Illuminating Libraries

My latest radio play ‘The Lamp’ goes out on BBC Radio Four on 14th December, and has special status as ‘Play Of The Week’ which means that it will also be available as a podcast from Friday 16th for seven days.

It was recorded on location at Perthshire’s charming Library of Innerpeffray at the beginning of November, and I’m only now shuffling the paperwork around, deciding what to keep, what to discard, where to file it. But it’s interesting to look over the lengthy process of proposal and development in the scraps of paper, the notebooks, the handwritten and successive typed manuscripts, with Director Eilidh McCreadie’s helpful notes, which finally led to the official script sent out to all involved by the BBC.

I’ve been enchanted with Innerpeffray for a long time, Scotland’s first public lending library set on a bend of the river Earn. Founded in 1680, it epitomises Scotland’s Enlightenment, and a belief in the power of books to civilise and democratise, to illuminate the spirit, after a period of terrible violence. It proved ‘the urge for education amongst the lowliest of country folk’ and is more recently a magnet for literary tourists rather than a lending library. I’d wanted to write something set there for a long time, though I hadn’t thought of it being a radio play.

It chimed though, with a visit to Kenya in early 2009. I’d been intending to go the previous year but was prevented by the post-election violence which ravaged the country, leaving over 1,000 dead and thousands displaced. I was going there to visit friend and PEN colleague Philo Ikonya, who had stood in that election. Several things became apparent as I visited various towns and villages with her and talked to people. They included a burning desire for peace, political freedom, and tolerance; and a hunger for books and reading which by and large remained un-met. We visited Kisumu, in the west of Kenya, and ‘Obama’s’ nearby village Kogelo, at the time of his inauguration. We had hoped to sell the book which Philo had written for children about Obama’s Kenyan origins. We spent the inauguration day surrounded by children, and often adults, devouring the pages of the book. But in truth it was unthinkable for any of these ‘country folk’ to buy a copy, or even get access to one to borrow, a situation reflected all over sub-Saharan Africa where books are so precious they might be wrapped in plastic and kept on a shelf rather than read.

And so, the parallels began to form in my mind. Along with them came the character of a young enthusiastic Kenyan librarian from the Kisumu area, who is exploring British libraries on a study visit with Book Aid International, and becomes enchanted himself by Innerpeffray. This enchantment, coupled with his fear of the forthcoming election in 2012 at home, fuel a reluctance to leave. When he sees a woman – Elspeth, a widow from a nearby farm – crossing the river to the library at a ford used by the library’s past borrowers, he is reminded of journeys on foot at home, and begins to entice her into books herself. But he is dealing with an antiquarian book collection kept largely behind glass, and so hangs the story…

It was a great joy and privilege to record on location – hearing the gasp from the actors as they walked into the high-ceilinged room lined with leather bound books that I had tried to conjure with words. And as ever, it’s a fantastic learning experience as a writer to hear how the actors interpret your words – the nuance provided by a question mark; the trip-up of unnatural speech; the finding of humour or pathos where you had not seen it yourself.

The play has happened to coincide with a time of great concern for access to libraries here, and so another contemporary chime was set up. Meanwhile in Kenya, efforts are being made to broaden access to books through the mobile libraries (including bicycle and camel-driven) of the Kenya National Libraries Service. Especially in the conflict-ridden Rift Valley, some libraries are being cultivated as places which can provide a civilised and tolerant meeting place for people on opposing sides in the 2008 troubles.

Three wonderful books in their turn helped me with this project – Arthur Herman’s ‘The Scottish Enlightenment’; ‘First Light’, a gorgeous limited edition history of Innerpeffray by George Chamier; and Alberto Manguel’s ‘The Library of Night’. I’ll leave the last word with him:

‘As repositories of history or sources for the future, as guides or manuals for difficult times, as symbols of authority past and present, the books in a library stand for more than their collective contents…’

bad news for the short story

I was all in a warm glow about the short story's radiance on the radio after having one of my stories broadcast in June (see my last post), and not least because it was chosen for Pick of the Week. So, I was dismayed to discover this week that the new BBC Radio Four controller Gwyneth Williams, has decided to reduce the story reading slot to ONE a week (it used to be every weekday).

I know how well loved these story slots are by writers and by listeners alike - fifteen minutes of transportation through voice and words. We are the envy of the literary world.

Cries of anguish and protest are being orchestrated, both in the e-petition (below) and through the Society of Authors to which you can add your voice. It's hoped that a question will be put to Gwyneth Williams about this on Radio Four's Feedback programme this Friday, 29th July.

I couldn't summarise the issue better than James Robertson has in his comment on National Short Story Week's e-petition:

"This does seem an incredibly retrograde step, and particularly ill-judged since Radio 4 is one of the very few media outlets which can demonstrate a truly excellent record in supporting and promoting the short story as a literary form. It seems to me that radio is THE pre-eminent medium for the short story form. There should be more short stories, not fewer, on radio. The 15-minute story, read on radio, is perfectly suited for our current times of busy lives, multi-tasking and shortened attention spans. It is also, in relative terms as far as the creative arts are concerned, very produce.

"Looking at this from a Scottish perspective, I have a horrible sense of déjà vu. For many years Radio Scotland carried an excellent morning slot, five days a week, called Storyline. This was axed in 2000 after a hugely successful and varied eight years. Its demise as the only literary strand then running on Radio Scotland coincided almost precisely with a general dumbing-down of the station. Ironically, Radio Scotland is beginning to show an interest in developing literary and book-based programmes again, including broadcasting occasional short stories. But there is no question that, to my mind, the regular broadcasting of short stories is one mark of an intelligent and creative radio service. It would be appalling if Radio 4 chooses this moment to ditch its honourable and long association with the short story form."

The Horizon Pool on Radio Four

Britain's' most northerly 'Lido', the sea-water Trinkie pool near Wick, established in a fit of healthiness in the 1930s, is the setting for my story 'The Horizon Pool', read on BBC Radio Four's Afternoon Reading on Thursday June 9th.

Commissioned as part of a themed series of stories about outdoor swimming, two very different Lido stories by Michelle Roberts and Stella Duffy (both great treats) will feature on the Tuesday and Wednesday. Mine is certainly the chilliest! I've walked past the Trinkie many times and in many weathers, and still never seen a swimmer in it, even at its most inviting.

Wick and area intrigues me. It has a great sense of ancient history in its brochs and castles, and more recent industrial history in its once-thronged herring harbours. Always elemental, empty, and rather sad, it suited the journey of the teenage character in my story very well.

You can find some of my photos of Wick's ghost words here.

Libraries - oldest and newest

I've written before about Scotland's oldest public lending library at Innerpeffray in Perthshire, but it's timely to mention it again for several reasons. Firstly, it reopened to the public last week for the visiting season, and so, with the scent of Spring drawing us all out of darkened rooms again, I'd like to highlight it as a wonderful destination for a day out - snowdrops, the river Earn, a ruined castle, and antiquarian books to pore over. You can read about the library's history in The First Light by George Chamier. As a limited edition it's not the cheapest of books, but there's a copy you can read while on site.

Secondly, with all the threatened library closures, there couldn't be a more fitting celebration of the value of books and libraries than this building, its book collection and in particular the ledger which shows the wide social scope of its borrowers over three hundred years. It was a lamp of learning and democracy after some dark times.

And thirdly, I've just been commissioned by BBC Radio Four to write a play set at Innerpeffray, which will draw on its history and significance although set in contemporary times. A great creative challenge which I look forward to with great excitement and the usual amount of trepidation about whether I can do the subject justice.

Not all is doom and gloom in the contemporary library world. My local community library opened at the new Breadalbane School Campus just before Christmas with a calendar of author events, storytelling, masses of space and light, and BOOKS!

The Three Knots on Radio Four

I'm getting excited now about hearing my radio play The Three Knots 'live' on the radio next week. It always seems different with the continuity announcements etc, and knowing that one or two other people might be listening simultaneously.

Making a new radio play

I spent two days at the end of last week at the BBC in Glasgow to sit in on the recording of my new play 'The Three Knots'. It was great fun to return to that world after several years away. I heard the words I had hounded down and harnessed through numerous drafts springing into new life, was awed that they could mobilise five actors, a Director, three audio staff, an administrator and a whole world of electronic sound effects into a collaborative act of creation. To witness the nuances of meaning and subtext teased out through the sensibilities of the actors and Director; to remember that fewer words often mean more power; and to find that a terrifying storm can be invoked by layerings of sound, is a huge privilege. For the solitary fiction writer, this is a radically different, and a most exciting way of working.

L to R: Robbie Jack, Finn Den Hertog and Hannah Donaldson preparing for a scene.

'The Three Knots' is the realisation of an idea seeded at least three years ago when, while looking through back copies of the Scots magazine in the National Library of Scotland for something else, I stumbled upon an engraving of a remarkable vessel arriving on Loch Sunart in the West Highlands in 1846. It remained anchored there for ten years, and played a highly significant role in the spiritual and political life of the local community. I was intrigued. I have written about how it captivated me before, here. I walked the hills there, and started to inhabit the place with my imagined characters, until they grew, gathered to themselves relationships, conflicts, mythical associations, and so shaped a story.

Hear it as an afternoon play on Radio Four at 2.15 on December 22nd.

Where fiction and mountain rescue meet

MOUNTAIN STORY COMMEMORATES 100 YEARS OF S.O.S.

My short story about a mountain rescue, ‘The Weight of The Earth and the Lightness of the Human Heart’ is broadcast on Friday 4th July as part of a week of BBC Radio 4 stories themed, ‘S.O.S. – Save Our Souls’, to commemorate 100 years of the international distress signal. The story was recently published in my second short story collection ‘The Searching Glance’.

The story was inspired by my own adventures on foot in the hills, talking to a member of a mountain rescue team and learning about the mythology of the iconic hill, Schiehallion. The Producer summarises the story, ‘a climber teeters between life and death on a remote hillside as a rescue team search for him. This small human drama catches the attention of the mountain itself in a tale which skilfully blends love, loss and mythology in a lyrical ode to human tenacity’. Ralph Riach is the reader. The story is particularly apt for 2008 which marks the 75th anniversary of mountain rescue in Great Britain.

During the week, this and other commissioned stories by Colette Paul, Paul Magrs, Alison Joseph, and Stuart MacBride, include the most literal portrayal of an SOS signal to the loosest interpretation of a cry for help - and everything in between.

The following day I leave for the Alps, to follow in my father’s footsteps on his summit-bid of 1952. This is part of the project for which I was awarded a Creative Scotland Award in 2007 to write a series of ‘journey-essays’ inspired by human stories in ‘wilderness’ areas. The ten walking journeys include a Scottish drove road and ‘Mozarabic Trails’ in south-eastern Spain.

writers' words, actors' voices

In July 2001 I spent four days in Dundee on a BBC workshop, learning what was involved in writing radio drama. I remember the moment when actors from Dundee Rep. took my first attempt at a scene and brought it to life with the force of their voices, their imaginations, and their ability to inhabit the characters I had suggested. I have never looked back - loving the medium of radio and the exciting collaborative experience of creating drama in words that are breathed into life by actors and director.

I have spent this last week tutoring a 'writing for radio' Arvon course at the Moniack Mhor writers' centre near Inverness with Lu Kemp, ex-BBC Producer and theatre director. Take the Arvon formula of fourteen people with an itch to write, an isolated hilltop retreat, daily workshops and one-to-one tutorials, and the outcome is always positive for most. Add sunshine, conviviality over food and drink, and the magic ingredient of professional actors for a day, as was the case this week, and the sense of achievement and learning is tangible, possibly truly transformational.

We recorded fourteen short scenes - they ranged from the lyrical to the absurd. From a father's suicide observed but not understood by his young daughter to a male FBI agent giving birth on a train as part of an American space experiment gone slightly awry. That's the great thing about radio - it can take you anywhere, bend time, and take in extremes of tone and genre.