-
ABOUT THE BOOK Robert Burns was by far and away the most iconic figure in nineteenth-century Scotland. Multiple editions of his works poured incessantly from the presses. Unprecedentedly large crowds gathered to commemorate him at huge festivals and at the unveiling of memorials. His work was at the heart of the palpable rise of Scottish-ness that swept Scotland from the 1840s through to the First World War, including demands for Home Rule. If Walter Scott imagined Scotland, Burns shaped it. He gave ordinary Scots in what had been one of the most socially uneven societies in Europe a sense of self-worth and dignity, and underpinned demands for political and social justice. In this major new book, Christopher Whatley describes the several contests there were to 'own' - and mould - Burns, from Tories through Radicals to middle-class urban improvers. But the Kirk condemned Burns as the Antichrist, deplored the Burns cult ('Burnomania') - a slur on a nation that prided itself on its strict Presbyterian inheritance. The result is a fascinating picture of the role Burns played after his death in shaping multiple facets of Scottish society.
-
ABOUT THE BOOK The tiny diamond-shaped island of Pabay lies in Skye’s Inner Sound, just two and a half miles from the bustling village of Broadford. One of five Hebridean islands of that name, it derives from the Norse papa-ey, meaning ‘island of the priest’. Many visitors since the first holy men built their chapel there have felt that Pabay is a deeply spiritual place, and one of wonder. These include the great 19th-century geologists Hugh Miller and Archibald Geikie, for whom the island’s rocks and fossil-laden shales revealed much about the nature of Creation itself. Len and Margaret Whatley moved to Pabay from the Midlands and lived there from 1950 until 1970. Leaving a landlocked life in Birmingham for the emptiness of an uninhabited island was a brave and challenging move for which nothing could have prepared them. Christopher Whatley, their nephew, was a regular visitor to Pabay whilst they lived there. In this book, based on archival research, oral interviews, memory and personal experience, he explores the history of this tiny island jewel, and the people for whom it has been home, to create a vivid picture of the trials, tribulations and joys of island life.
