Scotiana

Following the Mackintosh Trail in Roussillon: Prades…

MAJA — Thu, 17 May 2012 22:43:40 +0000

The Mackintoshes: Margaret Macdonald & Charles Rennie Mackintosh

I’m very happy to be back on Scotiana after a short trip to the south of France and very eager to tell you about it. Iain and Margaret had very kindly invited us to meet them in Carcassonne where they were spending a week’s holiday and we first went there to meet them before going on southward up to Collioure and Port Vendres, following the ‘Mackintosh Trail’ in Roussillon or at least trying to follow it for it’s a long trail … We wanted to pay homage to the great Scottish artists who had probably spent there the most happy years of their life and to discover the landscapes that had so greatly inspired Charles Rennie Mackintosh in his last paintings.

Monsieur Mackintosh Robin Crichton Luath Press 2007

Crichton’s book is briskly paced, like a superior film-script. He very vividly retraces in meticulous detail, and with photographs to match, both the Mackintoshes’ travels in the region, and what it is like to travel there now, so his book is also very much a guide to Roussillon. It is written both in English and French, and celebrates the inauguration of the Chemin de Mackintosh in Port-Vendres in June 2004, with useful maps for ramblers of a ‘possible itinerary’ on the ‘Mackintosh Trail’, starting at Port-Vendres, and including places like Collioure and Mont-Louis, all places Mackintosh would have known.

( Review: ‘Charles Rennie Mackintosh in France’ – Mario Relich Scottish Affairs, no. 62, winter 2008)

The weather was not always nice in Roussillon but we came back from our journey with unforgettable memories and a number of photos to share with you. Of course the book we had chosen to guide us along our first ‘pilgrimage’ in Roussillon is Monsieur Mackintosh. There is no better guide In my next post about the Mackintosh Trail I will try to give an idea of the extraordinary work the Charles Rennie Mackintosh Association has been doing in Roussillon to. The CRMA was created and is still presided by Robin Crichton, the author of the book Monsieur Mackintosh.

Here we came at last! As you can see, we had chosen the good track …

But first of all I would like to thank Iain and Margaret for their very friendly welcome in Carcassonne, a place of outstanding beauty, rich in history and full of mystery. We’ll never forget the image of Iain waving to us with his hand in the narrow street when we arrived (one hour late) at n° 12-14 rue de la Barbacane, in front of the ‘petit coin de paradis’ Margaret had found at the very foot of the ramparts of the medieval city, only regretting to have to part with them so soon.

We’ve spent unforgettable moments there in Carcassonne and also in Montolieu, a very picturesque little book town built on a rocky peak which Margaret had discovered near Carcassonne, a Wigtown French counterpart

The village referred to as “Village of Books” contains about 20 bookshops and a book market takes place there on the third Sunday of every month. We lingered a long time in the very picturesque streets of the village, admiring the gorge of the Alzeau and of the Dure (Margaret and I standing back at some distance because of the impressive height)…

We stopped in front of a number of very inviting bookshops but as it was getting late and our time was limited, we asked Margaret and Iain whether they would choose one library to visit. Their choice of the librairie ‘Rose des Vents’ proved to be a most excellent choice.

The shelves of this small bookshop are overflowing with books all more interesting than others and in a great variety of fields. We stayed there a long time browsing through the books and choosing a couple of them but our best memory of La Rose des Vents is by far the cheerful welcome we received there. The charming bookseller is not only a book lover, she is also a great lover of her village, a love she has transmitted to her little boy. They both know every nook and cranny of it as well as its history. She went out of her shop (and it was cold and wintry outside) to make us discover some of the architectural gems which can be seen on the façades of the nearby old houses. I will try to get in touch with this kind and erudite lady.

Before going back to the Mackintosh Trail, I would also thank Iain for his last ‘Letter from Scotland’ : ‘The Astonishing Flight of Rudolf Hess..‘. Did you read it? There are names you hardly dare to mention for the dark associations they conjure up into our collective memory but the story of what happened in Scotland on that 10 May 1941 when the plane of one of the closest relations of Hitler crashed in a quiet place of the countryside brings to light many intriguing and still unresolved historical questions. We always look forward to receiving Iain and Margaret’s Letters from Scotland. Indeed we are great fans. Our friends are second to none to make us discover Scotland out of the beaten tracks, making us know and love their country better and better …

After leaving Iain and Margaret who were to go back to Scotland the following day, we took the direction of Prades where we had booked a room at ‘Castell Rose‘, a magnificent pink marble house which was situated on our road to the Mackintosh Trail, in the Pyrénées Orientales. On the above map you can see the places we visited during our first Mackintosh pilgrimage. We first took the A 61 motorway going eastward in the direction of Narbonne, then southward towards Perpignan before turning westward on N 116 trunkroad.

We arrived at Castell Rose rather late in the evening for we had stopped at a number of places linked with the Mackintoshes but we were very warmly received by Evelyne and Alex, the charming couple who owns the place. How lucky they are to live here!

Our room had a view on the mythical and snow-capped Mont Canigou. What a day !

The Mackintoshes would have caught their first glimpse of the Canigou – the magic mountain where dragons dwell and which can be seen from every part of Roussillon. Wherever you are, it seems as if the mountain follows you around. It is always there, the symbol of Catalonia, the home of the old gods, on whose summit every year on the Feast of St John a fire is lit, before being carried to the Catalan towns in both north and south.

(Robin Crichton – Monsieur Mackintosh)

So there we were, in that magical environment, looking forward with much anticipation to the next days of our journey on the Mackintosh Trail. This page is only the beginning of our adventures, so don’t miss the next episode which will lead us to Ille-sur-Têt…

Bonne lecture!

A bientôt. Mairiuna

The Astonishing Flight of Rudolf Hess ..

MAJA — Wed, 09 May 2012 22:27:50 +0000

Overview of the medieval Cité de Carcassonne Source Wikipedia

Bonjour Marie-Agnès, Janice et Jean-Claude. Hello again from Scotland!

Jean-Claude and Marie-Agnès, please let me say how thrilled we were to meet you both again towards the end of April – for just the second time in our warm and cordial friendship! Those two days that we spent together at Carcassonne were wonderful, filled – as you said, Marie-Agnès – with unforgettable moments!

Margaret was fortunate to come across such a really nice place to stay – we all deserved a little treat, don’t you think? – probably the most attractive gîte to be found anywhere in the city. Spacious, warm and beautifully furnished, it nestled under the ramparts of the fortified mediaeval Cité of Carcassonne (the third most popular attraction in all of France) – and from the highest part of the terraced garden, our view extended over the rooftops all the way to the snow-capped Pyrenees!

We flew to Carcassonne (by Ryanair) from the airport that we think of as our ‘local’ one – Glasgow Prestwick, PIK – in just over two hours; quite a contrast with the celebrated trip of Rudolf Hess, Hitler’s Deputy, 71 years ago – the flight of whose new Messerschmitt plane from Augsburg in Bavaria to its final resting-place at Eaglesham, Renfrewshire, took five and a half hours. Of course, Hess travelled a bit further – an estimated total distance of 1953 kilometers, or just over 1200 miles – but his flight, unpredicted and unexpected, remains one of the most bizarre and puzzling episodes of the Second World War.

The Flight of Rudolf Hess Myths and Reality frontcoverThe History Press 2011

Intrigued by the enigma, many writers have produced books over the years – some, unfortunately, now discredited, although all are interesting to read! In my opinion, one of the best is a relatively short book, first published just 13 years ago: The Flight of Rudolf Hess – Myths and Reality, by Roy Conyers Nesbit and Georges Van Acker (Sutton Publishing, 1999. 172pp. ISBN 0750923865).
Roy Nesbit is a specialist writer on aviation history; his collaborator, Georges Van Acker, who is Belgian, contributes an amusing dedication at the start of the book, to his wife: ‘For Wilma Van Acker, who endured with patience her husband’s preoccupation with Rudolf Hess for more than seven years’. (May I recommend – if funds permit! – that readers seek out the original hardbound edition of this book; the pages – 242x165mm – are much larger, and the photos much more nicely reproduced.)

Prestwick International Airport, near to Glasgow, South Ayrshire, Great Britain Source Wikipedia

Janice, Jean-Claude, Marie-Agnès, before plunging into the Hess story, I’d like to say just a little about Prestwick Airport itself, for it has a long and interesting history. (In May last year, it was reported that a historian – by the name of Harris, I think – had done some new work, proving that Prestwick Airport itself had been Hess’s intended destination, rather than Dungavel House, Strathaven, as earlier writers had always stated. But Nesbit and Van Acker make it clear that The Duke of Hamilton – whom Hess hoped to meet – was in command at RAF Turnhouse, Edinburgh, by this time. It had always been Hess’s intention to crash-land his new plane, of course – it was one of the latest type – and to burn it, if necessary, so that it would be destroyed.)

Source: http://www.elvis-express.com/elvisradio_articles_prestwick.html

One of the first things visitors tend to notice at Prestwick is a large gold star, set into the concourse beside the main entrance. The inscription reads: ‘Elvis Presley – Prestwick is the only place in the United Kingdom visited by the King of Rock ‘n’ Roll. Sergeant Presley was greeted by screaming fans on 3 March 1960 when his aircraft stopped to refuel .. ‘ (Elvis was returning to the USA from National Service in West Germany; in fact, construction work on the current terminal building did not begin until June 1961, and it was actually at the adjacent Greensite USAF base that the ‘King’ was mobbed by hysterical fans, signing autographs and posing for pictures. Prestwick was then an international airport, its runway having been lengthened to accommodate the largest planes. Elvis never sang in the UK because of a dispute with the British Musicians’ Union – they wanted their members employed in support of Presley, Elvis insisted on his own backing quartet, The Jordanaires.)

Douglas Douglas Hamilton 14th Duke of Hamilton aka Lord Clydesdale - Source: Wikipedia

But the origins of today’s Glasgow Prestwick Airport can be traced to August 1935, when two quite unusually talented young Scotsmen founded a new company there, Scottish Aviation Ltd, in association with the de Havilland Aircraft Co. The men were David F McIntyre, from Ayr – largely responsible for choosing the site of the future airport, as he knew its excellent weather record – and Douglas Douglas-Hamilton, who as heir to the Duke of Hamilton was a member of one of Scotland’s most important noble families. (Douglas Douglas-Hamilton, 1903-1973, had the title at this time of Marquis of Douglas and Clydesdale; by 1940, his father had died and he became 14th Duke of Hamilton – the man whom Hess claimed he’d come to see, although they’d never met.)

First flight over Everest 1933, Lord Clydesdale piloting - Source Wikipedia

Dear Friends, please be patient, for I know that this is an irrelevant digression from our story, but it’s something I simply must mention (it’s ‘now or never’, Marie-Agnès!) – in 1933, the two business partners had set a new altitude record by flying their Westland biplanes over the summit of Mount Everest! The small planes, selected for their climbing ability, were carried overland in crates and assembled in India, as part of what was known as the Houston – Mount Everest Aerial Survey (these parts of the Himalayas had not previously been mapped).

Prestwick's Pioneer by Dougall McIntyre - Woodfield Publishing 2004

Clearly McIntyre and Douglas-Hamilton were brilliant aviators; the shared adventure cemented their friendship. Soon afterwards, they published an account of the affair: The Pilot’s Book of Everest (Hodge, London, 1936).

The Pilots' Book of Everest Hodge London 1936

More than 1300 pilots and 2000 navigators had been trained at the Scottish Aviation flying school by 1939. With the outbreak of war, the assets of the Company were taken over and the installation became a Royal Air Force station, McIntyre being promoted to the rank of Officer Commanding. Douglas-Hamilton, meanwhile, had been given a very senior rank in the RAF, having charge of air defence in Scotland and Northern England, and responsibility for the Air Training Corps. (Astonishingly, he and all three of his brothers held at that time the rank of Squadron Leader – or above – in the Royal Air Force.)

But to our tale. According to Nesbit and Van Acker, Hess’s flight to Scotland is really much simpler and more straightforward than so many writers have suggested. Hess planned the journey for at least six months – the letter to his wife, Ilse, dated 4 November 1940, proves this. He waited for a suitable opportunity, suitable weather, a suitable plane. His authority as Deputy Führer, and his relationship with such people as Willy Messerschmitt, head of the aircraft works, gave him considerable freedom of action.

Hitler did not order or authorise the flight, and knew nothing about it beforehand – and was, of course, furious when he found out. A short quotation from Nesbit and Van Acker: “Hitler’s reaction was described by his architect, Albert Speer, who happened to be waiting (nearby) with some drawings. In his autobiography, he wrote: ‘While I was leafing through my sketches once more, I suddenly heard an inarticulate, almost animal-like outcry. Then Hitler roared, ‘Bormann at once! Where is Bormann?’ Bormann was told to get in touch with Goering, Ribbentrop, Goebbels and Himmler by the fastest possible means.’ The outcome was predictable. Pintsch and Hess’s other adjutant, Alfred Leitgen, were arrested, as well as all close members of his entourage.”

Hess had suggested that, if his mission were to fail, a statement should be issued via the news media stating that he was mad. This was duly done. “It would appear that Hess was suffering from the hallucination that by undertaking a personal step .. .. it might be possible to bring about an understanding between Germany and Britain.” Pintsch was punished by being sent to the Eastern Front.

Sitting by the window last Saturday evening, just after 10 o’clock, I tried to imagine the scene at Floors Farm, Eaglesham, on that Saturday night all those years ago. How I’d like to have been there! The light was fading fast, although it wasn’t yet completely dark – just as conditions would have been at 11.09 on 10 May 1941, the precise moment of Hess’s arrival ( ‘double’ summer time was in operation, the clocks advanced by two hours from GMT).

The wreckage of Hess's Bf 110 in Bonnyton Moor Scotland May 10th 1941 Source Wikipedia

Nesbit and Van Acker describe those dramatic events:
“David McLean, head ploughman at Floors Farm, was preparing to go to bed when he heard the noise of an aircraft overhead. (A bachelor of about 45, he lived in a simple cottage there with his mother.)
Then the engines stopped, and a few minutes later there was an explosion. Looking out of the window, he saw a parachute floating down and went outside to investigate. The man beneath hit the ground and was dragged along by the billowing parachute. McLean helped him to his feet and saw that he was wearing a foreign uniform under his flying clothes. When asked if he was German, Hess replied in good English: ‘Yes, I am Hauptmann Alfred Horn. I have an important message for the Duke of Hamilton.’

Rudolf Hess Source Wikipedia

“McLean checked the German for weapons and then gathered up the parachute. He was much smaller than Hess, but helped him into the cottage (he’d landed badly, injuring his leg and back). Mrs McLean was busy dealing with the excitement in the usual British way, by making a pot of tea. Hess refused tea but asked for a glass of water. His hosts were impressed by his courteous manner, his well-cut uniform, hand-made flying boots and fine gold wristwatch.”

Within minutes police, home guard and army men were on the scene, and Hess was placed under arrest. (He was to know nothing but imprisonment – in varying degrees of comfort – for the remainder of his long life. Sentenced to life imprisonment at Nuremberg for ‘Crimes against Peace’ and ‘Conspiracy with Others’, he died in Spandau Prison, West Berlin in 1987, at the age of 93.)
From Eaglesham, Hess was taken first to the headquarters of the Home Guard at Busby, near Glasgow. He made rather a good impression on Major Graham Donald, who questioned him: ‘He is, if one may apply the term to a Nazi, quite a gentleman .. .. I found him to be a very interesting and quite pleasant fellow, not in the least of the tough young Nazi type .. .. ‘

At Maryhill Barracks, Glasgow, the following morning, Hess’s wish to meet the Duke of Hamilton was finally granted. “Hess introduced himself by his correct name and said that he had seen Hamilton at the Olympic Games of 1936 in Berlin.

He had come on a mission of humanity, for Hitler did not want to defeat Britain but instead hoped to stop the fighting. .. .. (But) he had completely misjudged Hamilton in believing that he would take any action that would hinder Britain’s successful prosecution of the war. Hamilton told Hess that if Britain made peace now, the two countries would be back at war within two years.”

Castle Buchanan in late 1890's Drymen Scotland - Source Wikipedia

Hess’s peace mission had failed. From the sick bay of Maryhill Barracks, Hess was transferred to the military hospital at Buchanan Castle, Drymen, where his injuries could be better treated. He was then held briefly in the Tower of London, before lodging for a year or so at the fine house known as Mytchett Place (in Surrey, a beautiful part of England). Here he was kept secure by a force of 150 Scots Guards – an expensive arrangement! As time passed, Hess’s mental condition began to give cause for concern – it’s a long story. For the last years before the war ended, Rudolf Hess had the use of two small rooms at Maindiff Court Hospital, near Abergavenny, South Wales. He had made several attempts at suicide, and it was thought that Hitler had ordered a secret agent to try to assassinate him. ‘He deserves to be shot!’

Dear friends, the full story of Rudolf Hess’s flight – and of earlier attempts to make peace with Britain – is a long and complicated one; historians are frustrated that some of the documentary evidence remains classified as secret, even after the lapse of so many years. But I hope to have given you something of the flavour of this bizarre yet fascinating tale!

Spandau Prison in Berlin Germany 1951 Source Wikipedia

A bientôt.
Iain.

Le vieux pont and the old Cité de Carcassonne by night Source Wikipedia

For World Earth Day Scotland Turns Off Her Lights …

MAJA — Sun, 22 Apr 2012 22:46:58 +0000

“When is the best time to plant a tree?”
The answer: “Twenty years ago.
The second-best time? Today.”
Old Proverb

Earth Day 2012 Source: NASA

World Earth Day is organised by the environmental charity WWF in an attempt to draw greater awareness for climate change and for more action to combat it.

To celebrate World Earth Day, hundreds of thousands of people turned off their lights for an hour on Saturday evening between 8.30-9.30pm. 4,000 cities in 134 countries participated this year.

The Shetlands have been heralded for having the largest percentage of its population involved in the U.K. and for being the most northerly participants in the entire challenge.

Edinburgh Castle, the Falkirk Wheel, the Wallace Monument and the Scottish Parliament all took place in the event.

WWF director, Dr. Richard Dixon praised the Scottish effort:

“The people of Scotland have shown once again that they truly appreciate the huge threat climate change poses to people and wildlife both here and globally.”

Source: Scotland Institute For Study Abroad – Butler University

Wondering how each of us can reduce our environmental footprint?

Here are some tips as featured on the United States Go Green postage stamp issues:

USA Go Green Postage Stamps

Buy local produce
Reuse bag
Fix water leaks
Share rides
Turn off lights not in use
Choose to walk
Compost
Let Nature Do The Work for drying clothes
Recyle more
Ride a bike
Plant trees
Insulate the home
Use public transportation
Use efficient light bulbs
Adjust the thermostatMaintain tire pressure

Google Doodle - Earth Day - 2012 - Green

Recently in the New York Times Opinion Pages, was featured a very interesting article by Jim Robbins, on the subject of the importance of trees for our planet:

Why Trees Matter
By JIM ROBBINS

Published: April 11, 2012

The Man Who Planted Trees by Jim Robbins | Spiegel & Grau (April 17, 2012)

TREES are on the front lines of our changing climate. And when the oldest trees in the world suddenly start dying, it’s time to pay attention.

North America’s ancient alpine bristlecone forests are falling victim to a voracious beetle and an Asian fungus. In Texas, a prolonged drought killed more than five million urban shade trees last year and an additional half-billion trees in parks and forests. In the Amazon, two severe droughts have killed billions more.

The common factor has been hotter, drier weather.

We have underestimated the importance of trees. They are not merely pleasant sources of shade but a potentially major answer to some of our most pressing environmental problems. We take them for granted, but they are a near miracle. In a bit of natural alchemy called photosynthesis, for example, trees turn one of the seemingly most insubstantial things of all — sunlight — into food for insects, wildlife and people, and use it to create shade, beauty and wood for fuel, furniture and homes.

For all of that, the unbroken forest that once covered much of the continent is now shot through with holes.

Humans have cut down the biggest and best trees and left the runts behind.

Click here to read more

Birnam's old oak tree in Perthshire, Scotland | Photo : Scotiana 2007

When contemplating the beautiful elegance and the strength of more than mature trees, I get goose bumps…

It is our responsability to care for our planet.

Talk soon,
Janice

Two of Beatrix Potter’s Tales have roots in Scotland…

MAJA — Mon, 16 Apr 2012 21:59:11 +0000

Beatrix Potter The Complete Tales Warne & Co 1989

Many thanks Janice for having given me the opportunity to focus on Beatrix Potter, one of the most famous British authors of children’s literature and one of my favourites too. The Tale of Peter Rabbit you’ve included in your last post is certainly the best known of the many stories Beatrix Potter has written and illustrated. All of them are lovable anyway, not only for the lively and humorous style used by the author to tell the funny (and not so funny ) adventures experienced by her characters but also, and maybe still more, for the great number of nice illustrations which make our reading a feast.

Beatrix Potter was a very talented artist whose drawings owe much to her love and deep knowledge of nature. Most of her tales reflect the author’s tenderness for animals and her passion for plants. In her books Beatrix Potter has put a lot of autobiographical elements: the places where she lived or spent her holidays in the Lake District as well as in the Highlands of Scotland and also her favourite pets, including the hedgehog which is the central character of The Tale of Tiggy-winkle, one of the two stories owing much to Scotland. The other story is The Tale of Mr. Jeremy Fisher in which the central character happens to be a frog like in The Wind in the Willows, another well-known classic of children’s literature, written by the Scottish author Kenneth Grahame.

If you want to make yourself an idea of these two very enjoyable stories just take a look at this video I’ve found on You Tube!

Yesterday, as we were strolling around the streets in Bordeaux, we fell upon a very attractive bookshop dedicated to children’s literature. The window was so inviting that we entered the shop, lingering quite a long time there, browsing through the books lining on the shelves in a great variety of genres. What a marvellous place for young as well as older visitors and what cheerful welcome we did receive there! A child could not have been happier than we were! We’ll go back there to get more books to fill the shelves of the children’s library we’re building in our attic for our grandsons (and their parents and grand-parents too …

Boby & Cie children's literature bookshop business card

At Boby & Cie’s bookshop I asked the very kind bookseller if she happened to have some of Beatrix Potter’s books in French… she had several of them and I promised to buy some on our next visit for we had already chosen Arrête de lire a marvellous story written by Claire Gratias and very nicely illustrated by Sylvie Serprix.

We took several photos of Beatrix Potter garden and also some of the inside of the Birnam Institute while visiting the Dunkeld area in 2007. I will tell more about this visit in my next post.

Below is the Wikipedia listing of the 23 most famous tales written by Beatrix Potter. Most of these tales, and maybe all of them, have been translated into French…

The Tale of Peter Rabbit (1902)
The Tale of Squirrel Nutkin (1903)
The Tailor of Gloucester (1903)
The Tale of Benjamin Bunny (1904)
The Tale of Two Bad Mice (1904)
The Tale of Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle (1905)
The Tale of the Pie and the Patty-Pan (1905)
The Tale of Mr. Jeremy Fisher (1906)
The Story of A Fierce Bad Rabbit (1906)
The Story of Miss Moppet (1906)
The Tale of Tom Kitten (1907)
The Tale of Jemima Puddle-Duck (1908)
The Tale of Samuel Whiskers or, The Roly-Poly Pudding (1908)
The Tale of the Flopsy Bunnies (1909)
The Tale of Ginger and Pickles (1909)
The Tale of Mrs. Tittlemouse (1910)
The Tale of Timmy Tiptoes (1911)
The Tale of Mr. Tod (1912)
The Tale of Pigling Bland (1913)
Appley Dapply’s Nursery Rhymes (1917)
The Tale of Johnny Town-Mouse (1918)
Cecily Parsley’s Nursery Rhymes (1922)
The Tale of Little Pig Robinson (1930)

Mice sewing, illustration from The Tailor of Gloucester - The Complete Tales of Beatrix Potter F. Warne & Co 1989

My favourite story in Beatrix Potter’s tales is The Tailor of Gloucester. I’ve learned it was Beatrix Potter’s favourite one too . A very touching story and glorious drawings too as usual. I’ve found another You Tube video It’s irresistible!

Simpkin in the snow illustration from The Tailor of Gloucester - The Complete Tales of Beatrix Potter F. Warne & Co 1989

‘A tailor in Gloucester sends his cat Simpkin to buy food and a twist of cherry-coloured silk to complete a waistcoat commissioned by the mayor for his wedding on Christmas morning. While Simpkin is gone, the tailor finds mice the cat has imprisoned under teacups. The mice are released and scamper away. When Simpkin returns and finds his mice gone, he hides the twist in anger.

Detail of the waistcoat, illustration from The Tailor of Gloucester The Complete Tales F.Warne & Co 1889

The tailor falls ill and is unable to complete the waistcoat but, upon returning to his shop, he is surprised to find the waistcoat finished. The work has been done by the grateful mice. However, one buttonhole remains unfinished because there was “no more twist!” Simpkin gives the tailor the twist to complete the work and the success of the waistcoat makes the tailor’s fortune.’

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tailor_of_Gloucester

The finished waistcoat, illustration from The Tailor of Gloucester - The Complete Tales of Beatrix Potter F. Warne & Co 1989

As I’ve already mentioned before, two of Beatrix Potter’s tales have roots in Scotland. These are The Tale of Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle and The Tale of of Mr Jeremy Fisher.

Starching linen - Illustration from The Tale of Mrs Tiggy-Winkle Beatrix Potter The Complete Tales Warne & Co 1989

The Tale of Mrs Tiggy Winkle is the story of Lucie, a little girl who lives in a farm called Little-town. Lucie has lost three handkerchiefs and a pinafore and she questions Tabby Kitten, Sally Henny-penny, Cock Robin, the animals of the farm who happen to know nothing about the lost objects. On climbing up the stile Lucie thinks she can make out, up the hill, ‘some white things spread upon the grass’ and she decides to go and see. While scrambling up the hill she passes by a bubbling spring where she finds a very small tin used to catch water. Lucie finally arrives to a little door behind which she can hear somebody who is singing. She knocks at the door and after a frightened voice has asked ‘Who’s that?’ Lucie enters the strange little house. She finds herself in a low-ceilinged kitchen filled with tiny things where ‘a short, stout person wearing a tucked-up print gown, an apron, and a striped petticoat’ is ironing. Notonly can Lucie find there her three lost handkerchiefs and pinafore but she also finds Henny-penny’s yellow stockings and Tabby Kitten’s white mittens, together with things belonging to the animals living in the neighbourghood, including “Squirrel Nutkin’s red tail coat with no tail and Peter Rabbit’s blue jacket”. Lucie admires Mrs Tiggy Winkle’s work for all things have been carefully laundered. When she has finished her work, the strange little person invites Lucie to have tea with her and then they set off together down the path to return the fresh laundry to the owners. At the bottom of the hill, Lucie mounts the stile and turns to thank Mrs. Tiggy-winkle but how astonished she is to see her running in the distance and turning to a little brown creature covered with prickles! “Why! Mrs. Tiggy-winkle [is] nothing but a HEDGEHOG!”

Lucie climbing up the stile - Illustration from TheTale of Mrs.Tiggy-winkle The Complete Tales F.Warne & Co 1889

Has Lucie fallen asleep and dreamed the encounter, as Alice did in Wonderland? The question is raised at the end of the story, in a parenthesis. It appears clearly that the author does not want to break the magic of her story : ‘Now some people say that little Lucie had been asleep upon the stile – but then how could she have found three clean pocket-handkins and a pinny, pinned with a silver safety-pin? And besides I have seen that door into the back of the hill called Cat bells – and besides I am very well acquainted with dear Mrs. Tiggy-winkle!”

Indeed the author was very well acquainted with dear Mrs. Tiggy Winkle for Beatrix Potter’s character had been drawn after a woman she had well known during her holidays in Scotland. I’ve found a lot of information on Wikipedia, including very interesting extracts of the author’s letters, when she was young.

‘The story of Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle was inspired by Kitty MacDonald, a Scottish washerwoman the Potters employed over the course of eleven summers at Dalguise House on the River Tay in Perthshire, writes Leslie Linder. Potter was 26 when, in 1892, she visited MacDonald while staying at Heath Park, Birnam. She wrote in her journal: “Went out with the pony … to see Kitty MacDonald, our old washerwoman … Kitty is eighty-three but waken, and delightfully merry … She is a comical, round little woman, as brown as a berry and wears a multitude of petticoats and a white mutch. Her memory goes back for seventy years, and I really believe she is prepared to enumerate the articles of her first wash in the year ’71″.

In 1942, the year before she died, Potter’s thoughts returned to Kitty MacDonald when she wrote about a piece of crockery:

Seventy eighty years ago it belonged to another old woman, old Katie MacDonald, the Highland washerwoman. She was a tiny body, brown as a berry, beady black eyes and much wrinkled, against an incongruously white frilled mutch. She wore a small plaid crossed over shawl pinned with a silver brooch, a bed jacket, and a full kilted petticoat. She dropped bob curtsies, but she was outspoken and very independent, proud and proper … The joy of converse with old Katie was to draw her out to talk of the days when she was a wee bit lassie—herding the kine. The days when ‘Boney’ was a terror … the old woman wouldn’t dwell upon hard weather and storms; she spoke of the sunshine and clouds, and shadows, the heather bells, the … “the broom of the Cowden Knowes”, the sun and wind on the hills where she played, and knitted, and herded cattle and sheep. A bonny life it was, but it never came back …’

Below are a few notes about The Tale of Mr. Jeremy Fisher, the other tale which betrays a Scottish influence. Beatrix Potter did love Scotland where she had spent great holidays when she was young, in company of her family and friends and particularly with her dear brother Bertram.

Mr. Jeremy Fisher reading his newspaper Illustration from the Complete Tales of Beatrix Potter F.Warne.co 1989

‘Jeremy Fisher is a frog who lives in a “slippy-sloppy” house at the edge of a pond. One rainy day he collects worms for fishing, and sets off across the pond on his lily-pad boat. He plans to invite his friends for dinner if he catches more than five minnows. He encounters all sorts of setbacks to his goal, and escapes a large trout who tries to swallow him. He swims for shore, decides he will not go fishing again, and hops home.’ (Wikipedia)

Mr. Jeremy Fisher on his lily-pad boat Illustration from The Complete Tales of Beatrix Potter F.Warne & Co 1989

Look ! I’ve just found another treasure on You Tube! It’s a series of ten videos recounting in a most interesting way Beatrix Potter’s life. Below are five of the ten videos. In my next post you will see the additional five!

Enjoy !

A bientôt. Mairiuna

Happy Easter & Egg-Cellent Sunday !

MAJA — Sun, 08 Apr 2012 14:28:05 +0000

Poland - Easter Eggs

In Christian tradition, Easter Sunday is all about Jésus Christ’s resurrection from death, however many people celebrate this commemorative day by decorating, exchanging, and searching for eggs.

Easter eggs and Easter bunnies are a major attraction during Easter’s festival of rejuvenation of life and living.

From the earliest times, the egg was a symbol of birth in most cultures. Eggs were often wrapped in gold leaf or, if you were a peasant, colored brightly by boiling them with the leaves or petals of certain flowers.

It’s also a great time to share Easter short stories and one of my favourites is the following:

The Tale of Peter Rabbit

by Beatrix Potter

Once upon a time there were four little Rabbits, and their names were: Flopsy, Mopsy, Cottontail, and Peter.

They lived with their Mother in a sandbank, underneath the root of a very big fir tree.

“Now, my dears,” said old Mrs. Rabbit one morning, “you may go into the fields or down the lane, but don’t go into Mr. McGregor’s garden – your Father had an accident there, he was put in a pie by Mrs. McGregor.”

“Now run along, and don’t get into mischief. I am going out.”

Then old Mrs. Rabbit took a basket and her umbrella, to the baker’s. She bought a loaf of brown bread and five currant buns.

Flopsy, Mopsy, and Cottontail, who were good little bunnies, went down the lane to gather blackberries.

But Peter, who was very naughty, ran straight away to Mr. McGregor’s garden and squeezed under the gate!

First he ate some lettuces and some French beans, and then he ate some radishes.

And then, feeling rather sick, he went to look for some parsley.

But round the end of a cucumber frame, whom should he meet but Mr. McGregor!

Mr. McGregor was on his hands and knees planting out young cabbages, but he jumped up and ran after Peter, waving a rake and calling out, “Stop thief!”

Peter was most dreadfully frightened – he rushed all over the garden, for he had forgotten the way back to the gate.

He lost one of his shoes among the cabbages, and the other shoe amongst the potatoes.

After losing them, he ran on four legs and went faster, so that I think he might have got away altogether if he had not unfortunately run into a gooseberry net, and got caught by the large buttons on his jacket. It was a blue jacket with brass buttons, quite new.

Peter gave himself up for lost, and shed big tears – but his sobs were overheard by some friendly sparrows, who flew to him in great excitement, and implored him to exert himself.

Mr. McGregor came up with a sieve, which he intended to pop upon the top of Peter – but Peter wriggled out just in time, leaving his jacket behind him.

And rushed into the toolshed, and jumped into a can. It would have been a beautiful thing to hide in, if it had not had so much water in it.

Mr. McGregor was quite sure that Peter was somewhere in the toolshed, perhaps hidden underneath a flower-pot. He began to turn them over carefully, looking under each.

Presently Peter sneezed, “Kertyschoo!” Mr. McGregor was after him in no time, and tried to put his foot upon Peter, who jumped out of a window, upsetting three plants. The window was too small for Mr. McGregor, and he was tired of running after Peter. He went back to his work.

Peter sat down to rest – he was out of breath and trembling with fright, and he had not the least idea which way to go. Also he was very damp with sitting in that can.

After a time he began to wander about, going lippity – lippity – not very fast, and looking all around.

He found a door in a wall – but it was locked, and there was no room for a fat little rabbit to squeeze underneath.

An old mouse was running in and out over the stone doorstep, carrying peas and beans to her family in the wood. Peter asked her the way to the gate, but she had such a large pea in her mouth that she could not answer. She only shook her head at him. Peter began to cry.

Then he tried to find his way straight across the garden, but he became more and more puzzled. Presently, he came to a pond where Mr. McGregor filled his water cans. A white cat was staring at some goldfish – she sat very, very still, but now and then the tip of her tail twitched as if it were alive. Peter thought it best to go away without speaking to her – he had heard about cats from his cousin, little Benjamin Bunny.

He went back towards the tool-shed, but suddenly, quite close to him, he heard the noise of a hoe – scr-r-ritch, scratch, scratch, scritch. Peter scuttered underneath the bushes. But presently, as nothing happened, he came out, and climbed upon a wheelbarrow, and peeped over. The first thing he saw was Mr. McGregor hoeing onions. His back was turned towards Peter, and beyond him was the gate!

Peter got down very quietly off the wheelbarrow, and started running as fast as he could go, along a straight walk behind some black currant bushes.

Mr. McGregor caught sight of him at the corner, but Peter did not care. He slipped underneath the gate, and was safe at last in the wood outside the garden.

Mr. McGregor hung up the little jacket and the shoes for a scare-crow to frighten the blackbirds.

Peter never stopped running or looked behind him till he got home to the big fir tree.

He was so tired that he flopped down upon the nice soft sand on the floor of the rabbit-hole, and shut his eyes. His mother was busy cooking – she wondered what he had done with his clothes. It was the second little jacket and pair of shoes that Peter had lost in a fortnight!

I am sorry to say that Peter was not very well during the evening.

His mother put him to bed, and made some camomile tea – and she gave a dose of it to Peter!

“One tablespoonful to be taken at bedtime.”

But Flopsy, Mopsy, and Cottontail had bread and milk and blackberries, for supper.

Source: Apples4TheTeacher.com & Gutenberg.org

Wishing you all egg-cellent fun!

Scotiana.com Team Members

On April Fool’s Day…Beware of “Kick Me” & “April Fish” Jokes!

MAJA — Sat, 31 Mar 2012 21:39:39 +0000

Hi Mairiuna!

April 1st being widely recognized and celebrated as a day when many people play all kinds of jokes and foolishness, I was wondering if I would keep my good humor was I to be a victim of a prank?

I’d better, because it is said that you’ll attract bad luck if you get mad!

In Scotland, they are all for it and April Fool’s Day, also known as “April Gowk,” “Gowkie Day” or “Hunt the Gowk”, last 48 hours!

‘The second day of the Scottish April Fool’s custom is devoted exclusively to pranks involving the posterior region of the body.

This is known as “Taily Day” and the origin of the ever-popular and still-hilarious “Kick Me” sign is likely traceable to this observance. “Gowk” is Scottish for “cuckoo” (an emblem of simpletons) and thus, a “gowk” is the butt of any practical joke.’

Fooling around the web I had fun with April Fool’s related stories and selected some to share below:

In Scotland, April Fools Day celebrations last for two days. April Fools Day in Scotland is sometimes called Taily Day or April Gowk.

The traditional prank for the first day is to send people on a fool’s errand. You give someone an urgent note that they are supposed to deliver, but the note informs the receiver that it is an April Gowk joke, and they send the person to yet another person, who sends them somewhere else…etc.

On the second day, the traditional prank is to stick an April Gowk sign on someone’s backside, similar to a “Kick Me” sign.

April Gowk pranks are usually only played in the morning, and if someone tries one after noon, they are considered the fool instead.

April Fools Day in France is traditionally called Poisson d’Avril, which translates to “April Fish.” The term refers to the fish that are recently hatched and therefore naïve and easy to catch. The traditional April Fish prank in France is to tape a fish to someone’s back, and call them a Poisson d’Avril when they discover it. Originally, the fish was a real dead fish, but nowadays it is most often a paper fish. April Fish is also a common prank on April Fools Day in Italy, called Pesce d’Aprile in Italian. April Fish trickery can last all day, and may include other kinds of tricks.

April Fool’s Day in Canada is similar to April Fool’s Day in the United States, and also incorporates the tradition of Poisson d’Avril from French April Fools Day celebrations. On Canadian tradition comes from investigator James Randi, who annually announces a tongue-in-cheek award called the Pigasus Award on April Fools Day. These “awards” seek to expose paranormal or psychic frauds or to ridicule institutions that promote paranormal claims. Past Pigasus awards have been given to the Kansas school board, John Edwards and Nostradamus. (…).

Source: April Fools Day Traditions Around the World

“The first of April is the day we remember what we are the other 364 days of the year“

Mark Twain (1835-1910)

Mark Twain Stories Depicted on Disney Postage Stamps

”Let us be thankful for the fools. But for them the rest of us could not succeed“

Mark Twain (1835-1910)

………………………………….

Even the medias would jump in and play the game by publishing untrue stories just for the fun of it!

Scottish April Fool's Day Hoaxes

Click on the image to view more hoaxes

Scottish April Fool's Day Hoaxes

*****************************

************
What’s the best joke you think you can pull off?

FURTHER READINGS

The History of April Fool’s Day

All Fool’s Day

Enjoy!

Talk soon

Janice

On the Scottish roads: the A 82 from Glasgow to Glen Coe…

MAJA — Fri, 30 Mar 2012 22:29:02 +0000

Roads go ever ever on,

Over rock and under tree,

By caves where never sun has shone,

By streams that never find the sea;

Over snow by winter sown,

And through the merry flowers of June,

Over grass and over stone,

And under mountains in the moon.

Roads go ever ever on

Under cloud and under star,

Yet feet that wandering have gone

Turn at last to home afar.

Eyes that fire and sword have seen

And horror in the halls of stone

Look at last on meadows green

And trees and hills they long have known.

(Bilbo’s song – The Hobbit Tolkien )

When we arrived in Scotland, in June 2000, we looked with much anticipation to the few days we were going to spend there but we didn’t know yet how deeply we would be impressed by our first journey « en Terre d’Ecosse ” and what unforgettable adventure was waiting for us!

Terre d'Ecosse Serge Oliero Editions A. Barthélémy, Avignon1997

« Bon voyage au pays des Celtes » had written Serge Oliero on dedicating his book to me at the end of a lecture he gave on January 17 th 2000 … how true it proved to be !

We had booked all our B & Bs in advance and on June 12 th, when we arrived at Renfrew airport in Glasgow, we immediately rented a car so that we could embark as quickly as possible on our journey…

Day after day, on our road to the north, we got under the spell…

Iain Crichton Smith Consider the Lilies Arnold Wheaton Pergamon Press Ltd 1984

This journey was to lead us as far as Bettyhill on the north coast, for I wanted to go and see what remained of the village of Rossal, a place which is the setting of Consider the Lilies, a historical novel by Iain Crichton Smith which takes place at the time of the Scottish Clearances …

Don’t ask me how we did that but on the very day of our arrival, we managed to visit quite a number of places in Glasgow. We immediately fell in love with the big city, walking up Buchanan and Sauchiehall streets without taking time neither to do our shopping nor to share a good cup of tea at the famous Willow Tearoom for we wanted to visit Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum, the old Museum of Transport (it was still situated in the nearby Kelvin Hall) , St Mungo cathedral and St Mungo Museum of Religious Life and Art which, until 2006 housed Salvador Dalí’s magnificent painting “Christ of Saint John of the Cross“. We ended in the very atmospheric Necropolis looking for the most emblematic ghosts of Glasgow and also to get a panoramic view of the city. We promised ourselves to come back soon to re-visit the European Capital of Culture, a title it gained in 1990.

On the evening of our arrival we got lost in the countryside in trying to find our first B & B and knocked at several doors before arriving, at a rather late hour, to the farm where it was situated. After a cheerful welcome we spent a very good night and set off rather late in the morning after our first Scottish breakfast. Home made scones and marmalade were among the Scottish delicacies waiting for us! What a feast! We also had a very interesting chat with our host, a learned gentleman who had travelled the world as a yarn dealer before becoming a farmer. He did speak French very well, which we quite appreciated after our first experience of the Scottish language. Try to use in Glasgow the English you’ve learned at school and you’ll understand how we felt on our arrival there!

Live & Work in Scotland Nicola Taylor Vacation Work 2005

“There are 32,999 miles (55,266 km) of roads in Scotland, of which 212 miles (344 km) are motorways and 1,807 miles (2,922 km) are other trunk roads. There are eight motorways, all in the southern half of the country. The terrain and level of population in the Highlands is such that it is doubtless not cost-effective to construct motorways in the area. The main trunk road in the Highlands is the A 9 which runs from Falkirk, about midway between Glasgow and Edinburgh, to Thurso on the north coast. Although many roads in the Highlands and Islands have been upgraded in recent years, there are still many single-track roads with “passing places”, small bays at regular intervals along the road used to allow oncoming traffic to pass.

Roads in Britain are classified using an alphabetical system. Motorways are high speed, multi-carriageway roads. There are indicated by M followed by a number e.g. M8. They are marked on road maps in blue and the road signs on motorways have a blue background with white markings. Major roads are ‘A’ road: e.g. A9. They are subdivided into ‘Primary routes’ which are marked in green on road maps and the road signs have green backgrounds with yellow markings. Other A roads are marked in red on maps and the road signs are generally red and/or white with black markings. Smaller roads are indicated by B followed by a number: e.g. B778. They are marked on maps in yellow. Other minor roads are not numbered.”

(Live & Work in Scotland Nicola Taylor)

Scotland Encyclopedia of Places & Landscapes RSGS David Munro Bruce Gittings Collins 2006 cover detail

Leaving Paisley, we took the A 82 which starts in Glasgow, crossed the Erskine Bridge over the river Clyde and headed north in the direction of Glen Coe…

Scotland Encyclopedia of Places & Landscapes RSGS David Munro Bruce Gittings Collins 2006

I’ve largely made use of this very interesting book to describe the main Scottish landmarks we’ve discovered while driving north from Glasgow to Fort William…

Dumbarton Rock from Levengrove Park Wikipedia photo by Andrew McEwan

Dumbarton: “Former capital of the ancient kingdom of Strathclyde, Dumbarton lies at the mouth of the River Leven, which flows south from Loch Lomond to enter the Firth of Clyde 16 miles (26 km) northwest of Glasgow. A prominent landmark on the north side of the Clyde is Dumbarton Rock, an isolated 73-m/240-ft-high volcanic plug that was first fortified in the 5th century AD (…) The castle which stands on the Rock was built on the site of a Roman fort and was the ancient capital of Strathclyde. It was also a royal seat, briefly being the home of Mary, Queen of Scots before she departed to France at the age of five in preparation for her eventual marriage to the Dauphin (…)” (Scotland Encyclopedia of Places & Landscapes)

Loch Lomond and Ben Lomond from north-west shore Wikipedia photo by Aeleftherios

While driving along the western shore of Loch Lomond we could have a glimpse of the picturesque Trossachs and crossed nice villages : Arden – Luss* – Inverbeg – Tarbet – Inveruglas – Ardhui – On the other side of Loch Lomond the road stops at Bahama and there is only a foot path.

*Luss : “an attractive grey-slate village located on the western shore of Loch Lomond, Luss lies 8 miles (13 km) south of Tarbet. Originally named Clachan Dubh meaning ‘the dark village’, it is believed to have taken the name Luss from the Gaelic for a plant. Developed by the Colquhouns of Luss who lived at nearby Rossdhu House, Luss pier was developed as an outlet for slate from nearby quarries and as a steamer landing for tourists. It is now a conservation village with cottages built to house cotton mill and slate workers in the 18th and 19th centuries. A visitor centre for the Loch Lomond and the Trossachs National Park is located in the village, and to the south at Rossdhu is a championship golf course designed by Tom Weiskopf. ” (Scotland Encyclopedia of Places & Landscapes)

From Tarbet, the A82 then leads through:

Crianlarich one of the places claiming to be the “gateway to the Highlands”, halfway along the famous and much trodden West Highland Way, a long distance footpath 96 miles long (154.5 km) opened in 1980 and running from Glasgow to Fort William. Crianlarcih is very popular with hillwalkers for it is surrounded by moutains among them several Munro peaks, the most famous one being Ben More.

Bridge of Orchy: A village in northeast Argyll and Bute to the south of Rannoch Moor, it lies at the head of Glen Orchy, 6 miles (10 km) north of Tyndrum. A bridge over the River Orchy was built here in 1751 during the construction of a military road. An inn erected in the settlement became a stance for drovers, and was visited by Dorothy Wordsworth in 1803. (Scotland Encyclopedia of Places & Landscapes)

Black Mount – (small lochs: Tulla – Ba)

The A82 continues north and passes the western fringes of Rannoch Moor**

**Rannoch Moor : An upland plateau to the north of Breadalbane and east of Glen Coe, Rannoch Moor comprises an extensive area of moorland dotted with lochans and peat bogs occupying an area of 5180 ha (12,800 acres) in southern Highland Council area and western Perth and Kinross. It reaches an elevation of over 384 m (1260 ft) and is surrounded by mountains that rise to heights in excess of 914m (3000 ft) to the southeast and west and 610 m (2000ft) to the north (…) Although traversed in a north-south direction by the A 82 from Glasgow to Fort William and by the West Highland Railway, there is no west-east crossing of the moor, which is regarded as one of the last truly wild places in Scotland (…) In his novel Kidnapped (1886), Robert Louis Stevenson noted that ‘A wearier looking desert a man never saw’. (Scotland Encyclopedia of Places & Landscapes)

Glen Etive

and finally through the spectacular Glen Coe with the Three Sisters on the left.

We discovered Glen Coe rather late in the evening and it was all the more impressive… the wild and grim landscape of this narrow glen is truly breathtaking with its precipitous mountains and changing light. It is one of our favourite places and certainly one of the most spectacular and beautiful ones in Scotland. Indeed it is part of the designated National Scenic Area of Ben Nevis and Glencoe. There are no less than 40 National Scenic Areas (NSAs) in Scotland. When you look at the NSAs map you can see that these areas almost cover the whole of the Scottish territory! No wonder…

It’s often quite frustrating to follow such beautiful roads without being able to stop to admire the landscape and in Scotland you feel like stopping at each bend of the road… it’s like being obliged to content with an inviting cover of a book you can’t read!

We could not content with our first journey to Scotland and that is why we came back in 2001, 2003, 2004, 2006, 2007… and we’re planning a new one for 2012. We’ll never tire of it !

The Road goes ever on and on

Down from the door where it began.

Now far ahead the Road has gone,

And I must follow, if I can,

Pursuing it with eager feet,

Until it joins some larger way

Where many paths and errands meet.

And whither then? I cannot say.

(Bilbo’s song - The Lord of the Rings Tolkien )

Bonne lecture et bonne route if you’re planning to go to Scotland soon

Mairiuna

Google Doodles Celebrating Scotland…

MAJA — Sun, 18 Mar 2012 16:38:39 +0000

Hi Mairiuna!

It was truly a pleasure to read your last post triggered by Google Doodle’s commemoration of the 220th birth anniversary of Gioachino Rossini. The music was such a joy to hear!

Gioachino Rossini - Google Doodle- 29 February 2012

Thanks for sharing such great insights about Rossini and the nature of his link with Scotland.

About your challenging question…

Dear Janice would you, by any chance, be aware of any other Google Doodle related to Scotland ? …

…well, dear friend, you’ll surely be happy to find out about these Google doodles featuring St-Andrew’s Day on the 30th of November, which also celebrates Scotland’s National Day.

Google doodle - St-Andrew's Day - Scotland

St-Andrew, patron saint of Scotland, was a fisherman and one of the disciples of Jesus responsible for spreading the new faith throughout Asia Minor and Greece.

St Andrew's Statue - Museum of St-Andrews Cathedral - Scotiana 2006

‘He was killed by the Romans in Patras, a city in Greece, by being crucified on an X-shaped cross, which would later become the heraldic symbol known as the Saltire found in Scotland’s flag.

St Andrew is also the patron saint of fishmongers, singers, spinsters, maidens, old maids and women wishing to become mothers. He is also the patron saint of Greece, Romania, Russia and the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople and therefore celebrated around the world.’

Source: The Telegraph

2009 Google Doodle - St-Andrew's Day

The elements of the logo depicts St-Andrews, Scotland’s first university. Founded in 1413, it’s the third oldest in the English-speaking world, reaching it’s 600th year milestone.

St-Andrews University - Scotland - Scotiana 2006

Remember Mairiuna when we visited St-Andrews back in 2006? Marvellous souvenirs… And such beautiful landscape!

Below are pictures we took of St-Andrews Cathedral’s ruins and St-Andrew’s sarcophagus.

St Andrews Castle and Cathedral landscape - Scotiana 2006

St Andrew's Sarcophagus - St-Andrews Cathedral's Museum - Scotland - Scotiana 2006

Ruins of St-Andrews Cathedral and Cimetey- Scotland - Scotiana 2006

Ruins of St-Andrews Cathedral,Scotland - Scotiana 2006

Here are other Google Doodles featuring Scottish Art & Culture:

160th Birth Anniversary of Robert Louis Stevenson (13 November 2010 - Google Doodle)

The above Google doodle depicts on a scroll, the characters from the well known Treasure Island adventures, featuring Long John Silver and his parrot Captain Flint, a nautical compass, a ship, and a pirate’s booty (treasure). Robert Louis Stevenson also wrote Kidnapped and the Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde‘.

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Birthday - May 22th - Google Doodle 2006

Conan Doyle’s hero detective, Sherlock Holmes had it’s portrait immortalized in a Google doodle as well.

For those interested, all the Google doodles can be viewed here.

Enjoy!

Talk soon,

Janice

Scotland, a Source of Inspiration for Artists : Rossini…

MAJA — Wed, 07 Mar 2012 15:26:56 +0000

Rossini Google Doodle image 29 February 2012

Here’s the frog-adorned image which appeared on Google on 29 February 2012. It marked the 220th birth anniversary of Gioachino Rossini, one of the greatest composers of the 19th century who has often been called “the Italian Mozart”. He was born only three months after Mozart’s death, on the leap day of a bissextile year.

.
The funny and colourful logo has obviously been inspired by The Barber of Seville , one of Rossini’s most popular operas based on Le Barbier de Séville, a famous comic play written in the 18th century by the French playwright Pierre Beaumarchais. On the right of the image we can recognize Figaro, the mischievous Barber of Seville who is busy shaving a character who doesn’t seem particularly happy to be on the barber’s seat and whom we suppose to be Bartolo, Rosina’s jealous guardian who wants to marry her. On the left of the image we can see a loving duo: Rosina who is singing a song with much passion is accompanied by a smiling pianist who must be Count Almaviva aka Lindor in love with Rosina. I’ve always been impressed by the art of giving life and expression to a simple drawing!

Gioachino Rossini, painted c. 1815 by Vincenzo Camuccini Museo del Teatro alla Scala in Milan

Give me a laundry-list and I’ll set it to music.

(Gioachino Rossini)

Gioachino Antonio Rossini, nicknamed “the swan of Pesaro”, was born into a family of musicians in Pesaro, a little town situated on the Adriatic coast of Italy. His father was a horn player and his mother an opera singer. One of the greatest composers of the 19 th century, Rossini is mainly known for his operas but he also composed a great number of musical pieces in all genres : sacred music, chamber music, songs, instrumental and piano pieces.

Pesaro on the Adriatic Sea Italy panoramic view source Wikipedia

If you try to make abstraction of the big modern buildings you can see on the seafront, you’ll get an image of what this nice little town must have looked at the time of Rossini’s birth. In the sixties, I spent an enchanting month-holiday at Milano Maritima, on the Adriatic coast, not far from Pesaro, and I visited the region. It’s certainly one of the most beautiful regions of Italy.

Born in Pesaro, Gioachino Rossini never forgot his native town to which, at his death, he bequeated his entire estate. The no negligible amount of money which came from it was used, among other things, to establish the town’s Conservatory.

Bologna Italy Collage photos Bologna-SanPetronio-PiazzaMaggiore Source Wikipedia

It is not in Pesaro but in Bologna that Rossini spent most of his youth for in 1799, as the boy was only seven, his father who had openly shown sympathies for the French Revolution and Napoleon Bonaparte was sent to prison where he remained until 1800. Gioachino’s mother took the child with her in Bologna where she had found a work as a leading singer in the local theatres. The boy was often left to the care of his grand-mother and friends of the family when she was working. His father would join them later when he got out of prison. Gioachino was a very gifted and precocious child endowed with a strong character and a great and sometimes quite derisive sense of humour.

There is a little piece of instrumental music that I like particularly and which was written by Rossini in 1806, when he was only 14. It is the Sonate a quattro – No. 1 in G Major which belongs to a series of sonatas written during a holiday in Ravenne, at the home of his protector Agostino Triosi, a bass player. It is said that young Rossini composed six sonatas in three days. He would say later that the original manuscript containing the sonatas was only worth to wrap salami ,-)

Gioachino entered the Liceo Musicale of Bologna as a cello student under the authority of father Stanislao Mattei but he preferred to spend hours studying Haydn and Mozart rather than to devote his time to more academic education. He used to say that he learned more in the company of the great musicians than with father Mattei. Among his favourite composers we can also mention Chopin and Beethoven whom he would meet in 1822, too late we should say for the great man was in a very bad state of health at that time.

At this early age Rossini composed two symphonies and two operas. In 1810, La Cabmiale di matrimonio was produced in Venice. Rossini was only 18 then.

Portrait of Gioachino Rossini in 1820, International Museum and Library of Music, Bologna

By the age of 21 Rossini had become a star in Italy and he had already composed ten operas.

Isabella Colbran Source Wikipedia

In 1822 Rossini married Isabella Colbran, a Spanish opera singer who played a leading part in Rossini’s Elisabetta, regina d’Inghilterra. They would separate in 1837 and she died in 1845. In 1846 he married Olympe Pélissier, a French artists’ model who had sat for Vernet’s picture Judith and Holofernes. She would survive him ten years.

Magie de L'Italie collection CD musique Instants Classiques

Pesora, Bologna, Ravenne, Naples, Venice, Ferrara, Milan, Rome… to produce his operas, Rossini travelled from town to town all over the country…

Ouverture de grands opéras collection CD musique Instants Classiques

Here are some of his most popular operas :

The Barber of Seville (Il barbiere di Siviglia) after Beaumarchais’s play Le Barbier de Séville : first produced in Rome. The impresario of Teatro Argentina offered to Rossini the libretto of Le Barbier de Séville which had already put into music by Giovanni Paisello to mention only this composer. It is said that Rossini composed the music in fourteen days. It was first entitled “Almaviva” and after a bad beginning it became rapidly extremely popular. Soon Rossini would give up composing opera buffa to devote to opera seria.

La Cenerentola (after Cinderella – Cendrillon)

Il viaggio a Reims, ossia L’albergo del Giglio d’Oro

La gazza ladra (The Thieving Magpie – La Pie voleuse)

L’Italiana in Algeri

Moïse et Pharaon : a French-language epic.

Guillaume Tell (William Tell) : Rossini’s last opera very famous for its overture.

On Wikipedia there is a very interesting and detailed list of the operas composed by Rossini.

Autour du monde collection CD musique Instants Classiques

Until his long retirement in Paris from 1848 to his death in 1868, Rossini who had travelled all over Italy now turned to other countries in Europe, especially in Austria but in France principally where he had first settled from 1825 to 1829. He lived in Paris, in an apartment at 2 Chaussée d’Antin and in summer time in his villa of Passy.

Rossini also spent some time in Vienne where he met Beethoven and in London where his opera La figlia dell’ aria was quite successful and drew the attention of George IV to whom Rossini was introduced.

After his stay in London, Rossini settled in Paris where he had also become very popular. In 1824 he became the musical director of the Théâtre des Italiens and Charles X gave him a very interesting contract: he would produce five new operas a year and after expiration of the contract he would be given a generous pension for life.

In 1825 he composed Il Viaggio a Reims for the coronation of Charles X.

In 1829 he wrote William Tell, his last opera, but his luck turned and he had to leave France because of political turmoil. In 1830 the July revolution broke out and the French King Charles X was compelled to abdicate which put into question Rossini’s contract and pension.

He finally returned to Bologna, staying there for several years, and then to Florence where he lived in a house belonging to prince Domidoff, villa San Donato. In 1848 he returned to Paris where he remained until his death in Passy, on 13 november 1868.

I’m not sure Rossini travelled up to Scotland when he went to London but what is sure is that the Scottish landscapes and literature (more especially Walter Scott’s poems and novels) were a favourite source of inspiration for him. He composed three operas linked with Scotland: La donna del lago (1819), Ivanhoe (1826) and Robert Bruce (1846).

No wonder Scotland, with its breathtaking landscapes and turbulent history, be a privileged source of inspiration for artists like Rossini… and indeed there have been many others, especially in the Romantic period and not only musicians but also writers and painters…

Loch Katrine James Trout Walton (1818-1867)

Here’s a picture which perfectly illustrates the kind of painting which flourished in the romantic period… the Trossachs with loch Lomond and loch Katrine were among the favourite Scottish subjects for painters.

“Looking down over Loch Katrine the painting is full of lovely little touches such as the birch on the right snapped off by the wind. It is neatly monogrammed and dated on the rock below the deer, and could so easily have been an over Victorianised subject, but avoids that by its sheer beauty.” (James Alder – Fine Art Gallery)

and another one by a different artist:

Loch Katrine Alfred de Breanski

Now let us turn to Rossini’s Scottish operas:

La donna del lago

With Rossini’s La Donna Del Lago (1819), Walter Scott makes his entrance on the stage of Italian opera. His melodramma adapts Scott’s long poem The Lady of the Lake (1810), a true Scottish epic that describes King James V’s rivalry with both Borderers and Highlanders. The composer’s librettist, Andrea Leone Tottola, bases his dramatisation on a French translation of the poem, simplifies and rewrites the text, as is often customary when adapting literature for the stage, thus modifying characters and highlighting the poem’s love interest. If the libretto is unfaithful to the letter of the source, the music pays homage to its spirit and conveys the heroic and legendary aspect of the drama with an extended, inventive and attentive orchestration, thus indicating a decisive step in the “Rossinian Revolution” with the development of a pastoral style, one of the bases of Romantic opera.

Source: http://lisa.revues.org/4483

For inspiration, musicians [of the Romantic era] began turning to tales of dark and stormy places — places like Scotland (…) some of Europe’s finest composers were seduced both by the Scottish landscape, with its rocky coastlines and windswept highlands, and by its literature. Felix Mendelssohn made a famous visit to the Scottish Hebrides islands, resulting in his brooding overture Fingal’s Cave.”Franz Schubert wrote songs using Scottish poetry — including his famous Ave Maria, a setting of a poem by Sir Walter Scott. Hector Berlioz wrote an overture inspired by Scott’s novel Rob Roy.

But the taste for all things Scottish may have taken its strongest hold in Italy’s opera houses, especially when it comes to the novels and poetry of Walter Scott. Rossini wrote his opera La Donna del Lago in 1819, basing it on Scott’s narrative poem The Lady of the Lake — and it launched a sort of Scott mania. Over the next two decades or so, Scott-based operas turned up at a rate of more than one each year. Giovanni Pacini wrote two of them, The Talisman in 1829 and Ivanhoe in 1832, and Gaetano Donizetti followed in 1835 with Lucia di Lammermoor, based on Scott’s The Bride of Lammermoor. (World of opera)

Robert Bruce

Ivanhoe

Images d'enfance collection CD musique Instants Classiques

Rossini had begun to compose music at a very early age and in 25 years he produced most of his major works. But when he retired at the age of about 38 he didn’t stop composing music. But this time he composed for his own pleasure and for his family and friends. He indulged in what he called “Sins of Old Age”…

In Gioachino Rossini’s Péchés de vieillesse (Sins of Old Age), the opera composer gathered together 150 vocal and solo piano pieces into fourteen unpublished albums, under his self-deprecating and ironic title. The grouping of pieces in albums do not reflect the sequence or the dates of their composition, which ranged from 1857 to shortly before his death in 1868. The title Péchés de vieillesse was given by Rossini only to volumes V-IX, but it has since been extended to the complete set.

The Péchés de vieillesse are salon music, though of a refined order, meant to be performed in the privacy of Rossini’s drawing room at Passy. Volumes I, II, III and XI are vocal music to piano accompaniment. Volumes IV, V, VI, VII, VIII, X and XII are music for solo piano. Volume IX is for chamber ensemble or solo piano. Volumes XIII and XIV comprise vocal and non-vocal music.

Vol I Album italiano
Vol II Album français
Vol III Morceaux réservés
Vol IV Quatre hors d’œuvres et quatre mendiants
Vol V Album pour les enfants adolescents
Vol VI Album pour les enfants dégourdis
Vol VII Album de chaumière
Vol VIII Album de château
Vol IX Album pour piano, violon, violoncello, harmonium et cor
Vol X Miscellanée pour piano
Vol XI Miscellanée de musique vocale
Vol XII Quelques riens pour album
Vol XIII Musique anodine (1857). Presented to his wife Olympe in gratitude for her care during his long intermittent illness.
Vol XIV Altri Péchés de vieillesse

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P%C3%A9ch%C3%A9s_de_vieillesse

Aren’t the titles of these later musical pieces quite attractive. I feel like listening to all of them

For those who want to know more about Rossini there is a very detailed list of Rossini’s compositions on Wikipedia :

Personally, I will try to find La vie de Rossini by Stendhal, published in 1824 when Rossini was 32 and Stendhal 41.

Gioachino Rossini Soirées musicales pochette Hyperion CD

I would like to share with you another of my favourite musical pieces. It is entitled La boutique fantasque though it includes several pieces of instrumental music taken from Rossini’s Soirées musicales (1835). The title seems to have been given by Ottorino Respighi (1879-1936), who remained Rossini’s orchestrator until 1923. The music was to be used as a musical background for a ballet called La boutique fantasque. The story behind this ballet takes place in the south of France in the 1860s. A shopkeeper and his apprentice decide to open their shop which is reputed for its mechanical dolls. Customers arrive, among them Americans, and two Italian dolls begin to dance a tarantella, followed by four dancers disguised as playing cards who dance a mazurka. Then arrives a group of Russian customers and Cossack dancers are introduced in the game followed by two poodles and finally French cancan dancers. The Americans decide to buy the toy boy and the Russians the toy girl, but when they come back the day after to fetch them the two dolls have disappeared and all the other dolls of the shop set off furiously in pursuit of the American and Russian buyers, celebrating thereafter the happy end

Rossini's final resting place, in the Basilica of Santa Croce, Florence Source Wikipedia

Rossini's grave Cimetière du Père Lachaise Paris Source Wikipedia

If you want to make a pilgrimage to Rossini’s grave you may be careful to choose the right place when you plan your journey for, as you can see on the above photos, there are TWO graves. One itinerary will lead you to Paris and the other one to Florence. In fact, when Rossini died in Paris, in 1868, he was buried at Cimetière du Père Lachaise but, in 1887, at the request of the Italian government, his remains were moved to the Basilica di Santa Croce in Florence… both graves are worth the visit anyway (Paris and Florence too) but if I had to choose my favourite one I would give preference to the grave in Cimetière du Père Lachaise and it is here that his wife Olympe must have come to put flowers for ten years

Let us end on the grave notes of La petite messe solennelle…

Look ! Two frogs have escaped and they’re playing leapfrog on the google doodle with its extra “O” (for the bissextile year) In French we would say “jouer à saute-mouton” …

Dear Janice would you, by any chance, be aware of any other Google Doodle related to Scotland ? …

In the meantime, dear readers, enjoy the music !

A bientôt.

Mairiuna.

Charles Dickens’s Scottish relationships and trips to Scotland…

MAJA — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 00:14:35 +0000

Charles Dickens - Google's Search Bar Image on 7 February 2012

These nice google images which regularly celebrate great men or women, be they writers, artists, philosophers, scientists, economists, politicians, humanitarians, always trigger my curiosity and I often click on them to know what man or woman is hiding behind…

On Tuesday, 7 February 2012, when I clicked on the Victorian style image you can see above, I discovered it celebrated the bicentenary of the birth of Charles Dickens, one of the most popular English authors in the world. Some of us will probably recognize on this image one or several characters of Dickens’s world. Ebenezer Scrooge, the central character of A Christmas Carol, whom you can see wandering about with his hurricane lamp, is one of my favourite ones. And I’ve not forgotten Pip, the lonely little boy we discover in the very first pages of Great Expectations, meditating in front of his parents’ gravestone, in a gloomy churchyard, while a mysterious and frightening character is looming about…

But what are the links between the great English writer and Scotland you may ask. That’s exactly what I’ve asked myself and tried to discover. The only thing which came to my mind then was a page I had read about Dickens’s feelings in front of the terrific mountains of Glencoe. These mountains deeply impressed us the first time we saw them and it’s one of our favourite places in Scotland.

In my next post, I will come back to Glencoe and to Dickens’s feelings about it, remembering today that 320 years ago, on 13 February 1692 a terrible massacre took place there which has never been forgotten in Scotland. It’s freezing cold now and I can’t help feeling how it must have been horrible for the surviving villagers of Glencoe to wander about in the snow in search of a refuge and what dreadful fate was awaiting them in the desolate surrounding mountains …

Dickens's Dream. Painted 1875. Donated by the artist's grandson-1931- Source: Wikipedia

Charles Dickens went to Scotland several times and he became very popular there as a man, journalist and writer. He even received the freedom of the city in Edinburgh as described below, in the article of the Edinburgh Evening News.

Despite never mentioning it in his works, author Charles Dickens had strong links to Edinburgh

Published on Wednesday 28 December 2011:

“AS the chill morning fog lifted from Dunsapie Loch, the figure of a solitary man could be seen, gazing out towards the Firth of Forth, seemingly searching for inspiration.

Charles Dickens would stretch his legs in a daily walk across Arthur’s Seat every time he stayed in Edinburgh – a city to which the author said was always “like coming home”.

Whether he found what he was looking for as he stared at the water is anyone’s guess. After all, Edinburgh never appeared in any of his great literary works – even if it did play a huge part in his life.

Long before he was acclaimed around the world, Edinburgh had given him the freedom of the city. It also gave him his wife Catherine and some of his closest friends – Thomas Carlyle, Lord Henry Cockburn and Lord Francis Jeffrey – and it seems he drew on his experiences wandering the slums of the Old Town, to further galvanise his social reform campaigns.”

http://www.scotsman.com

A very good source of information about Dickens’s life is the biography written by John Forster, one of the writer’s closest friend. When Charles Dickens died, at the age of 58, Forster was so deeply touched that he decided to devote all his time to the writing of a biography of his friend. We can find many extracts of their correspondence there.

The Life of Charles Dickens Household Edition Chapman & Hall, London, 1890

Two chapters of The Life of Charles Dickens are devoted to the writer’s trips to Scotland: Chapter X entitled “In Edinburgh – 1841″ and Chapter XI entitled “In the Highlands – 1841″.

In chapter X, the extracts of Dickens’s letters give us a good idea of the young writer’s popularity in Edinburgh :

“I had a letter from Edinburgh this morning, announcing that Jeffrey’s* visit to London will be the week after next; telling me that he drives about Edinburgh declaring there has been ‘nothing so good as Nell since Cordelia,’ which he writes also to all manner of people and informing me of a desire in that romantic town to give me greeting and welcome. For this and other reasons I am disposed to make Scotland my destination in June rather than Ireland. Think, do think, meantime (here are ten good weeks), whether you couldn’t, by some effort worthy of the owner of the gigantic helmet, go with us. Think of such a fortnight – York, Carlisle, Berwick, your own Borders, Edinburgh, Rob Roy’s country, railroads, cathedrals, country inns, Arthur’s seat, lochs, glens, and home by sea. DO think of this, seriously, at leisure.”

The Life of Charles Dickens-The Illustrated Edition-John Forster-Sterling abridged edition 2011

“His first letter from Edinburgh, where he and Mrs Dickens had taken up quarters at the Royal-hotel on their arrival the previous night, is dated 23 June. ‘I have been this morning to the Parliament-house, and am now introduced (I hope) to everybody in Edinburgh. The hotel is perfectly besieged, and I have been forced to take refuge in a sequestered apartment at the end of a long passage, wherein I write this letter. They talk of 300 at the dinner. We are very well off in point of rooms, having a handsome sitting-room, another next to it for Clock purposes, a spacious bedroom, and large dressing-room adjoining. The castle is in front of the windows, and the view noble. There was a supper ready last night which would have been a dinner anywhere (..) We are engaged for every day of our stay, already; but the people I have seen are so very hearty and warm in their manner that muche of the horror of lionization gives way before it. I am glad to find that they propose giving me for a toast on Friday the Memory of Wilkie**.’ (..)

“His next letter was written the morning after the dinner, on Saturday, 26 June. ‘The great event is over, and being gone, I am a man again. It was the most brilliant affair you can conceive; the completest success possible, from first to last. The room was crammed, and more than seventy applicants for tickest were of necessity refused yesterday (..) I think (ahem!) that I spoke rather well. It was an excellent room, and both the subjects (Wilson and Scottish Literature, and the Memory of Wilkie) were good to go upon.’

“He writes four days later [30 June 1841] ‘Yesterday, sir, the lord provost, council, and magistrates voted me by acclamation the freedom of the city, in testimony (I quote the letter just received from ‘James Forrest, lord provost’) “of the sense entertained by them of your distinguished abilities a an author.’

“The parchment scroll of the city-freedom, according the grounds on which it was voted, hung framed in his study to the last, and was one of his valued possessions. Answering some question of mine, he told me further as to the speakers, and gave some amusing glimpses of the party-spirit which still at that time ran high in the capital of the north.”

“The close of his letter tells us all his engagements, and completes his grateful picture of the hearty Scottish welcome. ‘Sunday [4 July] off at seven o’clock in the morning to Stirling, and then to Callender, a stage further. Next day to Loch-earn, and pull up there for three days, to rest and work. (..) We shall be at Inverary in the Highlands on Tuesday week [13 july], getting to it through the pass of Glencoe, of which you may have heard! On Thursday following we shall be at Glasgow (..)“

………………………………………

In chapter XI we can read a very lively account of Dickens’s adventures in the Highlands, some funny anecdotes about Arthur Fletcher, their guide in the Highlands, and the famous passage about his feelings at Glencoe.

“From Loch-earn-head Dickens wrote on Monday, 5 July, having reached it, ‘wet through,’ at four that afternoon. ‘Having had a great deal to do in a crowded house on Saturday night at the theatre, we left Edinburgh yesterday morning at half past seven, and travelled, with Fletcher for our guide, to a place called Stewart’s hotel, nine miles further than Callender (..) Being very tired (for we had not had more than three hours’ sleep on the previous night) we lay till ten this morning; and at half past eleven went through the Trossachs to Lochkatrine, where I walked from the hotel after tea last night. It is impossible to say what a glorious scene it was. It rained as it never does rain anywhere but here. (..) The inns, inside and out, are the queerest places imaginable… The food (for those who cand pay for it) ‘not bad’, as M. would say: oatcake, mutton, hotch potch, trout from the loch, small beer bottled, marmalade, and whiskey….. I don’t bore you with accounts of Ben this and that, and Lochs of all sorts of names, but this is a wonderful region. The way the mists were stalking about to-day, and the clouds lying down upon the hills, the deep glens, the high rocks, the rushing waterfalls, and the roaring rivers down in deep gulfs below were all stupendous.“

And the route goes on with key landmarks as Abbotsford and Dryburgh abbey…

I’ve found a very interesting article published in The Scotsman last year:

Charles Dickens: the Scottish story

By Stuart Kelly
Published on Friday 23 December 2011 00:00

From a headstone which gave him the inspiration for Scrooge to his introduction to the literary elite of the period via his Scots publisher, Charles Dickens, born two centuries ago next year, had plenty to thank Scotland and its people for. (…)

Now, nobody would argue that we can turn Dickens into an honorary Scotsman, but his relationship with Scotland was deeper and more significant than the standard caricatures of him might suggest. Scots were involved in his literary breakthrough, his family life and his charity work; it was Scotland that provided the genesis of his most enduring character and a Scot lies at the heart of one of the mysteries about Dickens.

http://www.scotsman.com

This long and very interesting article underlines :

- The influence on Charles Dickens’s career of George Hogarth, the editor of the Evening Chronicle in which Dickens’s “street sketches” appeared (later collected and published in the writer’s first book Sketches By Boz in 1836). George Hogarth was an eminent Scot born in Edinburgh and married to the daughter of George Thomson, publisher and friend of Burns. His sister had married James Ballantyne, Walter Scott’s close friend and partner in their fateful publishing and printing business. Last but not least Dickens married Hogarth’s daughter Catherine in 1836 (he was aged 24).

- The leading position of the Scots in British publishing, with great Scottish authors as Sir Walter Scott and Lord Byron and great Scottish magazines as Blackwood’s, The Edinburgh Review, The Quarterly Review.

Charles Dickens The Pickwick Papers - 'Tale of the Bagman's Uncle " - Illustration "The Ghostly passengers in the ghost of a mail" - Penguin Classics 1988

The Scotsman’s article also focuses on Dickens’s trips to Scotland:

1834 : first visit to Scotland, at the age of 22. Dickens drew inspiration from his Scottish memories to write “The Tale of the Bagman’s Uncle”, in The Pickwick Papers, “a lively little ghost story that captures the spirit of Leith Walk at dark perfectly” – the only piece of writing set in Scotland (Penguin Classics edition pages 775-793). In The Lazy Tour of Two Idle Apprentices by Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins, Charles Dickens tries to imitate the Scottish accent.

1841 : 2nd visit to Scotland at the age of 29 – Edinburgh: “He was the toast of the town. Through his father-in-law’s connections he met the Edinburgh literati a public dinner for 250 guests” – A tour of the Highlands with his wife: “It was while he was in Edinburgh that Dickens came across a gravestone which he would render immortal. In Canongate Kirkyard was a gravestone to one “Ebenezer Lennox Scroggie”. The epitaph listed his profession as a “meal man” – which Dickens misread as a “mean man”.

1847 : 3rd visit of Dickens to Scotland at the age of 35 – “Dickens was back in Edinburgh in 1847, when he was “sorry to report the Scott Monument a failure”. This is a very curious moment, since Dickens is bizarrely silent about his great predecessor. ” (…)
“Dickens had read Scott, and read him thoroughly. Parts of Bleak House seem in conversation with The Heart Of Midlothian… But Scott’s life, rather than his work, was a terror to Dickens. Scott was not only successful, he was rich – and he lost his fortune. Dickens, clambering out of poverty and the hell-hole of the blacking factory by the endeavours of his pen, was haunted by the precarious nature of such a profession. Dickens was obsessed that Scott had lost money through American pirated editions, and fought for tighter copyright controls. Scott was his eminence grise…It was another, altogether tetchier Scottish figure, who proved crucial to the later Dickens. Thomas Carlyle, the Ecclefechan-born historian and thinker…Dickens and Carlyle became friends – as far as anyone was ever friends with Carlyle – and Carlyle’s French Revolution was essential to Dickens’s A Tale Of Two Cities, just as his denunciations of mechanism and utilitarianism would underpin Hard Times. Dickens didn’t need Carlyle to awaken his social conscience, but he did need him to analyse why things were as wrong as they were… It was to Scotland, finally, that Dickens’s mind leapt when he gave one of his most impassioned speeches, fund-raising for the Great Ormond Street Children’s Hospital. Dickens recollected a dying child in an Edinburgh slum: “he lay there, seeming to wonder what it was a’ aboot… God knows, I thought, he had his reasons for wonder”.

Charles Dickens A Christmas Carol illustrated by Michael Foreman London The Folio Society 2003

In The Scotsman‘s article mentioned above Stuart Kelly writes : “Next year is the bicentenary of the birth of Charles Dickens. The celebrations have already started: a wonderful new life by the doyenne of British biographers, Claire Tomalin, and a version of A Christmas Carol from the National Theatre of Scotland. The BBC is awash with Dickens in December; with a new version of Great Expectations, Armando Ianucci’s documentary on the author and a Songs of Praise Dickensian special. ”

Charles Dickens A Christmas Carol Michael Foreman inside frontcover illustrationillustration London The Folio Society 2003

Here are some of the gorgeous illustrations of my Folio edition of A Christmas Carol…

Charles Dickens A Christmas inside backcover illustration by Carol Michael Foreman London The Folio Society 2003

And below are two videos I’ve found on You Tube which give us a good idea of the version of A Christmas Carol as it was played by the National Theatre of Scotland in last December. How I would have liked to be there !

Now we know a little more about Charles Dickens’s Scottish relationships and his trips to Scotland… but it’s not the end! Rendez-vous in my next post to read the great English writer’s experience in Glencoe.

A bientôt.

Mairiuna.

Charles Dickens A to Z - Paul Davis - Facts on File -1998

*Jeffrey, Francis (Lord Jeffrey) (1773-1850) Scottish judge, member of Parliament, literary critic and the editor and founder of the Edinburgh Review. An early admirer of Dicken’s work, especially Twist, Curiosity Shop, Carol, and Donkey. Jeffrey became one of Dickens’s close friends and a frequent correspondent. Dickens visited him in Scotland in 1841, dedicated Cricket to him, and named his fifth child Francis Jeffrey Dickens. (Charles Dickens A to Z Paul Davis Facts on File, Inc. 1998)

** Wilkie, Sir David (1785-1841) Scottish genre and portrait painter; godfather of Wilkie Collins; friend of Dickens. Dickens was often compared to Wilkie, an artist known for his renderings of common people in their everyday lives. He had at least one of Wilkie’s paintings at Gad’s Hill. In a tribute to Wilkie on the painter’s death, Dickens spoke of him as one “who made the cottage hearth his grave theme, and surrounded the lives, and cares, and daily toils, and occupations of the poor, with dignity and beauty.” (Charles Dickens A to Z Paul Davis Facts on File, Inc. 1998)