Roland and I just
returned from a literary vacation to Scotland. Well, it wasn’t really a
literary vacation, but it did have some literary connections, and I’m going to
share them with you over the next few weeks.
The main motive
behind the trip was to meet up with my brothers on the Isle of Tiree and have a
sort of family reunion there. When I was ten years old, Daddy took a
sabbatical, packed up the family, and moved to Edinburgh for the school year. Over
the Christmas holidays, he took an assignment preaching at the Church of
Scotland parish churches on the Isle of Tiree. We have all visited Edinburgh
since then, but none of us had been back to Tiree.
Tiree is one of
the more remote islands in the Inner Hebrides. It took a four-hour ferry ride
to get there, all the roads are one-track with passing places, and we saw more
sheep than people. Still, my brothers and I had a good time reviving old
memories.
The cottage where
we stayed before had been torn down and replaced with a more modern residence,
but we booked the cottage across the street to the west.
Balephetrish Bay
was across the street to the north, and I spent many hours there fifty plus
years ago. I must have recently read Little
Women, because back then the bay was a department store where Meg, Jo,
Beth, and Amy Marsh did their Christmas shopping. The photo above was taken
when the tide was coming in, so it is harder to see how easily I could go from
one stand of rock to another while “shopping.” But with the tide out, my
imagination had free rein.
The other book I
associate with Tiree is Princess Prunella
by Katharine L. Oldmeadow. Miss Johnson, who was Deaconess for the Tiree parish,
gave it to me for Christmas, and I still have the now well-read copy. Unfortunately,
it and the rest of Katherine Oldmeadow’s books are out of print. I have managed
to find and read a couple of her others and they aren’t as good as Princess Prunella. Even so, it’s too bad
that they aren’t readily available.
That December on Tiree
I had no TV and few playmates, but I kept myself entertained. Whether it’s a
hard copy or an electronic version, there is nothing like a good book to spark
a child’s imagination.
Next week I’ll
tell you about Tiree’s connection with Robert Lewis Stevenson.
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