Those of us who read Lymond are of course very familiar with Nicolas de Nicolay who rescued Francis from the Knights mortuary and was the real life source of information on the Geomalers. Some may not realise that this celebrated navigator is also associated with the earliest accurate map of Scotland. Now a copy of that map, known as the Nicolay Rutter, is to go under the hammer in the Edinburgh auctioneers Lyon and Turnbull where it’s expected to go for between £20,000 and £30,000.

The map, which is regarded as of prime importance in Scottish mapping history, was in fact drawn earlier by the Scot Alexander Lyndsay, and used by King James V to bring the Western Isles under closer control, but de Nicolay obtained a copy of the manuscript in 1546 via the English admiral Lord Dudley who had been Warden of the Scottish Marches and seems to have acquired it by subterfuge. Nicolay took it to France where it was used by the French King to plan a raid to avenge the death of Cardinal Beaton – the raid being carried out by Leon Strozzi.

The news is mentioned on the BBC website where there is also a video clip of a TV news report and further details are available on the Lyon and Turnbull site if anyone has some spare cash!

A couple of weeks ago we had a DDRA council meeting here in Edinburgh. The day before it Ann McMillan and I visited Dorothy’s old school – Gillespie’s High School – to visit the head teacher Alex Wallace, and to present the school library with a set of Dorothy’s books. We were warmly received and had some very fruitful discussions on ways in which the school and the DDRA can cooperate, a fuller report on which will appear in Whispering Gallery magazine.

Many readers will be aware that as well as Dorothy the school also nurtured the novelist Muriel Spark, who based her most famous book – The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie – on the school and one of its teachers. Mr Wallace is keen to encourage a love of literature in his students and is hoping to follow up the declaration of Edinburgh as the first International City of Literature by making Gillespie’s the first School of Literature. Hopefully we can collaborate to generate more interest in the subject and more awareness of both the school and Dorothy’s work.