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 \u2013 a short speech and toast.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Since it\u2019s now been delivered \u2013 superbly I\u2019m told \u2013 by the lovely Julia Hart who had asked me to write it, I can now give everyone else who wasn\u2019t able to attend a chance to read it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
* * * <\/p>\n\n\n\n
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\u2019s one of Dorothy\u2019s abiding gifts that the worldwide Dunnett readers\u2019 family has not only survived her passing but has prospered and grown.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When you\u2019ve written a website over 27 years about someone who you adored, both as a writer and a human being.
When you\u2019ve written endless blog posts and emails and Tweets\u2026
What more is there to say?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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\u2019ve all stepped repeatedly into those worlds and marvelled at how real they are and how intensely close we feel to the characters within them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
You could talk \u2013 again \u2013 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
You could perhaps recount stories of times spent in her company \u2013 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<\/em>. 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<\/em> <\/strong>of delight she recognised one of them immediately \u2013 \u201cMichael!\u201d \u2013 and turned to the rest of us saying \u201cI\u2019m sure you all know Michael Shea.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Well of course, who among us doesn\u2019t know the ex-diplomat and former Queen\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But then the other man spoke, \u201cYou probably won\u2019t remember me, but I\u2019m 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.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Cue dropped jaws all around the table!! (and of course she remembered him.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n And it\u2019s 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<\/em> to sign some books for dispatch overseas, and which made me want to read her books, and is how I want to remember her \u2013 it was how much FUN she was!<\/p>\n\n\n\n Readers know very well how some passages can have you laughing out loud. From the smoking trotters of Mungo\u2019s 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\u2019s anguished appeal to Lymond she was never afraid to poke a little fun at herself if it helped the point along.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If you were in a small group or lucky enough to be in private conversation, it wasn\u2019t 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That is my overriding memory of her \u2013 the twinkle in the eye and the laughter in the voice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So to add to everything else I\u2019ve written about her let me add this. If I can purloin and adapt a famous line from one James T Kirk \u2013<\/p>\n\n\n\n Of all the souls I have met in my travels, hers was the most\u2026. humorous.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n (Please stand for the toast)<\/p>\n\n\n\n Over the years Charles has proposed numerous toasts at our dinners: to the Queen and to Absent Friends.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I give you this one:<\/p>\n\n\n\n To the Queen of historical fiction, she may be absent but her story-telling, her charm, and her humour will never be forgotten \u2013 Dorothy!<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n * * * <\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Having been unable to travel to Edinburgh for the Centenary Gathering, I was able to make one small contribution to the Gala Dinner …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-606","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dds"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dorothydunnett.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/606","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dorothydunnett.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dorothydunnett.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dorothydunnett.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dorothydunnett.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=606"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.dorothydunnett.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/606\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":609,"href":"https:\/\/www.dorothydunnett.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/606\/revisions\/609"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dorothydunnett.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=606"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dorothydunnett.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=606"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dorothydunnett.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=606"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
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