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In Lost Argyll, Marian Pallister looks not only at the lost architectural heritage of Argyll but also at its lost industries, ferries, roads, bridges and archaeological monuments. Poltalloch House, for example, built in the 1840s as a monument to commerce and investment, lies ruinous, its owners having stripped it of its roof to avoid paying crippling rates; Campbeltown once bristled with distilleries until a cocktail of economic factors left it with only two whilst others have been subsumed into the modern townscape; little remains of even the jetties at Loch Awe and West Loch Tarbert, two of the busiest waterways in times past.This largely rural county has seen its fair share of forts, castles and mansions rise and fall. Some were destroyed in battle; others simply lost the financial battle to remain standing in the face of increasing taxation. Vernacular architecture has also disappeared: the houses of the fishermen and those in agricultural settlements crumbled in the wake of depredations, clearances, afforestation and government demands on landlords to house tenants in fitting conditions.In this fascinating yet poignant study, Marian Pallister introduces the many varied aspects of lost Argyll, showing how ancient and even relatively modern landscapes have changed inexorably, often with little thought for conservation or preservation.

Lost Dundee brings the second city of renaissance Scotland back to life showing, through previously undiscovered photographs and drawings, the life and the maritime quarter of this great port. It illustrates Dundee''s transformation into a major Georgian town at the centre of the flax trade between St Petersburg and the USA, with the development of major public buildings a result of the influx of wealth into the region. This book goes on to examine Dundee''s next transformation into the jute capital of the world. Its identity was transformed by the arrival of railways, which separated the town from the sea, and by the great mills and factories which engulfed it on both sides. The pressures upon medieval Dundee proved so great that in 1871 the process of replacing it with grandiose Victorian boulevards began.The final section illustrates the changes wrought in the twentieth century with the death of jute and its replacement as the city''s major employer by tertiary education.This book draws particularly upon the rich visual history sources of Charles Lawson''s drawings of old Dundee in the Central Library, the DC Thomson photographic collection, and the University of Dundee Archives. Essential to the understanding of this constantly re-generating city, this book contains 150 drawings, photographs and plans of Dundee.

In ''Hebridean Sharker'' Tex Geddes describes his exploits during the 1950s as a hunter of basking sharks in the waters of the Minch, between the Inner and Outer Hebrides. Using an adapted whaling harpoon, he and his crew stalked these huge fish often in perilous conditions, the liver of which is a valuable source of oil. Always a maverick, before World War Two Geddes had been a boxer and a rumrunner to Newfoundland. During the war he established a reputation as an expert knife-thrower and bayonet fencer and served in the Special Forces with Gavin Maxwell (author of Ring of Bright Water). He combined the hazardous pursuit of sharks with crewing the local lifeboat, ring-net fishing, lobstering, deer-stalking and salmon poaching.He went on to purchase the tiny island of Soay, where he lived with his wife Jeanne, continued to hunt sharks and became the Laird. His story is full of adventures and fantastic descriptions of a seagoing life in the islands. It has become a Hebridean classic.

In August 1956 a young shepherd, his wife, two-year-old daughter and ten-day-old son sat huddled in a small boat on Loch Monar in Ross-shire as a storm raged around them. They were bound for a tiny, remote cottage at the western end of the loch which was to be their home for the next four years.Isolation Shepherd is the moving story of those years. Set against the awesome splendour of some of Scotland''s most spectacular scenery, Iain R. Thomson''s classic book provides a sensitive, richly detailed account of the shepherd''s life through the seasons and recreates the events that shaped the family''s life in Glen Strathfarrar before the area was flooded as part of a huge hydro-electric project.

Alistair Moffat tells the extraordinary story of the Highlands in the most detailed book ever written about this remarkable part of Scotland. This is the story of the Highlands and Islands of Scotland as it has never been told before. From the formation of the landscape millions of years ago to the twenty-first century, it brings to life the events and the people who have shaped Highland history, from saints, sinners and outlaws to monarchs, clan chiefs and warriors.Highly readable and informative, it mines a wide range of sources including medieval manuscripts and sagas, poetry and popular culture. Picts, Romans, Irish missionaries, Vikings, Jacobites and the flood of emigrants who left to forge new lives abroad are just some of the important players in the drama. As he paints the bigger picture, Alistair Moffat also introduces many key aspects of Highland culture and explores the experience of ordinary Highlanders and Islanders over thousands of years.

This authoritative and handsomely illustrated book is aimed at the general reader who wants to know about the mysterious people who inhabited Scotland from the Bronze Age onwards. They created wonderful works of art in gold and silver and their brochs and hillforts are scattered over the Scottish landscape. Many modern-day Scots are descended from them.Using the results of modern archaeology and historical sources, Ian Armit answers the key questions about who the Celts were, wherethey came from, their relationship with other Celtic tribes throughout Europe, their customs and beliefs and their daily life. It is a fascinating story told with flair and clarity by one of Britain''s leading experts on the Celts.

What if you met the person you were destined to be with? And what if you never saw them again . . . ?There’s a new case for the Perfect Passion Company. After a serendipitous meeting in a supermarket, Clea meets the man of her dreams. But having left suddenly without his phone number, she can’t stop thinking about what might have been. Can apprentice matchmaker Katie, with the help of her enigmatic neighbour William, help orchestrate the forces of Kismet and choreograph another happy unio? nd now that the newly single William’s engagement is off, can Katie seize the moment to tell him how she feels before her chance has gone forever?

A cold case in the city of the dead.D.I. Lomond is a devoted family man. A good detective.When the body of a young woman involved in the worlds of art and adult streaming is found in the River Clyde, Lomond believes there may be echoes of a cold case from the start of his career: an unsolved death on a rural Scottish estate in the 1990s.Then, a Swedish feminist activist, who also has a connection to Lomond’s past, arrives in the city to protest against the failure of the police to find the killer.The victims all seem to be drawn from the world of art and business. Is the cold case the answer, or just part of the key, and could the killer be about to get dangerously close to Lomond and his family?

This book brings together the major writings of David Sellar (1941–2019) on the genealogies (pedigrees) claimed by some of the major clans of medieval Highland and Island Scotland, especially the descendants of their twelfth-century king Somerled.The claimed pedigrees in the medieval Gaelic 1467 manuscript and the Irish genealogies are critically analysed in relation to each other, and their historical authenticity tested against other evidence, including the Gaelic or Norse quality of their recorded names. Contemporary literary material is considered alongside later recorded traditions descending from the seanchaidh, whose work was to hand down to posterity the valorous actions, conquests, battles, skirmishes, marriages and relations of the chiefly ancestors by relating and singing them at births, baptisms, marriages, inaugurations, feasts and funerals. The family pedigrees offer crucial insights into the nature of medieval society, supporting and sometimes explaining a family’s socio-political position. As an exercise in propaganda, a pedigree was susceptible to fabrication and not to be trusted uncritically.David Sellar’s meticulous analysis reveals the social and political realities of medieval Celtic Scotland, making use of heraldic evidence as well as his legal expertise, in a fluent and reader-friendly style.

Winner of the Bloody Scotland Debut PrizeDeath is a lonely business . . . No one who meets Dr Jack Cuthbert forgets him. Tall, urbane, brilliant but damaged, this Scottish pathologist who works with Scotland Yard is the best the new DCI has seen. But Cuthbert is a man who lives with secrets, and he still battles demons brought back from the trenches.When not one but two corpses are discovered in a London park in 1929, Cuthbert must use every tool at his disposal to solve the mystery of their deaths. In the end, the horrifying truth is more shocking than even he could have imagined.

One of the best-known works of English literature, Frankenstein gave rise to the science-fiction and horror genres and has enthralled generations of readers since its publication in 1818.The book follows the story of Victor Frankenstein and his monster: the result of his desire to create life. But his botched experiment is so grotesque that the doctor immediately regrets what he has done and abandons the monster, leaving him to fend for himself. The creature finds and confronts his maker pleading for a companion – his human right to happiness. Fearing what this may lead to, Victor refuses, causing the monster to vow to ruin any happiness in Victor’s life.A tragedy and a cautionary tale about the pitfalls of ambition and creation, Mary Shelley’s masterpiece is more relevant now than ever.