The Amber Heart - The Long, Long Story of a Story and Pardon Me While I Scream.

Yesterday, a friend who had just read my new book The Last Lancer, was telling me that she had enjoyed reading it - but she didn't love it as much as one of my novels called The Amber Heart. She went on to tell me how and why she loved it, which is always cheering for an author to hear. And perhaps doubly so, when it was praise for a novel with a long and chequered history. 

Now that it's available as an eBook and in paperback, at long last, I think it's time to revisit the tale of how we got here, what inspired it - and what the connection is with the true story of The Last Lancer. 

Once upon a time, when I was young and optimistic, my first full length adult novel, titled The Golden Apple, was accepted for publication by The Bodley Head, an old and distinguished publisher. To be clear, this wasn't my very first novel. There were others, tucked away in folders, never to see the light of day. Practice novels. And there was a young adult novel, published in Scotland, before young adult was even a thing. But this was my first grown up novel that was fit to be seen.

I considered myself very lucky. My agent for fiction at the time was Pat Kavanagh, and she was a fine agent with a wonderful reputation. Among other things, and unlike almost all agents now, who will tell you that publishers are looking for an 'oven ready book' (that's a direct quote from one of my subsequent agents) she didn't consider it her job to edit. That was the publisher's job. If a book was good enough, she would sell it. Beyond that, the editorial relationship was with the publisher.

Half way through the publishing process, the Bodley Head was taken over by what was then Century, an imprint of mega conglomerate Random House. What should have been a thoughtful, typical Bodley Head novel, about a cross cultural marriage, was published as a beach bonkbuster and sank without trace. It was an early lesson in the power of branding. And the disaster of the wrong branding. My editor at the time, with whom I had no quarrel, wrote to me later to say that she felt guilty about what had happened to my novel, and the knock-on effect on my career.

Still, with Pat's encouragement, I embarked on a new project. That new novel was - in essence - The Amber Heart. Back then. I think it was called Noon Ghosts. It was an epic and passionate love story, a family saga, very loosely inspired by what I knew of episodes from my own family history, not least a somewhat scandalous liaison between an aristocratic forebear and her estate manager, one which you can read all about in The Last Lancer. Knowing that at some point in the future, I might want to tackle the true story of that relationship, I deliberately set my fictional love story in the previous century. 

To my relief, Pat approved. She quickly sent it out and the responses were wonderful. She related some of the reader and editor comments to me. 'I literally could not put this book down,' one of them said. 'I read it through the night and wept buckets at the end.' There were lots in the same vein. They loved it and said so. Cloud nine loomed.

Pat couldn't sell it. 

And she could have sold sand in the desert. 

You know what the stumbling block was? It was the Polish setting. It always fell at the last editorial hurdle. The consensus in every publishing house she tried (and there were already diminishing numbers of possibilities) was that nobody would want to read a piece of historical fiction set in Poland, especially one that was aimed at a largely female readership, never mind that some of those same readers had compared it to a Polish Gone with the Wind, never mind that it was a big, sexy and ultimately tragic love story. It was too foreign and that was that.

Years later, Pat told me how frustrated she had been that she couldn't sell the novel. For her too, it was the 'one that got away'. Sadly, she died far too young. I put the manuscript away, stored all the research in a big box under the bed, and got on with other writing. I forged a pretty successful career as a playwright but I was also working on more novels, finding the pull of fiction irresistible. Many have now been published by Saraband. I'm a compulsive teller of tales, so I finished up with more novels than Saraband could ever reasonably publish.

Three in particular fell through the cracks in the publishing business: Ice Dancing, Bird of Passage and, of course, The Amber Heart.  Sadly and inexplicably, I think these three are among the best books I've written, and I don't say that lightly. Other people have told me so too. 

Time passed. 

I found and retyped the old manuscript of The Amber Heart. You can tell how long this has been going on by the fact that its first faded incarnation was on old fashioned perforated computer paper - the kind that ancient printers spat out in long reams. I expanded it, wondering if it would make a trilogy. Realised that the answer was no. Filed it away on the computer, instead of in the box under the bed. Changed computers. Lost the file. Found it. Opened it up. Cut and edited it. A lot.

Throughout this time, I had several agents. One left the business. One of them decided that she could make more money with other clients (true) and jettisoned me.  My last agent was enthusiastic, but he  disappeared before he could send it out. For all I know he may have gone out for a loaf and never come home because I never heard from him again. All of them read The Amber Heart in its various incarnations, liked it very much, but still pointed out that nobody wanted to read a piece of fiction set in Poland. Two of them told me that it needed pruning. They were right about that, at least, but the problem was that one wanted me to lose the first third, while another wanted me to lose the last third. 

So why didn't I give up?

The answer came to me when, over lockdown, I realised that Pat and all those readers had been right. It is a good book. But the others were right too. It was much too long. Stodgy in places. Going back to it, years later, and with a lot more experience as a writer, I could see clearly enough that it needed rewriting. Just not the kind of pruning that destroys the whole tree. I took about fifteen thousand words out of it, here, there and everywhere. I killed a few darlings. I think now it's tighter, more readable, less verbose. A better book.

I'm still in love with my main characters. Still love the story. And I'm still quite proud of some of the writing in it. Interestingly, I did this while I was deep into research for The Last Lancer, just published by Saraband. My very last enquiry to an agent referencing this proposed new non-fiction book (why on earth did I do it?) elicited the faintly bored response that there were 'so many similar stories out there'. That was not long before the Russian invasion. Since my grandfather was born in what is now Ukraine, in a sleigh, grew up to look like a younger version of Olivier's Maxim de Winter, was a cavalryman who drove a Chrysler and died at the age of 38, at Bukhara on the Silk Road, I suspect that there aren't all that many similar stories out there, but what do I know?

All the same, if I ever again publicly express a desire to find an agent, you will know that it's code for 'I've been kidnapped. Send help immediately.'

Meanwhile, Saraband were at the London Book Fair. I'd have thought the Last Lancer might have been a good candidate for translation into Polish and publication in that country. Poles certainly keep telling me so. And I just got a heartening and glowing testimonial from my hero Neal Ascherson. But my publisher reported no interest in it. 'All the focus is now on Ukraine,' they said. Which is, of course, where the book is set, exploring the troubled history of that region through the history of one family.

Pardon me while I go away and scream.

Before I do though, you can download the Amber Heart as an eBook for the bargain price of 99p, from May 12th to May 19th. It's available in paperback as well. And if you want to know where the idea for the love story at the heart of that novel came from, you might like to read The Last Lancer as well. 

Team Harry

 

I enjoyed this book. It's extremely well ghost-written by Pulitzer prize-winning journalist J. R. Moehringer, and it shows. 

I'm not much of a royalist. Think it would be better if we had the kind of low key monarchy that you find in other parts of Europe, instead of ours with all its pomp and circumstance and hangers on. But the thought of an elected President Johnson is discouraging. 

All the same, I have a great deal of sympathy for Harry and his wife. I know the royals are immensely privileged but the price for this young man, at least, seems to have been just too much to bear. I am, of course, pretty much alone in this among my friends. Even - or perhaps especially - among the dyed-in-the-wool royalists, who will never read the book. 

Meghan had a raw deal from the media. It's not hard to find the evidence, if you look for it. Everything from the crazy comparisons between Meghan and her saintly sister-in-law to the exploitation of her rather vulnerable father. But even I, approaching this story with a certain amount of sympathy, didn't realise the full extent of the press intrusion on Harry, from the day of his birth, through the death of his mother, to the present day. Comparisons with other members of the family make no sense when it comes to the 'spare' - Diana's son.  Privacy is an impossibility when the press are determined to hunt you down. Even in the army, (where among other things he learned to fly a helicopter in record time) the media found him, casually and deliberately exposed his presence, and carelessly put those serving with him at risk. 

There was and remains no way in which this couple and their children could ever maintain the kind of low, private profile that people keep telling me should have been their aim. Maybe it should, but the media simply won't allow it. Therefore, the only option is to come out fighting. It may not be advisable. But it's all too human. 

This is the story of a sweet natured boy, who lost his mother in an appalling and public way at a young age and who has been unable to properly process that bereavement. Who has never been allowed to process that bereavement. Whose every adolescent and young adult error has been picked over by the world's press and is resurrected at every opportunity. No saint, no demon, no fool either. If a dysfunctional family is one where 'there's no open space to express your thoughts and feelings freely' then the Royals certainly are dysfunctional, and Harry has seldom been allowed any space at all. 

Incidentally, and inexplicably, his father and his brother seem to persist in calling him Harold, when his name is Henry. As in God for Harry, etc, etc. That Henry. So why? It doesn't sound much like a pet name, an affectionate family nickname. The only Harold that springs to mind for an oldie like me (and, presumably, Charles too) is young Steptoe, stymied at every turn by a demanding father. 

We're on Team Harry in this house.

Read the book. You might just find it enlightening.  

Ben Hur - At Last!

It's taken the BBC a very long time to get this out on audio but here it is at last. My dramatisation of Ben Hur was - almost unbelievably - made back in 1995. If not exactly a cast of thousands, it has a big, brilliant and very starry list of actors. Where else can you hear Sam West, Jamie Glover, Michael Hordern, Freddie Jones, Michael Gambon, Phyllis Calvert and many more, in one space, with specially composed music as well? 

They really don't make them like that any more. 

Alas, the great producers I worked with back then: Glyn Dearman, Marilyn Imrie, Hamish Wilson, are all gone and soon after that production, I found that my face no longer fit as far as radio was concerned. I had younger producers who wanted to work with me, but no proposal was ever accepted. At first, I would say, 'well you can put it forward if you like, but I fear you'll be wasting your time' and I was usually right. Eventually, I realised that, after more than a hundred hours of produced radio drama, the time had come to move on, so I did. It was hard as far as income was concerned, but very good for me as far as work was concerned, because it made me focus on theatre, but more importantly, on fiction and non-fiction writing, with some success. 

Besides, the great days of radio drama were ending, and I don't think they'll ever come back. Big productions of the classics, such as Ben Hur, Kidnapped and Catriona, The Bride of Lammermoor, Treasure Island, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, all of which I dramatised back then, could still be made and disseminated on audio,  but I don't think the budgets to pay writers, actors, skilled technicians and producers are there. Besides,  I suspect many of the unique radio skills of producers, sound engineers, radio actors (it's a very special talent) and dramatists have been lost. Which is a pity. 

Ben Hur was made at the old BBC studios in Maida Vale. Glyn had approached me to see if I would be prepared to do it and I'd jumped at the chance. It was a more demanding project than I'd thought it would be, not least because the original novel, while a wonderful story, was written in a sort of archaic pseudo biblical English and had a plot with significant holes in it. Holes that had to be filled, without damaging that fine story. Back then (unlike, say, the recent Great Expectations dramatisation) while recognising that we were working in a different medium, with its own demands, we did respect the original text as far as we could. So just as in my dramatisation of Kidnapped, we really had to find a way to make David climb that perilous tower at the House of Shaws, we couldn't possibly do Ben Hur without the chariot race. Even on radio. You cheat listener expectations of well loved stories at your peril.

I think we managed it, mostly down to some fine acting and directing, but an equally brilliant sound picture from Wilfredo Acosta. I remember that when I was deep into writing that scene, my PC crashed, and I had to do it all over again. I type so fast that back then, I routinely caused the computer to throw a wobbly. Doesn't happen now, thank goodness.

Working with such stars presented its own set of problems and challenges too. With a big radio drama project like this, you don't record in sequence. Often, actors will have other commitments that the producer has to work around, so scenes from different parts of the production will be recorded on the same day. I often thought that the production assistant had the most difficult and unenviable job of the lot, co-ordinating all this. She must have had  nightmares about getting to the end of a production only to find that a key scene with, say, Michael Gambon, had been missed out! 

Glyn Dearman was a pleasure to work with. Ben Hur stands out in my memory as one of the highlights of my radio career and that was, I think, largely down to his eccentric and charming personality, his ability to make difficult things seem easy, his extraordinary talent. 

They don't make them like him any more either. 

 David Rintoul and Paul Young in my and the late Marilyn Imrie's dramatisation of Kidnapped 

Here Be Dragons? - Writing About Poland

 

First things first. My Polish historical saga The Amber Heart is free on Amazon Kindle for three days only, from Wednesday 29th - Friday 31st March. If you haven't read it, now's the time! It's available to buy in paperback too, if you prefer to read in that format. 

Given that my new non-fiction book The Last Lancer was published a month ago, the response to it has been quite low key here in the UK. So far, I've done a detailed interview for Emma Cox for her excellent Journeys into Genealogy podcast. You can read my short guest blog about the process, with links to the podcast here. You can listen to the whole podcast from the links at the bottom of that piece  - especially useful if you plan to research your own family history in Central and Eastern Europe. I'll also be doing a session at the Boswell Book Festival in May, alongside a Ukrainian refugee, of which more later.

Perhaps predictably, the most enthusiastic responses have been from my fellow Poles. Two friends brought flowers and chocolates. A lovely Polish writer friend spread the word - and copies of the book. I sent copies to Poland and elsewhere, to the friends and relatives who had helped with my research. Not the easiest process in the world since Brexit. 

Early days, of course. But I suppose it's inevitable that my Polish friends will 'get it' in the way that many of my UK friends perhaps never will, even when they enjoy the book. Or as Polish Leftists more robustly wrote, on Facebook, at the time of the Russian invasion of Ukraine - 'you will never understand us and how the experiences of multiple occupations shaped our societies and how that historical experience is present in our every day conversations and in our system of values.'

I fear that many of my UK friends might find the time and place I've tried to evoke in the Last Lancer just too foreign. Hic sunt dracones. Here be dragons. I had the same problem many years ago, when I first wrote the Amber Heart. 'Loved it, couldn't stop reading it, wept buckets' said potential publishers, among much else that was positive. 'But ... Poland?'

I thought times might have changed and maybe they have. We'll just have to wait and see. Meanwhile, if you've read The Last Lancer or The Amber Heart and enjoyed it - do please leave a review on Amazon or elsewhere, even a short one. Once we've done the hard work, good reviews are our lifeblood. 

A Nice New Kindle

 

Here's my nice new Kindle in its nice new case. A fairly bog standard Paperwhite. 

This is my fourth e-reader to date. The first was even more bog standard - an early Kindle - but did sterling service. The second broke down but Amazon replaced it immediately. The third one has lasted for some six years of constant use. It was used for several hours every day, it was routinely dropped on the floor when I fell asleep while reading. It got lost among the bedcovers. It is a well travelled Kindle. But alas its time had come. 

It is still working. Just rather slowly as befits its age. And crashing a bit too much. And developing strange foibles. (I sympathise. Me too.) 

The case was in worse condition than the Kindle. We'd find odd bits of pink plastic in the bed. 

Anyway, I was attached to it, and postponed replacing it till - having been paid for some work - I thought the time had definitely come to find a new one. 

If you have an Amazon account, and buy your Kindle from Amazon, it is the easiest thing in the world to set it up. In fact my only problem was with our 200 year old house, with its immensely thick walls, and trying to set it up in in a part of the house where it wasn't picking up the hub properly.  As soon a I moved downstairs it worked like clockwork. Or better than clockwork, let's face it.

I love books. Have a room full of them, and overspill on shelves in the other rooms too.

But I love my Kindle even more. It goes without saying that the availability of books is wonderful - but I love the way I can dim the light a little, if I want to read in the early hours without disturbing my husband. Or change the font size.  I love the way it switches itself off when I fall asleep (even if it is tangled in the bedclothes.) But remembers my place for me. I love the way it is slim and simple and reasonably light, and allows me to take a whole library away with me when I'm travelling. 

Of course I can read on my phone and on my laptop if I want to and I sometimes do. But nothing beats my Kindle for ease of use. And no - I'm not being paid to write this! 

A Salutary Experience.

 

My latest non-fiction book, The Last Lancer, was published by Saraband, here in the UK, a couple of weeks ago. It's something of a companion volume to my previous book A Proper Person to be Detained, (the paperback is on special offer on Amazon right now) about the Leeds Irish side of my family, and the mystery of a murder in the family on Christmas Day, 1881. 

The other side of the family, the Polish side, was much more exotic, but even more tragic. I'd planned to write about it for many years, collecting material along the way. Fortunately I'd asked my father (that's him on the cover, with the goat) to write down what he remembered of his childhood on the family estate in rural Eastern Poland, a part of the world that is now Ukraine, all the borders having shifted. I'd done a lot more research since his early death in 1995. His anniversary is on 20th March, so he's very much on my mind as I write this. I researched and wrote in earnest during Lockdown. Then, last February, with the book almost completed and about to be submitted to my publisher, Russia invaded Ukraine. And the book suddenly became much more relevant in the saddest possible way. 

Our local branch of Waterstones in Ayr had very kindly hosted launches of my previous Saraband titles over many years. They had been joyful experiences, well attended, (local author and all that) and the shop had sold a lot of books.  Some of those attending had bought two or three copies as gifts for family members. However, since this year I've been invited to speak at the Boswell Book Festival, at Dumfries House in May, we thought that we might 'launch' Lancer at that event - for which Waterstones supplies books. All the same, because people have been asking me about copies, I'd assumed, in my innocence, that my local store would at least have a few in stock. 

Yesterday, finding myself on the High Street and doing my bit for bricks and mortar, I went into the shop, and had a brief look around. No sign of the Last Lancer. So I approached the young man absorbed in his computer behind the counter and asked - very politely - if they were going to be stocking my book. I had a handy copy in my bag. I may have waved it at him in friendly fashion. 

He glanced up at me and said 'Is this Boswell?' 

It seemed an odd response and I was a little taken aback, but I soldiered on. 'Well yes. I'm doing Boswell in May this year. But I wondered if you were going to be stocking any copies before then.' 

He shook his head.  'No. Just for the festival.' He glanced down at his screen. 'I could order you a copy if you like,' he said helpfully. 

I declined his kind offer. I have plenty of copies, ordered from my publisher's distributor. I've been sending them out to those who inspired the book or helped with the research and to a few close friends. That very morning, I'd received a beautiful postcard of thanks from one of my literary heroes, Neal Ascherson, whose novel The Death of the Fronsac had been an invaluable source of information. 

In fact I've been clinging to that postcard like Jack clinging to Rose's floating door, as evidence that I'm not some elderly imposter. 

Still processing the young man's 'just short of rude' response to me, I asked for a copy of HAGS by Victoria Smith - a book that has been widely praised and publicised across social media. This morning, Victoria was on BBC R4, speaking about it. I'd had a look for it while I was hunting for The Last Lancer, and hadn't seen it. 

'We should have it,' he said. 

As far as I could see, they had a single copy. We found it tucked into a corner, spine rather than striking front cover facing out, low down on the New Non-Fiction shelves. I bought it. 

Reflecting on this experience in the sleepless early hours of the morning, it struck me that there could be no better illustration of the thesis of this excellent book. I wasn't looking for recognition. Just a certain amount of interest and engagement. I hadn't become invisible. I had been all too visible, but as an older woman, I was utterly negligible. Or to quote from the introduction to HAGS 'You're still an object. You've just changed in status from painting or sculpture to, say, a hat stand.' 

Reader, I was that hat stand. 

By the way. You can find The Last Lancer, eBook and Paperback here. And if you'd like to read my novel on a very similar theme, you could try The Amber Heart also as an eBook or Paperback.

You could also buy HAGS while you're at it. I can recommend it. 

A Tragic Anniversary

 

I'm reblogging this on my own blog, from my publisher's website. You can read more about my new book  here. 

As the anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine approaches, I find myself thinking about a remote family member, one I rediscovered when I was researching The Last Lancer. Jerzy, living in Lviv with his wife, was no longer young. He was the son of my grandfather’s stepfather Jan, by his second marriage, After my great grandmother Anna died, her second husband remarried. Complicated relationships.

When I began to write The Last Lancer in earnest, and dug out the mass of research I had done over many years, I found an old letter from Jerzy, hand written in Polish. It had arrived during a time of family illness and bereavement, when I had temporarily shelved my research. I had never had it translated but had filed it away and – unforgivably – forgotten about it. In any case, there was no return address, no internet searches back then, no way of finding out where he lived.

Then, early in Covid lockdown, a Polish friend translated it for me and pointed out that this lovely man had once known my grandfather, when he himself was a child. My grandfather, Wladyslaw, the Last Lancer of my book, a kindly young father at that time, had given him lifts in his fancy Chrysler Open Top Tourer, to the village where his family lived, something that he still remembered all those years later. Jerzy had been so fond of Wladyslaw that he had named his own son after him.

A few years later, my grandfather had found himself in a Russian prison, followed by a Gulag and then, in 1942, trekking east after Stalin changed sides, had died, probably of amoebic dysentry, at the age of 38. He is buried near Bukhara on the Silk Road. Jerzy and his family had spent many years in a Gulag too, which explained why he had married and had his own children rather late. His had been a life interrupted. LinkedIn miraculously allowed me to get in touch with his daughter, and she said that her father, in his nineties and rather frail, was nevertheless excited at the thought of writing to me about that side of our family history and seeing if he still had any photographs and documents.

Very soon after that, Putin made his move.

With two young children herself, Jerzy’s daughter fled to Poland, where she had already spent time working, but her parents refused to move. Russian invasion, occupation and extreme brutality had disrupted Jerzy’s life once before and he wasn’t going to allow it to happen again. We seize whatever agency we can in such situations. Soon after Christmas 2022, his daughter messaged me to say that he had died. Peacefully in the end. He should have been able to get palliative care, except that the hospitals, even in Lviv, are full of wounded soldiers, so he had to make do without.

I find myself occasionally having to fend off over-confident pronouncements from friends here in the west who think they understand the realities of occupation. They don’t. Frankly, I don’t either. But I know more than they do. And when anyone tries to tell me what Ukraine should and shouldn’t do in these circumstances, I find myself thinking of this man, with his fine, ordinary, precious, cheerful life interrupted yet again by the deluded dreams of a dictator. There is no excuse, no possible justification for a foreign regime to inflict such horrors on the innocent and there never will be.

Bad Advice, Good Advice

 

A few years ago, it struck me that I had probably been given more bad than good advice about writing over the years, all of it from well-meaning 'experts'. I've been known to hand out quite a bit of writing advice myself over the years and sometimes I find myself thinking 'have I done more harm than good?' and not being at all sure of the answer. Although when I have commented on a piece of writing, I do tend to do so with a huge proviso that nobody should ever take anyone's else's opinion as gospel. Not ever. 

One of the most worrying aspects of my time spent as Royal Literary Fund Writing Fellow, at the University of the West of Scotland, where my job was to help students with their academic writing, always came when that academic writing involved some aspect of creative writing. I vividly remember telling one student that she needed to take her script away and 'play with it'. 

She looked horrified. 'But we can't play with it,' she said. 'We have to get it right!' 

How could I possibly explain to her that most professional writers spend hours, days, weeks 'playing' with an idea, trying to find out if it's viable, trying to find out what works and what doesn't. And more to the point, why were her lecturers telling her that there was any one way of 'getting it right'. Bad advice indeed. 

Bad advice I've been given over the years? 

Don't turn this radio play into a stage play. (It was crying out to be turned into a stage play.)

Nobody is interested in the supernatural. (You're kidding me, right?) 

This is a library novel fit only for housewives. Bin it. (You can read that novel here. I still get messages from people telling me how much they like it - but perhaps they're housewives!) 

Listen to your script editor. They have your best interests at heart.  (Some do, some definitely don't. The trick is knowing the difference.) 

Don't self publish. Nobody will ever read it. 

We don't have any development money in the budget. (There is, in fact, a budget. They just decided not to pay the writer.) 

Best advice I've been given over the years? Two gems that have never lost their power to inspire.

Stop watering your Dylan Thomas adjectives and watching them grow 

The only way to learn how to write is to write. And read. A lot.

Which leads me to the unexpectedly worst possible advice I've had. I used to believe it. Hell, I've probably said it myself to emerging writers. 

Write about what you know about.

That way, boredom and madness lies. I know there is some truth in it. If you're writing about - for example - Scotland, it helps to know a bit about the country. If you're setting your novel or story in an unfamiliar city, you'd better find out what you can about it. If your feisty 18th century heroine is doing things that no 18th century woman would ever do, or knowing things that she would never know, you might need to have a rethink. 

But for heaven's sake, don't be afraid to use your imagination. Stretch it. Make some leaps into the dark and see where you land. Even when I was routinely telling people to write about what they knew about, I would always qualify it with 'but you know more than you think.' Not only that, but you can find out almost anything.

Use that knowledge in a million imaginative ways. That's what writers do. 

An Uncanny Image

Even though words are my business, I find it very hard to describe my feelings when I first saw this small animation of one of the few pictures of my grandfather in existence. 

My dad brought this tiny head and shoulders image with him when, at the end of the war, he ended up in a Polish resettlement camp at Duncombe Park, near Helmsley in Yorkshire.  This is the grandfather I never knew, the person I wanted to know more about, the man I occasionally fantasised might turn up on our doorstep in the Leeds of my childhood. 

He never did, of course. He was long gone by that time, another of Stalin's victims. But one of my reasons for writing The Last Lancer was to try to find out more about him, to get to know this person my father had loved so much. 

Then a friend posted a vivid animated picture of one of her handsome forebears online and thanks to her, I realised that My Heritage would allow me to do the same thing to this image of Wladyslaw Czerkawski.

I uploaded the picture, clicked and waited. 

My grandfather looked out at me and smiled. It is movement, however small, that brings people to life. 

It was the strangest and most spooky feeling. Not in a bad way. I knew that he was a kindly man. Had always known it. He had his flaws and faults, of course, but he was a man whom many people loved and so do I.

My heart still aches when I recollect what happened to him. But I feel a little closer to him now. 

   

Luminate - What Went Wrong?

 

Back in October 2017, I remember becoming aware of a Scottish Festival of Creative Ageing, organised under the umbrella of an organisation called Luminate. You can still have a look at the brochure online. I went to one of the 2017 events: a Creative Ageing Day in Ayr Town Hall. 

It was described as 'A fun, explorative event which aims to generate some genuinely creative thinking through a range of hands-on workshops, performances, talks and screenings of short films. There will also be a marketplace to promote local opportunities for creative learning, arts and cultural activities.' 

It certainly was a fun day, most notably because it seemed to involve mostly older people doing their own creative thing. By themselves, for themselves, with plenty of enthusiasm and skill.

A glance through the brochure for the whole festival shows a variety of excellent events run by all kinds of groups throughout Scotland. There was Irvine Community Art Club, 'a group of retired people who share a passion for art.' There was traditional jazz, a life affirming drama about a son accompanying his elderly father on a trip back to India, and an inter-generational photography project. There was an event called Celebrate National Grandparents Day by taking part (with your grandchildren) in a workshop run by an experienced traditional carpenter. This included 'A chance to use axes, draw knives and chisels in an appropriate and safe manner to make a small piece to take home.' There were tapestry and other craft workshops for adults and children or grandchildren, a workshop on Muriel Spark, something called Thrawn Craws, a Murder of Writers aged between 40 and 80, committed to writing for older actors. ('We invite you to join us as we present important stories about the many facets of love in contemporary Scotland.') There were dance classes for the over 60s and Prime, an over-60s semi-professional company presented a series of bespoke two minute solos, created by top Scottish choreographers for individual company members. 

The whole programme was full of interesting, exciting, entertaining events with the aim of showing that older people are already wise and creative, and that when you provide opportunities and mix up the generations, without patronising, something wonderful can happen. 

Then have a look at this. 

Do you spot the difference? The way in which the whole venture has become didactic (Creativity for carers, anyone?) rather than exciting and inspirational. 

What went wrong? How, in five short years, could something that was so vibrant, so interesting, and so positive become a project almost wholly aimed at facilitating (they're very fond of that word) younger creatives to teach us poor oldies how to be creative in our dotage. The creative practitioner as a sort of cut price social worker promoting our 'wellbeing' (another buzz word) whether we want it or not.

Why and how did this happen? Was it a political decision? If so, it was a bad one. The creative arts are always worth engaging with, in and for themselves, not as some kind of short cut to 'mental health'. 

All I know is that something that started out full of life and vibrancy, seems to have become stodgy, pedestrian and faintly patronizing. 'Let's find something for the poor old folks to do' and 'let's train our young creatives to facilitate them.'

Am I alone in finding this profoundly depressing? Especially compared with how it all began? 

Happy New Year - and another of my (very occasional) writing tips ...

 

My grandfather, Wladyslaw Czerkawski: the last lancer himself.

OK, I have a new book coming out in late February 2023. You can read more about it on Barnes and Noble's website here. It will be available as they say in 'all good bookshops' and on Amazon too. 

This means that issues of publicity and promotion are, dear reader, very much on my mind. Because these days, even traditionally published writers have to do a significant amount of promotion themselves. It isn't so very different from being self published in that respect, and I've done both. 

I've begun to share links to the book like the one above. Begun to talk about it as a real thing, rather than the difficult project I've been wrestling with for years. It has become exciting rather than harrowing - and it was harrowing and moving to research and write, even though I loved doing it. 

But something else occurred to me when I was taking stock of my social media profiles and use, early in the New Year. Facebook is as good an example as any. I still like Facebook, still use it to connect with old and new friends including a few friends I've known and loved since we were very young. I also use it to connect with other writers, to find out what they're working on, how they're going about it, and what's new in their creative world. I sometimes find myself straying into (perhaps unwise) political discussions on there, but mostly, it's just good to chat. Good to see people's photographs and artworks too.

Except that there are some people - and I hate to say this, but they do tend to be men - who only ever interact on FB when they have a book of their own to promote. They will not so much as bestow a small 'like' on anyone else's news, professional or personal, never mind go to the immense effort of making a comment. They are clearly only there for the promotional opportunity. It's a bit like those experiences we've all had where you've just started talking to somebody at a party and you can see their gaze already moving to the middle distance in case somebody more interesting hoves into view. 

So here's a marketing tip. By all means promote your books on social media, talk about your books, tell us about your trials and triumphs. We love to read these. But in return you have to show just a wee bit of interest in other people, their trials and triumphs too. 

It isn't too much to ask, is it? 

The People of the Black Foot and Other Curiosities

 

When you start to research a piece of writing - in my case new fiction  - you can find yourself following strange threads that lead you back in time to something unexpected. As happened to me last week.

I love research. My first degree was in Mediaeval Studies, and then I did a Masters in Folk Life Studies. Everything I learned then still informs the things I write. But the problem is knowing when to stop. You enter a labyrinth and you may never find your way out again.

Some years ago, when I was researching and writing my novel about Robert Burns's wife,  Jean Armour, The Jewel, I came across the notion of a 'go between' - somebody whose job it was to arrange the courtship and marriage between two young people. Here in Ayrshire, at the time of Burns, that person was colloquially called a 'black fit' or black foot. And no matter where I looked or who I asked, I could find no very convincing etymology for the term. It was definitely in use. To quote my own book: 'A black fit was somebody, often an older woman or man, whose help might be enlisted to carry messages back and forth between lovers. ... Sometimes a black fit was needed where parental disapproval might be a bar to meeting. Sometimes it simply meant that a respectable person would act as match-maker within a small and curious community, easing the means of two young people getting to know each other.'

In my novel, Rab and Jean use the services of an older woman called Katy Govan as their 'black fit' to facilitate their courtship - as indeed it's believed they did. 

Back in 2020, in the middle of lockdown, I wrote several posts about the history of this part of South  Ayrshire or Carrick. You can find the first one here - A Little Bit of Ancient Carrick History   and the second one, on Place Names and Clan Names.   There are two more and you'll find links to them in each post.

But now, I think I may have drawn the wrong conclusions about the 'tribe' who lived in this part of Carrick, the people who may have had dark, curly hair. Because somewhere among my reading over the past few weeks, I came across another reference to the 'tribe with black feet' in Kirkmichael. And this time the writer suggested that they may have been so called because they were people who wore hand made hide brogues, with the dark 'hairy' side facing out. Making them distinctive. It seems odd, but possible. Especially when you realise that nearby Maybole  has a long tradition of boot and shoe making, extending right into the 20th century!

At the same time, another historian pointed out that the Celtic 'tribe of the black feet' were the 'kindred' - the Galloway and southern Ayrshire clan - who would later become the all powerful Kennedies, one of whose prerogatives was to organise marital alliances between various members of this huge extended family. So maybe you would go to the 'black fit', aka your Kennedy chief or kenkynol of your muinntir or household, if you wanted to arrange a wedding!

Following the threads of this research, I also came across a wonderfully haunting song called Oran Bagraith, which is judged to be the earliest known example of the Galloway language, (other than place name evidence which is much older and prolific) - a  mixture of Gaelic and Brittonic, with some words that nobody can translate. But it certainly belongs here, containing references to various local place names and to the people of the black foot. You can read about it on this site and listen to the song here.   The song is a 'song of defiance' and may have been composed as a lament for the 2nd Earl of Cassilis, Gilbert Kennedy, who was murdered in Prestwick in 1527 by Hugh Campbell, Sheriff of Ayr. 

'Wrapt up in the folk of the black foot

in their agriculture and grazing

in the genealogy of the folk of the wolf

well mounted diamain* warriors

They would be salmon fishing in Lochinvar

They would be deer hunting in Carsphairn

They would be badger hunting in Glen Shamrock 

They would be feasting in Dalry'  

NB This is St John's Town of Dalry and Glen Shimmerock is a few miles to the North East of that town. *Diamain seems to have some Gaelic correspondence with Scots Gaelic Diobhain  This paper is interesting, but essentially only if you're already a Gaelic or Welsh speaker. If anyone can tell me what diobhain actually means, I'd be grateful! 

So there you go. No conclusions, but lots of questions. Galloway had plenty of MacLellans who were the 'folk of the wolf'. But the Kennedies were the 'black feet' and maybe these early Kennedies spoke a unique Galloway language with words and grammar that seemed to belong partly to Gaelic and partly to some form of Brittonic. Wikipedia will tell you that these people were 'erroneously' called Picts. But more recently scholars have recognised that some carved stones in Galloway certainly have what seem like Pictish symbols. 

Mystery upon mystery. 

Of course I'm writing fiction now, so I have a bit of leeway. But the facts and speculation underpinning all this are fascinating. 

A Bad Year for Trees and Other Stories

 

Just in time for Christmas, A Bad Year for Trees would make a good stocking filler for anyone who likes short stories. Almost all of them have been published before, anthologised by other people or even broadcast on Radio 4. 

I've been meaning to collect them together for a long time. At the moment, I have a new non-fiction book, the Last Lancer, going through the Saraband publishing process, I also have some ideas for a brand new project simmering away. Assembling this little retrospective has proved to be a pleasant distraction, especially allowing me to look back at what inspired these stories. 

I think they epitomise something I was told by an (ex) agent. 'Your work is too well written to be popular, but too popular to be really literary,' she said. My bad. 

All the same, it makes them readable! Let me know what you think. 

It's available as an eBook, and now in paperback. I've written other stories, over the years, but these are the ones that I believe have stood the test of time. 

The paperback was published with the invaluable help of Duncan Lockerbie at Lumphanan Press