Authors Electric

A couple of weeks ago, I had the privilege of attending a book launch in Glasgow. The author, Irene Howat,  is a writing buddy of mine and I like and admire her and her writing. She has been a prolific writer: biographies, poems, books for children and for adults. Her latest book, The  Crackit  Cup,  just thirty-two pages long, is something quite special, if not unique. It is written in both Scots and English simultaneously, with Scots on the left page and its English translation on the right. The story is told in verse, in the style of the great epics and sagas. But  Tumheidit Tam  (Empty-headed Tam) ,  the ‘simple’  central  character, would be amazed at being compared with anything so grand.  It is set during the First World War: all the young men in Tam’s village are enthusiastically enlisting; but Tam is rejected (due to his mental disability). ‘The King had nothing I could do for him.’ As the village gradually los...

This week, I am on holiday in our extended family house on the Hebridean Isle of Iona. There are seven of us and we are having lots of laughter and big, jolly meals round the kitchen table, which has an incomparable view of the Sound (strip of water) between Iona and the much larger Isle of Mull. Portentous clouds, the wee fire station and our house peeping in on the left  This our 21st year here and, over those years, we have brought 57 individual friends/family members to share in the delights of this beautiful place with us. Often it is simply people that we love to spend time with; but often too, one or two people who we feel need Iona. Perhaps it has been a tough time for them of late - health, worries, relationship upsets, financial problems, recent bereavement, whatever - but we just know that a week on Iona will calm their souls and feed their spirits. It is not that we do anything special beyond ensuring there is plenty of food/wine, comfortable beds, hot showers...