Eccentric Wealth on the Isle of Rum

I'm delighted to see that Alastair Scott's book 'Eccentric Wealth' about the relationship between Sir George Bullough and the Isle of Rum is out now. This is the background to my story (published in a pocket book format) of the servants' walk from Kinloch 'Castle' across the island to the laundry in 'Whiter than White'. I'm looking forward to reading it, and learning more about the extraordinary Edwardian industrialist's flamboyant creation amongst the mountains, the deer and the Hebridean weather.

'Whiter than White' - a new story in book form

First offspring of 'Best Foot Books', this small book, perfectly formed to fit a pocket, contains a long short story inspired by my walks on the Isle of Rum. The Edwardian history of Kinloch Castle and the servants' walk across the island between castle and laundry form the backdrop. (See previous posts). Available from a number of appropriate outlets including The Aberfeldy Watermill, the Fruitmarket Gallery, Edinburgh, The Land, Sea and Island Centre and Cafe Rhu in Arisaig; the Mallaig Bookshop, Mallaig Heritage Centre ; Kinloch Castle on Rum. It can also be ordered direct from my website for £4 inc p&p.

It’s 1913, and as the stags’ roaring fades in the hills, the household at Kinloch Castle is packing up to return to Accrington at the end of another season. Jimmy will walk over the hill only seven more times to deliver the laundry to the maids Emma and Lily at Kilmory. Then he will return to his home on the Isle of Eigg. In those last brief visits, will he manage to both ensure his future with the departing Emma, and to contain their secret?

Idleness

wasting bright golden hours
sitting on your heels
propping up the railings
trapesing aimlessly
lounging
sitting
standing

These words might have been used (quietly) by servants as they observed the Bulloughs entertain in their sporting country estate on the Isle of Rum (see post below). But they weren't. These words were actually used in the Accrington Times and Observer to describe employees, who were neither at war nor at work in August 1914 when Howard and Bullough, a major Accrington employer, refused to meet the demands of the Amalgamated Society of Engineers and locked out 5,000 boys and men from the cotton machine works. It being not long after the 'Glorious Twelfth', I wonder where George Bullough was at the time and whether he was holding, 'either hammer or gun', as the newspaper jibed that the factory men were not doing, 'to play your part for the honour of your country'.