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I’ve just recently returned to Slovenia from a visit back in Edinburgh for the first time in almost four years, having been unable to travel until now due to first, the Covid lockdowns, and then a severe rheumatic condition. It was a short visit of only 3½ weeks, and it felt odd in some ways coming “home” to my native city when home now is my beloved mountain village in Slovenia. So much that was familiar and yet now so different from a quiet semi-alpine life.

I timed the planning of this visit in the hope that I’d be able to attend the Dorothy Dunnett Society AGM weekend, and happily I was able to do so and meet up with some old friends who I hadn’t seen since 2019. It proved tiring – I’m still not fully recovered and my knees are weak and painful if I have to walk any distance or stand for long periods, and as a result I missed the Saturday morning lectures and had already decided against the gala dinner as being too ambitious – particularly as I also had a 4-way birthday lunch with some very old and dear friends on the Sunday.

It was lovely to see both sets of friends and I hope I’ll be able to travel more regularly now – potential knee replacement operations allowing. (Travel tip: don’t wear a knee support when going through airport security – it confuses their machines no end!)

The Saturday afternoon lecture was given by Dr Bryony Coombs on Anselm Adorne, whose 600th anniversary it is. Before going further I must congratulate her on today’s announcement that she has been elected a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society – very well deserved!

She is researching into his life and connections and here focused interestingly on his books, and the sort of material that would be read by a man in his position. All of which of course throws further light on the likely contents of Lymond’s library further down the line – a subject which I know fascinates many readers.

Dorothy’s research into Adorne is of course an invaluable source and I’m certain that Dr Coombs will build on that to illuminate him further and I’m sure she’ll be back to speak to us again in the future. I look forward to that very much. I’ve been attending the Zoom meetings of the research group set up to study him for this anniversary and greatly enjoyed hearing about the investigations that are going on.

I also had an almost forgotten bonus awaiting me at home – a number of copies of Whispering Gallery, the DDS magazine, which had arrived here during the first year or so of my Slovenian exile before I got them to send them directly to my new home – plus a few more that I had barely had a chance to read due to my father’s final illness and the funeral and estate processing that followed in 2020.

Reading through them all one night reinforced just what a marvel they are – so much better than any comparable magazine in literary or historical society circles; professional, glossy, superby laid out and illustrated. We’ve always had good editors who’ve built successively on the talents of the earlier ones, but Suzanne McNeil has been a revelation over the years that she’s been in post and seems able to attract some outstanding contributions on a regular basis. Even if you don’t wish to take any other part in the Society, the magazine is well worth the membership fee on it’s own, and I highly recommend it.

Sadly I didn’t have space in my case to bring them back with me but I hope to do that on my next visit – there is much I would like to read again in a less hurried fashion and consider more carefully.

But to return to Anselm Adorne, I leave you with a question worth considering. We know of course that Dorothy initially planned to include a fictitious daughter of his as the Katelinje character; before the astonishing discovery of a real neice who came to Scotland with him and her brother – and who in a mind-boggling and hitherto unsuspected coincidence – married into a real family who just happened to be called Crawford!! (That still blows my mind every time I think about it.)

All of which makes me wonder if she originally intended Adorne to be a direct ancestor of Lymond rather than the one-sidestep-removed that he ended up as. Would the original plan for the series have included more of him, and an even closer relationship with Nicholas? If so, I wonder how different the story might have been and how much re-writing she had to do to fit the historical discovery into it?

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This page – which was the original address of this post prior to the server failure in early 2025 – is now a pointer to where the page now resides.

https://www.dorothydunnett.co.uk/taken-on-a-journey-to-blackfriars.php

I’ve done this so that the comments which had been submitted can still be read, (they’re at the bottom of that page) since I can’t enter them into this post.

If, after reading the article, you would like to leave a new comment, please do it here

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Just a quick post to act as a reminder to anyone who follows this blog. Tomorrow, 25th August 2023, would have been Dorothy’s 100th birthday, and across the world, readers will pause and remember, and probably lift a glass to her memory.

I can’t really say anymore than I already have in numberous posts and articles across this site, including the previous post of the toast that I proposed by proxy at the Centenary Gathering in April. You all know how much I loved and respected her and adored her writing.

So wherever you are tomorrow, stop for a minute, and remember the great pleasure you’ve had from reading her magnificent books. Give thanks for her life and celebrate her birthday.

Thank you Dorothy, you’ll never be forgotten.

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Having been unable to travel to Edinburgh for the Centenary Gathering, I was able to make one small contribution to the Gala Dinner which took place a couple of days ago at the beginning of the event – a short speech and toast.

Since it’s now been delivered – superbly I’m told – by the lovely Julia Hart who had asked me to write it, I can now give everyone else who wasn’t able to attend a chance to read it.

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Short preamble

May I just repeat how sorry I am not to be able to be with you all this week. There are many of you who I think of as close to family, and it’s one of Dorothy’s abiding gifts that the worldwide Dunnett readers’ family has not only survived her passing but has prospered and grown.

Speech and Toast

When you’ve written a website over 27 years about someone who you adored, both as a writer and a human being.
When you’ve written endless blog posts and emails and Tweets…
What more is there to say?

You hardly need to discuss her consummate gifts as a writer in company such as this.
We may disagree on character development, argue furiously on scene interpretation, or almost come to metaphorical blows over motivation, but we all agree that she was and remains the standard by which fiction writing and world building is measured. We’ve all stepped repeatedly into those worlds and marvelled at how real they are and how intensely close we feel to the characters within them.

You could talk – again – about her charm, her disarming modesty, her unrivalled ability to put people at their ease, about how she would immediately have you talking about yourself when all you really wanted to do was ask questions about her, and her characters, and her travels.

You could perhaps recount stories of times spent in her company – a favourite of mine is of the meal at the Witchery up by the castle. It followed a function at the New Club in Princes St put on by Penguin to celebrate the publication of Gemini. As we all sat together at a long table, two gentlemen who had been dining unnoticed on the other side of the room got up and came over to Dorothy. With her characteristic squeal of delight she recognised one of them immediately – “Michael!” – and turned to the rest of us saying “I’m sure you all know Michael Shea.”

Well of course, who among us doesn’t know the ex-diplomat and former Queen’s Press Secretary? We all looked at each other in knowing amazement while inwardly remembering that Dorothy and Alastair knew EVERYONE! And I rather think EVERYONE knew, and loved, Dorothy.

But then the other man spoke, “You probably won’t remember me, but I’m an expert on chemicals and dyes and we once had a conversation about old-fashioned dye yards and you asked me what would happen if one caught fire.”

Cue dropped jaws all around the table!! (and of course she remembered him.)

And it’s stories like that that remind me of something crucial about her, something I saw that first time I ever met her when she came in to James Thins to sign some books for dispatch overseas, and which made me want to read her books, and is how I want to remember her – it was how much FUN she was!

Readers know very well how some passages can have you laughing out loud. From the smoking trotters of Mungo’s pig onwards, the humour is always lurking; waiting for the perfect moment. Then there were all those legendary talks at book-signings, recounting unlikely stories of her research travels to spellbound audiences, and her talks at the Book Festivals, which were always a delight. And of course as with Gideon’s anguished appeal to Lymond she was never afraid to poke a little fun at herself if it helped the point along.

If you were in a small group or lucky enough to be in private conversation, it wasn’t just the exhilarating intellectual rollercoaster that she could take you on. Beneath that brilliant mind was such a sense of fun and humour and delight. She could look at situations and see not just the fascinating and the intriguing, but also the mischievous insights and the sometimes hilarious implications.

That is my overriding memory of her – the twinkle in the eye and the laughter in the voice.

So to add to everything else I’ve written about her let me add this. If I can purloin and adapt a famous line from one James T Kirk –

Of all the souls I have met in my travels, hers was the most…. humorous.

(Please stand for the toast)

Over the years Charles has proposed numerous toasts at our dinners: to the Queen and to Absent Friends.

I give you this one:

To the Queen of historical fiction, she may be absent but her story-telling, her charm, and her humour will never be forgotten – Dorothy!

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