The Lairds of Cromarty

This is a review that was published recently in February issue of The Historical Novels Review. I’ve included it here because it was such an unusual book, as well as a great translation.

THE LAIRDS OF CROMARTY

Jean-Pierre Ohl, translated by Mike Mitchell, Dedalus, 2012, £9.99, pbk, 286pp, 9781907650741

Some books are real surprises and this is one of them. What is at heart a fictional detective story becomes in turn a love story, a tribute to friendship and courage, an ode to books and booksellers and to nineteenth-century literature. Perhaps strangest of all, Ohl clearly has an intimate knowledge of Islay and Jura, including the whirlpool of Corryvreckan, as well as of Edinburgh. The story is mainly set in the 1950s when Mary Guthrie, a brilliant English postgraduate from Islay, decides to write a doctoral thesis on Sir Thomas Urquhart, the Scottish author, mathematician and translator of Rabelais, who supported the Royalist cause in Scotland and then died in exile in 1660. The Urquharts – both present and past – play a leading role in the story, as does a renegade catholic priest, Ebenezer Krook, with whom Mary, rather improbably, has an affair. But against Krook’s unfolding family story, the most improbable events start to feel quite normal – even down to Eric Blair, aka George Orwell, who visited Jura regularly in the 1940s, being cast in a life-saver’s role. While researching her doctorate, Mary visits the Urquhart family’s crumbling home in Cromarty where the events of the Spanish Civil War, Sir Thomas Urquhart’s treasure, a Renaissance desk with a coded mechanism for opening its thirty-two drawers, not to mention servants whose nicknames are inspired by golf jargon and a voyeur maiden aunt are just some of the bizarre details invented by Ohl. For all its Gothic twists, this is a book filled with humour, acute observations of character and place, and literary citations worthy of a professional bookseller – Ohl’s other career. It has been flawlessly translated by Mike Mitchell in what deserves to become another of the latter’s award-winning works.

 

More research for the Tapestry and a session with the Designer

I think I’ve already mentioned that each panel in the Great Scottish Tapestry has a number of “badges” which are particular to the theme of the panel and each group has to come up with ideas for filling them.  The other morning some of our group spent a fascinating few hours with Andrew Crummy, the designer who has spent the past two years working on this enormous project.

Andrew with Panel 86 – The Great War 1914-1918

Andrew is based in East Lothian and we drove down to his studio on a beautifully sunny morning – a welcome change from the snow and wind the day before.  We spent some time discussing ideas.  The horrors of the Great War have been the focus of countless works, and the destructive legacy of it and subsequent wars is still with us.

However, we felt that this tapestry panel could not encompass the theatre of War itself, or even identify specific Scottish regiments – although there are plans to name some of the barracks that were used all over Scotland during the War.

Instead, Andrew agreed with us that the panel should concentrate on the events, movements and activities that actually took place in Scotland during those traumatic years from 1914 to 1918.  The problem is that once you start to hunt around, there is a vast amount of material and the challenge of narrowing it down to just ten subjects was a daunting one.

We’ve included Leith itself, and its ship-builders – Ramage and Ferguson, among others – who converted mercantile ships into deep sea hospital ships. The National War Memorial at Edinburgh Castle also provided inspiration in the form of the beautiful stained glass windows by Douglas Strachan, which here show aircraft – in this case the Sopwith Camel and Sopwith Cuckoo, I think.

The impact of the War on women’s lives varied enormously and generalisations regarding the War as a watershed moment in women’s emancipation can easily be overstated.  Many women were forced to give up their new-found freedom after the War and married women were often stigmatised if they continued to work or, in many cases, actively barred from keeping their jobs.

However, there is no doubt that women played an extraordinarily important role during the War and provided essential services of all kinds. The navy was the first of the armed services to enlist women. The Women’s Royal Naval Reserve was first set up in 1917 and included cooks and stewards, despatch riders, sailmakers and also some women in Intelligence. At this early stage, the motto used by the WRNS was ‘Never at Sea’.  The newly merged Royal Air Force followed in 1918 by setting up the WRAFS. In Scotland these women were employed at airbases in Gullane and at RAF Turnhouse, among others.

A fundamental shift in the involvement of women in the War effort came in 1915, largely in response to the so-called “Shell Scandal” of March.  The Munitions of War Act was passed by the new coalition government in June and some 30,000 women demanded the right to be employed by marching through London on the so-called “Women’s Right to Serve March” in July. They included the newly formed Women’s Land Army, whose badge we will also include on the panel.

Courtesy of the Museum of London: Land-girls at the Women’s Right to Serve March
http://www.museumoflondon.org.uk/Collections-Research/Collections-online/object.aspx?objectID=object-748829&start=147&rows=1

Millions of women signed up to work, mainly in transport and munitions. In Scotland, the largest munitions factories were in Glasgow and, above all, Gretna. There, at what was known simply as His Majesty’s Factory (or codename Moorside), a vast workforce of mainly women produced cordite (strings of gun cotton soaked in a volatile and highly explosive formula of nitroglycerine, petroleum and collodion).  After visiting the factory Arthur Conan Doyle described the substance as “The Devil’s Porridge”, while Rebecca West wrote a moving description in her essay The Cordite Makers of the “girls in the khaki and scarlet hoods” who worked there. The girls were also nicknamed the “Canaries”, or the “Girls with yellow hands”, because of the skin discoloration and poisoning known to be caused by TNT (see Angela Woollacott, On Her Their Lives Depend: Munitions Workers in the Great War, University of California Press, 1994, p.193). I think we should probably include a yellow background for the munitions “badge”, precisely for this reason.

Andrew and Cherry starting to trace the badges onto the linen using the light box.

Gretna was also the scene of the worst rail crash in the War years, resulting in enormous loss of life.  Known simply as the Gretna disaster, or the Quintinshill Junction crash, it resulted in the destruction of a special troop train carrying about half of the 7th Battalion of the Royal Scots Guards, whose base was the Drill Hall, Dalmeny Street, in Leith.  The troops were on their way south on 22 May 1915 and were due to embark for Gallipoli. There is the most extraordinary account of the crash told here to the actor and journalist Michael Simpkins by a survivor of the disaster, Peter Stoddart who was still alive in 1988.  The tapestry panel will simply show the Cross from the Rosebank Cemetery, Edinburgh which serves as a memorial. As I read the list of names this morning, I was struck first by the number of Privates (probably about 170 out of the 230 or so names listed), and second by how many of those killed had the same family name.

The first branch of the  Scottish Womens Rural Institute was founded in 1917 in Longniddry, not far from where Andrew is based, and the idea for its badge came from the women’s group in Glamis. The movement spread from Canada to Europe, but it played an important role during the War, as did countless more informal charities, including knitting groups, groups who prepared Christmas boxes for the troops or collected dressings, including sphagnum moss (which has been used since the Bronze age for its acidic and absorbing properties – as revealed by this fascinating collection of references here).

Just hands visible! More tracing onto the panel using the light box.

Nursing was another area in which Scottish women played an extraordinary role.  We could not include all the different groups, especially because Elsie Inglis, the Scottish Women’s Hospital and the VADs are all the subject of another panel.  However, we have included the Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU) which, although suspended during the War years, remained an umbrella association for many of these groups. One was the Women’s Military Hospital, led by Flora Murray and Louisa Garrett Anderson, in which my grandmother was Quartermaster.  Their motto, “Deeds not Words”, seems a fitting tribute to all those involved in this capacity.

One moving aspect of the National War Memorial in Edinburgh Castle is the inclusion of animals: horses, of course, but also carrier pigeons, camels, elephants, and even mice and canaries, “the Tunnellers’ friends”. The sculptures were carved by Phyllis Bone, who later became the first woman elected as a Royal Scottish Academician. It was around this time that the protection of animals became a national charity, leading to the foundation of “Our Dumb Friends League”, later the Blue Cross.  We’ve included the Blue cross and its motto, “Treat me well”.

Lastly, we’ve included one of the most vivid symbols of the War, the poppy. Field Marshal Earl Haig launched the first sales of cloth poppy badges for commemoration and to raise money to support ex-servicemen in England in 1922. The Scottish factory, established by his wife Lady Haig in 1926, is still based nearby on the Water of Leith. There is an illustration of a rare early poppy on this page of the book by Neil Storey and Molly Housego, Women in the First World War, Osprey Publishing 2010. The authors write that the poppies were often sold by “female street collectors who had lost their ‘boy’ in the Great War”.

The Ghaists ‘i the Air: more on the Tapestry Panel

Part of the enjoyment of this tapestry project has been the time spent researching the so-called badges that will be added to along the top of each panel.  Our panel – which I’ve written about before – is on the Great War 1914-1918, so the range of possible choices is enormous.  We wanted to include as many aspects as possible, but also – and I think this view was shared by all of us – to emphasise the role of women in the First World War.  I have to admit that I have a particular interest here because of my grandmother, Olga Campbell (later Byatt), who became a quartermaster with the Women’s Military Hospital. (I’ve written about this, too, elsewhere – try here and also Mary Byatt’s lovely piece in the fabulous, Saltire-shortlisted book, Women of Moray.)

I’ll be blogging about a few of the ideas that I’ll be taking to Andrew Crummy, the designer of the Great Scottish Tapestry, in a couple of weeks’ time.

This was the panel as I last saw it (or almost, because I added a bit of the curving line that encompasses the spirits and the two figures). You can just make out the circles (badges) along the top, the ones to be filled in.

First, the poem for the “bandages”. As you can see in the picture, both figures are wound in stylised bandages and one of the group suggested embroidering verses onto them:  the idea was inspired by Craiglockhart Hospital (have a look at this lovely website run by University of Oxford), where both Sassoon and Owen were treated (as brilliantly evoked, of course, in Pat Barker’s Regeneration trilogy of novels). But then I found this lovely poem (thanks to the Scottish Poetry Library), written by Violet Jacob, a poet from Angus, whose only son was killed on the Somme in 1916. It is called The Field by the Lirk o’ the Hill and it seems to fit the image we have particularly well:

Prood maun ye lie,
    Prood did ye gang;
Auld, auld am I,
    But O! Life’s lang!
Ghaists i’ the air,
    Whaups cryin’ shrill,
An’ you nae mair
I’ the field by the lirk o’ the hill –
    Aye, bairn, nae mair, nae mair,
I’ the field by the lirk o’ the hill!

Here is a picture of the ‘ghaists’ as I last saw them.  The outlines are now being finished by Karen, whose lovely blog you can find here. (For anyone interested, whaup is Scots for curlew, a coastal bird whose shrill cries are hauntingly beautiful; and a lirk is a hollow in the hill.)

The Next Big Thing Blog Hop

I was asked whether I would like to take part in this game of blogger’s tig by Margaret Skea, whose first novel Turn of the Tide was published just before Christmas by Capercaillie Books.  I went to Margaret’s launch at Blackwell’s, here in Edinburgh, and found the book intriguing: it’s now top of my to-be-read pile, so I won’t hazard any opinions now.

The theme of this blog hop is “The Next Big Thing”, so here we go with mine.

What is the title of your book?

A Florentine Cardinal in Renaissance Rome: The Politics of Magnificence and Exile is the title at the moment…

Where did the idea come from for the book?

It’s a subject that I’ve been mulling over for the past thirty years (!), ever since I wrote my PhD thesis on this man and his family. I’m not sure why it’s taken me so long to come back to the subject of Cardinal Niccolò Ridolfi … I think it can be summed up as Life [with a capital L], work and children (possibly not in that order).   In many ways, I feel that I can approach the subject more fully now, with greater knowledge and more perspective than a 24-year-old researcher!  I have written various articles – liked the ones listed here, on my Academia.edu page – but I hope that this is now going to be a book-length study.  It will encompass more than just the cardinal: I’ll also look at his family, particularly his sister-in-law and nieces, and at the web of European links that existed at this high level in Florentine and church politics.

What genre does your book fall under?

Non-fiction, possibly what is now called “literary” non-fiction – although the best historical writing has always had a good narrative and pace.  Just look at Francesco Guicciardini’s History of Florence, written in the mid-sixteenth century – not to mention some of the great British late Victorian and Edwardian writers, like Julia Cartwright and her daughter Cecilia Ady (there are chapters  on both women in this wonderful book edited by John Law and Lene Østermark-Johansen).

What actors would you choose to play the part of your characters in a movie rendition?

I’m not a great movie buff, but I’d want to run as far as possible from the Borgias …. so there wouldn’t be even a whiff of Jeremy Irons.  Derek Jacobi, on the other hand, might play the cardinal in later life or Donato Giannotti, his closest political adviser.  Rory Kinnear would be excellent as the younger Ridolfi (although he’d still need a beard).  Ben Whishaw would be great, too – perhaps as one of the cardinal’s brothers, or as Pope Clement VII – with Ian McKellen as Paul III.  As for the women, I see Maria Ridolfi as Monica Bellucci… that would certainly bring a little dazzle to the story!

What is the one sentence synopsis of your book?

Oh, heavens, this is really difficult!  Something like this… “An intimate portrait of ecclesiastical wealth, Italian politics, art and learning combined with the everyday life of a cardinal’s household in Renaissance Rome.”

Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?

I haven’t got that far yet.  I’ve sent it to a publisher who’s asked to see another two chapters, so maybe there’s hope… but I’ve feeling that there’s still a long road ahead.

How long did it take you to write the first draft of the manuscript?

This is slightly different in my case because I have a 60,000-word thesis (accompanied by a volume of footnotes of similar length!) as my starting point.  However, the thesis was written with a different slant and, although I’ll be using much of the material, it needed to be re-written into a more congenial and captivating format.  I have two or three chapters in a fairly good state now, and I hope to complete the first full draft later this year.

What other books would you compare this to within your genre?

There are many, although it wouldn’t be right to compare my unpublished book directly with any of them.  However, there’s nothing to stop me aspiring to emulate historians like Lauro Martines, with books like April Blood: Florence and the Plot Against the Medici (Jonathan Cape, 2003) and Scourge and Fire: Savonarola and Renaissance Italy (Oxford University Press, 2006), or Judith Hook whose book, The Sack of Rome (Macmillan, 1972), remains eminently readable.  Other examples might include, among others, Christine Shaw’s Julius II: The Warrior Pope (Blackwell, 1993) and, most recently, Catherine Fletcher’s book, Our Man in Rome: Henry VIII and his Italian ambassador (Bodley Head, 2012).

Who or what inspired you to write this book?

I think this question is probably best answered by referring back to the previous one: I’ve been inspired by reading works by these and many other brilliant historians, and I would love to be able to use the material I have accumulated to inspire others.

There is so much still to discover about Renaissance Rome, particularly in the extraordinary period of the second quarter of the century, which lies on a cusp between the flowering of the Renaissance under the two Medici popes, Leo X and Clement VII, and the more worrying years that followed the Sack of Rome, when religious and political tensions rose.  The exiled Florentines in Rome longed for a return of the oligarchic and republican government in Florence and continued to plot against Duke Cosimo, whom they regarded as an upstart who assumed power after his cousin, Alessandro de’Medici, was assassinated in 1537.

As I said earlier, I’m also focusing on relations between the cardinal and his female relatives: this is particularly interesting, since the cardinal’s household – and indeed the Curia itself – was predominantly male, and therefore the letters and payments to Maria Ridolfi throw new light on the concerns and business matters that tied the cardinal to his closest relatives.  Dowries were a prime concern, but so was education and also the procurement of special goods, such as finely embroidered shirts and particular wine, cheeses and much else.

What else about the book might pique the reader’s interest?

This is a period of Italian history that is probably overshadowed by the Borgias, or if not by them, then by Machiavelli and the earlier Medici.  Yet, there is so much more to discover: of course, the politics is fiendishly complex, but by adopting a clear standpoint, I hope that readers will enjoy delving into the motives that led the Florentine exiles to ally with France – and with Scotland – in their desperate, and hopeless, struggle to re-establish a broad-based government in their native city, which for centuries had been a bastion of republicanism.

The material is a rich mine of social and cultural history, and Ridolfi’s household and lifestyle certainly lives up to the period’s reputation for magnificence of all kinds: architecture, gardens, books, clothing, horses and food.  Novelists do not have a monopoly on description in this respect, and there are plenty of insights, even revelations, and appetizing stories that fit well with the non-fiction approach.

Lastly, today we may find it hard to understand, indeed we may well be alienated by the idea of a society in which organised religion is not an option but a matter of life and death:  much of the book is written in the 1530s and early 1540s, before the Catholic Church had fully grasped the thistle of the reform.  Yet, out of this period came one of the most fascinating and inspiring movements of the time, the spirituali or fervent Catholic reformers.  Cardinal Ridolfi appears to have been on the fringes of this group, or he may have been clever enough to disguise the extent of his commitment. The passions of the Catholic reformation have already been studied in depth (by Paolo Simoncelli, Fenlon Dermot and Maria Forcellino, among others), but I hope to weave yet another strand into this complex and brilliant tapestry.

Now, back to the “Next Big Thing” blog hop.  Part of this lark is to pass the baton to others, so I urge you to click through to the websites highlighted below. In about a week’s time, they also may post answers to the above questions… and so the fun continues.

The authors I’d like to tig are:

Historical novelist Stephanie Cowell who is the author of Nicholas Cooke, The Physician of London, The Players: a novel of the young Shakespeare, Marrying Mozart and Claude & Camille: a novel of Monet. She is the recipient of the American Book Award. Her work has been translated into nine languages. Her next big things are the love story of the poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning, the opera based on her novel Marrying Mozart and a family drama/mystery/love story about the year Shakespeare wrote Hamlet from the points of view of the writer, his daughters, wife, mother and mysterious new love.

Joanna Hickson, whose exciting and intriguing novel The Agincourt Bride tells the story of Catherine de Valois, who married her country’s conqueror Henry V of England and later founded the Tudor dynasty. A fascinating life and a gripping tale.

Breaking news: Joanna’s novel  will be launched at Blackwell’s on South Bridge, Edinburgh, at 6.30 pm on Thursday 10th Jan.

Dr Ian Mortimer, who has a double writing life as a prize-winning historian and, using his middle names James Forrester, as a historical novelist. The Elizabethan Time Traveller’s Guide is now being filmed for BBC2 later this year – follow the Guide on Twitter here.