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Hebridean Waves:
Kayaking Scotland's West Coast
Ewan Gillespie
ISBN 978-0-9554273-2-9
Price £12.99
Pages 208
234 x 156 mm
Paperback
Illustrated: colour
Publication: August 2007
Sea kayaks have long been used to travel silently on the ocean fringes; indigenous Arctic peoples have been doing so with amazing skill and resilience for a long time. A competent paddler is capable of travelling great distances and in seas that would send some larger craft scurrying for shelter. In these days of climate change and greater personal awareness of our impact on the environment, kayaking must rate as one of the most environmentally friendly means of transport. The shallow draft of the kayak and its ability to land on a variety of shores, from sand to rocky ledges, opens up coastline which might otherwise be inaccessible. Coastal animals and birds are often more intrigued than alarmed by the brightly coloured kayaks; inquisitive seals play around the boats and occasionally it is possible to paddle within metres of the rocky perches of a sea eagle.
The astounding beauty of Fingal's Cave on Staffa and the malevolent darkness and power of the Corryvrekan whirlpool near Scarba are but two of the countless remarkable points on Scotland's west coast. In ever-changing waters the excitement and sheer horror of dangerous seas and foul weather challenging the skills of experienced kayakers give way to moments of peace and tranquility in calm waters. Awesome are the tiny Manx Shearwaters on Rum or the 12-metre minke whales off Eigg. But for the author, nothing can surpass the simple pleasure of setting up camp in a remote bay at the end of a long day of paddling, with good company, good food and a sunset to remember for a long time.
Ewan Gillespie, now living in the Highlands, was born in Perth in 1960 and has lived on the Isle of Arran, in Perthshire and in Edinburgh. He has paddled kayaks in such diverse places as Patagonia, Norway, Ireland and the Isle of Man. He enjoys being in wild and remote parts of Scotland and travelling further a field. Apart from sea kayaking he is an active hill runner, cross-country skier, sub-aqua diver and has recently completed a round of the Munros.
from David Findlay Clark, the author of Stand By Your Beds! A Wry Look at National Service, an autobiography of his early years
Remember Who You Are!
The Story of a Son of the Manse
David Findlay Clark
Foreword: Prof. Alexander Fenton
Epilogue: David Steel (The Rt Hon The Lord Steel of Aikwood)
ISBN: 978-0-9554273-1-2
Price £12.99
156x234 paperback
192 pages
Illustrated Publication: 1 June 2007
Like ‘the lad o’ pairts’, the ‘son of the Manse’ is a kind of Scottish cliché. He is traditionally an achiever, dedicated and disciplined. He is expected to be the embodiment of the Protestant work ethic and even to follow in the footsteps of his father. One who did not was a certain Dr James Adair Lawrie (1802 -1859) who became instead the Regius Professor of Surgery at Glasgow University, but in his case his father, grandfather and great grandfather had all been Scottish Presbyterian ministers!
Today, in addition to this author, we have a multiplicity of sons of the Manse who, like Lawrie, did not. Gordon Brown, Peter Fraser, Douglas Alexander (and his sister, Wendy), David (Lord) Steel, Eric Liddle, John Buchan, John Logie Baird and Lord Reith of an earlier era and, less well known and with perhaps a more tainted reputation, Captain Thomas Kidd, who found fulfilment in piracy.
Yet, it can be far from easy, fulfilling the role of a boy who has to live out a childhood and adolescence and with the censorious words, ‘Remember Who You Are!’ ringing in his ears. The privileges and benefits of a Manse upbringing may be well enough recognised, but the constraints and hardships are largely unknown to those who have escaped such an upbringing. The struggle for an independent identity can have much to do with how any son of the Manse turns out.
This story opens up a kind of ethnology of Manse life of the early 20th century which lays bare the nitty- gritty reality of what it is really like. It does not pretend to be an exposition of the experience of all, or even of most, Manse-reared children but it will engage the reader with its story of the writer’s struggle and his eventual rejection of religion in any of its forms. The fact that he became a professional psychologist will come as no surprise.
David Findlay Clark retired from working as a consultant clinical psychologist in the NHS and in private practice and as a Clinical Senior Lecturer in the Department of Mental Health at Aberdeen University some years ago. Dr Clark was brought up in Banff and educated at Banff Academy and Aberdeen University. He has written extensively in recent years and a new edition of his book on National Service, Stand By Your Beds! A Wry Look at National Service, has recently been published.
New edition
Stand By Your Beds!
A Wry Look at National Service
David Findlay Clark
Preface: Trevor Royle, writer and historian
ISBN 10: 0-9544416-9-9
ISBN 13: 978-0-9544416-9-2
Price £12.99
156x234 paperback
216 pages
Illustrated
Publication: September 2006
As the young conscripts of National Service retire, sit back, and think back, the extraordinary events of two years of their late teens or early twenties, never to be repeated, take on a new life of their own. Tales are shared with friends who found themselves similarly called-up, away from mundane or engaging lives, and forced into situations they would not have envisaged a few years earlier.
David Findlay Clark served his National Service in the RAF. He describes with wry humour and sometimes with a degree of quiet drama, some of the boring, stressful, whimsical, ludicrous and exciting events that were packed into two eventful years. The subtle changes from resentment to enthusiasm in some who served their time, and the reverse process in others, are pointed up by the recounting of episodes in dramatic detail. David also outlines the setting and nature of National Service between the years of 1948 and 1963 and comments on some of its effects on the two million young men who, reluctantly or otherwise, went through it.
National Service is part of our social history which has been dealt with at a fictional level by Arnold Wesker, David Lodge and Leslie Thomas, but prior to the first edition of this book in 2001, relatively little had been written of a factual nature other than Trevor Royle’s The Best Years of their Lives. Subsequently there have been two or three other volumes on related topics, the best of which is Tom Hickman's The Call-Up which, like Trevor Royle's own book, deals with all the services. Nevertheless, this new edition of Stand By Your Beds! with added Postscript will continue to echo for many National Servicemen their own experience and convey to their children and grandchildren something of the flavour, activities and attitudes that filled those two compulsorily ‘stolen’ years of their lives.
David Findlay Clark retired from working as a consultant clinical psychologist in private practice and as a Clinical Senior Lecturer in the Department of Mental Health at Aberdeen University some years ago. Dr Clark is a son of the manse who was brought up in Banff and educated at Banff Academy and Aberdeen University. He has written extensively in recent years and a further autobiography Remember Who You Are will be published shortly.
Dunfermline Abbey Diary
1969-1990
Stewart M. Macpherson
ISBN 0-9554273-0-4
£6.99
Around 800 AD a Culdee (Celtic) community built the first Christian Church at Dunfermline. When, in 1070, Princess Margaret of Hungary, later known as St Margaret of Scotland, married King Malcolm Canmore in Dunfermline she introduced Roman forms of worship and church government and invited Benedictines from Canterbury to build a Priory Church. Following the Reformation the Abbey alternated between Episcopacy and Presbyterianism, finally becoming a parish church within the established Church of Scotland.
During twenty-one years as Minister of Dunfermline Abbey, the Rev Stewart M. Macpherson’s day-to-day commitments and experiences were inevitably very varied. Because of its historic and ecclesiastic importance the Abbey attracted royalty, world famous choirs, musicians and celebrities. There were many challenges: in 1983 dry rot made restoration work on the Abbey imperative and the church hall was gutted by fire in 1987.
It is easy for time to wipe away the past: Stewart Macpherson’s diary will enable many who were involved during his ministry to remember and reflect. For those too young to remember, it provides a glimpse into the past.