitsligo backed him up.

He was certainly a tactful guest in the house of the Glasgow University professor on whom he was billeted. A few weeks later, the professor asked Pitsligo to intervene to secure the release of two young ministers and divinity students who had fought against the Jacobites at the Battle of Falkirk. He did. One of those young ministers was John Wotherspoon/Witherspoon. He went on to become a founder of Princeton University and one of the signatories of the American Declaration of Independence.

After Culloden, Lord Pitsligo became a fugitive with a price on his head. For years he had to hide in and around his home of Pitsligo Castle, near Fraserburgh, in Scotland’s north-east corner. Pursued by the Redcoats, he had many close shaves but his family, friends and tenants protected him. He died a free man in bed at his son’s house at the age of 84.

If you’d like to read more about Lord Pitsligo and other unsung Jacobite heroes of the ’45, you’ll find them here:

Bare-Arsed Banditti: The Men of the ’45

Bare-Arsed Banditti: The Men of the ’45