Dimsie Head Girl and Dimsie Grows Up by Dorita Fairlie Bruce

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Dimsie Head Girl by Dorita Fairlie Bruce was published in 1925. Dimsie isn’t in the running to be head girl of the school the Jane Willard Foundation, but Jean, the aspiring poet turns out to be so feckless and dippy as head girl that she eventually has to be sacked by the headmistress Miss Yorke, and Dimsire takes over.

It was the middle school girls who had caused all the problems, they’re always determined to bend any rules to their own advantage. They’ve been banned from keeping pets so decide to start an orphanage for animals, unfortunately this leads them to abduct (steal) a kitten from a street in the nearby town. Their antics are giving the school a bad name.

I found this quite entertaining, at almost 100 years old they’re a dip back in time to another age, but schoolgirls are much the same – whenever.

Dimsie Grows Up by Dorita Fairlie Bruce was published in 1924, confusingly as Dimsie has left the school. The book begins with her saying good-bye to her family home. Her father had died unexpectedly and that had scuppered Dimsie’s plans to go to university to study to become a doctor. That’s now unaffordable and she and her mother have given up their home in England and based themselves permanently at their Scottish home in the west of Scotland. It’s been in the family for generations and Dimsie’s grandmother had been well known locally as a herbalist. She had cured many illnesses in the local population in the past, but she’s now dead. Dimsie hopes to follow in her grandmother’s foosteps and sets about rejuvenating her herb gardens, with a view to setting up her own business and selling herbs to pharmacies.

Meanwhile, there’s a new mystery neighbour living nearby, bizarrely he wears a brown velvet mask, so cuts a bit of a sinister figure.  But after World War 1 there are lots of maimed men around. One other in the neighbourhood is a young doctor who is lame, he had befriended Dimsie on the train up to Scotland. When Dimsie’s plans seem to be hitting the buffers he encourages her to carry on, and helps her by being able to give her some business contacts. But an incident which allowed Dimsie to help a young sick girl goes a long way towards kicking her business off and she’s getting a good reputation locally as a herbalist. Of course this was all long before the NHS was set up when poorer people couldn’t afford to see a doctor.

As you can imagine this one was very different from the previous Dimsie books which are all set in the boarding school, I really enjoyed the different setting, and I couldn’t help laughing when a train strike causes a big problem with the train coming to a complete stop in Lancashire as the strike started.

I find it quite surprising that a book which is 100 years old focused on a young female school leaver and her determination to have a career, despite serious problems  being thrown in her way,  she also has a supportive mother!

Thank you again to Clodagh in London who so kindly sent me her Dimsie books as she was looking for a good home for them.

 

The Salt Path by Raynor Winn

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The Salt Path by Raynor Winn was published in 2018 and everybody seemed to be reading it then – which is why I wasn’t. I actually bought a jigsaw puzzle of the book cover fairly recently, the artist is Angela Harding and I really like her style.

Raynor and Moth Winn had been married for 32 years when they were told that he was terminally ill with a neurological condition, days after that devastating news their long legal battle to stop their home and business from being repossessed came to an end and they were suddenly homeless. With nowhere to live they decided to go on a long walk along the South West of England Coast Path, it was something they had always wanted to do anyway. They wild camped most of the time and had to live on £48 a week benefits, which for some reason dwindled to about £30 a week fairly quickly.

Another reason why it has taken me so long to get around to reading this one is that I thought it might be a bit depressing, at times it is as they encountered more and more problems along the way, but there are uplifting moments, as well as the frustrating ones when I asked myself – ‘how could they have been so stupid?’ from time to time.

Moth’s health fluctuates, but mainly the walking regime seems to have helped his condition. There’s some humour and some serious comments on the horrendous problem of homelessness in the UK, which those in power make sure is very much under-reported. Winn also mentions that she and her husband didn’t get Legal Aid for their legal problem despite them having no money. It’s totally bizarre that millionaire Boris Johnson allegedly (according to the newspapers) DID get Legal Aid recently. How is that possible?

I quite enjoyed this book which has some lovely descriptions of scenery and nature and interesting characters met along the way, but mainly I was glad that we visited Cornwall about 30 years ago as the coastal towns seem to have been swamped by visitors nowadays, and it’s sad when so many houses which should be family homes have become businesses rented out for holiday homes. It’s almost as bad in the east coast of Scotland too.

I think her book Landlines features a walk along a Scottish pathway, so I might eventually read that one.

Meet Baby Imogen

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I’m thrilled to be granny of another wee girl, baby Imogen, a sister for Isobel. This time around we were able to go to Edinburgh to see her in the hospital. Isobel was a pandemic baby so we didn’t get to see her for a month. Isobel is very happy to have a baby sister, just what she wanted.

The Book of Beginnings by Sally Page

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The Book of Beginnings by Sally Page was just published last year and it’s a Sunday Times best seller, I tend not to read many best sellers, I read about this one on a blog recently though and decided to get it from the library. I’m really glad that I did as it ended up being an uplifting read.

Jo had recently been dumped by James, her boyfriend of six years. It’s only then that she realises that nobody else liked him, but she had been besotted with James and had neglected old friends to be with him and his even more obnoxious cronies. What is worse is that Jo had been desperate to start a family and now she feels time running out for her, she’s in her late 30s and James had been several years younger than her. As they had worked at the same company it seemed a good idea to leave that job, and Jo travels to London to help out at her uncle’s stationery shop while he is in hospital. It’s a place that she has fond memories of as she used to help her uncle there during school holidays.

The work, stationery bits and pieces, and the customers she meets in the shop begin to have a healing effect on Jo, especially two of them who become close friends, despite them being quite a bit older.  One of them Jo has recognised from the TV news, Ruth is a runaway vicar – what is she running from?  Malcolm is over 70, but is still haunted by a decision he had made in the past.  He also has an interest in Highgate Cemetery which is nearby, and his project draws the three of them into close companionship which begins to heal them all.

I really enjoyed this one.

 

 

The Tenement by Iain Crichton Smith

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The Tenement by the Scottish author Iain Crichton Smith was published in 1985. I must admit that I was a bit disappointed by it as there aren’t really any likeable characters, until almost right at the end.  The tenement of the title is past its best, it’s over 100 years old and hasn’t been well maintained over the years. There are six flats within the building and over the years there has been quite a lot of coming and going and nowadays the inhabitants don’t mix with each other much. The setting is a small coastal town in Scotland.

Mrs Miller has lived there the longest, she had been widowed early in her married life and she’s now 80 and drinks a lot. Mr Porter’s wife dies and it’s only then that he realises how unhappy he had made her by the decisions he had taken over the years, he only appreciates her after her death.

Mr Cameron beats his wife up every weekend, and nobody does anything about it.

I found this book to be quite a miserable read, which might be entirely my fault as somehow I was expecting something completely different. I think the only other books with the setting of a tenement building is the funny and heart-warming ‘McFlannels’ series by Helen W. Pryde. I got the impression that Crichton Smith didn’t think much of the type of people who lived in tenements. According to Wiki elderly women and alienated individuals were common themes in his writing. He was however predominantly a poet.

Depite being born in Glasgow his widowed mother moved to the Isle of Lewis when he was only two years old. I was amazed to read that Crichton Smith had become an English teacher and taught in Dumbarton around the time that I was at school there. I can only presume that he taught in the local boarding school for boys.

Uncle Paul by Celia Fremlin

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Uncle Paul by Celia Fremlin was first published in 1959 but has just been reprinted by Faber. It’s subtitled Welcome to the Nightmare Summer Holiday.

Meg is the youngest by far of three sisters, but it seems that she is the one who has to come to the rescue of her sisters who are feckless and disorganised (Isabel) and highly strung (Mildred).

Isabel has rented a caravan in an English coastal resort, but she sends Meg a telegram which says that Mildred needs help, please come.

Meg’s newish boyfriend isn’t keen for her to go as he feels that she’s always having to sort out her sisters’ problems, which she is. But Meg can’t ignore the call for help and when she gets to the holiday resort – Southcliffe – she is amazed to discover that Mildred has rented the very cottage which she had spent her honeymoon in years earlier, when Meg was just a little girl of six.  In fact ‘Uncle Paul’ as Meg had called her brother-in-law had been arrested for the murder of his previous wife while they were at that cottage.

This was a really enjoyable read which had for me a couple of surprising twists at the end.

 

Robert Burns – by Archibald Skirving

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It’s a bit late on on Burns Night, but better late than never. Below is a photo of a facsimile of a drawing of Robert Burns by Archibald Skirving. I was born a Skirving and there aren’t that many of us about, so although I have never bothered to look up my family tree I just assume that any other Skirvings are related to me ‘through a drainpipe’ as they say in the north of England. As it happens Archibald looked very like one of my uncles, but I don’t think Archibald had any children himself.  Anyway, I think his drawing of Burns is really good.

Drawing of Robert Burns by Archibald Skirving

I managed to buy this from eBay in the form of a nice booklet.

Cover of 'Skirving Portrait of Burns'

Jigsaw puzzle – Dumbarton Football Club’s old ground – BOGHEAD

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Boghead jigsaw puzzle, Dumbarton

We were given a couple of jigsaw puzzles at Christmas. This one was particularly for Jack as it’s of Boghead in Dumbarton, and a house builder bought the ground years ago, so this was a real nostalgia trip as Jack has supported Dumbarton FC since he was a lad, it’s a tough life!

, Dumbarton ,Boghead jigsaw 3

As ever, about ten minutes into the jigsaw I wondered if it was a wise thing to do so soon after another puzzle!

Boghead jigsaw ,Dumbarton football club

It was a strange one as we had presumed that the sky and pitch would be the really difficult bits, but it turned out that it was all the supporters that we puzzled over the most. Anyway, it was very satisfying when we each took a corner of the last piece and slid it into place – and we didn’t even have to have a frantic last minute search of the carpet for a missing piece.

Boghead jigsaw Dumbarton football ground

Over the years so many old football grounds have been bought up by house builders, it looks like this puzzle company is making a good business from the nostalgia of the older fans. Even I used to go to the matches as a youngster as there wasn’t much else to do on  a Saturday  unless you took the train to Glasgow to do some shopping. My pal and  I used to ask a couple of likely looking men if they would lift us over the turnstile, and they always obliged. You couldn’t do that nowadays with the modern turnstiles. Yes it was aptly named as it was indeed a very boggy pitch. I remember during the 1970s when there was basically a paddling pool stretching across the whole of the middle of the pitch and the players just played through it.

Pretty Young Rebel by Flora Fraser

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Pretty Young Rebel  The Life of Flora MacDonald by Flora Fraser was published by Bloomsbury recently, I borrowed it from the library. I hadn’t read anything by Flora Fraser before but apparently she is an award winning biographer, and I can see why.

About half of this book is set in the Highlands/Islands of Scotland and I must say that considering everyone knows that ‘Bonnie Prince Charlie’ did escape to safety the author manages to convey an atmosphere of tension, fear and danger. I don’t think I had realised before that it was Flora MacDonald’s step-father who had volunteered her for the job of helping the prince to escape. A job that no doubt none of the men wanted to do because if caught they would definitely have been executed.

I was impressed by the behaviour of the prince, he seems to have been brave and stoical, despite the hellish weather conditions that had to be endured during his long and hazardous journey before his escape.

I must admit though that it was the second half of the book which I was most interested in reading because it was only a few years ago that I realised that Flora MacDonald had emigrated to North Carolina – but had gone back home again after a few years.

Sadly Flora hadn’t chosen wisely when it came to getting married, her husband Allan was a complete liability, not that she ever seems to have complained about him. In theory he was a good bet, he was well educated  and certainly had good prospects, but his business plans always failed. He ran through all of Flora’s money and ended up being heavily in debt to many people.  With so many people in the Highlands and Islands emigrating to America Flora and Allan decided to join them.  Again Allan wasn’t wise in his business dealings, but what was worse was that the fighting between Crown and ‘rebels’ wasn’t long in arriving at their door and Allan had plumped to support King George. He went around gathering support on that side from other Highland emigrants and when a lot of the men ended up being killed both Allan and Flora were very unpopular with the widows and families.

After that ‘the rebels’ started attacking their farm and stealing anything they fancied including all the farm tools and household goods. It was time to go home to Scotland, which they did, with almost nothing to their name, and having to rely on the charity of old friends. Still,  Flora seems not to have been bitter about things, but maybe she just kept her thoughts to herself!

Anyway, this was a great read by an author who has in the past won prizes for her biographies.