The Retired Cop My third (and last) fictional detective of the week is not exactly a 'classic', but he has been around for a few years now. John Rebus, creation of Scottish crime novelist Ian Rankin, was born in 1947 (we are told on Rankin's website). However, he did not make his appearance on the …
Category: Scotland
Righteous Medicine – Unholy Malice
A House Divided by Margaret Skea [I received an advanced reading copy of A House Divided in exchange for a fair review.] ‘I have eaten crushed orchid leaves, powdered fox’s lungs and crab’s eyes; drunk wolf oil and tincture of foxglove; been bled and leeched till I think I have little blood left; told to …
A Thoughtful, Studious Man
A Fathers' Day Tribute John Lockhart Junior, February 1905- July 1987 (adapted and abridged from my family history book Tapestry) My father, John Lockhart Junior, was born in Durban, KwaZulu-Natal, in 1905, the third son of John and Georgina Greenfield Lockhart. My grandfather had grown up in London but, with his parents, emigrated to the …
Gone to London to see the Queen!
The Heart of Midlothian by Sir Walter Scott 'On the day when the unhappy Porteous was expected to suffer the sentence of the law, the place of execution, extensive as it is, was crowded almost to suffocation.' Edinburgh 1737: Captain John Porteous, King's officer, is confined in the Tolbooth prison for firing on a crowd …
Better Together!
Scottish Independence Entzwei' und gebiete! Tüchtig Wort; Verein' und Leite! Bess'rer Hort. (JW von Goethe 1749-1832) Goethe's words, roughly translating into English as 'Unite and lead is a much better cry than divide and rule', have been much quoted during the past two hundred years. The motto is not one, it …
Lost Edinburgh
"In growing from a huddle of huts round a fortress on a volcanic rock into an international and cosmopolitan city, Edinburgh has had to change." Not only is Edinburgh one of my favourite cities but it's one I thought I knew really well - that is, until I picked up the book my sister gave …
The Road to Fotheringhay
In the Footsteps of a Queen by Andrew G Lockhart Fotheringhay hides its past well. The village comprises a few dwellings, a charming hostelry and an historic church. The River Nene meanders through its fields on the way from the Grand Union Canal at Northampton to the North Sea. From time to time, a narrow …
In the Name of our Fathers
Turn of the Tide by Margaret Skea A Review The story is set in Scotland during the final years of the sixteenth century. Like Romeo and Juliet, it portrays the feud between two noble families whose names, by coincidence, begin with the same letters of the alphabet as Shakespeare's warring Veronese. Instead of the Montagues …
Bookheathen Scribblings 