SCOTTISH INTEREST

Consider the Lilies by Iain Crichton Smith

LITERARY BENT - Writing at its best, SCOTTISH INTEREST

The Highland Clearances, occurring roughly between 1792 and the 1850s (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Highland_Clearances), was one of the cruellest episodes in Scotland’s history. In Consider the Lilies (1968) Iain Crichton Smith (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iain_Crichton_Smith) captures its impact through the thoughts and memories of old Mrs Scott who has lived all her life within the narrow confines of her community. Alone and bewildered by the demands […]

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Garnethill

CRIMINALLY MINDED - Tales of the behaviourally challenged, FANTASTIC FICTION - Escapes to other places and other times, SCOTTISH INTEREST

Denise Mina (http://www.denisemina.co.uk/ and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denise_Mina) treats us to a grisly Glasgow crime novel in Garnethill.  Maureen O’Donnell wasn’t born lucky. A psychiatric patient and survivor of sexual abuse, she’s stuck in a dead-end job and a secretive relationship with Douglas, a shady therapist. Her few comforts are making up stories to tell her psychiatrist, the company of

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Crowdie and Cream

SCOTTISH INTEREST

Finlay J MacDonald was born and brought up on Harris, in the Outer Hebrides. As a child he spoke only Gaelic while the village schoolteacher spoke only English. His account of pre-war life on Harris was later to be published, in English, in a trilogy of books: ‘Crowdie and Cream‘ (1982); ‘Crotal and White’ (1983); and ‘The Corncrake

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The Life and Death of St. Kilda

SCOTTISH INTEREST

In August 1930 the 36 last remaining inhabitants of St. Kilda (a tiny archipelago 40 miles west of the Outer Hebrides http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_Kilda,_Scotland) left for the mainland, bringing the end to an extraordinary way of life that may have persisted for 2000 years in near total isolation. This was the remotest community in Britain and its way of life

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Capital of the Mind

SCOTTISH INTEREST

The Scots are a small nation living in the north west corner of the British Isles remote from the traditional centres of power in England and the European continent. Yet miraculously the Scots have contributed an enormous amount to Western culture and civilisation. Their contribution has been quite disproportionate to their population. Eighteenth century Edinburgh was

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