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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We’re now just days from the start of the Dorothy Dunnett Centenary Gathering in Edinburgh. As many of you will know I now live in Slovenia but had of course firmly intended returning to my home city – both to celebrate the 100th year since Dorothy’s birth, and to meet up again with the many friends I’ve been fortunate to make in the Dunnett community.

Unfortunately I’ve been fighting to be fit enough; having contracted rheumatic polymialgia over a year ago. While I’m now much better than I was – when diagnosed last March I was on crutches and struggling to stand up – I had to take the decision a few weeks ago that I wasn’t yet fit enough to travel. I am still on immunosuppressants and as a result haven’t been able to receive Covid booster vaccinations, so that was another factor I had to consider. Having recently had an MRI scan on my knee it’s also apparent that the muscle wastage caused by the disease highlighted considerable wear and tear in the joint and it may be that I’ll need surgery at some point.

Naturally I’m sad at heart to have to miss this event and can only hope that there’ll be another chance to see some of my friends from outwith Europe. To them and any of the attendees I haven’t yet met – I wish you safe travels and a wonderful time in Edinburgh.

I’ll be thinking of you all and hope to see some photos or maybe even videos of some of the events. If anyone would like to guest post here with your reactions and memories then I’d be glad to hear from you.

In absentia I will be making one very small contribution, but I’ll leave that as a surprise.

All best wishes

Bill

The last few days have seen the annual Dorothy Dunnett Society AGM and Weekend in Edinburgh.

We had  new venue this time as the Royal Over Seas League, where we’ve been for quite a number of years, is being completely renovated. In any case the weekend has been getting higher and higher attendance levels recently and we were outgrowing the ROSL, so we’ve moved to John Macintyre Centre in the grounds of the Edinburgh University Pollock Halls of Residence. With a much larger lecture theatre with modern equipment and much better acoustics it looks like being our new home for the forseeable future.

For me the weekend started early with a lovely reunion with longtime Dunnett enthusiasts Olive and Kell De Pont, who were over from California for the weekend. We hadn’t seen each other for about 10 years so it was great to have dinner with them on Thursday evening – particularly as it was my birthday that day.

The official events started with the opening dinner at the Radison Blu hotel on the Friday evening, and it was good to find when walking down the High Stree to get there that the sun had made a welcome reappearance for our very late Spring (March had seen heavy snow and April has been pretty wet so far).

Lots of old friends to greet and the chatter went on till late.

Saturday saw us at the John Macintyre Centre which is close to Arthur’s Seat and Holyrood Park and the combination of the yellow broom bushes and the first blossom on the trees gave us fine views once the early rain cleared.

Return of an old Friend

The first speaker allowed us to welcome a dear friend back into the fold. Dr Henk Beentje from Kew Gardens is a renowned botanist and had given a wonderful talk at the Edinburgh Gathering of 2000. We were delighted to see him return with an updated version of that talk on The Flora and Fauna of Lymondshire. There are a great many obscure and unexpected botanical and animal reference in the Lymond Chronicles and Henk has spent countless hours researching them. Complete with deeply researched and often contemporary illustrations his talk combined expert knowledge and lots of fun and it was delightful to hear him again, even if he did cast some doubt on whether you can really attach a soldier’s helmet to a sheep’s head with twine!

Friends and Romans

After coffee we had another rare treat. Author Lindsey Davis, known and loved all over the world for her Falco series of detective novels based in Roman times, and a friend and admirer of Dorothy, gave us a talk entitled “We Need to Talk About Influences” in which she recalled her early reading of Lymond and how she was inspired by Dorothy’s skills, as well as being taught by another of our old friends – Pauline Brace. She went on to tell us how she became an author and what issues are faced in the process of creating a series of very popular books and the pressures from fans and publishers. She later gave us some thoughts on her new series featuring Falco’s daughter Flavia Alba and answered questions on how she goes about writing. The whole session was conducted with the lovely wry humour for which she is well-known and went down very well indeed.

Book and TV News

After lunch we heard the latest news on the reissues of the books in the UK and also in the US. As we know the new editions of the Chronicles and King Hereafter have already been published, and we expect the House of Niccolo to appear in the Autumn. There is also a possibility that both The Lymond Poetry and the Johnson Johnson series will also reappear at some point in the future. The audiobooks, which are currently unavailable in their previous form, are being re-recorded and will be handled directly by Penguin this time.

The news on the proposed TV series is less certain but there has been positive discussion on the first screenplay and a revised one will be written in the next few weeks and resubmitted. If they go ahead then it’s likely that Game of Kings will be split into around 6 episodes and US money would ensure that the productions would be lavish and have the greatest chance of maintaining the sort of high production values that we all hope for.

Walking while sitting still

The final event before the AGM was a talk by Nicky Cannon on an imaginary stroll down the Royal Mile. Nicky is an expert on early Edinburgh and is the author of the Society’s Edinburgh: The Dorothy Dunnett Guide and her excellent talk would be a fine insight into Edinburgh geography and history for members who are not as familiar with it as those of us who live here. Indeed one piece of information which she had picked up recently was news to me but ties in very nicely to a story I’d heard from my father about tunnels under the High Street.

Since my days on the committee are long past, and ex-chairmen should not be ghosts at the decisions I left before the AGM and returned home to freshen up for the evening’s gala dinner at the Caledonian Hotel. I should however mention that Betty Moxon was retiring as Chairman this after an excellent period in post. Betty has been a superb Chairman and ambassador for the Society and we all wish her well.

Gala Dinner

The Castle Suite of the Caley is a fine setting for the dinner and a good time was had by everyone. The four speakers who gave us readings from Dorothy’s work to round off the evening all did an excellent job of bringing their chosen passages to life; I particularly enjoyed Stephen Hart’s accent for Marie de Guise in the final scenes from Game of Kings.

Today the delegates were visiting the Signet Library which I’m sure will have been a fascinating trip. I decided not to go – partly as I often do to make sure that no-one from overseas would lose out on a place to a local who can visit any time, and partly because my last memory of being there was for the reception following Dorothy’s funeral, and even after all these years I still didn’t feel I wanted to go back. I believe that some of our members were then going on to visit the historic Greyfriars Churchyard and if so they had a lovely sunny day for it. Maybe Spring is really here at last!

Safe journey home to all our visitors and we hope to see you all again in the future.