Beginning to Write

As a child I read at the kitchen table with my fingers in my ears and held the book open with my elbows. I read Roald Dahl and Agaton Sax and The Hardy Boys. I found a friend in Charlie Bucket and Danny, The Champion of the World. I found suspense and excitement with Agaton Sax. I didn’t see words; I saw pictures and scenes. I heard the voices of the characters.

My mother had shelves full of classics that had been hers when she was a child. Amongst them were Treasure Island and Kidnapped. John Silver burst into my imagination; a flawed hero larger than life that I rooted for. David Balfour on the other hand was a young man that I could relate to more than Jim Hawkins, and Alan Breck Stewart a hero that I would have followed to the end of the earth thanks to an old-school teacher I had in primary school.

She wore her white hair in a tight bun and wore three-piece tweed skirt-suits in a variety of colours. She had been my father’s and aunts’ teacher, and she was terrifying. She wielded the strap like a shield-maiden wielding a battle-axe. She was also the earliest inspiration. She was the first to teach us of the Highland clans that were our ancestors, the first to tell us tales of battles and bravery and witch-craft in the misty glens. She would assign us the latest class project, usually related to where she had been on holiday. The project would consist of learning about the subject (Highland clans, Norway and the Vikings) which would include drawing pictures, and of course, writing stories.

Not a sound could be heard when the class was set to the task of composition, and I thrived in the silence. My hand would cramp as it shuttled across the page racing to weave the yarn spun from my imagination. An afternoon of story writing would pass in a flash, compared to the endless mornings of maths. I knew early on where my heart lay.

One of the earliest stories I remember writing was a piece about Marco Polo involved in an elephant mounted battle on The Silk Road. As a nine- or ten-year-old boy, my writing involved a lot of gratuitous violence.

As I grew, and read a lot of Scottish history, the story of the destruction of the Highland way of life and the ethnic and cultural cleansing of a people swept away any notion of romanticism, and lead to the writing of Bluebell Souls.

The root of that novel though, and of all my writing, is in that silent classroom, where a shield-maiden stood ready to fell any pupil who lifted their head from their task.