Birlinn

A historian examines what really happened when the British World War II battleship was torpedoed by a German submarine off the coast of Orkney.Sinking the battleship HMS Royal Oak in the Royal Navy’s home anchorage, with the loss of more than 800 of her crew, was Germany’s first shattering blow against Britain during World War II. Within six weeks the Germans achieved their goal of breaching the defenses of Scapa Flow. Germany claimed the sinking for the submarine U-47, commanded by Lt. Gunther Prien. Prien and his crew instantly became folk heroes, exploited to extract the maximum glory from their deed. A few months later, Prien’s autobiography, Mein Weg Nach Scapa Flow, was published and sold an astonishing 750,000 copies. However, there are Royal Oak survivors, who, while accepting that their ship was torpedoed, say Prien and his crew could never have seen the inside of Scapa Flow because Prien’s story differs from the truth.Much has been written on what is now one of the greatest submarine exploits of all time. Yet nobody has managed to sift fact from falsehood and reconcile the apparently irreconcilable German and British stories. Author H. J. Weaver has interviewed Royal Oak survivors, members of U-47’s 1939 crew, Lt. Prien’s widow and members of the firm that published his autobiography. Weaver’s quest for the truth led through England, Northern Ireland, Wales, Scotland, Orkney, Norway, West Berlin, Cologne, Freiburg, and even distant Amman. Every point of controversy he has patiently investigated until he was able to set down the documented, definitive account of the Royal Oak naval disaster in this book.

Sutherland is one of the most ruggedly beautiful and sparsely populated parts of Scotland. In the nineteenth century, the Duke of Sutherland set about improving his landholdings to make them more productive by building lodges for sporting tenants who came to enjoy the summer fishing and shooting grouse and deer. In the 1870s some 3,000 acres of land were reclaimed at Shinness. A lodge was built there in 1882 and allocated some 2,500 acres of moorland for grouse and grazing, together with the fishings on Loch Shin and its rivers. One of the first keepers at the estate was John Fraser. His daughter, Iby, became a teacher at Lairg School. In the 1970s, long after the Fletcher family had taken on Shinness Estate, Iby wrote down some recollections of her early life for Mrs Fletcher's interest.

The sequel to the perennially popular Yellow on the Broom, Red Rowans and Wild Honey follows Betsy’s story to the end of the Second World War. She recounts in vivid detail the heady years of her adolescence, her courtship and her mother’s struggle to bring up four children in the only way a travelling woman knew: hawking wares, fruit picking, tatty howking — in fact any kind of work that would provide the next meal.This edition also contains another substantial piece of autobiography, which remained incomplete at the time of her death and which appears in print here for the first time.

Walking Through Shadows describes a winter walk in memory of the author’s friend, Clive Dennier, a popular Inverness journalist, who died in Knoydart in March 2013 but whose body was found only some weeks later. The journey begins at Whiten Head on the north Sutherland coast and ends at Kinloch Hourn in Knoydart, the place where Clive was eventually found. Mike Cawthorne undertook the walk with his friend, Nick (also a friend of Clive’s), from mid-January to late February 2015. Their walk traversed the wildest and most remote areas of Britain, often in atrocious winter conditions. The walkers were entirely reliant on food parcels buried beforehand.As well as describing some the last wild places in Scotland in the heart of winter the narrative explores themes of grief, chance, mental illness and ecological damage. The author’s companion is struggling throughout with the effects of severe mental illness but sees in the walk the hope of some relief from this suffering. The walkers are asking a question: whether the hills can heal at a human level and whether the hills can themselves be healed. In the shadow of the Anthropocene Mike Cawthorne evokes the darkness of winter, of two individuals seeking answers, alone in a freezing wilderness that is both beautiful and moribund. In the context of an extreme mountaineering adventure, he is grappling with issues of vital importance to us all.

The Shepherd and the Morning Star is a remarkable double biography and autobiography. In the course of it the life of the son, Willie Orr, gradually emerges from under the shadow of that of his father, Lawrence Orr (PB), leading Ulster Unionist politician, philanderer and would-be bigamist, who ends his days in disgrace with his career and family in ruins.Rootless and troubled, Willie himself went through various jobs — in the Belfast shipyards, as an actor, as a helper in the Iona Community. He suffered a severe nervous breakdown from which he slowly recovered, finding purpose and fulfilment working as a shepherd for many years and then later retraining as a teacher. In between times he wrote as a journalist for the Scotsman and with his wife set up a counselling service for adolescents in Oban.This book is a deeply absorbing and powerful piece of writing, a record of mood and emotional development as much as a detailed chronology. Very funny in parts and with a poet’s sensitivity in others, it explores that precarious territory between the public and private lives of politicians. It ends with a glimpse of redemption and healing, a coming to terms with the ghosts of the past.

Early on a Sunday morning in October 1905, in Eriskay, one of the smallest and most isolated of Hebridean islands, a forty-five year old Catholic parish priest died of pleurisy. It was a disease which had claimed many of his parishioners, and Father Allan McDonald undoubtedly contracted it while ministering to his flock. He was mourned all over Scotland. Now, over a century later, his name is still remembered with reverence throughout Catholic Scotland and beyond. Father Allan — Maighstir Ailein to his Gaelic-speaking people — was a witty, accomplished, intellectual and dedicated man; one of the most renowned of Hebridean personalities and probably the most celebrated Hebridean priest since St Columba.An exceptionally effective and articulate local politician in the southern Outer Hebrides, which at the turn of the twentieth century was amongst the poorest and most neglected in Europe, he was also an accomplished Gaelic poet and writer and one of Scotland’s greatest collectors of folklore. His achievements attracted attention and visitors came to his lonely parish from the United States, England and elsewhere. The compelling tale of his remarkable life is also implicitly the story of the north-west Highlands in the late nineteenth century and the Catholic Hebrides in their transcendent prime, where culture overflows with myth and adventure, colour, character and extraordinary unspoilt beauty.

In 1915 Patrick MacGill, the 'navvy poet' whose autobiographical novel about his life as a potato harvester and roadwork in Scotland, Children of the Dead End A classic of war literature, The Great Push is a passionate and compelling book which describes the fear, resilience, humour and fatalism of those who fought in the raw edge of one of the most terrifying wars ever to have been waged.

This is the second volume of Kenneth Roy's magisterial trilogy on the history of Scotland since the Second World War. The first volume, The Invisible Spirit: A Life of Post-War Scotland 1945–75, was met with immediate acclaim. This new volume brings the story much closer to the present day and traces enthrallingly the social, political and cultural threads which lead directly to the Scotland we live in today. Along the way the author describes the oil boom in Shetland, Scotland's doomed campaign at the World Cup in Argentina, the Orkney child sex abuse scandal, the Lockerbie bombing, the massacre of schoolchildren and a teacher at Dunblane, the cloning of Dolly the sheep, and much more. Kenneth Roy uses his record of events to mount a searing critique of the Scottish body politic of the time and its key personalities and institutions. In sparkling, often very funny prose the country is anatomized in a way which will make uncomfortable reading for many current politicians and public office-holders today. The book culminates in a referendum and the inauguration of the new Scottish parliament. Echoes of present-day aspirations, antagonisms and concerns are all too evident.

Michael Krupa was born into a poor family in south-west Poland, and in his teens was accepted into a Jesuit seminary. He ran away before taking his final vows and joined the army. Soon afterwards, the German tanks rolled into Poland and easily defeated her antiquated forces — the Polish cavalry were armed with sabres. Krupa survived Hitler's invasion, but was arrested in Soviet-occupied eastern Poland and accused of spying. After enduring torture in Moscow's notorious Lubianka prison, he was sentenced to ten years' corrective labour and deported to the Pechora Gulag. Most prisoners there were worked and starved to death within a year. But Krupa managed again to escape, and in the chaos following the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union made one of the most extraordinary journeys of the war — from Siberia to safety in Afghanistan. Krupa's Jesuit training had given him an inner strength and resilience which enabled him to survive in the face of appalling brutality and cruelty. Luck and the kindness of strangers helped him complete his epic journey to freedom. The story of the suffering inflicted on millions in Stalin's camps has been told before — but Krupa's story is remarkable and uni

The era of the great farms of Scotland is over now. They flourished for nearly eighty years from the mid 19th century, and those years are renowned for the strength of their characters and the legendary status of their stories. Probably the finest and richest aspect of bothy life was the ballad. Often sentimental, sometimes simplistic, they nevertheless give unrivalled detail about a vanished way of life and work. Quoting generously from the ballads, David Kerr Cameron has written a book rich in anecdote and insight. The working day was hard and long, and mealtimes consisted mainly of porridge and potatoes. Yet laughter and generosity of spirit were commonplace. For these communities, horses were as important as people, and tens of thousands of noble Clydesdales helped to cultivate the land. Ploughmen, dairymaids, bailiffs and shepherds all appear in the pages of this unique testament to the Scottish countryside. Together with Willie Gavin, Crofter Man and The Cornkister Days, this volume forms a remarkable trilogy on life in rural Scotland.

On 15 January 1972, James Menzies Renwick made his international rugby debut for Scotland against France at Murrayfield. He was 19 years old. In the years that followed he became, arguably, the most talented rugby player ever to pull on a Scotland jersey — running in some of Scotland's most celebrated and spectacular tries. During a 24— year playing career he was a member of the Hawick RFC team which won the last ever unofficial Championship and thereafter eight official Scottish Championships. He was capped 52 times for Scotland (a record at that time), scoring a hatful of tries (several of which appear on 'Best of …' videos and are still shown regularly on television), penalties and drop-goals. He played for the British Lions in the first Test against South Africa in 1980 and is widely considered to have been unfortunate not to have played in more Tests at that level. A serial tourist in the amateur age, Renwick has witnessed and been part of many exciting and hilarious escapades. He has a naturally mischievous character and some of the high jinx in which he has been involved are the stuff of rugby legend. He has also met and made friends with a huge number of the great and good of rugby football across the globe in addition to many well-known characters from outside the game. Now as revered for his repartee and after dinner speaking as he was for his incisive breaks on the park, Renwick's actions — both on and off the field — have made him one of the best known and popular figures in the rugby world. This intimate and revealing biography is sure to be one of the most entertaining sports biographies of recent years.

Scottish history has been shaped and defined by a series of great battles. John Sadler gives the first full military history of Scotland for many years. From Mons Graupius to Culloden, he shows how terrain and politics shaped the campaigns and decisive engagements we still remember today. Each chapter also features sections on the development of warfare — its tactics, equipment and styles of fighting. For the military historian, Scotland is a fascinating example of how a small country can fight off domination by a far larger neighbour. From Celtic warfare to the feudal host to the professional armies of the eighteenth century, from guerrilla warfare to the pitched battle, from siege to Border Reiver, Scotland is unique in having had almost every major type of warfare taking place within its frontiers. Battles such as Bannockburn, Flodden, and Culloden, have a resonance and impact far beyond Scotland. John Sadler weaves chronicle, narrative and analysis together in a masterly way, recreating the drama and passion of centuries past.

The Siege of Vienna in 1683 was one of the turning points in European history. It was the last serious threat to Western Christendom and so great was its impact that countries normally jealous and hostile sank their differences to throw back the armies of Islam and their savage Tartar allies.The consequences of defeat were momentous: the Ottomans lost half their European territories and began the long decline which led to the final collapse of the Empire, and the Hapsburgs turned their attention from France and the Rhine frontier to the rich pickings of the Balkans. The hot September day that witnesses the last great trial of strength between Cross and Crescent opened an epoch in European history that lasted until the cataclysm of the First World War in 1914.

Two clubs, dedicated to proclaiming the joys of libertine sex, thrived in mid and late 18th-century Scotland. The Beggar's Benison (1732), starting from local roots in Fife, became large and sprawling, with branches in Edinburgh, Glasgow — and St Petersburg. As a toast “The Beggar's Benison” was drunk at aristocratic dinners in London as a coded reference to sex, and the Prince of Wales (later George IV) became a member. In Edinburgh, also, the Wig Club (1775) gave the elite of the Scottish Tory establishment a forum in which to dine, gamble and venerate a wig supposedly made of the pubic hairs of the mistresses of Charles II. Both clubs flourished in a great age of raucous clubs in which bawdy often played a prominent part, and both died as changes in sensibility made such behavior seem gross and unacceptable. As the Victorian age approached, the clubs withered away under its disapproving glare.In this book, the author tells the story of these clubs, analyzes the obscene relics of their rituals which survive, and places the clubs in their social, cultural and political contexts. It is an extensively researched study, but at the same time recognizes the entertainment value of the many anecdotes concerning the clubs, the absurdities inherent in the antics of club rituals, and the appeal of the bawdy.

Absorbing and fascinating' — Christine Marion Fraser 'It's a dismal day that doesn't include a dose of Doris' — Press and Journal The brow of the Gallowgate is where Albert Ogilvie buys his property in 1890 — the shop he has dreamed of for years, and above it, a house with nine rooms to accommodate the large family he and his beloved wife, Bathie, desire. As their babies are born — there will be eight in all — Albert employs three sisters, one after another, as nursemaids. Bathie finds Mary and Jeannie Wyness more than satisfactory, but Bella, the youngest, is troublesome and sly, and creates a set of distressing circumstances resulting in her dismissal. The years go by, with their joys and sorrows, and war splits up the close-knit Ogilvies, some of whem eventually emigrate to New Zealand. And it is there that Bella Wyness, her resentment of the family grown to black hatred, will wreak her terrible revenge…

The house was extraordinarily peaceful as if by an act of will I had banished all the fertile ghosts. It had an unearthly calm as if I were floating on a dumb sea of solitude. I found myself humming to myself as if I had come to the silence of myself. I went to the bookcase and took out a book and began to read. Strangely enough I didn't realise at first what book it was. Then I saw that it was the Bible. I turned to the New Testament and began to read, 'In the beginning was the Word…' — The Hermit ALTHOUGH BEST KNOWN as one of Scotland's greatest modern poets, Iain Crichton Smith was also prolific as a writer of short stories. These pieces form a central part of his oeuvre, demonstrating the full range and versatility of his literary talent. From humour to tragedy, from inner monologues to extrovert surrealism, the diversity of his writing indicates the extraordinary range of his own reading and mental world. Crichton Smith wrote short stories throughout his life. Some are fragments, others almost novellas, and the best of them all show him to be an author of unique sensitivity and intelligence. These two collections, comprising the complete English stories, include over 45 stories never before published in book form, as well as others that have been out of print for many years, thus making it possible to judge Crichton Smith's achievement as a writer in full. Incorporates stories from The Hermit, Murdo, Mr Trill in Hades and Selected Stories.

In the same vein as the acclaimed Para Handy stories and TV series, this novel is based on one of Ealing Studios' most popular comedies, made in 1954. This is the first time The Maggie has been in print for many years. Mactaggart is the rascally skipper of the puffer The Maggie, a flimsy rust-bucket which hauls freight up and down the west coast of Scotland. When wealthy American businessman Calvin B. Marshall, General Overseas Manager of World-International Airways, wants to transport a precious cargo to his newly bought mansion on Kiltarra in the Western Isles, Mactaggart manages to trick Marshall's agent into hiring The Maggie for GBP300, a sum that might be useful for some much-needed repairs. Marshall learns that his valuable cargo is at risk in a vessel that's less than seaworthy, he does all in his power to have the valuable cargo transferred to a more reliable vessel. What Marshall is not prepared for is the wily Mactaggart's sly delaying tactics and crafty machinations. What follows is a hilarious and unexpected journey that will have unforeseen consequences for everyone involved …

Based on contemporary documents and histories, Roderick Graham paints a unique picture of Mary that sees her neither as a Catholic martyr, nor as a husband-murdering adulteress, but as a young girl adrift in the dangerous seas of sixteenth-century politics. Mary Stuart had none of the ruthlessness of her contemporary sisters, and the female empowerment of Catherine de Medici, Diane de Poitiers or Elizabeth Tudor passed her by. In an age of intellectually brilliant and powerful women, Mary relied on her beauty and charm in place of reason and determination. Passively and gracefully, she allowed events to overtake her as accidents and when she did attempt to control her future she unwittingly set in train the events that would lead her to the executioner's block.

Max Benitz reports from the frontline of a highly controversial war in a perceptive and revealing account of several months spent in Afghanistan with this world-famous infantry battalion. Training with them and living amongst them as they undertake their tour in Helmand province, Benitz gives a unique insight into the pressures faced by those who risk their lives every second of the day in one of the most dangerous places on earth. Fascinating and illuminating, The Scots Guards in Afghanistan reveals new insights into the war raging in Afghanistan and the men and women who bravely serve there for the British forces.