Books, bikes and borders

I went to Books, bikes and borders - an intriguing mixture of politics, outdoor activities and literature - on Sat Aug 20 and Sun Aug 21 at Traquair House, the oldest inhabited house in Scotland and home of a branch of the British royal house of Stuart (James I & VI, Charles I, Charles II, William and Mary). The current chatelaine of Traquair,Catherine Maxwell Stuart, who hosted the event, gave a sneak preview of her own forthcoming book on the life of the house and its inhabitants over 400 years and introduced her former history tutor from university: the controversialist Dr David Starkey. He made two entertaining, instructive and thought-provoking presentations : one on royal marriages in Scotland and England; the second with Ming Campbell, Allan Massie and moderator Lord Steel on the future of Scotland. At this second event, following observations by Allan Massie about the predicament of families such as his own, where spouses and children come from or now live in different parts of the UK, I asked if there could be a show of hands in the packed auditorium (a tent in front of the house). Since, like Massie, my family is a mongrel mixture - in my case, of Welsh, English and Scots, - it was gratifying to see (judging from the sample in the tent yesterday) that there is a very considerable number of us in the same boat. I bought To The River by Olivia Laing, who was very well interviewed by James Runcie the director of the Bath book festival. Her book is an account of a therapeutic (both mentally and physically) walk along the River Ouse in Sussex, combining meditations on water and rivers in life and literature with nature observations. Andrea Reive was also at the event, and we revisited the possibility of making gardening the theme of our Moffat Book Event in April 2012. This prospect may be improved by a providential encounter with Kirsty Maxwell Stuart, Catherine's aunt by marriage, a former near neighbour when I lived in south Lanarkshire, whose sister Magda is a Professor of Garden History in New York. The political strand included a platform of experts debating the future of Zimbabwe, Pakistan: is it a failed state?; the future of Afghanistan and the merits of reconciliation as opposed to justice in the peace processes in Ireland and between Palestinians and Israelis on the west bank and in Gaza. Enjoyment of this remarkable event was greatly enhanced by the journey to and from Traquair from Moffat, along remote rural valleys with water always present - the river, and St Mary's Loch - between hills, purple with heather at this time of year. A visit tomorrow to Edinburgh to visit a new great nephew and go to Ruby Wax and my daughter Abi's shows on the Fringe.

Memories of the coup

One of the leaders, and the spokesman for, the hardline coup twenty years ago against Gorbachev in the then Soviet Union once had supper in my kitchen in London. Gennadi Yanaev was one of a constant stream of Russians who visited us in the years that I was working on cultural relations for an organisation funded by the Foreign & Commonwealth office. Most of the visitors I helped to host were not politicians, but writers, film -makers, musicians, gardeners, scientists and actors. I cannot now remember how or why it was that Yanaev arrived for shepherd's pie one evening, dressed in a black leather jacket and shades. At the time he was the titular head of a Soviet trade union. Imagine our surprise when he appeared, hands shaking uncontrollably, on TV with his fellow conspirators to announce the re-establishment of control by the 'old guard' against the modernisers. For what it's worth, I suspected at the time, and still think, that the situation was more complex than appeared on the surface, that Gorbachev might not have been an unwilling 'captive' - but I have no evidence other than some curious body language as he was descending the steps of the plane that brought him back to Moscow when the coup collapsed. Russians are demonstrative, and there was no hugging or kissing with the reception party who met him. Had the whole thing been a charade staged for public consumption, to facilitate a retrenchment from perestroika? The question lingers, and far from being treated as a returning hero, he was a busted flush; Yeltsin took over, things went awry. Now the state security's representative -Putin - is back in firm control, reputedly following a deal done with the 'oligarchs', that they could run the economy so long as the 'okhrana'/KGB manages law and order. I am reading, and very much enjoying, what we were doing and where we were going, a collection of short stories by Damion Searls who I met in Aldeburgh in January.

God etc

Well, the 'G' word and the 'C' word and the 'R' word were all mentioned once or twice at our MBE planning meeting yesterday for an international conference to be held in Moffat Sept 14-17 2012. The inspiration for the conference is a man called Alexander Men, a casualty of the failing Soviet system - he was murdered on his way to take an early morning service at his country church one September morning in 1990. Men was no ordinary parish priest. He was a polymath, reading in seven or eight languages, a scientist who took a university course in biology only to be denied the chance to graduate because he had enrolled as a curate equivalent in the Russian Orthodox church, a strictly state-controlled organisation, then and now. There is convincing evidence that he was murdered by two members of the Soviet Special Forces, on orders from a section of the Russian powers that be viscerally opposed to Men's ethnicity (he was born into a Jewish family, and baptised as an infant with his mother) and outward - looking Christian faith, his courage in refusing to be bribed or bullied. In 1994 I co-edited a book of his writing, entitled Christianity for the Twenty-First Century with Ann Shukman, a neighbour here in Dumfries & Galloway. An eBook version will soon be available because the paper version is out of print, and not currently available on general sale (I have a limited number of copies of the US edition which I am happy to make available to anyone who asks). Our steering committee was considerably strengthened yesterday by Donald Smith, who runs the Church of Scotland's John Knox House/Netherbow theatre and Scottish Storytelling Centre on Edinburgh's Royal Mile. Donald is a longstanding Men fan, with whom I have worked for many years on one project or another. The idea of the conference is to celebrate Men's genius for engaging with the arts - particularly literature and film (his parishioners included celebrated Soviet artists and intellectuals) - and science, using his own lightly-worn knowledge and personal charisma to persuade everyone he met that Christianity need not be dull, sectarian,mean-minded or obscurantist, but a firm foundation on which to build contemporary communities. Look out for a conference website soon.

Chaos and anarchy

'Once you remove cultural restraints you have chaos and anarchy.' A quote from Prince Kassim of the royal house of Buganda in V S Naipaul's The Masque of Africa, subtitled Glimpses of African Belief'. This is peculiarly appropriate reading, in light of the recent riots and looting south of the border in England. The book has been wrongly criticised for making modern Africa look foolish and superstition-ridden. On the contrary, it is a subtle and penetrating account of what has happened to a society faced with similar challenges to our own. Reviewers failed to see this application near to home. Kassim continues: 'People put under this will do anything ...They will do anything and at the same time they want the technological advances of the world. The race for these technological advances has replaced culture'. Moffat Book Events today is sitting down to explore the practical modalities of involvement with an international conference being planned for next Sept 2012, on the interface of our secular society with the positive side of our Christian heritage. At a recent family wedding I attended in New York, the young couple had invented the ceremony in consultation with a friend authorised to conduct weddings. After the ceremony I fell into conversation with friends of the bride, and was musing about the absence of any reference to a greater power such as God, to which the husband replied: well, there's family. A propos, I have discovered Julian Fellowes' TV series addictive Downton Abbey which I had been avoiding until now, and worked my way yesterday through all 3 DVD discs of the first series. The story concerns both a literal family, - people related by marriage and birth - and a virtual family, which is their household and village. The first series examines the social changes affecting a landed estate in the years immediately before WWI, and how various members meet the challenges of events including death, love, duty and betrayal. The law is rarely invoked; issues such as petty theft and bullying are dealt with by consent, authority is exercised by people such as the butler and the owner ('custodian' as he prefers to describe himself) of the estate. But the force of the series is that it is not merely a delightful escape; like my other favourites Murder, She Wrote and Miss Marple, it faithfully reveals how beneath the beautiful facade - and the vision - of an orderly, paternalistic society seethe the recurrent 'worms i the bud': the envious troublemakers, the human frailties - pride, vanity, sibling rivalry, lust and revenge.

The Official Secrets Act

Happy 100th birthday to the Official Secrets Act. I signed it in the 1980's, having responded to an advertisement on the front page of The Times, inviting women interested in being able to keep their own car on the road, change a tyre, top up the oil, water etc. It was my second husband who worked at the coal or chalk face of Cold War Anglo-Soviet relations who suggested casually that I might find it interesting. Looking back, it seems to me that might have been convenient for all sorts of people for me to have signed the Act, however remote the ostensible purpose. As a result I was for some years - and am still eligible to be - a member of the Special Forces club in London's Knightsbridge. The club is decorated with photographs of heroes of the WWII Resistance movements in Europe, and of course Russians were (no doubt still are) welcome guests because they were on the same side as us. Needless to say, I had no lessons in car maintenance and remain none the wiser about the mysteries of internal combustion engine. Enough said. I discovered a forgotten emergency supply of Erythromycin on top of a chest of drawers in my bedroom, and so have switched myself onto that from the pathetic Amoxycillin, which causes the hardened bacteria in my lungs to laugh contemptuously. I feel better already.

Time for reflection

I am making what I can of an enforced period of rest, and therefore reflection, while the penicillin gets to grips. I turn the TV to Murder, She Wrote and Miss Marple for uneasy reassurance. I have seen most episodes of both series more than once, and yet the combination of formulaic fantasy crime plus retro style draws me in like comfort eating. By way of balance, I have re-started V S Naipaul's Masque of Africa, subtitled Glimpses of African Belief. After The Enigma of Arrival and A House for Mr Biswas (read on board the Bessie Ellen as she alternatively motored in winds too light for sail or bucked her way in a Force 6 across the Irish Sea), I am getting the hang of Mr N. He is our contemporary, and therefore I can identify with the landscape: the food, the clothes, the ways of getting from A to B in a way impossible with Proust or Dostoievsky in whose league he belongs. I am mulling over the news (which I will be going up to confirm for myself first hand tomorrow) that the noise from the blades now turning for the first time (they were attached while I was away) on the nearest wind turbine, behind my home on the hill, is most certainly audible as a distinct 'swish' from the house. If true, this may mean reviewing plans to organise working visits next year for paying guests to learn how to distill essential plant oil from our trees. and brew traditional spruce 'beer' (as in ginger beer). I looked at a mind map of Moffat this morning, in readiness for generating some ideas on one side of a sheet of A4 paper to be discussed at a forthcoming meeting of the Moffat & District Community Initiative. The map has a section headed Health & Well Being, listing only physical recreational facilities. I propose to add 'spiritual and intellectual' to these. I am aware that walking, bowling, golf, fishing, singing in choirs gardening and cooking do feed these needs - but think that they should be listed for their own sakes. Watching the debates on TV about the riots in England, listening to Any Questions and reading the opinion pieces in the newspapers makes one wonder how and why Moffat works as a community. Should we codify the formula and pass it to the powers that be?

At sea

I just got back from sailing from Oban to Falmouth via Waterford on the south coast of Ireland. I hadn't been on a sizeable yacht or sailing boat since the family boat Tiercel was sold in the 1960's but once on board it seemed like yesterday. Everything you brought aboard to wear immediately becomes damp. The bunk is cramped and uncomfortable. The rocking of the boat makes you sleep well. I was seasick. An enormous pod of dolphins played alongside us, diving under the hull and using the slipstream of our wake like teenagers on skateboards. Ropes are called 'sheets' and you need to remember four sorts of knots to use for 'making fast' in various circumstances. I forgot to take sun cream so my face was badly burned - the sun did shine some of the time. It took us three hours to motor up the estuary to Waterford in southern Ireland from the sea - an astonishing distance inland. Among our number were the stage manager of the Globe theatre, a man rendered temporarily homeless by the NZ earthquake, the father of a well known standup comedian and a senior executive from freight forwarders DHL. We were divided into watches of four hours (for example I did: 8am to 12 noon; 8pm to midnight). The owner of the boat and one of her crew made the most delicious meals for the 15 of us aboard,morning noon and night in a tiny galley - some of the best cooking I have ever enjoyed. I staggered ashore with a chest infection and got to London just in time for the riots on Monday night. Worried texts began to arrive from north of the border: get out of there while you can. I hastily brought my travel plans forward and jumped on a train to Lockerbie, got a prescription for penicillin and for once found myself relishing the pitter patter of rain in Moffat's peaceful streets. It's good to be back.