A Son of the Rock

These photos were all taken inside Bamburgh Castle.

Model of Castle:-

Painting of Castle by J M W Turner:-

King’s Hall:-

King’s Hall ceiling:-

a passageway:-

Window embrasure showing thickness of castle wall:-

A stairwell:-

Stone arched passageway:-

Stone ceiling:-

Bamburgh from Bamburgh Castle:-

1930s House, Bamburgh, from castle, the leftmost house in the photo. Pity it doesn’t still have its Critall Windows:-

Martello Tower at Bamburgh (Lindisfarne Castle in distance):-

Farne Islands From Bamburgh Castle:-

Bamburgh Castle lies on the coast of Northumberland with views to Lindisfarne and the Farne Islands.

Castle from Bamburgh village:-

Castle from below:-

From south:-

Castle buildings from courtyard (stitch of three photos):-

Tower from courtyard:-

View from lower courtyard:-

Old entrance from lower courtyard:-

Castle from north wall:-

Castle keep:-

Mantle, 2019, 348 p plus 5 p List of characters, 5p Afterword and 2 p Acknowledgements.

This novel’s title is not particularly apposite – though it does allude to its subject, those Greek tales of the Trojan War – as it barely mentions the legendary ships at all. Instead, its focus is on the women caught up in that conflict and more or less sidelined in all the years since they were first written about. And not simply, like Pat Barker’s Women of Troy sequence, on the Trojan women, but also on the those the Greeks left behind and the Muses and Goddesses said to have influenced affairs.

Thus we have the muse Calliope irritated by the importunings of “the poet” for her to sing for him of the events he wishes to describe (Haynes thereby echoing the usual translation of the Iliad’s opening line, “Sing, Muse, of the wrath of Achilles.”) Creusa, woken by the tumult of the city’s fall, fearing for her five-year-old son and wondering where her husband Aeneas has got to. The captured Trojan women on the shore by the Greek camp, their travails only beginning but intermittently returned to through the narrative. Penthesilea the Amazon, fighting for Troy against the Greeks to atone for being responsible for the death of her sister. Penelope, writing increasingly tetchy letters to her husband Odysseus as his long absence is exacerbated by failure to return promptly on the war’s end and then prolonged on – and on and on – (the poet’s missives suggesting he will use any excuse not to come home.) Chryseis, the daughter of Apollo’s priest, who is befriended by Briseis in shared adversity. The sea-nymph Thetis, mother of Achilles, bemoaning her forced marriage to a mortal and her son’s own mortality. Laodamia begging her husband Protesilaus not to be the first onto the beach at Troy, though she knew he would be. Iphigenia, tricked by her father Agamemnon’s promise of marriage to Achilles into being sacrificed for a favourable wind to set sail for Troy. Aphrodite, Hera and Athene using wiles and false promises to trick Paris into his famous judgement. Oenone, who rescued Paris as a baby after he was abandoned due to the prophecy that he would cause Troy’s downfall. Eris, goddess of strife, setting up the business with the golden apple. Hecabe, Queen of Troy, struggling to accept her new diminished status but still able to revenge at least one of her dead sons. Her daughter Polyxena, accepting her fate with stoic dignity. Cassandra, cursed to see the future as the present and not to have her visions believed. The goddess Gaia resenting the ravages humans wreak on the Earth. Clytemnestra nursing her fury at Iphigenia’s death and preparing her vengeance for it for ten long years. The three Fates spinning the threads of mortals’ lives. Andromache slowly coming to terms with her new life as a slave.

Not a straightforward linear narrative, then, and the many viewpoints and scenes mean the whole thing comes across as fractured and a bit scattershot. This stands in contrast to Haynes’s previous novel The Children of Jocasta which was more tightly focused. The lack of linearity of the storyline works, though, and Haynes clearly has a deep knowledge of her source material.

Her main point, that the sufferings and endurance of the women of these wars (and by extension the women of any war) are as – or even more – heroic than any acts carried out by warriors is certainly worth considering.

Pedant’s corner:- “Odysseus’ nurse” (Odysseus’s,) “Aeneas’ heart” (Aeneas’s,) Briseis’ back” (Briseis’s,) Chryses’ character (Chryses’s,) all names ending in ‘s’ are given s’ rather than s’s for their possessives, “to staunch your bleeding” (stanch,) “each head will open its gaping maw” (stomachs are not usually located on heads,) “‘that Hector deserved to die.’ she said” (‘that Hector deserved to die,’ she said’,) “not known to have expressed regret for any cruelty he had perpetuated against anyone” (he had perpetrated against anyone.)

A figure of a kilted soldier in bronze atop a pedestal of granite stones, this lies in a small park area to the side of a roundabout at the junction of Nairn Road, Bridge Street and St Catherine’s Road.

From park area:-

Front view:-

Side view:-

Great War dedication and names:-

World War 2 dedication and names:-

Gulf War name:-

Co-founder of Hot Chocolate and, along with Errol Brown, co-writer of their early hits, Tony Wilson died in April. The promotion of Brown as lead singer eventually led to Wilson leaving the group. This is one of those early hits.

Hot Chocolate: Emma

Anthony Nathaniel (Tony) Wilson: 8/10/1936 – 24/4/2026. So it goes.

Memorial to crew 3 of 120 Squadron killed in a crash over Afghanistan in 2006. Forres War Memorial in background:-

This one is courtesy of my younger son who sent me the photo from his trip to Lochinver last year.

Lochinver is a village in Assynt, Sutherland.

Its War Memorial depicts a kilted soldier with rifle at the ready atop a granite column above a tapering plinth.

Here can be seen dedications to both World Wars. Second World War names shown below. (Great War names are on the memorial’s sides.)

Inlaid Table, Brodie Castle:-

Bed:-

Bedroom:-

Library:-

Stained glass armorial window, bearing the Brodie Arms:-stained glass

Little, Brown, 2020, 442 p.

The sixth Karen Pirie book and again she is juggling two cases.

The first is when a skeleton is discovered in a campervan stored in a house’s garage for years. Suspicion falls on the deceased owner’s former lover, who abandoned her for a life as an artist. The second is a live case of a body hauled up along with a creel by a fishing boat off Elie. Since the dead man is one James Auld, whose brother Ian, a high-up civil servant in the Scottish Office, disappeared ten years before, and Karen had recently reviewed his case, she is given the remit.

James had fallen under suspicion of murdering his brother and to escape that had made a new life for himself by joining the Foreign Legion and then settling in France as one Paul Allard. Since the initial investigation was carried out in Fife DS Daisy Mortimer out of the Kirkcaldy Police office ends up seconded to Karen’s Historic Cases Unit. (This becomes semi-permanent when Karen’s assistant DC Jason Murray – aka the Mint – suffers a broken leg during the investigation.)

Connections in both cases are soon made – though not between them – but take time to tease out. In the meantime Karen is still grieving over the death of her former lover Phil Parhatka and worried about the direction her new relationship with Hamish, owner of a small chain of coffee shops in Edinburgh and a cottage up north. He does perform a useful function here though by identifying a mysterious male in a photograph of Ian Auld found in James’s French apartment. This is David Greig, once an enfant terrible artist, who committed suicide not long after Ian Auld’s disappearance. When Karen learns six well-known Scottish paintings were stolen from the Scottish Office and replaced by forgeries in the years immediately prior to the Toy/Lib Dem coalition government she begins to join the dots.

Pedant’s corner:- Plus points for “amn’t I?” “There were a handful” (there was a handful,)  “James’ message” (James’s.)