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Black Lives Matter in the far north of Scotland 03 August 2020
When I was researching Call of the Undertow, I endlessly explored the setting at Dunnet Bay, not so far from John o’Groats. Much of the novel is set on the wild shore and cliffs but a few notable buildings presented themselves including this handsome church at Dunnet which was where Timothy Pont, Scotland’s earliest mapmaker, was Minister from 1601 to 1610. Inside, I was shown up a rickety ladder into the high tower to examine the large inscribed bell which had been presented to the church by Mary Oswald in 1778. Curious about her, I later discovered this portrait of her in The National Gallery, together with some history. She grew up in Jamaica, daughter of an extremely rich planter, Alexander Ramsay. In 1750 she married Richard Oswald, whose father had also been a minister at Dunnet and who built a trading empire and made his fortune through the transatlantic slave trade. His company owned a slave fort on Bance Island on the Sierra Leone River, through which more than 10,000 enslaved Africans probably passed. The couple enjoyed a luxurious lifestyle with a stately home in Ayrshire and an impressive art collection. We might think it unlikely that the far North of Scotland has connections to the slave trade, but here is one physical legacy. In my novel, the young mapmaker, Trothan, with his nose for injustice, finds ways of depicting such stories on his local map. He draws Dunnet Church with its huge bell swinging in the tower, but being rung from below by a group of shackled black slaves. Later on, it’s the more recent history revealed by his map that pitches both characters into trouble. Call of the Undertow is ON OFFER for Non-Kindle e-readers for only £1 (reduced from £2.99), and the special edition hardback for only £12 (reduced from £15) inc. P+P in UK only from NOW until 7th August from here. ‘Linda Cracknell’s Caithness rises up off the page and takes form around us… Its light and skies, rocky shores and wheeling, screaming gulls, huddled villages and craggy beaches, its grave, austere beauty… Reading this book is like being there.’
Kirsty Gunn |   |
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