Rivet Boy

I felt the vertigo as I climbed the Forth Bridge in the company of 12-year-old John Nicol, but he was braver than I was. He also climbed the bridge for real, while it was under construction. I merely read about him, and that was enough. Barbara Henderson knows how to describe our fears of heights. Her book Rivet Boy is filled with real individuals, fictionalising what might have happened to those who needed to eke out a living, building this magnificent bridge.

Some 12-year-olds had to be the breadwinner in the family, and John was one of them. Today’s 12-year-olds – in Scotland – don’t have to. They get to read about it instead, and the lucky ones might get a school visit from Barbara, which I would imagine will cement their knowledge about this bridge, leaving them wanting to cross the Forth, again and again. I know I do. I’ve crossed it on the train, and I have stood below it, in South Queensferry, so I know how high up it is.

It’s not only the courage of John that makes this story, but being told how you make a rivet safe, and meeting many of the famous people who passed by during the construction. Add a few bad guys and you have your thriller, too. And it’s always good to come across early female scientists, wannabe engineers.

Here at Bookwitch Towers we watched some train programmes, and when one ended with a good view of the Forth Bridge, I knew precisely what the Resident IT Consultant needed for Christmas. And I suppose I knew I needed it too.

One of these days I’ll understand – and remember – about cantilevers…

Maybe.

Lost and Never Found

Having ordered the ebook version of Simon Mason’s Lost and Never Found on the day before publication day – I was keen, and they kept emailing me not to forget to buy it, including after I had bought it – I started wondering when I’d actually ‘get’ it. Would they be smartly on the starting line at midnight, or would they saunter in some time during the day?

I couldn’t sleep. Not because of the book, but anyway. Around four a.m. I checked my inbox and discovered the book had been delivered at three minutes past midnight. Downloaded it straight away, in case the insomnia demanded some immediate reading which, after a very early breakfast, it did. I had even avoided starting on a new book the previous day, just to be available.

It was as if I’d not been away from the Oxford of the two DI R Wilkinses. I was home. Disturbed rich girl crashes her Rolls and disappears. This time I looked carefully for those small clues, but not carefully enough it seems. Next time I will write down every character who turns up. (Oddly enough, a couple of them are in the novel I’m reading right now, albeit with other names.)

Next time; yes, I vowed not to read the first chapters of the next book, on the grounds that I got a little irritated with recognising what I must have read a year ago. But, obviously, I didn’t stick to that. I was so eager for it by the end, that I had to devour the early pages of book four.

The one I feel sorry for is Ryan. Not sure if it’s little Ryan (though if he’s really 20 inches tall at the age of three, I’ll eat my hat) or Ryan père. Both, probably.

Scots, ten years on

Some of you did see me coming and exited swiftly(ish). But that’s OK. I mean, it’s not, but it’s a free country, and if I saw fit to move to Scotland ten years ago, I dare say others are allowed to move to England, or even further afield.

I refer – of course – to my retort to Herald Scotland’s panicky article about who was left now that Julia Donaldson had left the country. And yes, seeing as I was close to moving in the opposite direction, I didn’t exactly want to see any of the other nine authors disappearing too.

‘Nine?’ you say. Precisely. I started counting and came up with ‘a few’ more Scottish children’s authors. Some of them pretty major, too, so the Herald wasn’t looking too carefully. (Won’t list them again, as it’s easy to get too listy, but read my post from January 15th 2014. Such a long time ago.) It was back in the day when authors regularly commented on here, and I was particularly taken by Kathering Langrisk who took three comments to get her own name right. ☺️ (With me it’s usually my address I can’t always manage. Crescent, Avenue, Gardens, Terrace.)

I ruled against listing adult crime writers, and if I stick to this, I still have well over twenty more authors than I did in 2014. And I’ve not exactly gone out of my way to find every last one, although for my lunches I did scour every possible literary lady I could come up with. Among them were ones who ‘followed me’ to Scotland, like Che Golden, Lee Weatherly and Philip Caveney. Much appreciated.

Geographically closest to me are Alex Nye and Moira Mcpartlin. Distance is not a problem though, and I have enjoyed getting to know Barbara Henderson and Lindsay Littleson. Artists Kate Leiper and Ross Collins are people I admire greatly. Sarah Broadley, Sheila Averbuch, Vikki Gemmell and Lynne Rickards make for good company at parties. And many more, from launches, events, awards.

Moving to England is one thing, but anyone who moves to Vienna is likely to find me on their doorstep at some point.

I have still to get my cinnamon bun act together. But one of these days. Slowly learning who likes coffee, or who must have tea. And if it should be Earl Grey, or absolutely not Earl Grey. And I had no idea how popular Prosecco would turn out to be. Not much call for Irn Bru.

Covid – and Brexit – have changed lives. But there is still plenty of hope for the future of children’s books in Scotland.

The single gift

Our latest Christmas present rule was one only, from each person to the other persons, which in our case meant two from me to the other two. I reckoned that putting more than one book into the same wrapping paper could count as one, so I gave the Resident IT Consultant four books. All four were books I wanted to read. I was fairly sure he’d like them too. (But it does kind of deal quite nicely with what I want.)

He started on the one I had expected him to reach for first, and I have to thank the facebook friend who recommended the – to me – unknown E C R Lorac. The next one was by Nicola Upson, another fb recommendation.

I have just finished reading them myself, and it’s interesting how they coincidentally are quite similar. Lorac’s Fell Murder is set in a Lancashire farming community during WWII, and also written at that time. Nicola’s book is brand new but Shot With Crimson is set in 1939, in the countryside near Peterborough.

Nicola’s style is modern, both in plot and language. The Lorac novel is its complete opposite, being a little slow – but not in a bad way – and thoroughly of its time.

Shot With Crimson doesn’t shy away from the seriousness of murder, but I found myself looking at it from my current day view point. In Fell Murder the most shocking thing to the modern reader is how the farming population refuses to speculate when urged to by the police. Because they know that the murderer will be executed, and have no wish to send the wrong neighbour into the arms of death.

You tend to forget this. You know that murder was a capital offence back then, but somehow it’s quite easy to overlook. Because I had this book in such recent memory, I was able to contemplate Nicola’s various suspects differently. Was there someone I would be happier to see die for their crime?

The death of an elderly farmer in Lancashire, with relatively few suspects, is vastly different from Shot With Crimson, which features both Daphne du Maurier, Josephine Tey and Alfred Hitchcock, with the action both in old England, and in Hollywood. (There was also an unexpected mention of George Devine, which I won’t bore you with now.)

I recommend both books, as well as the way I managed to lay my hands on them.

Some folk

We’re back to reminiscing about the raisin and the nostril. Both mine. Because it’s Twelfth Night, and this time I actually have the invite for you. Apologies for the dog-earedness of it all. It’s done long duty as a shopping list template. (That’s on the back.) I used it for years. Not quite the 65 years that it might lead you to believe, but decades.

That’s why it’s so strange – or maybe it isn’t? – that I only realised what it says, some time last year. One of those times when I fondly gazed at the back, thinking back to the raisin. And the nostril.

It was Favourite Aunt’s 50th birthday dinner. As a good socialist she had obviously booked Folkets Hus for her gathering. It’s something most towns have, where all kinds of events take place. For the people. Folk.

I discovered a whole pile of these invitations when we cleared FA’s home. Nice and fresh and not used. I assumed she’d had too many printed, and had hung on to them in a frugal sort of way. Even if she didn’t use the back for shopping lists. As for me, I worked my way through the pile, until I only had the one left, which got more and more frayed over the years.

And then, last year, I could see clearly. It doesn’t say Folkets Hus. It says Folkes Hus. A typo. Folke is a man’s name, but never mind him. The missing letter ‘t’ will be the reason for the pile of cards. FA must have had the invites reprinted, whilst still hanging on to the first lot. It only took me twenty years, whereas I guess my hawk-eyed Aunt noticed in time. And Folke wasn’t gatecrashed by party-hungry revellers.

Anyway, I was still not invited. But I had raisins.

Postcards from Valhalla

To be honest, I’d never visualised Valhalla as being in Shetland. Not even in the northernmost part of those lovely islands. But why not? That is, if Danny Weston’s characters do find it.

And characters there are a lot of, in Postcards from Valhalla. No, maybe not lots. But the ones you get are larger than life type characters. Like the super-annoying Leon that teenager Viggo and his mum meet when travelling to Lerwick where they hope to find Viggo’s older brother Magnus, who has disappeared.

I told myself – through gritted teeth – that Danny put him there, so he’d be useful for something. Maybe Leon would suddenly turn likeable and trustworthy, or he’d be collateral for some ghastly end.

I obviously can’t tell you how this worked out. Suffice to say that the three of them traipse up and down Shetland – which consists of a very long stretch of islands. Jarlshof in the south and Yell and Unst at the opposite end, with Lerwick offering up some civilisation in the middle. And not once did they drive into any ditches. (Cough…)

Magnus turns out to have decided to go looking for Valhalla and Vikings, and possibly also for his and Viggo’s father who disappeared in much the same way five years earlier. Strange stuff happens. There are visions. And cake fridges in the middle of nowhere.