On the tracks

One of the most cherished books on the shelf is a little battered Ladybird volume.  It was presented to me on completing my infant year at school, and I realise that would be fifty years ago, almost to the week.  It has been much loved by various Urchins, the oldest of whom wrote his own details over the presentation label, whilst younger Girl Urchin made her own label, reproducing the original in a lift-up flap, which I’ve just discovered having picked up the book for the first time in many years.

And the purpose was all to do with trains.  Since being presented with In The Train, with Uncle Mac, back in 1965 I realised I have read many volumes based on rail travel.  From the Orient Express in much younger days I’ve discovered others – The Trans-Siberian, Old Patagonian, the Ghan, and even the West Highland Line and sundry small local puffers throughout these shores.

Trains have taken me to many great writers; from the classic travelogues of Newby and Theroux, to others such as Andrew Eames and Michael Jacobs, and no doubt many others.  Indeed even the cattle trucks, crammed to overflowing, across the great plains of Europe through the war years, have a special place on the writings on rail travel.  Or they do in this house.

Another has joined the list.  I’ve been back to Siberia again, irresistible for me, this time in the company of David Greene.  So trains, Siberia, and the legends and hardships of laying those lines.  A Train Journey Into The Heart of Russia is the by-line of Midnight In Siberia.

Greene is the host of NPR’s Morning Edition.  The NPR website is a useful research tool for books being discussed on America’s airwaves.  A few years ago Greene was the Moscow correspondent and in that period he and his wife Rose, with his journalist colleague and local translator Sergei, travelled the Trans-Sib.  He and Sergei went back to do it again, specifically to bring us the tales of the people and places along the way.

9,288, that’s the kilometres travelled from west to east.  But this is not one long and uninterrupted rumble over the tracks.  We get off, and we spend time along the way, making detours to meet up with the locals.

In Ekaterinburg neither the words Ipatiev nor Romanov feature in these pages, for we are looking at Russia today, with only occasional glimpses to the past.  Baikal is always a grand place to stop, the world’s largest horde of fresh water but horribly polluted now by industry providing vital jobs.

The people Greene introduces us to look forward through the Putin prism, with the occasional glimpse over their shoulders to the stability of Stalin, preferably without the repression.  The cities now are vast and modern, though the home given to the Jewish people two decades before Israel is struggling to catch up, remote as it as in the far east.

I enjoyed the mixture of life aboard, the sharing of food and friendships, the protocols of shared accommodation in third class where the privacy is absent and gymnastics are needed for the top bunks.  But more than that I enjoyed the people we met, from the singing babushkas who found fame in Eurovison, to the entrepeneurs trying to buck the trend of bribery and corruption.

Now if Uncle Mac had taken me on this train way back then…

In old Stamboul

Some months back I dipped into a new author for me, Jospeh Kanon, and a much overlooked genre for me, the thriller, set in days gone by.  I had enjoyed his latest work Leaving Berlin so much I managed to find a paperback of an earlier volume from a few years ago, and set it aside with an eye on holiday reading later in the year.  But the temptation was too great, and I’ve been ripping through it of late.

Istanbul has long been sought after.  I’ve read many volumes set in the souks, on that bridge, in those palaces and harems, mosques and churches.  From whirling dervishes to sultans and the downfall of Napoleon Istanbul has had me captivated.  But I’ve never been, yet.

In Istanbul Passage, Kanon takes me there, back in the post war years when the Russians and the Americans were still in town.  Ataturk was not that distant a memory and a new nation was finding her feet.  The landmarks throughout are familiar, from minarets to ferries across the Golden Horn, hills and shores, Asian and European.

And as I enjoyed previously with Kanon, the narrative is a fast-paced dialogue as the characters build and grow, mingle even, and the tension mounts.  I’ll spare you the detail, the spoiler, for it’s a gripping tale of intrigue of the times.  These are the days when spying was done on the streets, chance glances on corners, in the hammam and elsewhere.  People meet, people die and the police, secret and otherwise, take an interest in the diplomats from elsewhere.  Boatloads of the displaced need to find safe haven in Palestine, after the wartime horrors.

Spookily, as I was penning these notes, a call came in, a pal, just returned from place itself.  One day it’ll be my turn.

Sometimes I need an escape on The Bedside Table, and occasionally the thriller provides just that.  There will be more from Joseph Kanon one day, but for now I’m on off on a train ride.  Back soon with more.

Plan B

A day out, all together, and a promise of improving weather.  But time was short, for Boy Urchin had a squeeze box session scheduled for late afternoon, and with his first public performance looming it couldn’t be missed.

So an early walk on the shores of Loch Katrine was intended as an appetiser, lunch safely packed in the car.  But our return coincided with the arrival of the steamer, and of a fleet of coaches disgorging diesel fumes as the boat disgorged her passengers.  Amazingly there are no picnic tables near the pier, perhaps because of the volumes of traffic.  But that took us to the best part of the day, as we escaped, and headed along the road, down by Brig O’ Turk.

Lunch was taken in quiet woodland, Little Druim Wood, part of the much larger and hugely diverse Glen Finglas, and well worth a stop, short of Glasgow’s water and the hordes of walkers and cyclists.  With the gingham cloth back in the back, the smoked salmon and home made oat & linseed rolls long gone, along with the polenta cake, brownies and a certain tray bake, we needed to walk it off.  And that is where Druim comes into its own.

The Urchins found leaflets by a display board, maps and paths.  Explore our Play Trail, hide in the secret den, hunt for quiz answers.  And off we went, through the birch woods, dappled sunshine and rising temperatures.  Eventually we found our way to the visitor centre, just along the road at Lendrick Hill, where there is more the kids, wi-fi for the sad, and maps and information setting out all that the Woodland Trust have achieved on the surrounding hills this past 20 years or so.  Black grouse numbers are on the rise, and that is always good news, for those that used to graze the home policies have long been absent.

Lendrick Hill is haven for lentil lovers, with a centre for fire-walking, tree-hugging, and all sorts of crafty escapes or other routes to find yourself, or your aura.  It is a peaceful retreat, especially in the sun.

The Druim woods are well worth a stop.  The backdrop of high tops are turning slowly from brown as spring warms up.  The lower slopes, on the road back towards Callander, glistened with whins displaying in the sun.  Back in the birch woods the bluebells were beginning to carpet the floor, just short of their best; primroses clung to rocks and there are always brownie points when we come across herself’s favourite flowers.

But there is much more to see, and to hear.  We wandered the woods as the cuckoo chattered away, drifting over on the still air.  The rowans kept us safe from the witches, and the children ran and skipped up and down in search of badger tracks and pine marten prints.  And when they are engaged, rather than doddling slowly round the lochside trying to avoid being run down by cyclists, we all have a better time.  4-0 in the score of the best walk of the day.

There’s always an (un)expected bonus heading back through Callander.  Ice cream is in good dupply, but more importantly there was a free parking space right outside the second-hand bookshop, and we had a little time to spare.  Duty it was.  And H is for Hawk, which all the review had been nagging me to read since last year, for a miserable £4, meant I wouldn’t be putting it off much longer.

Who can resist

… a little nibble of tray-bake, fridge cake, or tiffin even, as some may call it.  And being dead easy and quick it’s ideal for keeping ideal hands busy whilst the bread is in the oven.  Often made with digestive biscuits, marshmallows and raisins, or even just a simple rice crispies and mars bars (which of course should never be served anything other than battered and deep fried), let me bring you something a little more exotic.

Here’s what you need:

dark chocolate, 250g, broken into pieces; milk chocolate, ditto; 250ml double cream; 1 tbsp. golden syrup; 2 tbsp. orange juice (or alternatively either Amaretto or Cointreau for the adult version); 250 rich tea biscuits, roughly chopped; 150g Turkish delight, roughly chopped; 150g halva, roughly chopped; 100g dried cranberries; 100g pistachios; icing sugar for dusting.

Now given the easily predictable turning up of Urchins’ noses to anything with dried fruit in in it, I opted for the adult version, Amaretto adding a rich aroma and a delicate flavour.  The process is very simple:

Line a 20cm brownie tin with baking paper.

Place the chocolate and cream in a saucepan with the golden syrup and cook, stirring, until melted and smooth.  Add the juice of choice, remove from the heat and leave to cool for 5 minutes or so.

In a large bowl combine the biscuits, Turkish delight, halva, cranberries and pistachios.  Pour over the chocolate mixture and stir well.

Press the mix into the prepared tin and place in the fridge for around 4-6 hours until set.  To serve, dust with icing sugar and cut into squares with a sharp knife.

So, tasting notes to follow, as we’re in the fridge setting at the moment.  Ergo the picture comes straight from the book.  It’s one from Sesame & Spice, Anne Shooter’s collection from London’s East End to the Middle East.  Plenty more gems in there to get the taste buds going.

A Worthy Addition

… to the nature shelf, is Rob Cowen’s Common Ground.

Cowen takes us to the places we wandered freely as kids.  We are on the edge of town, where there are burns and railways, and woodlands.  But in Cowen’s company we see and we hear all those things we overlooked way back then when the football or the rope swing or the wandering were perhaps more important.

On the edge of Harrogate Cowen takes us on his wanders, at dusk and at dawn, and even in the dark hours in between, across his patch.  And through his eyes and ears we find what fills those little acres wherever in the country we may be.

The sight of a fox takes him off and suddenly we are the fox, on his wanders – mind you those of us who keep chickens may be a little short on the sympathy side, especially at the faux pas when the fox’s paws are tangled in wire, trapped.  But it’s a terrific start to all that is to follow.

The owl is in Cowen’s woods, and the mayflies and butterflies.  And much more.  The hare takes us away elsewhere, to centuries of myth and magic, and to twitching ears.

These are the sort of lands on the edge of towns where you may expect to find shopping trolleys in the river, overgrown, neglected.  We meet young couples seeking solitude; and Lauren crops up again, later in the tale; heart-warmingly later.

The overgrown bed of the long-disused railway is fertile ground, as the wildlife returns, closing in, sheltering.  We follow the progress of a conservation group, decades earlier, and then find Sustrans turning it all into a cycle path for the modern day, the viaduct to be made safe again too.  Now I’m all in favour of cycle paths and can think of no better use of old railways, other than putting the rails and the trains back on them, and all of a sudden I’m back on the path to Abermaw, watching for otters and listening to birdsong.

Rob Cowen is an amiable and able guide to his patch, with delightful phrases as he colours the woods and plays the songs.  There are occasions when we digress, a bit too deeply for me, into proposals for badger culls or the history of one aspect or another.  But running through it all is the personal journey, which takes us to the delightful end, or is it the beginning…

A scrap of land, forensic care, says Michael Palin on the cover; makes us think again of what we know of our world; heartfelt, deep, beautiful and moving – just some of the tributes on the back cover.  It’s all of them and more.

Countdown Conundrum

Having spared you political comment on this forum these past eight months or so, events have overtaken us; comment is coming.

What has become absolutely clear is:

1. Scotland wants to remain in the Union
2. England wants a right-wing conservative government
3. Scotland doesn’t.

 

These ideals may be mutually exclusive.  The political landscape has undergone massive upheaval  as the voting across these lands on Thursday proved.

The Lib Dems were decimated, both north and south of the border, perhaps for different reasons.  Scotland could not forgive their role in bringing Cameron and his policies to ravage her communities.  England could not forgive the impoverishment of her students; the breaking of a vow.  And perhaps England could not forgive a hand that may have restrained the tories, wanting more of what they offered.

And more they will have, more austerity, and the need for more food banks; more shame, on them.  But Labour are not without blame, having rejected the hand of friendship; rejected the fight against austerity whilst voting for more of the same.  Much has, and is, being said, in our weekend columns and on our airwaves.  The best I have heard came yesterday, the words of Andy Kerr, former Labour Finance Minister at Holyrood.  There problems began, he posited, quarter of a century ago.  I may shorten that by a couple of years, but certainly giving the reins to the Blair/Brown axis was the start of the end.

In Scotland they had been in denial for years, suffering defeat in 2007, annihilation in 2011, and finally, after not listening again, suffering humiliation.  Let’s get the gags out the way first.  Scotland, as well all know, now hosts more nuclear-armed submarines than nuclear arms supporting MPs; and the old one about the pandas now applies equally to all three unionist parties.  And there are probably more visitors to the zoo than members of said parties.

Very quickly after the results began to emerge on Friday morning Robin McAlpine, he of the Common Weal and one of my real hopes for the future, grasped the meaning of the underlying numbers.  The demise in the unionist vote was far less then the rise in the nationalist vote.  That is crucial to appreciate.

Across these lands turnout rose from 2010; but in Scotland the rise was significantly higher, to more than 70% on average, exceeding 80% in hotspots, against 65% elsewhere.  For Scotland had been mightily engaged in politics in recent years, and the legacy of the Indy Ref was a massive rise in participation, through membership of the losing parties, to activism on the streets.  They came out to vote, and they all voted SNP.  Thus the swings were enormous, unprecedented, and we witnessed history unfolding on our screens as a result of which Portillo will now be best remembered for fingering his guide book on the trains.  His moment was surpassed, with every declaration, as the big Scottish beasties fell, some with more grace than others.

Our local campaign was wonderful.  We faced one of those contemptuous career politicians, all suits and family on the payroll, with more than 52% of the last vote and a massive majority.  But Dr Lisa Cameron rose from the campaign of the previous years, joined the party and was given the nomination.  And she is now our MP, over 55% of the vote and a whopping majority which her opponent tried hard not to hear, leaving the count before being dragged back on protocol and publicly flogged.  That, for our small team of dedicated and hard-working supporters, was a moment of sheer joy, and a just reward.  I salute you all.

Labour’s problems will not go away.  They appointed the wrong brother, (though the choice it seems may have been the wrong family) and he was too far to the left for England, too far to the right for Scotland.  He epitomises the problem Cameron now faces.  For it’s not nation v nation, but left v right.  Miliband chose to follow Blair, seeking votes in Middle-England, from the same grounds that Cameron and Farage made their pitch, ignoring everywhere else.  More than 50% of England voted to the right; but in Scotland the majority voted against it.

There is now talk of what should have happened post 2007, if not before – an independent Labour party in Scotland, fast to the ideal of the long-forgotten founders.  That party should then have campaigned for in independent Scotland, and retained power therein for decades.  But they had not the foresight, and now they suffer, buried by their own ineptitude and disdain for the people.

Cameron’s dilemma is deep.  He promises to deliver Smith’s proposals.  But they are a fudge, molten and inedible, the dregs of The Vow.  And he has promised to be Evel, which surely he will be.  So wherein lies cross-border consensus amongst that?  Well Smith is far too little, and 56 voices will forever protest, long and hard.  More powers.  We were promised close to federalism.  And I suspect that is where we are now going.

Which brings me to that House of Lords, where some of the fallen may find themselves as Keir Hardie rolls restlessly below.  Labour and Lords, that home for the bishopric, for the benefactors, and for long-service.  It surely must become an elected upper chamber, casting an eye over four federal states, bringing a common hand to rest on each shoulder.

And the SNP?  Well as by far the third largest party in the union, this party must change.  For it now will take a seat on each and every Westminster committee, and the chair of a fair number of them.  Its members will even be asked to speak in debates, and the Speaker’s whims will have to change.  And from the running costs of the parliament it will receive the funding that went to the Lib Dems, the Short Money, and a couple of million a year is a massive boost for all the parliamentarians and for those hundred thousand plus members.  It’s a game changer.

The Conundrum is yours Mr Cameron, and the Countdown has begun.

 

A Bird’s Eye View

… of a Highland Year.

That’s just the subtitle.  I waited patiently for this volume ever since John Lister-Kaye told the gathering at East Neuk in 2013 that his latest work, as then un-named, would be published in the spring.  It arrived a couple of months ago, and was well worth the wait.

JLK has been on the bookshelf at Grasshopper Towers for some years; indeed at was The Genealogist who first found his writing, with Song of the Rolling Earth, a decade or so ago.  But my trawls through the life and works of Gavin Maxwell took me to Lister-Kaye from another direction, to his first book, The White Island, of those times.  Then I found At The Water’s Edge on a gap-weekend in London a few years back.  And the rest, as they say…

Gods of the Morning is that latest volume, continuing where Water’s Edge took us, round the grounds of Aigas, peeking into nests, prying on nocturnal habits.  His writing is beautiful, and I find myself reading a paragraph over again, just to make sure it was what I had read.  I put the book down at the end of a chapter, time to reflect, to enjoy, like savouring a highland malt.

JLK puts himself in the very paws of the fox on his visit to the chicken run, re-living his route and his habits as he prowls for a weakness.  Mesmerising.  The swan is another story, but I’ll let you discover that yourself.  And there’s his dogs, a hill, and a pair of binoculars.  That’s one to behold.

There is gripping stuff on the hillside, none more so than the night of the bushfire.  And with spiders and buzzards, pine martens and tree-creepers, this book is one to savour, slowly, to take in, and to wish you were there.

Lister-Kaye’s writing on the love of his life has matured and sings at you from the page.  When you glance down the list of Inspirations with the credits, it is no surprise.  First up, and no surprise, is Maxwell.  But that list includes not just our finest naturalists, but our finest writers, many of them favourites of these pages.  We have Jay Griffiths and Kathleen Jamie; Jim Crumley and Mark Baker; J A Baker too, and more.

Lister-Kaye is a master of his craft, both on the hill and with the pen.  I’ll say no more and leave you to enjoy it for yourself.