The Life of John Lorne Campbell of Canna by Ray Perman
S coma uair no a`it’ ar n-eug dhuinn
’S greadhnachas gun fheum ar to`rraidh*
Few of us like to contemplate our own deaths and the first thing anyone noticed about Donald MacInnes was how full of life he was. It was impossible to be down in his company. Read more
Without Magda Sagarzazu, who has died after a long fight against cancer, I would not have become an author. Read more
This year brings the tenth anniversary of the death of Margaret Fay Shaw, surely one of the most remarkable women of the 20th century, and a life – and a life’s work – worth celebrating. Read more
I was born in Islington – a very different place in 1947 than it is now – but I had never been particularly proud of the fact until I heard Alistair Moffat at the Lennoxlove Book Festival, talking about his new book Britain’s Last Frontier, A Journey Along the Highland Line. The London borough, he told us, played a big part in the success of the whisky industry. Read more
It was very fitting that A Little Bird Blown Off Course, the musical tribute to Margaret Fay Shaw devised and performed by Fiona Mackenzie, should have premiered on South Uist, the island where she started her work and her lifelong love of the Hebrides, and finished its first run on Canna, the island which was her home for 70 years. Read more
Great news that A Little Bird Blown off Course, a new piece of music–theatre by Gaelic singer Fiona Mackenzie celebrating the life and Gaelic song collection of Margaret Fay Shaw, is to be performed in the islands and Highlands as part of the Blas Festival next month.
Thanks for highlighting Canna. Some of my best moments in the Trust.
Canna House garden weaves a spell over everyone who visits it but it is not always obvious how much devoted work goes on behind the scenes. I am delighted to publish this tribute to the Thistle Camps, the dedicated volunteers of the National Trust for Scotland who have played such an important part in restoring the garden. Now over to Jan Haenraets, landscape architect and former NTS Head of Gardens. Read more
‘Alone in his attic study John Lorne Campbell made an astonishing discovery. Painstakingly going through old papers, he uncovered the family secret which had caused an unbridgeable emotional gap with his father and burdened his early years with heavy debt.’ Read more
A chance meeting with Denise Walton at an Edinburgh farmer’s market calls to mind the man we have in common – James Hutton. Read more
The news that a millionaire absentee landlord is to close the island of Sanda to the public shows how little has changed in attitudes to land – and islands in particular – in the last 50 years.