Gift from the Gallowgate (37 page)

‘Oh,’ said Fred, turning to me, ‘what was your talk about?’

Hearing that it was about writing stories, he said, ‘Are you a writer yourself?’ Hardly waiting for confirmation, he went on, ‘What sort of stuff do you write?’

‘Family sagas,’ I answered. ‘My first book was
The Brow of the Gallowgate.’

His eyes widened. ‘
The Brow of . . .
Are you Doris Davidson? You’re my wife’s favourite author.’

With that he stepped back and shouted to his wife, who was sitting in a car a little way off. ‘Mary! Come here a minute.’

She looked puzzled as she walked towards us, and before she reached us, her husband could no longer contain himself. ‘Who’s your favourite author?’

Her brows came down in thought for a few moments, and then, looking up triumphantly, she pronounced, ‘Emma Blair!’

My head, swollen with pride, deflated like a pricked balloon, and Fred, his face a picture of outraged exasperation, clicked his tongue. ‘Not her! Who else?’

I didn’t attempt to correct them on Emma Blair’s sex (Ian Blair had recently confessed his pseudonym), and waited while Mary pondered some more. At last, with a nervous giggle, she
ventured, ‘Doris Davidson. Is that right, Fred?’

‘Aye, that’s right.’ Satisfied now, he took a snap of his wife standing beside her almost favourite author and let her talk to me for a few minutes before they all walked away,
the other man having stood silently impassive during the whole interlude.

That happened a good few years ago now, yet Jimmy and I still laugh at the memory of the stupefied expression on Fred’s face at his wife’s first answer.

My fifth book came about as a result of a leaflet about Cullen given to me by Ted and Lillias – remember my friend from college? They had moved from London when he was
offered a chair at Cardiff University, but spent a month in the Moray coastal town every summer, mainly so that Ted could make use of the beautiful golf course. The publicity pamphlet mentioned the
Three Kings, huge rocks on the shore that have been one of the local attractions since tourists first discovered Cullen.

As I read, I recalled the times my dad had driven his car off the road so that Mum and I could walk across the sands and inspect them at close quarters. I remembered them as very impressive
(which they still are) and was drawn to make them a sort of background to my next story. I consulted some of the many books I had about Scottish fishing – I had been in the habit of buying
anything I saw about the north east in bookshops – and Jimmy took me to Cullen several times to soak up the atmosphere.

After my manuscript had been accepted, there was the business of the cover to consider. My editor wanted a photograph of the Three Kings, but there was one insurmountable problem. I had set my
tale in the 1930s, but since that time, a golf pavilion had been erected in such a position as to obscure one of the stones from the south side, a travesty, if ever there was one.

However, when we told him our problem, Bill, my brother-in-law, whom nothing ever fazes, said we could surely manage something. Accordingly, the four of us went up and spent a night in the
Cullen Bay Hotel, with a beautiful view over the water. While we were in the dining room – windows along one entire long wall – we actually saw a school of dolphins gambolling around a
small fishing boat as dusk was falling. We were only a five-minute walk away from our objective, so Jimmy and Bill both snapped away merrily the following morning from every available angle. Yes,
we did manage to get a view of the three stones with the unwanted pavilion positioned where it could be airbrushed out by the artist preparing the cover.

When the book was published, I was asked to give a talk in the Buckie Drifter, a modern museum with a wonderful mock-up of a fishing vessel inside. We were in what was actually a conference room
with a coffee bar at the back, and there were seventy people present. Jimmy hadn’t come with us, so I was accompanied by a representative from the firm that supplies libraries with their
books.

When I had finished speaking, refreshments were served, and the books my escort had brought with him were laid out for sale. Time was also allowed for me to sign them, and to have a chat with
those who wanted to speak to me. I was lapping up all the compliments when I was brought sharply back to earth. Two ladies were standing in front of me, each with a copy of the book in her
hand.

‘We’ve come to tell you about the mistake you’ve made in your latest book,’ said the one who had obviously chosen to be spokeswoman. She pointed her finger at the cluster
of houses in the distance (on the cover). ‘See they two white houses? Well, I bide in there, and she . . .’, nudging her companion, ‘bides next door, and they werena built at the
time you’ve written about.’

I apologised for my stupidity, but she went on, ‘It doesna matter. Nae many folk’ll ken the difference. Only them that bides there.’

So we parted on very good terms.

I had mixed feelings when Louise (the fictional name of my new editor) phoned up one day. ‘I love Lizanne,’ she told me, ‘and I’d like you to write a
book about her.’

Lizanne had a very minor part in
The Three Kings
and I had said that she came from the Yardie in Buckie, a place I knew little about. Once again, Bertha and Bill, Jimmy and I set off
northwards. Cullen Bay Hotel was fully booked (it was an Aberdeen Spring Holiday weekend) but we managed to get into Banff Springs Hotel, a few miles off and again having lovely views of the Moray
Firth.

We toured the area for a couple of days, and left Buckie until the Monday. Lillias and Ted had told me about a small cottage museum, which I thought would be my best bet for research; the Buckie
Drifter was still quite new and the Fishing Heritage Cottage had far more to offer at that time. It was very well hidden, though, and we couldn’t find it, no matter which street we took, so
we made for the Square, where we had noticed an Information Kiosk. The lady there was very helpful, and phoned to one of the volunteers who manned the place.

Isobel Harrison was a gem. The cottage didn’t usually open on a Monday, but she came and opened it for us – it snuggled behind the library, which is why we hadn’t found it. It
was, and is, a marvellous place where all four of us would have been quite happy to stay for hours and hours, but we didn’t like to take advantage of our guide. Isobel could not have been
more helpful, and the friendship that she forged with me that day has lasted ever since. We still keep in touch and talk on the phone for an hour or more at a time, and it seems as if we have known
each other since we were girls.

I did manage to get through
The Girl with the Creel
, which I look on as my next favourite after the
Gallowgate
and
Time Shall Reap.
After it was
accepted, Louise said she wanted to know more about the houses in the Yardie, so I phoned Isobel, who lives just along Main Street from the quaint, tightly packed little cluster of houses, to ask
if she could give me some details. Because the inhabitants keep themselves more or less isolated in their niche, she couldn’t tell me much, so I decided I’d have to go there myself.

I press-ganged Jimmy into taking me up to Buckie again, and he drove round to the sea side of the houses in the Yardie. I had always imagined, from passing them in a car or a bus, that there
were less than a dozen, but I learned otherwise. I had meant to knock on one of the doors – any door – and ask my questions, but there, in front of us, was a lady hanging out her
washing.

To explain the situation, there is the main road to Elgin and Inverness, then the rows of houses then, running parallel to Main Street, the road where we had parked, then a strip of grass with
sets of posts (it may have been an umbrella-type) and clothes ropes. Beyond that, there was only . . . the sea. Nothing in between.

I watched for a few moments as the poor woman struggled to peg her sheets up in the howling wind – I could imagine them taking off and eventually draping themselves round some poor
unsuspecting soul in Norway – before she turned round and spotted me. I apologised for bothering her and asked if I could speak to her for a few minutes.

She seemed pleased to have a short respite and stood with arms akimbo as I asked my questions. I was very lucky in finding her. She had been born and brought up in the Yardie, and had moved to
another of the houses when she was married. She had followed the herring fleet when she was young, and gave me much information on being a fisher girl and all I wanted to know about the inside of
the dwellings. While she was speaking to me, her husband came out and had a long chat with Jimmy – they got on straight away – and then I thought I’d better leave her to her
sheets.

Before we went back to the car, however, we walked through this minuscule village, and were amazed at what we saw. We had learned that the name Yardie came from the fact that the houses were no
more than a yard apart, so there was street after street, all quite short and amounting to around fifty houses in all, facing each other or back to back. It’s difficult to describe the set
up, with the end of each street having the gables facing the sea, while at the top, the gables face the main road north – or south, depending on the way you’re facing.

They were alleys more than streets and I’m not sure how many there are. We were fascinated, and I couldn’t wait to get home to start writing about it, but naturally, we paid Isobel a
brief visit first.

The number of words I could add to a manuscript already a few thousands more than I was allowed was limited, so I didn’t succeed in writing as much as I’d have liked about the
Yardie.

For the cover, I was asked to supply photographs of Pennan, where some of Lizanne’s misfortunes take place, and this time, Sheila and John were up on holiday, so we took them with us and
had dozens of photographs for the artist to choose from. However, after providing a very attractive rough draft, the man who had supplied all the previous covers died while playing squash, so it
was another artist who did
The Girl with the Creel
cover. At first, I didn’t care for it so much, none of the photos had been used, but it does give an eerie feel to it, fitting in
with the plot, and I must admit I’ve come to like it after all.

During the week of publication, I gave a talk in Buckie Library. The local bookshop had closed some time before, so the books on sale had been supplied by a shop in Elgin. Isobel was there, of
course, and two men from HarperCollins, but I can’t remember anything much about that afternoon except the old man sitting reading in a corner; most ungracious, I thought, and not even one of
my books. At first, I wondered why he was keeping so far from the other people, and the afternoon was well on before it dawned on me that he hadn’t moved as much as a muscle since I began
speaking. It was then that I realised the truth. He was a full-sized wax model! Most realistic.

My seventh and eighth books,
The House of Lyall
(2000) and
The Back of Beyond
(2002), were mixtures of snippets of incidents I’d heard over the years,
plus a very small part (fictionalised) of a relative’s early life in London.

By then, my book signings for these were confined to Aberdeen City, and were most successful. In the space of a week – three sessions of two hours in different stores – I signed
hundreds of books, chatted a little to as many as I could, and went home each time happily exhausted, but as high as a kite.

I feel so flattered by all the compliments I’m paid, I have to remind myself that I’m only a best seller in the northeast of Scotland, although I keep being told of shops and
airports all over the world that stock my novels nowadays. I think their attraction lies in the fact that they are easily read, a relaxation when on holiday, an introduction to readers from other
parts to my home area.

The warmest reception I have ever had was in 2003, when I was asked to talk to St Machar Academy Parents’ Reading Group, who were trying to brush up their own reading
skills. Apparently they had made hard weather of the books they had originally been given, and then a bookshop had advised the dedicated gentleman who runs this facility to try them with something
local, something with which they could identify. My name was among the writers suggested, and it seems that my book (I can’t remember which one – it may have been
The Three
Kings
, most of the others had gone out of print) did the trick.

They were proud of knowing the real places where incidents in the story were supposed to have taken place; they had discussed where the fictional places might be; and they were all anxious to
read more. They made it so obvious that they were delighted to meet me, had dozens of questions ready to ask, and all in all, it was the most rewarding afternoon I had ever spent – that I
ever
will
spend, more than likely.

Thus I carried on, launching into a ninth story, bringing in sycamore trees because Sheila’s garden has two rows of beautiful old sycamores round which her husband, John, has designed a
truly professional garden.

I was intrigued when I heard of a family who were shocked to learn of a grandmother’s death in a Mental Institution when they’d been led to believe she had died almost seventy years
before. No mention had ever been made of the place where she had been incarcerated since she was a young woman. Not only that, there was evidence that her actual marriage certificate, when it was
eventually run to earth, had been altered, very amateurishly. There was, of course, much more to the true tale than this, but I used it as a starting point for my main mystery. What follows is
entirely my own invention, and has nothing to do with the facts.

It would have been almost the end of 2002 and I was slightly more than halfway through the first draft of
The Shadow of the Sycamores
when I was asked by Birlinn if I would write my
autobiography for them. The trouble was that my contract with HarperCollins stated that they had to have first offer of any book I wrote, so I said I’d have to ask if I was allowed to do
this. I called Louise and she said it was all right for me to write for another publisher as long as it was non-fiction. All fiction had to go to them.