Interesting to see that this year’s theme for Faclan: The Hebridean Book Festival, is An Dà Shealladh, or Second Sight, although how Alistair Darling snuck in there I don’t know. The former Chancellor has a holiday home in Lewis, as well as a new book to promote, but doesn’t seem to have inherited any of his ancestors’ gift of foretelling the future. If he had, perhaps he might have avoided the banking crisis.
Author: Ray (page 5 of 8)
Canna in 1938 by Margaret Fay Shaw
In the 1930s it wasn’t that unusual for wealthy men to buy up whole islands, but John Lorne Campbell was an unusual young man.
A nice surprise in the post, a review in Farming Scotland Magazine which, not surprisingly, concentrates on John’s modernisation of the farm on Canna. Interestingly, it also highlights his essential belief that efficiency must go hand in hand with wildlife conservation and sustainability.
A modest grave for a flamboyant man
Good news that the Ealing Comedy film of Whisky Galore has been reissued in high definition. I caught it a couple of months ago in the Edinburgh Film Festival and it’s as funny now as it was when first released in 1949. It will be on general release, but in case a cinema near you isn’t smart enough to feature it, there will also be a DVD version. Read more
Questions from the floor at Glasgow’s Aye Write! book festival have become highly topical. Looking forward to an equally stirring discussion with Andy Wightman at Edinburgh Book Festival next month.
Welcome to the Spence family – Alison, Duncan, their children, two-and-a-half year-old Savourna and five month old Fergus, and two collies – who moved at the weekend into MacIsaac’s cottage, on Sanday [the picture above shows the restored cottage in its spectacular setting and the view is just as dramatic in the other direction as you will see below].
Today’s story in the Guardian moves me to write a letter to the editor. Severin Carrell’s report on the sudden depopulation of Canna draws attention to the difficulties of living in a small, remote community and the problems facing the National Trust for Scotland. The problem as always centres on land ownership.
Flashback to a sell-out show at Glasgow’s Aye Write! festival
The reference reading room of Edinburgh Central Library was an appropriate place to launch the Edinburgh International Book Festival programme – doubly appropriate for me since I spent a lot of time there when researching my book. Or rather, I spent quite a bit of time behind there. Read more
In the morning, John had been netting moths in the garden. The day was warm enough to have lunch outside, but at the start of the meal he interrupted Margaret to point out a butterfly. As he did so he slumped to the table, dying instantly from a heart attack. He was five months short of his ninetieth birthday.