A Son of the Rock

Clava Cairns is a site near Inverness containing the quite well preserved remains of prehistoric structures used for burials. It’s also very close to the Culloden battle site.

General view from entrance:-

Looking back from inside site:-

Cairn (with entrance hidden by standing stone above):-

Interior of cairn:-

Cup and ring marks:-

Pocket Books, 2005, 661 p, plus vi p Dramatis Personae.

The usual fare from Turtledove as his mirroring of the Second World War in a world where magic/sorcery is a prevalent feature and fantasy creatures abound comes to an end. The episodic structure, returning to its viewpoint characters every so often, continues to frustrate with its repetitions of things the reader already knows about the people portrayed and their circumstances. So, too, does the misogyny of many of the characters. But this is an unenlightened world, and while it has good people in it there are not enough of them to make a material difference. They are only operating at the margins.

The equivalences with our world are not exact. For example there are no republics here, King Mezentio, the leader of the racist aggressors, does not die by his own hand but asks a soldier to do it and the magical counterpart to the Manhattan Project achieves its goal only unlike in our world is demonstrated to citizens of its proposed victims before its final deployment – on the capital city rather than provincial ones. It is interesting, though, that the developed magic/sorcery has been throughout the seven Darkness books subject to theoretical calculation. (Not quite magic then?) Though apart from drawing energy from the not always handy ley-lines it still needs life force to power it.

As Turtledove’s Derlavaian War winds down several of those we have come to know (very few of whom have experienced character development) meet their ends, others have happy endings – of sorts. The parallels with our world extend to an equivalent of the Nuremberg Trials. The book doesn’t end so much as stop, but as far as its survivors were concerned this was also true of our Second World War. Life goes on, if in different circumstances. Not all of them congenial.

Pedant’s corner:- “Tsavellas’ small kingdom” (Tsavellas’s,) “Iskakis’ wife” (Iskakis’s,) “not as if he’d take a step” (context suggests ‘not as if he’d taken a step’,) “floating fortress’ stick” (fortress’s,) “the marquis’ air” (marquis’s,) “but we liked to come into Priekule to listen to him” (not Priekule; Pavilosta,) “‘I should have won Algarve should have won’” (is missing a punctuation mark after that first ‘won’,) “Captain Frigyes’ bloodthirsty magic” (Frigyes’s,) “‘Assuming what you say about Mezentio is true, will will grant your soldiers their lives’” (… is true, we will grant …,) “Balazs’ smile” (Balazs’s. Balazs’ appeared again once,) “the ballocks” (I assume Turtledove, being USian, has only heard this word and doesn’t realise it’s spelled ‘bollocks’,) “Gyongos’ skirmishes” (Gyongyos’s,) Kunhegyes’ battered old palisade” (Kunhegyes’s.)

On that trip north last year our hotel was in the south of Inverness. It was only seven or so miles  from the village of Dores on the eastern shore of Loch Ness.

Loch Ness looking south from east shore:-

Looking west:-

Looking northwest:-

As you can see the shore curves round almost due west. On that south facing shoreline is a small beach from which there is a fine view south:-

Looking southeast from that beach some of the village can be seen:-

A stone cross above a tapered rectangular column situated on a small hill at the junction of the A 862 and A 831 a mile or so west of Beauly itself.

World War dedications and names. An inscription states “Parish of Kilmorack” in which parish Beauly lies. There is also a name for 1979, presumably a death in Northern Ireland:-

Polygon, 2007, 265 p, plus 5 p Introduction by Frederic Lindsay.

Sandy Ross has retired from his life as a sailor to live out his time on a croft on his ancestral soil. An intrusion into his settled world comes when local policeman Nicol Menzies arrives to tell him a murder – of Menzies’s brother, Robert – has taken place and he needs to search the croft. The perpetrator is Allan Innes, one of a group of youths who used to frequent the croft.

A discomfited Sandy, all too aware Menzies is fired with an uncompromising zeal, pretends to unlock his barn and doesn’t mention the resistance he felt when pushing the door open. His more or less unconscious decision to try to help Innes lays out the novel’s path. When Menzies leaves, Sandy provides Innes with enough food to last a day or so.

Innes avoids the search for him by hiding on the Crannock (a crannog) in Loch Deoch, swimming across and back to keep in touch with Sandy, who plans to provide him with money and disguising clothing.

Fate intervenes when Sandy takes his cow to be served by the local bull. In her eagerness the cow pulls Sandy over and breaks his ribs, rendering him bed-bound. His everyday needs are looked after by the widow Macleay, a neighbour, who calls in the doctor and a redoubtable local nurse is also arranged. The widow Macleay is looked upon as a suitable husband for Sandy but he is wary of such a prospect.

A more surprising carer is Liz Murison, the woman over whom Innes and Robert Menzies had quarrelled, who turns up on Sandy’s doorstep saying she’d heard he needed help. In her pregnant state she has left the orbit of her father’s ire and his religious strictures.

The local minister drops in to try to persuade Sandy to return the girl to her family home. The minister – fond of a secret dram – says to him, “‘But if man does not take a stand on the great moral issues, woman never will. It’s not in her nature. There are times when a woman has no more moral sense than a fly on a windowpane.’”

Sandy isn’t swayed, Liz has no desire to go back and he sees no reason to ignore her wishes.

Things go on the way to their conclusion as the determined Nicol doggedly pursues his quarry to the bitter end.

Each of the characters (except perhaps for Nicol) is portrayed sympathetically. Sandy’s humanity in particular shines through.

Pedant’s corner:- In the Introduction; “Nicol Menzies’ brother” (Menzies’s,) “Allan Innes’ sweetheart” (Innes’s.) Otherwise: a missing comma at the end of a piece of direct speech, one missing before a piece of direct speech (x 2.) “It’s door was ajar” (Its door,) “finger prints” and, later, “finger-prints” (nowadays one word; ‘fingerprints’,) “fo’c’stle” (fo’c’sle – or fo’c’s’le.) “The pain, like the bruises, were on his left side” (The pain, …, was on his left side,) “tried to ease his shoulder out if its bandaging” (out of its bandaging,) a missing opening quotation mark before a piece of direct speech. “‘May be so’” (Maybe so.)

The War Memorial for the parish of Resolis lies beside the B 9163 road in Cromarty.

A stone column with carved crossed sword and rifle enclosed by a wreath, all surmounted by an urn:-

Great War dedication and names:-

Second World War dedication and names:-

US band Dr Hook (and the Medicine Show)’s lead singer Dennis Locorriere – not the one with the eye-patch – died last week.

Their output was at best soft rock but their hits tended to stick in the mind.

The band’s first UK hit was Sylvia’s Mother (no 2 in 1972) but they had a no 1 in 1979 with When You’re in Love with a Beautiful Woman.

This is a live version of the earlier song apparently recorded on the houseboat of the song’s writer Shel Silverstein.

Dr Hook & The Medicine Show: Sylvia’s Mother

Dennis Michael Locorriere: 13/6/1949 – 16/5/2026. So it goes.

This comes around quickly doesn’t it?

Our League Cup opponents will be St Mirren, Dunfermline Athletic, Cove Rangers and East Kilbride.

The games will be played between July 11^th and 26^th.

However, due to the installation of a plastic pitch over the summer, our “home” games will take place away from the Rock.

Details are still to be provided.

Some of Hugh Miller’s possessions:-

Fossil finds:-

More fossils:-

Mudstone:-

Hugh Miller was a pioneering geologist and fossil collector who was born in Cromarty.

The cottage of his birthplace is now in the care of the National Trust for Scotland.

Exterior:-

The actual cottage is to the left above, the building next to it is a museum.

Cottage interior:-

Garden to rear showing thtched roof of cottage:-

Garden:-

Sculpture in garden:-