Our house looked out over the end of the tarred road; beyond us there was only a farm road. It looked as if it had been Macadamized with bigger stones below fine grit when the Douglas estates had kept what was known as the Mountain Drive in repair but it had deteriorate over the years. Anyway, beyond the road was a fence, then a burn and then the open field, green when it was used for pasture, dark brown and full of good humus when plowed golden brown and full of the rattle of corn crakes when hay or the corn was waving. Beyond the field was a wood of deciduous trees. Just in front of the wood was the mine dump. It wasn't large nor did it intrude on the view, it was just there. The field sloped to the left at a shallow gradient but on the right, or top side, it increased quite suddenly and that's where the other children were sledging when it snowed and I met Tom Sawyer.

www.sullatoberdalton.com/books/best-in-show

During the winter months Broon and Andrew will be digging over a bit of the acre, Lindsay has ploughed over for them to start their market garden project. Frank Scott will be doing the same in the manse. Under pressure from the minister Frank might even have grown some flowers for Christmas in the greenhouse. Chrysanthemums would be the obvious choice but some spring bulbs might also work. There are several relationships that need to develop, or die. Ger and Calum Gillespie is obvious but Ger's friend Unis deserves to get involved. I have an episode I want to include (it is in the website under Short Stories as Tea and Disaster) and that needs a new teacher, or a teaching assistant, a young female, to be involved as well as a lad who is a builder. I can change the builder but the teaching assistant needs to stay. Broon and Maisie will be going round the other villages with the bramble jam. Maybe some of the young ones will help.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1535417188

Halloween

As the young ones make jam, they start to talk of Halloween nd if it should be a fancy dress. Broon thinks maybe he can get a kilt again but the youngsters are all talking about dressing as skeletons and ghosts and he realises this is something he wants to keep well away from. Ger has other ideas, however and arranges for him to go ass a pirate. Now there are two possibilities, Jinks can also be a pirate, ot Gillespie. Either way we want a sword fight with wooden swords on the dance floor. If it is Jinks it can be a bit of fun. If it is with Gillespie, naturally it will get serious and Miss Kirkwood will have to intervene.

www.sullatoberdalton.com/books/best-in-show

Best in Show started out as a short story which found Miss Kirkwood retired and struggling to make sure Cairndhu Flower Show's Best in Show award would not be won by someone who treated his wife rather like a slave. Not something uncommon in the fifties but by no means the norm. In most instances the wife ran the home and her rules were not only observed by her husband but reinforced if the bairns broke any of them. By the fifties, the old 'miner's rows' were jhad been mostly replaced with decent housing but some still remained. In one village the houses had been undermined and the walls had cracks you could put your hand through. The sense of community in those old rows was strong and few who needed help didn't get it.

www.sullatoberdalton.com/books/land-fit-heroes