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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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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

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I was recently asked to write a piece on Dorothy for Women’s History Scotland in the run up to her centenary year – a task which I was delighted to undertake. As most of you reading this know, I can write forever about her, and often have!

It has now been published and you can read it at http://womenshistoryscotland.org/2022/12/17/dorothy-dunnett-obe-scottish-renaissance-woman/

My thanks to the tireless and ever-patient Julia Hart for makng the introduction, and to Dr Rebecca Mason for liaising with us both about the content of the article.

If you happen to be new to this site and would like to read more about Dorothy’s life then please take a look at the talk I gave about her at the Carnegie Library in Dunfermline some years ago as part of the Fife Local Heroes event.

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A little festive musical whimsy for you all.

A couple of days ago I received my copy of the Dorothy Dunnett Society’s Whispering Gallery Magazine – yet another superb edition under Suzanne McNeil’s editorship.

Very worthy of mention is an excellent article in it entitled Bektashi Ritual, Marthe and Lymond by Elizabeth Orr, which fills in some vital background information about Bektashi philosophy and spiritualism and connects to both the burning bed scene when Sybilla brings Lymond back from edge of death, and the later scene between Lymond and Marth where he is forced to reject her appeal for further contact. As any of you who have read my talk on Marthe, and the subsequent discussion here, will know, there is much disagreement about what she is actually requesting of him. I’m now more than ever convinced that it was his mentorship and tuition she hoped for rather than any intimate or sexual relationship.

I was thinking about that and pondering how I could frame a new article updating that talk with this new layer of information – without it feeling like I was simply lifting Elizabeth’s work wholesale. My thoughts inevitably drifted through scenes from Checkmate. Then I came across the Correspondance section of WG where the theme this time was music and how readers associated different pieces with passages from the books. These two facets started to intertwine.

Musical associations

Now music has been a large part of my life – as some of you may know I was a sound engineer for some years working with bands of various genres and with theatre. But curiously I seldom hear music in my head as I read – unless there is music in the scene and even then it’s quite difficult because with Lymond particularly his playing is described in a modern manner with skills that were beyond the capabilities of the instruments or the musical theory of the time, so I find I’m torn between the likely reality and the described virtuosity. Nor do I usually listen to music while reading – not Dunnett anyway. I become so engrossed in her words that the music drops into the background and I suddenly find the track selection or the CD is over with no real recollection of hearing it.

For that reason I wouldn’t associate any of my favourites in the classical repertoire with Dorothy’s work – Beethoven, Neilsen, Rachmaninov, Mendelssohn, they all deserve to be listened to with complete concentration. But I have wide musical tastes – the only genre I really can’t get on with is “good ‘ol country music”; so naturally the fates sent me a girlfriend who plays it all the time!

So, I was musing on this and wondering if anything more modern from rock or folk or soul or blues could be connected in a way that made sense to me. Mentally running through some of the bands, singers, and songs that I’ve enjoyed over the years it struck me – just as the existence of certain names like Scott had inspired my little Star Trek crossover fanfic – and the name Crawford appeared in my head.

But not Francis. Randy Crawford, she of the magnificent voice, sometimes soul sometimes jazz, and the perfectly phrased melodies that stick in your head for days every time you hear them. The lyrics of one song in particular, having been thus triggered, clamoured for attention in my mind, soaring on her wonderful vocals. I looked them up to make sure I had them right:

When somebody reaches for your heart
Open up and let them through
‘Cause everybody
Needs someone around
Things can tumble down on you

You discover when you look around
You don’t have to be alone
Just one lover Is all you need to know
When you’re feeling all alone

What else could be more appropriate advice for Lymond? The man who lives the lonely, solitary life of a leader, scared of what happens to anyone who gets close to him.

and then the last verse:

If there is fire stirring in your heart
And you’re sure it’s strong and right
Keep it burning through the cold and dark
It can warm a lonely night

Surely that too has a match:

In rebellion he made his preparations; and in rebellion composed himself, as the Shamans do, to reduce the shivering husk of the body to one spark of life, conserving what it has; feeling cold and hunger and thirst no more than a plant does, laid in its sap on an icefield.

… Philippa.

I now doubt if I’ll ever be able to read that passage, as I do often, without Randy’s glorious accompaniment. And I’ve no regrets about that ….. it’s just that my eyes may leak a little more often than usual.

Musical imaginations

Of course my by-now somewhat fevered imagination didn’t finish there (though it probably should have!).

We’d need a band to back our Crawford family’s newly rediscovered vocalist. Surely Steve Lukather’s guitar solo would be handled by the master lutenist’s fingers of Francis himself. Philippa can handle the keyboards – with furious aplomb. We can find a place on congas for Archie. And then there’s the backing singers – I give you those masters of rhythm and soul – Blacklock, Hislop, and Blyth.

And if that’s not a vision to haunt you through the New Year I don’t know what is. 😉

If you don’t know this song yet then here’s a link to a live performance on Youtube
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1cu4zVBdOnE
The video quality isn’t the best but the sound is fine and the verve of the live performance more than makes up for it.
There are also plenty of other Randy Crawford tracks and videos. One Day I’ll Fly Away is another favourite.

Hope this raised a smile in another difficult festive season surrounded by Covid.

A Good New Year to you all, and stay safe.