A letter for Broon

Jinks, the postman, came with a letter from Cluggie, the village next door. They want to have a meeting about the flower show next year. I didn't want to get involved but you ken what Miss Kirkwood is like, as soon as she heard, and I expect Jinks would tell her, she tackled me in the street. 'John,' she told me. 'It's your duty to see that they do not take over our show in Cairndhu. They want to change the name of the village from Cuggie to Dalriada to reflect the quality of the houses there. They didn't have the nerve to say the quality of the people there, but that's what they meant.'
'Miss Kirkwood, I've got this new market garden business to see to and my work at the mine as well as makin' sure Gillespie doesna win the show. I don't have time to go gallavantin' and talkin' to folk like that Cluggie crowd.'
'John Brown, you will not side step your obligations. It was you who first talked to them about this idea of a joint show.'
'There's others better able to talk to them than me, Miss Kirkwood.'
'No there is not, John. You have been hiding from responsibility too long. If you wish I will get Farquhar to accompany you.'
I could see there was no point in arguing so I've written to them at Cluggie, after all, that's the official address and we'll see what happens next.

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Best in Show again

I've just come back from the village flower show. The storm of wind and rain in the week of the show had played havoc with any flowers growing out of doors so it wasn't just its usual standard but as in the fictional village of Cairndhu, it did its best. When I arrived, my friend explained he had looked round his garden and didn't think there was anything worth exhibiting but he'd look again in the morning before the show. As usual one of his entries got a first prize in its category. There were one or two miscarriages of justice but on the whole the judging was fair, nobody bribing the judges with fillet steaks and legs of lamb like Gillespie in Cairndhu. Over the years the number of cups and trophies has ballooned and it takes a good half hour to hand out all the silver-wear despite it being only a village affair. An innovation since I was a lad is the scarecrows; the favourite last year was Donald Trump but, being SNP country, this year Boris Johnson was the scary man. There were one or two amusing ones and I've added one to the images at the bottom. If the flowers were not quite up to standard, the vegetables were with some enormous leeks and huge cabbages and they are also displayed underneath. I can't shut down without mentioning the lunch which always drives me mad because I have to chose from so many delicious dishes.
In Best in Show, I tried to capture the atmosphere of a village and some of the characters I knew as a boy but a village is a living thing and all I could do was show what it was like in the fifties. I grew up among the mines, so I made Cairdhu a mining village but I'm sure there were and still are non-mining villages with similar characters.
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Jinks brings a letter

I've started to lay out the follow on from Best in Show in Cairndhu. The opening comes with Broon making his way home from work and meeting Jinks, the postman. Jinks gives Broon a letter which he says comes from Dalriada.
'Dalriady?' Broon exclaims, where the Hell's that?'
'No Dalriady, Dalriada, it was spelt oot for me. It seems they don't like their place bein' camed Cluggy.'
'It's been Cluggy since ever I kenned.'
Broon goes on and is met by a bee-keeper who wants to know if he can put his bees on the bramble bushes at Broon's new market garden.
Broon goes home, opend the letter and finds the Dalriada people want a meeting to discuss the next years flower show, which will have two classes, the local Cairndhu, and a special class to include the villages round about. He tells Maisie, his wife, that things are getting out of hand. Maisie naturally suggests a session with Miss Kirkwood to sort things out and Miss K insists Broon write back to Cluggy arranging a meeting.
Broon resists but Miss K was his teacher and he is forced to give in.
I tried several other openings but none of them got into the action like this one.So far, I've introduced five characters, which I feel is enough to be going on with. The next will be Broon's daughter Ger and the rivals for her hand, Calum Gillespie, the butcher's son and young Lindsay, the farmer's son.
I enjoy writing about these people. Their problems are not saving the universe but in the village context they are major.

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Prize winning Short story -

I've added O'Reilly's Daughter to the short stories. It won a prize in Writers Journal and I am rather pleased with it. I love characters who don't conform and Elizabeth is one of those. In a way I find strong female characters have more depth than male ones. The male ones seem to come out hard men or bullies and single minded. It probably has something to do with heroes from boyhood, they never had any doubts and we knew they would win. John Wayne at Iwo Jima, Zorro and Buffalo Bill. The funny men were just funny, Abbott and Costello, Laurel and Hardy, or the Three Stogies. We never had a funny hero, or a tough funny man. But the ladies could do stupid things and remain ladies, fall in love and realise their mistake.

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Cairndhu revisited

Broon's problems with Jinks in Cairndhu and Cluggie village, wishing to have it's name changed to Dalriada to give a proper impression of its community, are about to be reintroduced with the Spring weather. Miss Kirkwood is still there to help him with both. Maisie will keep him right as he tries to get his market garden venture off the ground but he is not entirely reconciled to his daughter's liaison
with Gillespie's son.

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Saving the Flower Show

Best in Show about a village flower show is now a paperback on Amazon. It is part nostalgia, part light reading and was written because I had so much enjoyment from making advisory visits with my father to flower show competitors as a youngster. My father had grown chrysanthemums for the Christmas market in the thirties, still grew but didn't show and was regarded as an expert. He took me round on his advisory visits when he encouraged competition by complements and fake news of other contestants. The book is set in Miss Kirkwood's village of Cairndhu where an international firm want to take over the show for advertising. Miss Kirkwood is against that and inspires her ex-pupil, John Brown, to resist. John Brown, or Broon as he is known in the village, has other priorities, mainly making sure his chrysanthemums beat George Gillespie's. Gillespie bribes judges with fillet steaks and legs of lamb, of course, so it is not plain sailing, especially when the weather misbehaves.

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I like dogs

I'm always amazed at how life turns up incidents that might find their way into a book about Cairndhu. I met someone who had been on holiday in Cornwall somewhere and the family were terrorised by a cockerel from the cottage next door. It reminded me of the occasion when a dog took a dislike to my bicycle. I tried all kinds of things from going down the other side of the road, to walking the bike  but that dog heard me no matter what. It even jumped over the fence when I tried full speed ahead. The same thing happened in Zambia when I had a motorbike, only that time it was a three legged dog and it jumped an eight foot high hedge and chased me down the street. I've searched for the pic I have of our last spaniel but he seems to have wandered off and I found this of my wife when we were at the launch of the South African Americas Cup yacht that I had forgotten about

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