Love Scotland podcast – Season 4

Transcript

Three speakers: male voiceover [MV]; Jackie Bird [JB]; Jo Riley [JR]

[MV]
Love Scotland, brought to you from the National Trust for Scotland; presented by Jackie Bird.

[Tune of ‘Deck the halls’ plays, with bells accompanying]

[JB]
Yes, it is time to deck the halls with boughs of holly. And while for most of us, that means retrieving a few boxes of dusty decorations from the attic, the festive season is a frenetic and a fascinating time for many Trust properties aiming for an authentic Christmas feel. Castle Fraser in Aberdeenshire is really going to town by showcasing decorating styles down the centuries, from the medieval period in the Great Hall through a Georgian Christmas dining room, to the festive legacy of Victoriana in the sitting room.

Now, this isn’t just showing off, but the results of a project by Dr Jo Riley from Castle Fraser who now knows that learning about traditional decorations isn’t just for Christmas. It takes months of solid research! Jo, welcome to the podcast.

[JR]
Hello, thank you so much for having me.

[JB]
Jo, your task was to provide a guide to properties about installing festive decorations with historical accuracy, but even you had no idea of the scope that the research would eventually have.

[JR]
No, once you start delving into it, there is so much that we do now that has so many historical connotations. And yeah, I look back at the leaflet now and I think, gosh, I could have included this, and this; there’s just so much there. So, it was quite a task actually knowing where to start and knowing where to stop.

[JB]
Well, firstly I think you do it a disservice by calling it a leaflet, because it’s a bit of a tome of a thing! And talking of starting, where did you start?

[JR]
I started looking back, because it was particular to Scotland, at the history of Christmas in Scotland and how that’s evolved, not realising myself that it had actually been banned for 400 years, which was quite a revelation. So, I started on just a timeline of Christmas.

[JB]
Did you start with the Pagan period? Because that’s about as far as my minimal historical knowledge would think that you might start.

[JR]
Yeah, I did. I went right back, and that opened up an awful lot of lines of research. There’s so much we do now that still relates to the Pagan festivals.

[JB]
What were those traditions?

[JR]
A lot of them revolved around the winter solstice, and the Pagans feeling that the sun was sickening. They celebrated the sun and then its re-strengthening, so it was all around the shortest day of the year. And they also had all the evergreens, because the evergreens at that time of year they saw as they would flourish despite the cold and despite the dark. So, they saw them as strong, as immortal. That evergreen association with Christmas that we have now goes right back to the Pagan times.

The fires, and later the Vikings came in with the Yule log. There’s a lot of celebrations around the sun and about strength and immortality, which then fed into a lot of the Christian celebrations.

[JB]
When you talk about the Pagans and the Vikings and how the traditions have stretched down the centuries and how we deck our halls with boughs of holly and the greenery, it’s absolutely logical, isn’t it? If you think the sun is waning and that Mother Nature needs a bit of help, then yes, you bring whatever greenery you have into the house.

[JR]
That’s right, yes. There was a lot of meaning and significance behind it all, which was brought in to bring luck and to bless the home and to make sure the home was prosperous for the next year. And things even like traditionally the foliage would have to be burnt before the Twelfth Night or else there would be bad luck on the house.

[JB]
And of course, it wasn’t even called Christmas. It was Yule, wasn’t it?

[JR]
It was Yule, yes. Well, originally it was the Winter Solstice and then the Vikings came over and it was called Yule, which came from the Viking word Jól, which meant feast – and obviously feasting also again went back to that Pagan time. People would feast on the shortest day, the Vikings would feast, and right the way through history Christmas has been associated with feasting and food.

[JB]
And that is one of the many traditions that we’ve certainly kept up! When did the Christian decorations make their presence felt?

[JR]
It came through right in the medieval years. There would be holly and ivy and evergreens brought into the homes, and a lot of them had significance in that they would be hung strategically. So, they would be hung to welcome people, like wreaths on the door was a welcome wreath. And a wreath would be a sign of immortality because it’s the never-ending circle. And so, you would welcome people through the door.

Mistletoe was often hung over the door to bring happiness into the home, which I thought was a lovely story. And then obviously, the evergreens were brought in. There were garlands placed where you would walk underneath them, with the idea that you would be blessed if you walked underneath them. And these positions had more importance then.

They had kissing balls. The medieval kissing balls would have originally had an effigy of Jesus in them.

[JB]
What is a kissing ball?

[JR]
A kissing ball was, in the medieval times, formed from two interlocking circles, which would be decorated with greens. So, two woven circles decorated with greenery, and they would have originally an effigy of Jesus in the middle. And walking underneath them, you would bring yourself luck and be blessed. And these then developed, and they became a more global feature with more foliage, and then mistletoe came in. Mistletoe was seen to bring prosperity and happiness. And that’s when the tradition of kissing under the mistletoe came about.
There’s lovely stories. In Regency time, if a single lady wasn’t kissed under the mistletoe, she would be thought to be single for the rest of the year, which was quite significant.

[JB]
Oh dear!

[JR]
And if you were kissed, you then took a berry from the mistletoe to prove that you’d been kissed under the mistletoe. So, these sort of things have developed over time, and then when the Puritans came in, kissing balls fell out of fashion because obviously Christmas was frowned upon. But then, they came back in the Victorian times, where they were much more elaborate and they included lots of herbs with significance, such as rosemary and herbs that related to fertility. And again, they were hung.

And that’s where actually installing these things in historic properties – because traditionally they would have been in places where you would have walked underneath them – that can pose problems because obviously, we can’t go hammering nails in castle walls.

[JB]
We’ll go on to that a little bit later because that’s another facet of your research that I had no idea about, but is absolutely crucial. But in the meantime, I’m finding just about everything you say really interesting because, for example, a wreath – we think a wreath, that’s a Christmas shape. But I had no idea that was all about the circle of life.

[JR]
Yes. It goes back to Greek and Roman times where wreaths were worn on the head. Different wreaths had connotations with different hierarchy, so the wreath has a very long history, but associated with everlasting life and a sign of immortality.

[JB]
Let’s talk about those years that Scotland effectively cancelled Christmas. That was the result of the Reformation, wasn’t it? So, we’re talking 1560 here.

[JR]
1560. Yes. And then the First Book of Discipline was drawn up and lots of saints’ days were banned. Again, it goes back to the Pagan times and this notion of idealism and admit any sort of Pagan festivities, and Christmas was one of those saints’ days that was banned.

[JB]
We often bandy about the word Reformation, but give us a quick historical recap.

[JR]
Well, it was when the Scottish Church veered away from Catholicism, and you had the Presbyterian church and the Church of Scotland came in. They didn’t want to be seen to have these Catholic festivities that Christmas was a big part of. And so they believed very much in a very pure … they thought Christmas should be all about fasting and humiliation, and they didn’t want any of these festivities that harked back to Pagan rituals.

[JB]
Oh, there’s no fun in that. You can even see the portents of Mary, Queen of Scots’ troubled reign through, I suppose, the microcosm of Christmas – because when she arrived in Protestant Scotland, she was determined to keep her Catholic Christmas traditions alive.

[JR]
That’s right. Yes, she came over from France, where obviously there was a lot of Catholic traditions. When I visited Holyrood Castle, a lovely guide there was telling me she spent many of her Christmases at Holyrood, bringing over musicians from France to play at Christmas. And they refused to play for her because at that time there was a fear not only of the Church but of eternal retribution – and that fear was greater than the queen. They wouldn’t play and this is where it’s remembering that at that time the Church was very much about heaven and hell, and there was that fear. That’s why I think there’s so much placement on the symbolism of plants and the meaning of plants, because superstition was woven in with religious belief.

[JB]
But even though it was banned in, I think, somewhere about 1640, parliament in Scotland, they went one better and rather than just getting cross about at all, they actually cancelled it in law. Were there festive celebrations going on underground?

[JR]
There were, yes, very much, but there was a shift of moving the festivities away to Hogmanay, which was not a religious day. And so, effectively, the Church could do nothing about it, which is why in Scotland Hogmanay has become so much more important, for years, than Christmas.

It just sort of shunted along a bit, but there was very much underground festivities going on. Christmas was all about family and feasting, and that still happened, but a bit later on, where Hogmanay came in.

[JB]
And what people may not even know is that Christmas Day itself wasn’t even a holiday in Scotland until, wait for it, 1958.

[JR]
No, and that shocked me. I’ve come across that in other research and it’s like, wow, there were children going to school on Christmas Day – and yeah, it was just a normal day until 1958, which is so recent.

[JB]
Crikey, but as you say, that then explains why Scotland is synonymous the world over with Hogmanay.

[JR]
Yeah, that’s it. And then, it was just one day. It wasn’t until 1974 that Boxing Day became a holiday. So, it was very much just carry on as normal, which seems quite depressing!

[JB]
Yes, it does! Let’s go back and talk about the relevance of the early decorative foliage, because I think that’s even more important these days as we’re moving away from plastic. We’re returning to nature and that sustainability. And what about this Yule log, because that played a central part in the celebrations?

[JR]
That was a Viking thing that came over with the Jól, but the idea was that a piece of oak would be cut. Oak was seen to be a very strong significance of strength and longevity. And also, in Pagan times, the oak was the keeper of the light months, and holly the keeper of the dark months. So again, it had that significance with the days lightening.

The oak would be cut and burnt over the 12 days. And the idea is that you would burn the Yule log for the 12 days of Christmas, and it was bad luck if it went out during those 12 days. And then at the end, a piece of the oak would hopefully be kept to light the fire the next year.

[JB]
Something I wasn’t too pleased though, about the Yule log, which sounds all very jolly until you get to the bit about the hag of winter.

[JR]
That’s right. Yes. Carved onto the Yule log, and again that’s to ward off bad spirits and witches and things.

[JB]
An old lady, didn’t they. Why do women always get it in the neck for these things?

[JR]
That’s it! Dearie me. They did, and yes it would be believed that the hag of winter was believed to be the cause of the long winter nights and the bitter cold. So, she would be carved onto this log and sort of destroyed in the fire.

[JB]
Hmm. Well, that’s a tradition which has thankfully gone. I mentioned the various historical periods in the introduction and we’re going to talk through a few of them. So, let’s take a break just now Jo, and we’ll be back with more Christmas cheer and even how to get the beasties out of your Yule log. We’ll be back in a moment.

[JR]
Yes, thank you, Jackie.

[Bells jingle in the background]

[MV]
Treat someone special to a year of new experiences with a National Trust for Scotland gift membership. Gift them great days out and do your best to help protect our amazing places. Gift a year of membership at nts.org.uk/gift

[JB]
Welcome back to the Love Scotland Christmas podcast, where I’m talking to Jo Riley from Castle Fraser about her research into the traditions of Christmas. Jo, even though Christmas as a holiday had been banned and religious laws were eventually rescinded, the powers that be, they must have chilled a bit because certainly the rich and the aristocracy – am I correct in thinking that they continued to dress their homes?

[JR]
They did, yes. Certainly, big houses dressed their homes for Christmas with the Christmas tree that came in later in the 1800s, and the evergreens were still important; they came in. In Georgian times, there was a whole month of festivities from St Nicholas’s Day on 6 December, right the way through to the Epiphany, the twelfth day of Christmas. So, that was a whole month.

[JB]
A month! What’s interesting is that how, over the centuries, traditions fall in and fall out of favour, as do decorations. From your research, how did the Georgians differ from the Victorians?

[JR]
Well, they had a month; and of course, during the Victorian era you had the Industrial Revolution and people started working in factories. So, from that point of view, the holiday period was shortened because people couldn’t spend a month celebrating. It was compressed down. The Georgian period was more pared back. So again, had more focus on family and food and festivities.

I think the big difference with the Victorian times was the fact that you have this Industrial Revolution that made mass production, so that everything was available more to the masses. In the Georgian times, you had very different Christmas practices in the big grand houses than you did with the poor. A lot of the traditions filtered down to more of the majority in the Victorian times, because it was more affordable to do so. And you also had things like – something I thought was quite interesting – obviously the introduction of the railways, which allowed people to travel and to get together. The railways actually had cheaper tickets over Christmas to allow families to come together.

[JB]
So, it really became a family holiday then. Something that I didn’t know … I always thought that the Christmas tree was introduced by Prince Albert, Queen Victoria’s husband. But not the case?

[JR]
No, Queen Charlotte came over in the late 18th century and brought with her her traditions from Germany. And one of them being that in the rooms of the houses, there would be yew branches, which would be decorated in the significant rooms. And then in 1800, she had a children’s party for all the children of notable families. And she went one better than the branch, and she brought a whole yew tree into the house, which was decorated with gifts for the children – and that really was the first Christmas tree in the home.

Christmas trees had been decorated outside but not inside, and that really was the first Christmas tree. It stayed really with the aristocracy; it didn’t go down to the masses. But it came from Queen Charlotte, and it originally was a yew tree rather than the pine we know today.

[JB]
So what effect did Albert have because he seems to have sort of patented Christmas almost!

[JR]
He did. In 1848, Victoria and Albert were depicted in The Illustrated London News around their Christmas tree with their children, and this popular image inspired the masses to then bring Christmas trees into their own homes. Sort of like, ‘oh well, that’s what … we’ll have a Christmas tree too’. And again, it was viable because of the industrial mass production and it became popular with the masses.

[JB]
So, the Hello magazine of the day perhaps popularised: ‘here are what Victoria and Albert are doing this Christmas at home. You too can have one on a slightly smaller scale!’
What I didn’t know was that electric fairy lights were used as early as 1882.

[JR]
Yes, electric fairy lights were there in 1882. And they were obviously a safer alternative to the earlier candles that would have been lit on the trees.

[JB]
What about the introduction of tinsel? When did that happen?

[JR]
That surprised me because I thought of tinsel as quite a modern phenomenon, but no, tinsel was around very early on. Originally it was made of silver. It was for the obviously very wealthy, and it was very fine strands of silver on the trees. But then the candlelight obviously turned the silver black. Then they started producing tinsel with lead and tin to try and resolve this, but then there was obviously the risk of lead poisoning, but it wasn’t until 1960 that it was then banned to produce the tinsel out of lead.

[JB]
Good grief! 1960!

[JR]
And then you’ve got now the sparkly tinsel we have today. It was said originally that tinsel was to represent the sparkly skies over the Nativity, but I think it was also – just like we love today – sparkly things at Christmas.

[JB]
Yes! I love how, because obviously your research is to inform lots of Trust properties, I suppose you have to be very careful when you’re dressing a property because if someone wants to put tinsel up in the drawing room and your drawing room is pre-1846, then you can’t have it because it’s not authentic.

[JR]
No, that’s it. And that’s what this book that’s gone out to the properties hopefully will help with. It’s actually trying to get the right dates for the right things that would have been in the rooms.

[JB]
And there’s almost an entire podcast to be done on festive food. Sadly, we can’t do that but there’s one great fact that caught my eye. Tell us about the origins of mince pies.

[JR]
Mince pies have a really interesting religious significance, which I hadn’t realised. They traditionally contain 13 ingredients, which represented Jesus and the Twelve Apostles. And in that there was cloves and cinnamon and nutmeg, which was meant to represent the three gifts given by the three wise men, and also shreds of mutton to represent the shepherds.

So, they had this very religious context. And of course, during the Reformation years, they were banned. They were once bigger pies and they were actually shaped as a rectangle to represent Jesus in the crib, but during the Reformation, when they were banned, they started making mince pies in small sizes so that they could be hidden in pockets, which is why we have the small mince pies today.

It was in the Victorian times when the sweet filling came in and the meat was lost. So again, that was a Victorian change in the recipe.

[JB]
During the centuries post-Reformation, when the authorities were really clamping down on what they saw as the Catholicism of Christmas, there was a bit, as we said, of Yuletide underground insurgency going on and some of it was musical?

[JR]
Yes. Delving into some of the carols … Obviously, during that time, you couldn’t be seen to be practising Catholicism. And so one interesting carol was the ‘Twelve Days of Christmas’, which was originally sung as a memory game and if you made a mistake, you had to do a forfeit. But also in the ‘Twelve Days of Christmas’, each verse has a Catholic meaning behind it. It was used to teach the teachings of Catholicism. For example, the six geese a-laying were the six eggs represented the six days of creation, and the partridge represented Jesus Christ because the partridge is a bird that will die to protect its young. There were all these Catholic teachings in the song, and it was sung as well as to celebrate Christmas, to teach Catholicism but not outwardly showing that.

[JB]
There’s also a suggestion that some Christmas carols could be Jacobite in origin?

[JR]
There was and that was really interesting. ‘O Come All Ye Faithful’, which is one of the really popular carols of today, was actually written in the 18th century by John Francis Wade. And interestingly Bonnie Prince Charlie was born on 20 December. So, ‘O Come, All Ye Faithful’ is actually a rousing song to invigorate the Jacobites to come and invade England. Often the carol was illustrated with Jacobite symbolism of the white rose.

When you have lines like ‘come and behold him’, it’s like ‘come Catholics, come to England’ and ‘born the king of angels’ was actually ‘born the king of England’. It was propaganda for the Jacobites.

[JB]
And is that an uncontested view then, that’s actually what it was?

[JR]
Yeah, John Francis Wade was a known Jacobite supporter.

[JB]
That’s really fascinating. Now, another aspect of your research that I hadn’t considered at all wasn’t just about the authenticity of the decorations, but how to put them into property safely. You touched on this – problems with the types of foliage and the residue they can leave; problems with any sort of glitter on specialist furniture. There is so much to think about.

[JR]
There is. We have very strict guidelines on bringing foliage into properties, so it all has to be prepared and thought about quite a long time in advance. And it has to be cut, sprayed, restrictions on where you can put it. Obviously, we have to protect collections. So, for example, we couldn’t put holly on top of a painting because obviously the debris might go between the canvas and the frame. You have to protect surfaces because a lot of the foliage might have acids and things in them.

[JB]
And what about the Yule log itself? That has to be frozen?

[JR]
This year in Castle Fraser we have a big Yule log in the fire. In order to do that, it was either soaking it in Cuprinol, which is not very environmentally friendly and not very nice, or freezing it because you have to make sure all the pests are out of it and also the eggs of the pests. So actually, by freezing it, you then kill these pests. We had to organise putting it in a freezer for a couple of months to actually kill all the pests that were in it before it could be brought into the castle.

[JB]
On a nicer note, at Castle Fraser, for example, the estate provides the foliage. I suppose the horticulture goes full circle: it comes from the garden, and then it goes to the house.

[JR]
It does. The experience we’ve had this year, it’s been so lovely working with the gardeners. Ruth, the head gardener, has done so much there and it’s been lovely. She was saying, it’s lovely, you’ve grown the plants from seeds, they flowered over the summer and visitors have enjoyed them. You’ve then cut them, and then they’re getting a second life by being brought into the castle. So, it’s been a lovely whole process.

[JB]
But the horrifying thing is, Jo, you have to take it all down before Christmas!

[JR]
Yes, we do because after the last visitors have been, the property is then closed over the Christmas period, and we can’t have foliage in the castle that’s going to degenerate and attract bugs. Everything has to be cleaned out and removed before Christmas time. That’s going to be a heartbreaking part of this process.

[JB]
Ah! So, the message there is to get yourself to Castle Fraser and our other properties that are all in their Christmas finest as soon as you can.

[JR]
You can do that, and take ideas because that’s been the lovely thing – is that the whole experience has been so creative, but a lot of it is what we can do in our own homes.

[JB]
Well, Jo, thank you for sharing your research into so many aspects of Christmas with us. Do head to Castle Fraser as soon as you can, to have a look at the team’s work; and Jo, I hope you have a lovely Christmas.

[JR]
Thank you so much. Thank you.

[JB]
Well, as you can imagine, there are lots of things going on at Trust properties this month. I’m afraid many are booked up, so please check before you go. But a quick mention though for the Christmas season at Gladstone’s Land in Edinburgh, where Santa himself will be spreading the Christmas cheer. For tickets and times, head to that website.

You can also visit Santa’s Mail Trail at Robert Burns Birthplace Museum right up until Christmas Eve. And if you’re stuck for a Christmas gift idea, how about a gift membership to the National Trust for Scotland: history, heritage and conservation. And of course great scones too! And looking ahead, a reminder that more Trust places are open this winter than ever – check online for opening hours across the holidays. But that’s all from this edition of Love Scotland and for this series. We’ll return in 2023; until then, happy Christmas and a good New Year to you all.

[‘Deck the halls’ plays in the background]

[MV]
Love Scotland is brought to you by Think and Demus Productions on behalf of the National Trust for Scotland; presented by Jackie Bird. For show notes and more information, go to nts.org.uk and don’t forget to like, subscribe, review and share.

Transcript

Transcript for Scotland’s coasts with Cal Major

Three voices: male voiceover [MV]; Jackie Bird [JB]; Cal Major [CM]

[MV]
This is Love Scotland with Jackie Bird.

[JB]
Hello and welcome to Love Scotland. My guest today is an ocean adventurer and campaigner. Cal Major worked as a vet but has always loved being in and around the sea. So, in recent years she has taken to the waters around Britain on her stand-up paddleboard to campaign for marine conservation. Now, I am reluctant to use that over-worked word ‘passionate’, but for Cal I’ll make an exception. She’s passionate about reconnecting people with the sea and the coasts. Last year, she paddled 800 miles around Scotland’s wild coastline to raise awareness of our marine environment and the protection it needs.

You probably know that the National Trust for Scotland looks after a number of coastal places on the mainland and around the islands of the Hebrides, and it’s also working to help shape Scotland’s marine and coastal policy. So, we’re all rather biased in favour of marine conservation, but Cal takes it to another level. Hello to you, Cal!

[CM]
Hello! Thank you for having me here today.

[JB]
Well, thank you for staying on dry land long enough for this podcast! Tell us about your love of the sea, and how does a vet become an ocean adventurer and campaigner?

[CM]
Ooh, that’s a good way of putting it, actually. I still feel like I’m a vet even though I’m not in clinical practice at the minute. I think it’s massively informed who I am, how I approach things, how I approach challenges, and my passion for animals. But I’ve always had a really strong love for the sea. I learnt to scuba dive on Australia’s Great Barrier Reef when I was 18 years old, and it was as if an entire new world had been opened up to me. This amazing underwater world full of different species and colours, and everything was a different pace – it was just so wonderful.

That sparked me to understand the seas a little bit more, and then I just spent heaps and heaps of time in and around the sea when I was training as a vet and when I was working as a vet in the first few years. I spent a lot of time surfing and paddleboarding and swimming – anything I could that got me in or around the sea. It was a huge part of my life. I didn’t really have the words to explain what it meant to me at that point in time, but I just knew that it was somewhere I really, really loved to be, that helped me live the most healthy and happy life I could. When I started to learn more and more, and see with my own eyes more, how human activity was damaging our seas, particularly things like plastic pollution which obviously is really visible and really tangible – that started my journey into becoming an advocate for our seas and to using my voice, both as a vet and as an individual and then an adventurer, to stand up for the protection of our seas.

[JB]
Why paddleboarding? I’ve seen many of the films that you’ve made of your travels, and they are beautiful and they are terrifying! You’re out there, miles from the coast, effectively on – how can I describe it? – a wobbly ironing board with a stick. Now, there must be easier ways!

[CM]
Yeah! I think there are easier ways! Kayaking, for one, is a much easier way. I discovered paddleboarding through some people that I lived with down in the South West, when I moved to the South West for a couple of years. It became this incredible new way for me to explore further afield. I found that I could get to little coves I couldn’t get to otherwise and compared to kayaking, which I’d never really done before, I didn’t really have that as another option to be honest! But, you’re basically walking on water; it’s the closest thing that we humans have to walking on water. The elevation that it gives you, the vantage point, the things that you can see from the paddleboard into the water is phenomenal. It’s a really freeing way of experiencing the ocean. And because it’s very quiet, you can get to all these little places that you can’t really get to, and see wildlife without disturbing it, which is so phenomenal.

[JB]
You managed to cover about 20–30 miles a day. I’m intrigued about the set-up. What sort of back-up did you have? Were you part of a huge team?

[CM]
Hmmm, it differed with all my different adventures I’ve had over the last few years. Specifically when I was paddling around Scotland, because we were filming that expedition, my boyfriend who is a filmmaker, who is responsible for all those beautiful films that you have seen …

[JB]
Oh, they are! I would advise anyone to really head to your website because they’re beautifully shot and they’re very moving.

[CM]
Thank you. He’s incredibly talented. So, he spent quite a bit of time on the water with me in a kayak for that trip. Previous expeditions, so when I paddled around the Isle of Skye, I had nobody on the island; I was completely alone. I think that was one of my most moving experiences actually, and one of the most formative, because I was completely alone, I had to look after myself on the water and off the water. Each expedition I’ve done has been different in that regard, as to what kind of land support I’ve had. When I was going round Scotland, there was a period of time when my mum and dad came up in their camper van and would meet us every few days and re-fuel us!

[JB]
Oh, how lovely!

[CM]
It was just glorious. James could charge his kit in their van, and they’d be there literally on the beach with food for us, and that kind of thing! There’s a whole range of everything, from being completely alone with nothing but a tent and the food I had in my bags, to having people meet me along the way at various strategic locations with a van or with food or with resupplies. I’m really, really careful about safety because at any point in time the weather can change and I could get into trouble, so I’ve always got lots of methods of communication. I always wear a life vest. I’ve always told the Coastguard where I’m going to be and when I should be getting back, and they’ve got a link to a tracker. There’s lots of people who can see where I am at any point in time.

[JB]
I think that’s very important. I think that ‘don’t try this at home’ message is something we possibly should include, because your adventures do look so beautiful and they’re so worthwhile.
Now, we know how beneficial green spaces are to our moods and to our general health, but there’s also something that I hadn’t heard of called ‘blue health’. That is the belief that being in and around water is good for us. I obviously knew that was the case, I’d felt it personally, but I’d never heard it called blue health. You’ve got experience of that.

[CM]
Yeah, and there’s so much evidence and research coming out now, and has been over the last few years – clinical trials that have proven that being around water is beneficial for us. I think it goes back to something quite evolutionary, our human need to be around water both as a source of drinking water and the way it makes us feel. There must be something so deeply ingrained within our humanity that makes us feel like that. And for me personally, it’s been a place of real solace and real joy and many different things to me over the years. As I mentioned before, when I was first working as a vet, I would surf every weekend and get in the water as often as I could because it was fun. I didn’t realise at that point in time that that equated to my mental health; I didn’t ever really have those words in my vocabulary. It was more about, well, it feels really good to be here and it keeps me sane, and it allows me to do my job and I really love being here; it’s really good fun.

Over the years, I’ve had my own journeys with mental illness. I’ve had depression and anxiety over the years triggered by various things, and the ocean has always been there for me in different ways when I’ve needed it at different times for different things. There was a period of time when I felt like I couldn’t really surf for a while, but I went cold water swimming and that was so beneficial for my mental health, making me feel like a human again, like myself again. And now I just desperately need to be by the sea to make me feel like the person I am. I think once you have that connection, and once you can really vocalise and understand what that means to you, that’s the basis of wanting to look after it. Once you know categorically that the water or the sea – or for some people the mountains – is where you feel most at home and most like the person that you feel you are, you can’t help but want to stand up for them and to look after them.

[JB]
Yes, I wrote this down from one of your presentations. You say, and I think that sums up what you just said: ‘people will protect what they love, but they can only love what they know’.

[CM]
Yeah. That was a lesson I learned a few years ago. I’d been talking to people about plastic pollution for quite a few years and it suddenly dawned on me that actually to care about the impacts of plastic pollution on our seas and on our wildlife in our rivers, then you have to understand why the rivers or the seas or the wildlife are important. And really, that means why they’re important to us. But without that personal connection to it, which comes from spending time there and understanding it, then we’re not going to want to look after places. That really changed the way I approach environmental matters and campaigns, and what have you. It became that I was no longer trying to lecture people about plastic; it was more about how can we get people to care more. How can we reach outside of our echo chambers and introduce more people to this amazing natural world that we live in, and have more caring citizens that are going to stand up for it.

[JB]
So clearly, you’re hoping that your adventures connect people with nature and, as I said in the introduction, in 2021 you paddleboarded around the coast of Scotland. That’s an expedition you’ve described as your most extreme and challenging yet, but did you under-estimate how difficult it was going to be?

[CM]
I think I entered that expedition with a very healthy respect for the Scottish coastline. I’ve spent a lot of time paddling in Scotland up until that time – paddling around the Isle of Skye, really starting to understand the wildness of the coastline. Having said that, I lost sleep every night until I got to Cape Wrath. Cape Wrath was the most horrendous paddle I’ve ever had in my life. It was so terrifying. That whole north coast, the roof of Scotland, where the tides are crazy but also you’ve got massive mountains that the wind funnels down off; huge lochs that you have to paddle across; and enormous wildlife. All sorts of different factors that made that section particularly a really, really challenging part of the expedition. I think I knew that that was going to be challenging. I think having had all the experience I’d had before, I’d really built up to this challenge. I’d wanted to paddle around Scotland for years, but I built up to it. But I was still pushed to my absolute limit on the north coast of Scotland!

[JB]
You talked about enormous wildlife, and you filmed a lot of your travels. We have a clip now from what I think is one of the scariest moments. It was filmed just after you experienced some unexpected company in the shape of some orca whales.

[Audio clip of Cal sounding teary]
I just saw an orca. I saw three orca. Its massive fin just came up right next to my board. And I was like, oh is that a dolphin? It was huge. It was the biggest fin I’ve ever seen, and it was three orca, and they just swum underneath my board and around me, and they just investigated me, and they just swam off into the mist. It was one of the most unbelievable experiences I’ve ever had. I was a bit scared, to be honest. People often ask if you saw an orca on the water, would you be scared? And I was like, no, they’re fine. And I was quite scared! It was unreal. And they’ve just gone now. That’s it. Oh my god.

[JB]
Oh, Cal. I so love that clip! I love the emotion and I love the honesty and how it captured just everything you were feeling.

[CM]
Yeah, thanks! My stomach flips every time I hear it. Honestly, people said you know you might see orca around Scotland. And I was like, yeah, but really no, it would be so unlikely to see an orca. And anyway, even if I did, they’re no threat to humans in the wild; they’ve never purposely attacked a human. And then when it happened, there was literally an orca underneath my paddleboard who turned on her side and looked up at me. And I looked down at her and locked eyes with her, while two males, whose fins were 6ft tall, were circling my board! When that happened, the reaction, as you could hear, was a really uncool reaction! It was completely visceral. There was no controlling it; it was utter fear but also an acknowledgement that those animals – the males can be 10m long; that’s 3 times the length of my paddleboard – they are so powerful, and they were so graceful and so powerful in the water. Even with a flick of a tail, they could have thrown me off my board. But they didn’t. Somehow, they were so graceful that even when swimming under my board, they didn’t affect me. It was a real mixture of ‘this is the most incredible moment I’ve ever had on the water’ and ‘oh my god, they’re so big. They can do anything they wanted right now’. It was such a privilege to have that experience. It deepened my connection to the sea in a way that I didn’t think was even possible.

[JB]
Yes, well, you certainly managed to convey that. There’s also a moment from the momentous to the small and poignant, where you untangle some fishing hooks from a trapped, shivering seabird. I was in bits watching that.

[CM]
Oh, yes. There’s a little gannet that we found around Troup Head who had become entangled in a massive fishing line with these big, barbed hooks. It had one through one of its feet and into its tail. And one of the hooks was stuck onto a rock, so it was bound basically on this rock and couldn’t move, which was good for me because I could clamber up onto this rock and get it. I managed to disentangle this little gannet and poor thing! Fortunately, the wounds weren’t life-threatening and I felt really glad to have been able to help it.

But then we actually went up to the top of Troup Head that evening on land to look down at this incredible gannet colony, just incredible, and saw maybe three or four other gannets which had entanglement, so either rope or … Gannets nest in pairs and they pair off, and we saw this pair of gannets – one had a bit of rope around its leg, and the other one was desperately trying to peck the rope off its leg. I saw another one with something wrapped around its beak; it couldn’t open its beak. It was really eye-opening for me. You hear about entanglement quite a lot in marine animals, but to actually see it for yourself and know that in that moment there’s nothing I could do, was really challenging. So, a real mixture of feeling grateful of being able to help that one gannet, and then ‘oh gosh, but this is the tip of the iceberg’.

[JB]
Indeed. The effects of the fishing gear, the effects of plastic is absolutely tangible. But there are so many other threats that the fragile coastal habitats face. You’re very vocal about the destruction of the in-shore seabed. What’s happening there?

[CM]
Around Scotland, the seabed basically … well, it’s absolutely incredible. I got to see it with my own eyes, snorkelling underwater a couple of times last summer and a few times since as well. And it’s just amazing. You have these incredible reefs that are formed by things like flame shells and merle, which is a coralline algae – almost a little bit like a coral reef. We have amazing kelp forests, sea grass. And all of these habitats on the seabed are really fragile and slow-growing but yet absolutely essential to the entire ecosystem. That’s where you get fish nurseries; you get all the little stuff that grows and feeds the bigger stuff, which feeds the bigger stuff, which feeds the whales. These ecosystems are really, really important.

Over the last few years, they have been really, really harmed by bottom-towed fishing gear, so things like trawling and dredging – trawling for prawns, dredging for scallops. Up until the 1980s, this is something I learned while I was paddling around the coast from various people that I interviewed, there was a limit to where you could trawl or dredge. You weren’t allowed to bring these big, heavy, bottom-towed gear within 3 miles of shore, which basically meant that those really fragile in-shore ecosystems could thrive and continue to support fish stocks around the coast. And then in 1984 that limit was lifted, and so after the 80s you got this massive boom of trawling and scallop dredging within those fragile in-shore ecosystems, which the science shows has led to a collapse in fish stocks. It’s not just about the really beautiful, lovely-looking habitats on the seabed; it’s about the whole ocean ecosystem. This stuff is out of sight and out of mind. Even to me, until I was learning about this stuff, I didn’t know about it and I’m an ocean advocate. I didn’t know just how extensive this had been – and that’s the case with so much of this. The general public don’t understand it; they can’t really relate to that seabed because it’s just little critters as opposed to big whales. But it’s so vital that we help people to understand what’s going on so that we can have people having informed conversations about what’s best to do for those areas, because they’re not just important for the fishing community, which they’re massively important for; they’re important for coastal communities; they’re important for every single one of us.

[JB]
You made the point that whenever there was an outcry when you posted pictures of the dead whale that was entangled, the fact that people rightly get very, very angry about that – but you make the point that the destruction of the seabed barely raises an eyebrow because it’s something we can’t see. But there is a campaign – it’s fairly new – of which the National Trust for Scotland is a member called Our Seas. That’s brought together more than a hundred organisations to tackle the harm that we’re doing. Is partnership and co-operation, as well as getting a message out to as many people as possible, is that the way forward?

[CM]
Absolutely. And I was really delighted to hear about what the National Trust for Scotland is doing in this realm as well, because it does take courage to stand up for these things because there are going to be voices that are going to be in opposition to this kind of thing. I think the more people we have using their voices, co-operating, collaborating, and making it known that this is of benefit to the majority rather than a minority, then that’s going to be what helps to push these campaigns forward. It fills you with hope and determination, and a sense that actually you’re not alone with this and there’s stuff that we really can do.

[JB]
This is an ideal point to take a little break from your adventures. We’ve covered a lot of the threats to marine life so far, but you’ve touched on what is one of your main messages – and that is hope. We’ll talk some more about that when we come back.

[MV]
The National Trust for Scotland cares for thousands of miles of coastline, from the sea cliffs of St Kilda to the magic of Fingal’s Cave; from the tight-knit community of Fair Isle to the seal pups at St Abb’s Head. You can help to protect this incredible heritage and to safeguard it for future generations. Find out more online, including how to donate to the Trust’s Wild Scotland appeal, at nts.org.uk/donate

[JB]
Welcome back to the Love Scotland podcast, where marine campaigner Cal Major has been telling me of her paddleboarding adventures. Now, Cal, you travel the country, you talk about environmental threats, but it’s not all doom and gloom. You believe that we can change things.

[CM]
Absolutely. That’s not based on naive optimism; that’s not based on putting a positive spin on things. That’s based on all the incredible work that I’ve seen around the coast, from passionate communities and individuals working together to make tangible change, to actively restore the marine environment, to campaign for better protection of the marine environment, to clean our beaches and our rivers, to change policy. There is so much happening, and I think the news is really good at focusing on the doom and gloom, the negative, the stuff that creates outcry. And it doesn’t tell us all the good stuff that’s happening. That’s where we need to place our hope – in all the good stuff that’s happening and in just how resilient the natural world, especially our ocean, is when it comes to bouncing back. If we take the pressures off our seas, it’s been shown that they bounce back really quickly. You just to have look at some of the Marine Protected Areas and the No Take zones around the coast to see how quickly they’ve rejuvenated and started to thrive.

[JB]
Do you think we’ve got the language of conservation right? I have a theory. We talk about bio-diverse ecosystems … now, we know what that means but these sorts of descriptions, are they relatable to people who perhaps don’t have a background in conservation?

[CM]
Well, I don’t think we all need to be talking in conservation language. It comes back to what we were saying earlier about actually just needing to have a connection to the sea. These biodiversity crises and climate crises and all the rest of it that we face, they don’t need every member of the public to be a conservationist. They just need as many people as possible to be aware and awake to what is going on, and to use their voices in their own ways – whether that’s a small way or a big way. And so, I completely agree, I think we need to be reaching people on different levels.

One of the things that I do is I run a small charity called Seaful – and one of our aims is to help people find that connection to the ocean. We take people snorkelling and we just show them for themselves what’s underwater there.

[JB]
You took some children from inner city Glasgow snorkelling, and that was very effective. Tell me what happened there.

[CM]
After I’d finished paddling round Scotland, I went back to Glasgow, which is where I’d started, and we took a group of kids to the Isle of Arran, which is one of the places I stopped off at on my trip. I’d recced the snorkel site that morning, and there was barely anything to see and the water was cold. I mean, it was the warmest it’s ever going to be at that point in time in September! It’s still cold!

[JB]
Yes, I think warm might not be the best description!

[CM]
Exactly! Anyway, I was really nervous that these kids were going to get here and think it was just too cold and they were going to want to get out. We planned to get them in for 20 minutes. We got them there and got them kitted up, they were quite nervous. I was a bit nervous. Got them in and after an hour and a half I had to drag them out because they were going to miss the bus back to the ferry! [Fantastic!] They just absolutely loved it. Even though this was by no means one of the best dive sites I’d ever snorkelled at. There was a bit of seaweed, a few crabs, some sea squirts, the odd fish – the kids were enthralled. They were absolutely mind blown. You could just see the awe in their eyes.

There was one girl, and afterwards I asked her ‘how was it for you today? How was that experience?’ She said it was really amazing, really good, but also made her a bit sad because now she’s seen what’s underwater, just how much life there is underwater, she feels angry that we treat the ocean as a trash can. I didn’t have to teach her that; I didn’t have to put those words into her head. That’s what that experience translated to for her. There’s the hope that that experience will have translated into something different for each of those children, even if it is just sowing the seed of an appreciation that there is life in the water. One of the girls was saying they couldn’t believe how much life was underwater, because oftentimes when we look out at the sea, it’s dark and it looks cold and uninviting. You can’t imagine that anything could live there. Finding ways to connect people to how much life is in our ocean is really important. And that will also nurture hope as well. Just seeing what life there is there – that nurtures hope and the reason to do something about it.

[JB]
So, there’s forming that connection but there’s also protection. We know that national parks on land get special protection. The National Trust for Scotland is advocating that Scotland’s next designated national park could include coastal and marine areas. What do you think of that? Do you think that would be effective?

[CM]
I think it’s a fantastic idea. I think it would also give people a better understanding of what’s there to protect. When we hear that something’s a national park on land, our instant feeling is ‘oh, there must be something really special there that’s being protected’. I think giving the ocean and coastal areas that designation as well would have a similar effect. I think creating highly protected marine areas is an absolute no-brainer, not just for conservationists like myself but also for the fishing community. We can restore the health of our seas; we have more productive seas for coastal communities, for tourism operators and for everyday people like you and I who just want to go and enjoy the ocean and the incredible wildlife that it supports. So, I think it’s a really great step.

[JB]
Let’s play another clip from your travels. It’s when your paddleboard takes you, Cal, to St Abb’s Head and you experience its amazing seabird colonies.

[Audio clip of Cal]
I didn’t realise how much I’d missed cliffs with birds on until I came past St Abb’s Head. It’s just lovely; it’s so nice to have that focus point when you’re out paddling, to able to see so much wildlife, and birds are amazing in that regard because you can see them – they’re really visible, there’s so many around. Cliffs and seabirds to paddle past definitely makes it a much more enjoyable experience on the water. They’re so noisy! They smell – and that smell has become so familiar and so weirdly comforting! Really, really nice paddle this morning – very, very glad to be on the water.

[JB]
Oh, lovely. Since your trip, I have to make clear that obviously the bird colonies at St Abbs have been hit by bird flu but hopefully things will improve this year. I suppose, Cal, that plays into your message – that if we stop destroying things, and give nature and wildlife a break, they will overcome; they will thrive.

[CM]
Absolutely. And things like the bird flu pandemic this year has really hit bird colonies hard. But they’re under a lot of other pressures as well – they’re under pressure from plastic pollution, from climate change, from over-fishing of their food stuff. So, if we can actually take some of those other pressures off them, then when these episodes like the bird flu hit them, they’re going to be more resilient to help come back from that.

I think it’s funny with conservation. We talk about conservation as if we humans have this ability to change the world and look after the world, but actually a lot of conservation is just putting into place measures to stop damaging human activity in the first place. It’s not so much about necessarily us doing something to help those animals; it’s us stopping doing the things that are not helping those animals, if that makes sense!

[JB]
That’s a really interesting way of putting it and so right. Finally, Cal, what do you hope people will take away from this story of your journey, especially those around Scotland?

[CM]
I would really like the people to really start to deeply understand just how important our seas are to every single one of us, even if you don’t spend time there, and to have a sense that we all have the right to spend time there, the right to care about the ocean, the right to stand up for it – the responsibility almost to learn about it and stand up for it. And to start to understand what’s out of sight and out of mind. To start to care about the seas a little bit more and to become a little bit prominent in our conversations around climate and biodiversity, and protection of our natural world. So that we’re not just looking at terrestrial ecosystems but looking at the planet as a whole and really appreciating just how essential our ocean is.

And I would absolutely love if just a couple of people were inspired to go and spend some time at the coast, just some mindful time, and just start to appreciate how amazing it can be to be by water. Maybe take some binoculars and look at some birds, or do a bit of rock-pooling and foraging around seaweed – just spend a bit more time there and appreciate what we have there, what’s worth protecting and the fact that we can have a role in protecting our seas.

[JB]
That is a lovely challenge to leave people with, Cal. Thank you so much for joining me today and for sharing your stories and your enthusiasm.

[CM]
Thank you. And I also would just like to say how deeply inspired I’ve been by all the people I’ve met at the National Trust for Scotland, all the conversations I’ve had – it really is an incredible organisation full of passionate people who have the chance to make these differences. It’s just wonderful for me to be able to find like-minded people to have these conversations with, so thank you.

[JB]
Great to hear from you. Cal’s film series about her paddle around Scotland’s coastlines – Scotland: Ocean Nation – will be available soon. She’s also working on a book, so you can look out for that, and you can watch those glorious films and find out more about her adventures at calmajor.com

To discover more about the Trust’s work in conserving Scotland’s coastlines, and some of the places mentioned in today’s chat, please head to the National Trust for Scotland website and search out a piece, if you can, called ‘Turning the Tide’.

That’s it from us for now. It would be great if you would subscribe to the podcast so that even more people can share it and so that you don’t miss an episode. Until next time, goodbye!

[MV]
Love Scotland is brought to you by Think and Demus Productions, on behalf of the National Trust for Scotland.

For show notes, go to nts.org.uk and don’t forget to like, subscribe, review and share.

Transcript

Three voices: male voiceover [MV]; Jackie Bird [JB]; Adrián Maldonado [AM]

[MV]
Love Scotland, brought to you from the National Trust for Scotland; presented by Jackie Bird.

[JB]
Hello and welcome to Love Scotland. There are periods in our history that are well-trodden – the assaults of the Romans; Robert the Bruce; the Stuart Dynasty – and then there are areas which are no less crucial but perhaps their complexities mean we only know the historical headlines and not much about their impact and the legacy.

Today, we’re going to take a deep dive into one such subject: the Vikings, the fearsome warriors who pillaged and plundered their way across the British Isles. But as we’re about to hear, they may have raided, but they traded and settled too, and had a huge influence on the Scotland we know today. Much of the knowledge we are gaining about that period is through archaeology, and I’m delighted to welcome my guest Dr Adrián Maldonado, an archaeologist who is the Glenmorangie Research Fellow at National Museum Scotland and an expert on the Scottish Viking age. Adrián, welcome to the podcast.

[AM]
Thank you for having me – it’s a pleasure to be here.

[JB]
Now, this is early medieval history and even that term makes me a bit apprehensive because I know so little. Is that a general view or just a gap in my knowledge?

[AM]
No, I think you’re in very good company. I think a lot of people would have grown up listening to stories about the Dark Ages, as much as anything else. If you read a couple of books, you may have heard some other terms like Early Historic or even Early Christian. But Early Medieval is the accepted term these days because it’s not a Dark Age. We do know quite a bit about it, and we’ve had lots of history and archaeology, especially in recent years, which has really helped us understand and put names to this time period.

And so, the Early Medieval period, just to catch people up, is everything basically from the end of the Roman period – let’s call it around 400AD – to the start of the Norman period in England; the Romanesque period elsewhere in Europe. That’s about the 12th century. Everything from about the 5th to the 12th century in Scotland, we can call Early Medieval.

[JB]
OK, so let’s start with a few entry-level questions! Define Viking.

[AM]
Ah! The simple questions you’re starting with. Ok, good. Well, this whole issue of what’s a Viking is just one of these things that’s been debated back and forth, and back and forth. Should we write it with a capital V or a lower-case v is one of the most recent debates. And one, even more recent than that, should we even use the term at all?

Well, I think we still should because it’s something that everybody knows about it, at least in some way or another. If I say the word Viking, you get a picture in your head, regardless of what it is. And that’s more than you can say for a lot of periods in history. So, we should take that and we should run with it, and just be clear on what we’re talking about. Usually, when you use the word Viking, you’re referring to people coming from Scandinavia on boats and not usually the nicest people either. You think of people coming on boats, but brandishing weapons as well and undertaking raids.

What scholars like to say is that Vikings were not a people, they were not a country – but the word Viking is a job description, something like ‘pirates’. And that’s maybe how we should understand that term. But by accident or otherwise, it just gets mixed up with our vision of people from Scandinavia. But if you include women and children in there, they weren’t all raiders. There are people moving between Scandinavia and Britain and Ireland for lots of different reasons, and they weren’t all pirates. And so, here in the museum, what we like to do is we like to split the difference. We call it the Viking Age but not everybody from Scandinavia is a Viking.

[JB]
I love that idea: Viking as a job description. Tell me, when did they first make their presence felt in the British Isles as a whole, before we move into Scotland?

[AM]
Well, the first certain reports of Scandinavians is 789, but the first proper raid on a monastery by people of Scandinavian descent – let’s just put it like that …

[JB]
We’re going to tie ourselves up in knots here!

[AM]
The first ‘Viking raid’ is 793 at the monastery of Lindisfarne, just off the coast of what’s now Northumberland. That seems to be quite a shocking event. And so there are Scandinavians about; they’re not an alien race. But in 793 they do something which is out of the ordinary, which is undertake a raid on a Christian site, and it seems to be a violent one. There are captives taken; there was treasure stolen; there are people killed. And it’s shocking enough that news of it reverberates through the islands and out to the continent.

[JB]
Lindisfarne was a very specific target, and we tend to think of the Vikings as staging random raids – but did they know where to go? Did they have spies here, for example?

[AM]
There is certainly contact before that first Viking raid. As I say, there’s a report of ships, possibly raiders, in the English Channel area from as early as 789. There’s Scandinavian merchants and maybe even pirates in these waters before that. But the reason we think that they may have had some kind of advanced information is that it’s not seemingly random. They go for Lindisfarne, which is the major monastery of Northumbria – the Kingdom of Northumbria as it was at the end of the 8th century.

And then the first raid in Scotland is in 795, very soon after Lindisfarne, and that raid takes place on Iona, which is again the primary monastery of both the Pictish Kingdom and the Scottish Kingdom of Dal Riata. This is a major, major monastery. It’s affiliated even with the monastery of Lindisfarne, clear across the country. And so, you get this sense that they know exactly where to go, and they’re going straight to the top.

The question then arises, why are they going for these prominent monasteries? Well, there’s a lot of money to be had, one imagines. There’s a lot of people about, so there’s more potential for captives, for hostages, for slave-taking perhaps. But also, I think increasingly part of it is so that the news of these raids gets out. These are prominent places and they’re sure to be reported, and we know that they are. That gets the message out: comply with our demands or you’re next.

[JB]
Let’s talk about that raid on Iona. In terms of brutality, what form did it take? What was the Vikings’ M-O?

[AM]
Well, we only have very clipped reports from the Irish annals. These are Chronicles that are kept year-on-year. And they only report a line or two about what’s going on in every event. All we have of that first raid on Iona is that Iona was ravaged – that’s the word that they use: ravaged. They don’t say by who, but it’s pretty clear.

And then in 802, it’s the heathens they mention in particular. The heathens is what the Irish annals use as a term for what we call Vikings now: the unbelievers, the pagans. In 802, Iona is raided again. In 806, 68 people of the community of Iona are killed; and in 825 they mentioned yet another raid. And in this one, they name one of the prominent monks, Blathmac, who was ‘martyred’ by the heathens on that occasion. So, in at least one of these, Iona is burned; in at least one of them, a massacre of up to 68 people; and another one, a prominent figure is martyred.

There is no doubt that these raids were violent. And the question is, did they spell the end of the monastery of Iona?

[JB]
Who was living on the island at the time? Was it just monks and scholars?

[AM]
Now there's a really good question. A lot of the archaeology and the history of the monastery has surrounded that ecclesiastical settlement, but in the story of the life of St Columba, which is written in 697AD, 100 years before this Viking raid, at that time, there’s a description of monks but also many farmers supplying food to the monastery. And they’re all in the employ of the monastery. You get a sense that the entire economy of this island of Iona is turned towards supporting the monastery.

And so, it’s not just the monks. It’s also labourers, craftspeople, farmers and agricultural workers of several kinds.

[JB]
So, how are you learning now about what happened there?

[AM]
Here’s the strangest thing. In a time where there’s very few written records from what we now call Scotland, Iona is really well-documented because they’re keeping these records there. This is where they’re writing down these annual chronicles, and so it’s no surprise that we have more mentions of raids on Iona, because this is where they’re recording that kind of news.

We actually have a lot of textual information for what’s going on. We have names of abbots and bishops and kings who are buried there. But that record seems to dwindle after this series of raids – 795, 802, 806 and 825 – after that, we start to get less and less and less information about Iona in the records. In fact, by the end of the 9th and into the 10th centuries, you’re really not hearing about Iona very much at all, which is very strange because it was one of the most often-mentioned places before the Viking Age.

But if you look into the archaeology, and this is where I’ve been involved, writing up old excavations that were never published. And now I’m working here at the National Museum in Edinburgh, and I’m looking at the material culture – the stuff that came out of those old excavations – and what you’re finding more and more is more evidence of continued occupation. So, we were able to radiocarbon-date numerous things from that excavation, and we found that there’s activity on the monastery from before, during and after the Viking Age. They’re still making things. They’re still putting up buildings and they’re still burying people. And then we look back at all of the rest of the archaeology from Iona. And again, you still have a working monastery there – not only working, it’s thriving.

Perhaps surprisingly, one of the best bits of evidence we have for that is a cross, which is a Christian monument, a grave marker – but it has an inscription along the edge. That inscription is written in Norse runes, and it seems to be the gravestone of somebody with a Norse name. Basically, it’s one of the descendants perhaps of those early Viking raiders from the 10th century, at which point the Norse had begun to convert to Christianity. And when they converted to Christianity, where did they want to be buried? The elites wanted to be buried at the monastery of St Columba, just like their Christian predecessors.

[JB]
How ironic! They came as attackers to destroy, and then they realised its significance perhaps and even began to settle there. Tell me, as an archaeologist, when you are on a site like that and when you discover those written records that were never properly analysed, what’s it like? How exciting is that for you?

[AM]
I can’t tell you how many moments of sheer geeky joy I’ve had in the museum stores! We have a bespoke storage facility out in Granton, which is where we keep all the material that is not currently on display. And in doing so, you come across these little tiny things – a metal pin here, a bone comb there. It’s through putting those little tiny pieces together that suddenly you build up this case that there’s a lot more activity going on.

That’s the best part of this job by far – that potential for discovery even amongst things that have been in the museum for a long time, even amongst assemblages that have been published before. Looking at them with new eyes and connecting them with new finds; there’s always the potential for more discovery.

[JB]
Well, that sounds exciting. Let’s take a little break there, and when we come back, because we’ve dwelt a lot on Iona, we’ll deal with what was happening in terms of Viking involvement right across Scotland. We’ll be back in a moment.

[MV]
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[JB]
Welcome back to the Love Scotland podcast. I’m with Dr Adrián Maldonado, an expert on Viking Scotland. So Adrián, what was happening across the rest of the country in terms of the Viking colonisation?

[AM]
Well, there’s a good debate to be had there as well. People assume that when Scandinavian people came to Scotland and Ireland and they started to settle, that it was a kind of colonisation. But the fact is that it wasn’t directed by the Norse state; there was no such thing at this point. It’s all quite opportunistic, and the kinds of settlement that we have here are really scattered, and they come up at different times. So, it really doesn’t look like a directive-from-the-top colonisation, as we would imagine.

[JB]
Ok, so even if settlements here were arbitrary, did those settlements immediately enforce a Viking way of life on the indigenous people?

[AM]
What we find is that there was, for the longest time, this expectation that once the Vikings came over to Scotland, they immediately settled and started to put up longhouses, this very Scandinavian style of house. And they started burying their dead right away in this classic Viking fashion, with everybody dressed to the nines and the men have weapons and the women are wearing all their best jewellery.

And it turns out that all of this does eventually happen, but it doesn’t happen overnight. The burials with grave goods don’t start until about 850. That’s a couple of generations after those earliest raids on Iona. It’s been at least 55 years of the Viking Age before people begin to bury in this typical pagan fashion. And longhouses – this Scandinavian style of settlement – that takes even longer. Most of the evidence that we have is that those were being put up in Orkney and Shetland and the Western Isles from about the 10th century onwards, maybe 100 years after those first Viking raids.

There is a sense that there is less of a full replacement of the Picts in Orkney and Shetland, for instance, and more of a period of integration. The end point of that is that Orkney and Shetland seem to go 100% Norse speaking. It doesn’t seem to be that there’s any of the pre-existing Pictish language, or even Gaelic, spoken there by the 11th or 12th century. And so, things do change but I think what we’re seeing is that they didn’t change overnight. The Vikings didn’t just wipe out what came before; they integrate for a while.

[JB]
How did the Vikings compare, though, to the indigenous population? I mean, they were certainly pretty fearsome but was their culture more developed?

[AM]
There’s various differences between the Scandinavian raiders and the people that were living in Orkney and Shetland, let’s say. First of all, there’s religious difference. The Picts and the Gaels of the Northern and Western Isles, they’re Christian by this point; they have lots of monasteries. The Scandinavian raiders are pagan, of course; they don’t have the Christian faith and they don’t have these central religious institutions. And that means that there are these differences, but there are a lot of similarities as well. They’re both honour-based traditions where there are kings and there are warlords who serve kings, and they come to power by giving each other gifts and taking oaths that they swear to protect the king. In exchange, the king swears to protect them from outside forces. And that to a certain extent is very similar, whether you’re in Orkney or in Norway, by this time.

[JB]
Something I hadn’t appreciated was that the Vikings built so much of their economic success on slavery. Do we know if they shipped many Scots across?

[AM]
Yeah, there’s one of the key questions. One thing that the Scandinavian raiders do differently, it seems, is raid monasteries and take people away as slaves. Slavery is something that has existed since prehistory in these islands. Certainly, the Romans are known as being a slave-based economy, and to a certain extent that exists in the Early Medieval period before the Vikings as well. What the Vikings seem to do is turbo-charge it, taking more slaves than before.

And yes, it seems to be the main commodity that they’re taking away from these islands is people. In the Northern and Western Isles, there’s no local sources of precious metals. In terms of local resources, there’s food and dairy products but you don’t expect that they’re undertaking all of these very complicated and expensive overseas raids just to get a couple more wheels of cheese.

There has to be something that they’re getting out of these raids: and there is treasure, and lots of it at these monasteries. But it’s not the solid gold and silver that you would expect. It seems to be that the most lucrative commodity coming out of northern Britain, and possibly a lot of Ireland, is not just gold and silver but people as well. It’s an economy based on human trafficking and the exploitation of human labour. And this is again something that the Vikings do not invent, but in that time period it seems to ramp up drastically.

[JB]
Something I read estimated that at one point, 10% of Scandinavian population were slaves.

[AM]
It’s hard to put figures on things before things like the census, but there is an understanding that a lot of the labour that is turbo-charging the settlements and urban centres which are beginning to spring up at this time is in fact based on enslaved and forced labour. There’s no getting around it. There’s a lot of parallels that we can draw with our own modern times and our own industrial revolutions.

[JB]
I was going to ask when the Viking Age in Scotland ended, but I’ve now realised that’s possibly an unfair question because so many Viking men and women assimilated. But in terms of the attacks, in terms of the violence, when did that stop and why?

[AM]
Well, we can come back to Iona briefly. After this series of raids at the monastery of Iona, from 795 down to 825, we don’t actually get a lot of information. We know that there’s a raid of a kind in Dunkeld, which is associated with Iona, in the 840s or 850s; and again in the 870s. After a while, these raids died down, but you do get another raid on Iona in 986, so 100 years later, and that tells you a couple of things. That tells you first of all, there’s still a monastery there and it’s still wealthy enough to be worth raiding and it to be recorded in the Irish documents. So, the monastery of Iona didn’t stop being a monastery; that’s an important point.

But also, there are still people attacking these for whatever reason. These raids continue in dribs and drabs down to the 11th century, but nowhere near to the level that they were at the start of the Viking Age.

[JB]
But the fact that it dwindled, did that mean that Viking power had dwindled? Did they get fed up robbing and raiding or were there other factors?

[AM]
I think there’s a lot of other factors. On the one hand, certainly we know from this runic inscription on Iona and other information that the Vikings themselves – Scandinavians, I should say themselves – and Norse speakers do eventually convert to Christianity and they become landowners and political figures in their own right. They start marrying into local families, just like any other sort of elite at the time. And so, after a while, yes, there is a certain level of integration.

But I think more importantly is that the economy itself changes. It changes from one where certain elite power centres, including monasteries but also royal palaces and halls, they sucked up a lot of the wealth at the time of the earliest Viking raids. They were easy targets. And by the 10th, 11th and 12th centuries, you begin to get a more administrative economy. There are urban centres popping up, and power is distributed in more regional hands than just concentrated at the top. There is now a regime of taxation and land assessment – basically, there’s other ways to get ahead rather than just stealing treasure. There are other ways of accruing power.

[JB]
There’s always taxation; some things never change! Looking overall, Adrián, how would you rate the influence of the Vikings in Scotland’s evolution? I’m thinking about the old joke: what have the Romans ever done for us? What did the Vikings ever do for us?

[AM]
Well, certainly the Viking Age is seen as a time where the economy is monetised. You don’t get coins minted in Scotland until the 12th century, but certainly you get silver assessed by its weight and you get the beginnings of what we might call money in this time period. You get the very first markets, which then become urban centres – and all that seems to be fuelled by the faster ships of the Viking Age.

But I think the more important thing to say is that we always treat the Vikings as something separate and external to Scottish history. It’s an alien invasion, something different. And even the scholarship divides itself under people who study the Picts and the Scots and the kings of Scots; and people who study the Vikings and Scandinavian speakers. I think it just benefits everybody if we study it all as movements of people and processes that are happening at this time.

Even when we get this word ‘Scotland’ – in the 11th and 12th century, we have a king of Scots and a kingdom called Scotland. At that time, it is not the Scotland we recognise; there’s a kingdom called Scotland but it is sharing this land with the Norse earls in the Northern and Western Isles, the kings of Cumbria who speak Old Welsh in the west, and the Northumbrians who speak English in the south-east. And so, all of this is what becomes Scotland, England, Ireland and Norway – and all of the stories of all of those nations all converge in what we now call Scotland. The history of this part of the world isn’t just Scottish history; it’s the history of all these other kingdoms. And I think that’s a really important message.

[JB]
In terms of the Vikings/Scandinavians, they came, they saw, they didn’t necessarily leave. They integrated.

[AM]
I think that’s a nice way of putting it.

[JB]
And even though those invasions were – as we’ve heard – predatory, violent, they relied a lot on the slave trade, more than 1,000 years later, the links remain, especially between the Northern Isles and the Vikings. They celebrate with festivals like the Up Helly Aa festival. There’s an irony there.

[AM]
Yeah. Again, the Viking raiders were violent and they took slaves, but they didn’t invent violence. They didn’t invent slavery. And so, it was just one among the many currents of that time, but it’s also a language. It’s also a literature – the Saga poetry and stories that are composed in places like Orkney are all part of this rich history of the Early Medieval period. The stories of the monks of Iona are stories of nice saints, but they are also grounded in their own time, which is a time of violence and exploitation as well. So, the Vikings are just one among many, but I think we would do well not to just paint them with this cartoonish brush of just people with horned helmets – and put them in the mainstream of part of Scottish history.

[JB]
Well, we’re lucky that, even with the passing of so many centuries, there are artefacts and lots of places available to enable us now to experience that Viking Scotland that was. We’ll leave our listeners with that invitation.

Thank you so much, Adrián, for joining us and I now feel much better about my knowledge of Viking Scotland.

[AM]
Thanks for having me!

[JB]
Adrián’s book Crucible of Nation: Scotland from Viking Age to Medieval Kingdom is available now. And if you’re interested in visiting some of the sites we’ve touched on, be sure to head to the National Trust for Scotland website and to the show notes for this episode. There, you can find information on Iona and about Fair Isle, which also had Viking settlements.

Don’t forget to subscribe to the show to ensure you don’t miss an episode, but that’s all from Love Scotland for now. Until next time, goodbye.

[MV]
Love Scotland is brought to you by Think and Demus Productions on behalf of the National Trust for Scotland. For show notes, go to nts.org.uk and don’t forget to like, subscribe, review and share.

Transcript

Three voices: male voiceover [MV]; Jackie Bird [JB]; Sam Heughan [SH]

[MV]
This is Love Scotland – with Jackie Bird.

[JB]
Hello and welcome to the Love Scotland podcast. And for my guest today, that phrase ‘Love Scotland’ could not be more apt. Sam Heughan is an actor best known to millions around the world for his role as Jamie Fraser in TV’s Outlander. The phenomenally successful series is about a nurse from the 1940s who time-travels back to Jacobite Scotland and falls in love with Jamie, a Highland warrior. Being part of Outlander has brought Sam fame and opportunities, but the filming of it – often in the rugged parts of Scotland it depicts – also recently reignited that love of his country and its wide-open spaces. So much so that Sam has written a book about one particular journey in the wilds. It’s called Waypoints and it’s out now. Sam, welcome to the podcast.

[SH]
Thank you so much. What a lovely introduction.

[JB]
Thank you. Your book, genuinely, it came to me late; I devoured it in a couple of nights, and I really enjoyed it. It surprised me on two fronts. One, I’ve always hankered after doing the West Highland Way – and after reading this, I am now definitely going to do it.

[SH]
You seem like you are determined to do that, through gritted teeth!

[JB]
So, job done, job done! Also though, I was really surprised by how honest it was about your life.

[SH]
Thank you.

[JB]
Is that something you knew you were going to do at the outset, or did that honesty develop as you were writing it?

[SH]
That’s a really good question, because I think it’s two things, the book. It’s a love letter to Scotland – it’s the West Highland Way, it’s about the walk that I did. The other half of the book is a memoir. It felt like, forgive me, the right waypoint in my life to write it. I’ve been through this journey as a jobbing actor, growing up in Scotland and trying to break Hollywood and break the industry. And then finally getting some success from Outlander. It’s something that I never thought I’d be as honest. The loss of my father actually during the beginning of Season 1 of shooting Outlander was a big moment in my life. I didn’t know him; he left when I was 18 months old, but going to see him in his last moments and visit him and learn a bit more about him definitely had an effect on me. And I think just writing about that has been quite cathartic.

[JB]
In the foreword, I think that sums it up, it’s described as a parable – the longer journey to becoming the leading actor that you are today. It’s got highs and lows, but what shines through is resilience. And we’ll talk a little about that later.

[SH]
Or stupidity! Determination!

[JB]
No! Well, in a way, because I was struck by your impetuousness. This is a walk of about 100 miles with a little mountain climb at the end.

[SH]
A wee one, yeah!

[JB]
Tell me about the madness that prompted it.

[SH]
Well, I suppose my life is a little bit mad. I work on this TV show; they’re long days. I’m not going to say we are digging coal or saving lives, but we’re certainly on a job that is quite demanding of your time. It’s a stamina; it’s quite draining on your energy. I has this small gap this time last year, almost to the very day, before Halloween, that I had this week off before I had other commitments – and this was something I always wanted to do. I’ve always wanted to do the West Highland Way; now’s the time. So, with very little preparation – and in hindsight that’s definitely something that I should have thought about – I went to a local outdoor store, bought everything in the store and set off the next day. I think from that very first moment I was really questioning, why am I doing this? As you find out in the book, by day 2 I almost gave up.

[JB]
You had been filming just before you set off. You went out for a jog in Glen Etive – and I have to say that is one of the National Trust for Scotland’s places – it’s beautiful, it’s moving but at the same time, you could have decided to do anything. But it comes back to what was happening in your life at that time. And what scenery does to you, what the great outdoors does to you. You were raw; is that why you decided, on that particular day, I need some sort of spirituality, perhaps? If that’s not over-playing it?

[SH]
No, absolutely. Firstly, I think Scotland does for me – and for many people – landscape gives you a sense of spirituality. There’s a connection that we have to the land, Scottish people, or if you come here – there’s a tangibility. You can feel the people that have lived here in the past. It’s very much present and especially in Glen Etive or Glencoe, which is where we were. The history that is there. I think we all have a connection to Glencoe when you go there. It’s so dramatic. You’ve got the Buachaille Etive Mor, the Great Herdsman mountain there. You’ve got the Devil’s Staircase, and all the stories about the massacre that was there. We had been shooting there with Outlander a scene that actually became the opening of Season 6, but actually we shot it at the very end of Season 6. We were there and that morning I decided to go for a run, and I ran along a segment of the West Highland Way – a very short part of the run. As I was doing it, I was thinking why have I never done this? The beginning of the West Highland Way actually starts really close to my house, so it felt right. And actually, again also Glencoe has featured in my life in Men in Kilts – it was the starting point for this mad road trip that I went on with my co-star Graham McTavish. It’s definitely somewhere that I always wanted to do, and the walk that I always wanted to do. And I guess, as you said, about being raw, I needed time out. I needed to switch off.

[JB]
There’s a scene in Local Hero, which is a movie that I try to get into just about every podcast, where the locals are being berated for wanting to ruin their own environment. And they say, ‘you can’t eat scenery’. That may be the case, I understand that, but if you turn that around, scenery can feed you. Incomers, visitors like us, I think it feeds our soul.

[SH]
It does. Yeah. And it’s like nowhere else, I think. I’ve recently been in America, and I did a bit of a road trip up to Yellowstone, Wyoming, Montana – and the scenery there is obviously incredible. It’s vast; very, very different to ours. But there’s something about Scotland and something about the wild places, especially when you’re on your own.

I talk about in the book, after a couple of days of walking and you don’t see anyone, you don’t speak to anyone, you do kind of lose it a little bit. But also, the scenery takes over and I think I was at the first few days fighting it, trying to assert myself on the landscape. And then as soon as I relaxed into the walk and allowed it to dictate when I stopped and when I walked for hours, I really enjoyed it.

[JB]
So you set off on this madcap scheme. You have got far too much equipment. Spoiler alert. The backpack does not end the movie with you. Ok. So that’s all I’ll say.

[SH]
Sorry. No backpacks were hurt in the making of this, but …

[JB]
When you set out, did you know you were going to write about it?

[SH]
I did. Yes, I did. I knew I was going to be writing a book. I knew I wanted to do an adventure around that. I didn’t quite realise it would be as much of a memoir; it was more about just an adventure. And by the end of day two, spoiler alert, I was going to give up. I was so close to giving up and I thought, well, no one really knows that I’m doing this walk so I could just go home, go back to bed and no one will know that I failed, and it will be fine. But then I thought, well then there’s no story, is there? So, there’s no book.

I guess initially that was what motivated me to leave my front door on that blustery, autumnal day. But I was seeking something else. I was seeking some sort of solitude and solace and a place to reflect. And I mean, where better to reflect upon your life and your journey, than the great Highlands of Scotland.

[JB]
And what about the device that’s used in the book of weaving your walk and your life story? Was it always going to be like that, or did that evolve?

[SH]
It really evolved. And it was strange how much it did work as a device. Because, I was a jobbing actor. I was a jobbing actor and had many many successes but many failures. I think the ups and downs really, as soon as I looked back on the memoir side of it and then looked back at the journey in hindsight, I thought this really fits, really well. And even reaching the top of Ben Nevis or seeing the mountain and the elation that I got also married really well with the securing of this life-changing TV role that I’ve had in the last decade.

[JB]
It’s strange. We change, obviously, as we get older, and we gain experiences, but what happens to us in our childhood determines so much of the adult we become. Reading about it and how in your childhood you were entranced by legends, by Arthurian stories, by Robert the Bruce, you talk about swinging your imaginary sword and shield. I think it’s almost, right, this guy is going to be in Outlander. It’s going to play a part in his adult life – it’s almost like you were made for it.

[SH]
It is a very strange one. I don’t know if I believe in fate or destiny or anything like that. However, it does feel right. I was born and brought up in the south west of Scotland in the grounds of an ancient castle. I used to play in there and imagine myself in this castle. And I certainly was obsessed with the Arthurian legends and the Bruce. And here I am playing essentially a Scottish Highland warrior, the king of men. But even on the walk, I came across a lochan that legend has it that Bruce’s sword was thrown in there, which is very similar to the Lady of the Lake in the Arthurian legend of Excalibur. But even that, it resonated with me on the walk.

[JB]
From my point of view, I’m always banging on about trying to take kids out into the great outdoors or taking them to historic castles. They may be old ruins through adult eyes, but from a child’s eyes, you’re forgetting that ingredient: that imagination.

[SH]
Yes, that’s lovely you say that. I absolutely agree. I think, as a child, it’s still alive – as soon as you’re told these stories, you imagine these people there. We’ve got so many great places, not just ancient castles but one of my favourites is the Antonine Wall here. The Romans that were here. I think it’s such a fascinating part of history in Scotland. I think for children it’s important that we get them out there. We’re so lucky in Scotland – we have so many great sites that you can take children, or adults that like to pretend they’re children, to explore.

[JB]
In the book – I keep coming back to this honesty – especially in terms of having a career, people would look at you now and assume it’s that overnight success. But my goodness, you worked your butt off. You had a lot of near misses. You had a lot of knockbacks. And it’s that resilience once again. At the outset, were you always going to be that candid about your failures?

[SH]
Probably not. When I look back at the writing, maybe I’ve lent too much into the failures and not just celebrating the successes. But no, it’s a huge part of being an actor or a creative in the industry. My mother is an artist and she always instilled in me that it’s not going to be easy, that it’s going to be a difficult journey. I don’t know whether it was, as I said before, stupidity or resilience or stubbornness, but I had a belief that I wanted to do this. I always knew I wanted to act or be in that world. I think also, if there’s something to take away from the book, it’s just encouraging people about perseverance and that hard work does pay off.

[JB]
You mentioned in the book that when you were an up-and-coming actor, you would devour books by other actors, to learn what an actor’s life was like. Well, your book has now joined that canon because I think it’s a great waypoint, if you like, for young actors who see you immensely successful and can see clearly that you had very, very low points.

[SH]
And what not to do. I was very lucky. I went to the Conservatoire in Scotland, the Royal Scottish Academy at the time, and I remember going through the library each week there and they had a great number of books from greats there. It was really important to me, that period, still relatively young and impressionable.

I actually have been working with their Conservatoire recently. I’ve created a couple of scholarships there to encourage young producers or actors to also think about other things, not just waiting for the phone call, waiting to land the job – for instance, writing a book or creating your own content or writing scripts. Just to realise that there’s more to creativity and to the industry than maybe you would have first imagined.

[JB]
There was one scene that really shone through and stayed with me. It was one of your many jobs and you were serving cocktails at a fancy do, and you ended up serving a cocktail to a contemporary of yours, who had just made it big as an actor. And at that point, I think you’d had quite a lot of knockbacks. I felt at that point that those Heughan castle walls began to buckle just a little. Was that a particular low point?

[SH]
It was. I had been to America a number of times. I had been working on and off, had some relative success and then was back to square one. I was in my early thirties and, yes, I was working in London. I think it was the V&A. A lot of actors were employed to pour cocktails and be good hosts for the guests there. And yes, Richard Madden, of Game of Thrones fame, was there as a guest. I knew him from many years ago from the academy, and he came up and he put his drink on my tray, or I had to hold his drink. He didn’t notice it was me; he was very busy. I had to stand there and hold his drink. As he came back, he took it and walked off. And it wasn’t that I felt ashamed or was jealous of him or anything like that; it was more just that I realised that I was not on the path that I wanted to take. In fact, the walls of Heughan’s castle if anything were probably strengthened by that because it was like, oh ok, I really now need to dig deeper.

[JB]
I like that. That’s a great approach.

[SH]
Thank you.

[JB]
I’m also very heartened by your honesty about how you have to look in the industry, because you don’t hear men talking about – lots of women – about the pressures. Why was that important to include it?

[SH]
Oh yeah, very important. It’s a huge part of being an actor – or actress – but especially an actor, and I guess things are changing slowly. Certainly for women, I think, there’s a lot more awareness about body issues, but also about the pressures put on women. But I think men, we’ve never really spoken about it.

[JB]
It affected your health.

[SH]
It did. I was young, I had very little information. I knew I had to look a certain way. And so, the way I thought to look in the best shape I could was to not eat and to run as much as I could. And so, I really did get a hang-up around food and around my body shape for a long time. And thankfully, that led me on a journey of health and wellness and led me to educate myself and is essentially probably why I created My Peak Challenge, which is my charity fundraiser platform, because I want to share that information with people. You realise that people still don’t really understand where to look, or where to get good information about a healthy lifestyle.

But the body issue thing is something because there are pressures for male actors. We’re expected to take your top off, at any point. I have a six pack and be fine with it. And actually, I think it’s as exposing for a male actor to do that as it is for women.

[JB]
Let’s take a break for a moment, and when we come back, we’ll be talking to Sam about the life-changing role of Jamie Fraser in Outlander, about whisky, about kilts and motorbikes, although not all at the same time! Back in a moment.

[MV]
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[JB]
Welcome back to Love Scotland. I’m with Sam Heughan, actor, producer and author, notably about his new book Waypoints, which charts the ups and downs of his career alongside a challenging and often funny trek along the West Highland Way. Sam, enough downs. Let’s talk about that utterly joyous moment …

[SH]
Let’s do it.

[JB]
… when you find out that you have landed the part of Jamie Fraser. Tell us about the run-up to it.

[SH]
Yes, I’d returned back from America and was working in a bar, as mentioned. I was also 34 years old and was really beginning to question, can I continue to do this? Living in a tiny bedroom in a shared apartment that I couldn’t really afford to pay my rent each month. And I was going to be 40 soon and can I continue on this path?

And at that point, you never know where it’s gonna come from. But I was asked to audition for the show that I’d never heard of, which was a book series Outlander. And as soon as I read the sides, which was pretty much taken from the book, I felt I knew him. It was strange because I think he was a combination of all the parts that I’d played. There were elements of theatre or TV that I’d done from different characters.

I went in and it was a really quick process – 2 weeks. We did a screen test with one of my best friends from Scotland, and it went really well. And before I knew it, I was on this train, this rollercoaster that hasn’t stopped for almost 10 years.

[JB]
Tell me about that supermarket moment.

[SH]
Yes, yes! Well, I think I was in – there are obviously other supermarkets available – but I think I was in Waitrose, which seems very posh for a man that at that time couldn’t afford his rent. I was probably buying the bargain vegetables or whatever was the throw-away things.

I got a call from my amazing agent, who happens to be Scottish, and she told me that I got it. I just celebrated, I think, for a week. It was a really special moment, but also interesting because I still didn’t really know what to expect and certainly didn’t think that the show would have this runaway success or that it would last this long.

[JB]
There are several instances in the book when you talk about, with great respect, the legions of fans of Outlander and their absolute passion for it. What is it do you think – this is a really difficult question – about it that elicits so much loyalty?

[SH]
Ok, I think firstly Diana Gabaldon has written something that really hits home. She’s on her tenth book. I think people really respond to this love story there, this idealistic love story, this unrequited love between these two people. The history side, I think there’s so many things in the books for everyone, but I think the show, to take it back to Scotland – that’s a huge part of the show. I think Scotland is a really big character of the TV show and I think people respond to that. People want to see the wilds of Scotland. Even when we’re in America, which we are now, shooting for America, we’re still in Scotland. It’s doubling for North Carolina and Philadelphia.

So, it’s hard to put your finger on what it is, but I think it’s the characters and the accumulation of all these factors: the historical side, the fantasy side.

[JB]
In those early days, it’s very difficult to think about it now when it’s such a success and you are so synonymous with a character, but Diana Gabaldon obviously saw something in you and described you as ‘Jamie Fraser to the heart’. So, after years of playing the character, how much is Sam Heughan in the Jamie we see on the screens now?

[SH]
That’s a great question. Look, every character you play, you have to put yourself in it; and I honestly, to tell you right now, don’t know. I don’t think I’m going to know until it finishes, until I’ve left the role and I look back and I see how much he’s changed my life. I live with the character every day, all day. We’ve been shooting now for almost 10 years and so it’s very much that he’s ingrained in my life. Everything I do is around that character and around the TV show.

So yes, there’s definitely elements of me in him but also I know I’m nothing like him. He’s probably a better walker than I am.

[JB]
He doesn’t ride motorbikes! You film a lot in studios, but you also film a lot in the wide-open spaces. I know this because every time I go to a National Trust for Scotland property, they say, oh, Outlander’s been here. Oh, Sam’s been here. Do you have a favourite? You filmed in Falkland Palace, Culross, Glencoe, etc. Do you know, or is it just a whirl for you?

[SH]
It’s so hard. You were mentioning there some favourites. Culross is incredible. It’s like stepping back in time there and we filmed in Edinburgh, we filmed up north. We filmed in a lot of castles. It’s really hard to pick a favourite. For me the area around Kinloch Rannoch is very special. Schiehallion, the mountain there, is where we have the standing stones where Jamie and Claire go through – that for me is something very special.

But what I love about as well it also gives me the opportunity to explore parts of Scotland I haven’t been to. Most recently, we were up near Aberfeldy, and I went up to climb some mountains there for a couple of days and it was incredible. I do feel very lucky. I get to see parts of Scotland that are just there on your doorstep; you don’t even realise.

[JB]
It’s also very lucky that the places, the heritage points, are still there. They have been looked after. We did another podcast about movie locations and the fact that the location managers are just awestruck by the existing heritage that we’ve looked after.

[SH]
Jamie Fraser’s ancestral home is at Midhope Castle, Hopetoun. And you walk in there and it’s incredible. These castles are just … ok, that one inside is derelict. Some of the castles we work at have been carefully maintained or restored. It’s amazing and I’m sure the location scouts are just in awe when they come over here and they get to see that we have so much to offer.

[JB]
Outlander has raised awareness of this, and I suppose it’s raised awareness of how important that heritage is.

[SH]
Yeah, absolutely. And not only that, I think Outlander … when we first started, we were in a disused electronics factory outside Cumbernauld. Yes, it was very glamorous. You had absolutely nothing there apart for some rats but now it’s got five sound stages. We’ve got huge workshops with thousands of people employed. Not only that, we’ve got sets outdoors. I think it’s not only helped the area with local businesses, but also Scotland in itself. The industry has really grown – we’ve got a lot more film and TV coming over here, especially with the tax breaks that are there.

But as we said before, look at the film locations. You’ve got James Bond and you’ve got Lord of the Rings coming here, and you’ve got all of these amazing shows that are coming to shoot because we have got not only the crews now, but also the locations.

[JB]
You mentioned James Bond. I can’t not ask this; everybody does. You went for James Bond. You didn’t get it … yet.

[SH]
Yeah. It was an amazing experience. I talk about it in the book but look, he’s a character that I think any actor or actress would love to play. Who knows where they’ll go with it. At the time I went, it was Bond 21. That’s the first, Casino Royale, that Daniel Craig did, but they were looking for a younger Bond. And I’ve got a feeling that’s what they may go for.

[JB]
We need a Scot; we certainly do. Now, I can’t talk to you and not mention whisky. You have your own whisky. How did that come about?

[SH]
Yes, it came about, well initially, because I was feeling homesick. I was travelling a lot and felt that when I went into a bar and ordered a Highland or a single malt, there was a little bit of Scotland that would transport me back to Scotland and the traditions we have here. I was approached by a number of distilleries or companies to work with them, and I thought, no, I really wanted to create something that I like, that is mine. It’s all been self-financed, designed myself, and it’s doing extremely well. I’m really really proud of it. I call it my baby because it is; it’s something that we’ve worked really hard at and it is essentially a premium Scottish blend that hopefully is everything that I love about Scotland in a glass.

[JB]
You really zoom about in a Harley. You parked the Harley out there; your motorcycle helmet is on the table between us. I’m amazed the insurers let you do this.

[SH]
Yeah, actually I’m not supposed to and I’m probably going to get sued at some point.

[JB]
Should we edit this bit out?!

[SH]
There was one time we were shooting up in Aviemore and I had I think half a day off, and they were shooting. I sneaked off and I went skiing. I foolishly posted a picture of myself on the slopes, and of course the producers were not happy. But I think at this point they’ve accepted that I like a bit of adventure but I’m quite careful. I’m not reckless.

[JB]
You have your pastimes and your hobbies like your motorcycling; you have your businesses. You have your fitness and well-being. You have the TV series with Graham, Men in Kilts, that you mentioned. I’m intrigued – is this diversification a result of those hard early days and the powerlessness of being an actor, that you have set around yourself alternatives that you will not be that powerless again?

[SH]
It’s a really interesting observation. I think you might be right. It’s two things. I think it’s the opportunity that Outlander has given me; I think it’s the opportunity that Scotland has got, my love for Scotland. I love this country and I want to share it with the rest of the world, all the great things that we have to offer. But I think you’re also right. As I said before, being an actor you’re usually waiting or being dictated to, and I think creating your own material or whatever it is, it’s really important. It’s a creative outlet and it’s so rewarding when you finally have whatever you’ve put all your time and effort into and it’s in your hand – whether it’s a book or a bottle of whisky or whatever.

[JB]
Or both! That sounds like a good night in.

[SH]
It does sound like a good night in!

[JB]
The book is incredibly well written. As I say, I genuinely enjoyed it. I know you’re supposed to say that when you’re interviewing someone. I’ve got it in front of me and I’ve marked out a passage, handing it over to you. Would you mind reading a bit for me?

[SH]
Ok.
Sometimes I think of myself as a loner by design; perhaps I just like my own company. It’s certainly manageable or maybe if I don’t forge those meaningful connections I can’t be hurt, right? I know that’s not the answer but it’s how I’m wired in some ways. I’ve always had an awareness that I hold back. It’s only now looking back, with all the time in the world to make sense of it, that I start to wonder if this walk might be a turning point in my life. In order to be our best selves, we have to learn and grow, right? Though it may take more than 100 miles to change my habits, it’s certainly a start.

[JB]
So the question is, was it the start of a turning point or was that just you at that point being a little bit melancholy?

[SH]
Oh, I absolutely think it’s a waypoint. It’s a point where I feel like I’ve put some things to rest. I’ve acknowledged certain things in my life and I’m excited for the journey ahead. So, yeah, I think it is. You don’t change overnight for sure, but it was a really important journey for me to take and put it down on paper and also to reflect on where I’ve come from. I guess that’s the thing of every journey: when you get to the end, you’re ready for the next one. And I can’t wait to do the next adventure.

[JB]
After the pandemic, I think it taught a lot of people to really appreciate what we have, especially the wide-open spaces, and that spirituality you can glean from it. So, anybody listening to this who’s perhaps never ventured out into the wilds, what would you say? What does it give you?

[SH]
I know not all of us are lucky to have the Highlands or the wild places on our doorstep, but I think it doesn’t need to be that. It can be just going for a walk or taking yourself out of your regular routine. What does it give you? I think it gives you time for you. I think in this world right now we’re so busy, especially with our connection with mobile phones and the internet. It’s hard to switch off. So, even if it’s take an hour out, or take a weekend, and switch your phone off for a day. It’s tough. It’s hard to do, but after a while you let the journey take over and you’ll really enjoy it.

[JB]
Final question. Perhaps the most important one of all, did you ever get a Lego figure made of yourself?

[SH]
No, but I have received a lot of Lego recently from fans, which is very sweet of them.

[JB]
But the answer is no, so you failed actually!

[SH]
Lego, what’s going on! But yeah I mean, I would certainly appreciate one.

[JB]
I presume you’re also getting lots of presents of mushrooms. I won’t spoil it but mushrooms figure a lot in the book!

[SH]

They do, yes. Right now, it’s mushroom season. I had some beautiful mushrooms grow in my garden recently.

[JB]
Gosh, you really do like mushrooms, ok! We’ll leave that as a teaser. Sam, thank you very much for taking the time to join us today and you are genuinely going to zoom off in your Harley.

[SH]
I am, yes. I need some mushrooms!

[JB]
Thank you for joining us on Love Scotland. And I do heartily recommend Sam’s book Waypoints, which is out now, published by Octopus in book and in audio form – and be prepared to want to travel in his bootsteps. And if you’d like to visit any of the National Trust for Scotland places mentioned here, including Glencoe, Culross, Bannockburn, and so many more, you’ll find details on the National Trust for Scotland website. There’s even a special Outlander page to guide you on your way. But thank you for listening. From me, for now, goodbye.

[MV]
Love Scotland is brought to you by Think and Demus Productions on behalf of the National Trust for Scotland.
For show notes, go to nts.org.uk and don’t forget to like, subscribe, review and share.

Transcript

Four voices: male voiceover [MV]; Jackie Bird [JB]; Anna Rathband [AR]; Siobhan Synnot

[JB]
Hello. In this episode of Love Scotland, I hope you’re sitting comfortably and maybe have some popcorn to hand because we’re off to the movies. Scotland has long been a lure for location managers looking for iconic places and sweeping scenery, if not the less-than-compliant weather. Not surprisingly, National Trust for Scotland properties and places have often played a leading role in those movies. So, today we thought we’d take a look at how Scotland has been depicted on the big screen. To do that, I’m joined by the Trust’s Film Manager Anna Rathband, whose job must be particularly coveted, and by film and TV critic Siobhan Synnot.

Now we’re going to discuss Scotland on celluloid and beyond, and we may touch on a particular TV series that’s just too influential to miss out. Firstly, hello, Anna.

[AR]
Hello.

[JB]
And hello, Siobhan.

[SS]
Hello there.

[JB]
Now, the films we’re going to mention, it is not an exhaustive list by any means. So, Siobhan, you get the difficult first question. When does Scotland’s cinematic origins begin to be noticed?

[SS]
Well, you could say back in 1895 …

[JB]
Oh good grief! This is going to be a long podcast …

[SS]
Well, ok, but let’s say that this one is emblematic because it’s an 18-second clip and it features an actor going up to the scaffold and getting executed. It’s called The Execution of Mary Stuart. And it’s the first example of stop-start animation. Up to the point when the knife, the guillotine comes down, it’s a real actor and then they quickly substitute in a mannequin. I suppose not only is it the first instance of interest in Scots history on the big screen, it’s also an instance of somebody else telling us our stories – because it’s Thomas Edison, an American company, who made that particular clip.

But you could say, right from the start, they were the twin issues of Scotland: a huge interest in our history; not necessarily interested in letting us tell it.

[JB]
So, we’ve gone full circle immediately because I think one of the last major movies to be made here was Mary Queen of Scots. Thank you for listening, goodbye! Ok, let’s move on a few years. When does it really begin to kickstart?

[SS]
There’s talent all over the place, for sure. The documentary side of things, we of course had John Grierson and his less-celebrated sister, Marion Grierson, making documentaries about Scottish life. We also of course have charming films, like Whisky Galore!, which is about a true story of a cache of whisky being shipwrecked, just off the island of Eriskay. Barra is the island that Sandy Mackendrick choose instead, for reasons of accessibility.

And it really is a fascinating snapshot of life as it was lived on the islands. Fictionalised, sure; terrific knitwear, maybe; but still, you get a strong sense of the hardscrabble life and how discovering free whisky might make all the difference, particularly during wartime.

[JB]
Absolutely. Anna, is it possible to generalise what location managers are looking for when they come to you, when they come to Scotland? Are there particular themes?

[AR]
I think what Siobhan said just there about accessibility is a really interesting point, because a location has to be accessible, especially with the size of crews that productions bring for feature film projects these days. It’s 150 people, plus huge amounts of kit, vehicles, coffee vans – because they’ve always got their coffee and catering with them, which is … I mean, I always appreciate a hot chocolate on set on a cold day, so it’s great! Yes, I think accessibility is a really big thing.

But Scotland also benefits from having a lot of very varied locations in a small country. You can get cities and coastline and forests and mountains all within a couple of hours, if not less, from each other. I think that’s one of the things that is maybe most attractive about bringing films here as well as fantastic crew.

[JB]
And we talk about content, Anna – are there particular story lines that the countryside and the landscape particularly lends itself to?

[AR]
I’m a romantic and I think Scotland’s a romantic country. The folklore and the history and the tradition of this country is something that people always like to draw on and make stories about, whether they’re based on fictional characters or fictionalised versions of real characters.

And Scotland loves an underdog as well. I think lots of great films have been made about people coming into communities where they might be a bit of an outsider and being brought in and being treated with maybe a bit of apprehension at first, but then welcomed by community. I think things like Local Hero are great examples of that or I Know Where I’m Going!

I think actually even something like James Bond Skyfall, which filmed at Glen Etive in Glencoe. James Bond is a lone wolf in a lot of ways and I think the fact that he is Scottish and then when he comes back to his ancestral home in Skyfall is a really significant part of the story, and how that in general is part of many of the films that are made in Scotland, I think – about people being brought into adverse circumstances and being welcomed into different communities.

[SS]
It’s just a shame that Scotland can’t always keep these locations secret. Because of course, in the case of Skyfall, they were going to film a lot more of James Bond’s Scottish ancestral home. There was a castle marked out and everything, but news that Bond was going to be filming in Scotland leaked out. So, they went and shot it in Wales instead!

[JB]
How very dare they!

[SS]
I guess one of the key things for Scotland is we have fantastic locations but we perhaps need to zip it occasionally!

[JB]
I’ll keep my mouth shut! To go back in time, as I say, this isn’t going to be chronologically accurate, but let’s just set the scene. One of the first movies in my research – and I know precious little compared to you two – was a movie about Bonnie Prince Charlie in the 1940s, Siobhan?

[SS]
1948. Now, that’s a Hollywood version of Bonnie Prince Charlie. Funny to think, and we may get into this later, how much the legend of Bonnie Prince Charlie has changed. He was a very romantic figure initially; the man who would be king. In 1923, they shot a version with Ivor Novello, for goodness sake, trotting around the Highlands with Gladys Cooper, who so enjoyed the tartanalia that Gladys Cooper had to say, ‘You know what? Locals don’t always like Anglo-Welsh actors hanging around in kilts in their downtime. Just save it for when you’re on screen, Ivor!’

But the big coup, the big hope, was this 1948 Bonnie Prince Charlie, which was being produced by the legendary British producer Alexander Korda. And they’d managed to secure the services of David Niven, then an absolutely huge star and apparently Scottish. He said he’d been born in Thrums, Kirriemuir. It made him all the better a fit and he was paid an enormous sum of money – I think £150,000 for his services. They shot largely in Shepperton, it has to be said, but also in the Highlands and hopes were high. But there were already signs that maybe it wasn’t going to go so well because somebody died; one of his co-stars died. And then the film bombed completely on release and threatened to take the whole of the film industry with it because it was such an expensive production.

I do like David Niven’s possibly true story – because he was a great extemporiser, perhaps fantastically on true stories – but one of his clansmen who’d all been rounded up from the East End, and at one point, when Bonnie Prince Charlie had the enemy’s colours captured on his behalf, one of the extras got a bit too carried away and said ‘Oi, David, we got the flag!’ I think it was f-ing flag as well!

[JB]
I think, talking about someone dying, David Niven’s career almost died because one of the film critics at the time wrote ‘David Niven as Prince Charlie rallying his Highlanders in a voice barely large enough to summon a waiter.’

[SS]
‘As much at home amongst the Highlanders as a goldfish in a haggis’ runs another review! And to add insult to injury, after Niven’s death, it turned out that being born in Kirriemuir was another of his fantastic stories. He was born in London.

[JB]
Dear oh dear, who knew?

[SS]
The great Pretender!

[JB]
Indeed, not just the young or the old one! Anna, as a percentage, how much of a driver would you say that Scotland’s history is in requests for filming that you receive?

[AR]
That’s a really interesting question. Certainly in more recent years, there’s been a huge upsurge in historical depiction: Outlaw King, which is about Robert the Bruce, and Mary Queen of Scots. And Outlander obviously, although fictionalised, it’s very much based in Highland culture and Culloden’s a hugely pivotal part of that story.

I think it’s really interesting. And then there’s Highlander and Rob Roy and Braveheart, so I guess it’s something that’s always been interesting. The stories of our kings and queens seem to have endless fascination for people, and I think they always will. They were these extraordinary characters but it’s also really well documented history. There’s a lot of artefacts – we’ve got a Robert the Bruce letter at Brodie Castle that was shown on Antiques Roadshow when they filmed earlier this year. It’s just on TV. And Fiona Bruce got to hold the Bruce letter, which was really exciting.

So, I think it’s something that will always have a pull, especially by the fact that there’s so many people who have Scottish roots that now live all over the world. The Scottish diaspora, it’s something that they can really connect with and look into clan names, and the fact that that then translates into films and TV shows that are being made and obviously books that are being written. There’s a lot of cultural significance.

[SS]
There’s certainly a lot of history that attracts screen attention, but there are particular ones aren’t there? Mary, Queen of Scots – there have been umpteen iterations of Mary, Queen of Scots. Most of the making people grind their teeth because you either get the ‘Well, she never spoke with a Scottish accent. She was raised in a French Court’. It’s dramatic licence; it’s not a documentary. Or you get Robert the Bruce, William Wallace – enormous interest but there has been a change of view, because Bonnie Prince Charlie has gone from being this bonnie prince to just more of a Charlie. I think Outlander, for example, tackles that revisionist idea really well. They visit the court and find out that he’s vain and he’s vicious and he’s mean and he’s petulant – everything that the early versions of Bonnie Prince Charlie didn’t say.

As I think we were saying just before this podcast started, where is Flora MacDonald’s film? Because she’s a fascinating character.

[JB]
Well, anyone who is a fan of this podcast, or who would like to find out more about Flora, we have a special episode about her – and she was a fascinating character. There’s one historical movie that hasn’t been mentioned yet: Highlander. Now, that had an inauspicious … why are you laughing?!

[SS]
Historical!

[JB]
Yes, that is my error! Ok, talk about Highlander.

[SS]
Do you know what? I have a huge soft spot for Highlander because Anna was there just trying to define the kind of films that get made, and I think my version would be: you get historical; you get shall we say, Clydesiders, urban gritty stories; and you get the Scotch myths. And they’re not entirely separate genres; they sort of overlap. Highlander is one of those examples of some history and a lot of Scotch myths.

Here we have a chaotically made film from the 80s which stars a Frenchman playing a clan leader, Connor MacLeod, and the world’s most famous Scot of the time playing an Egyptian with the fantastic immortal name of Juan Sanchez-Villalobos Ramirez. And he says things like, ‘I’ve never tried haggis before’. My favourite story of him on location because, of course, Glenfinnan is supposed to be the home of MacLeods. They had Sean Connery for about a week’s filming. So they berthed him up, I think, in the Inverlochy Hotel and flew him to various locations including the Silver Sands of Morar, things like that. But one day in Glenfinnan, both Christopher Lambert, who just come off another major film Greystoke, and Sean Connery were seen walking through the centre – if there is a centre – the middle, off to a location. One of the locals said, ‘There goes Bond and Tarzan’!

[JB]
And as Siobhan mentioned, obviously Glenfinnan there. Now, Glenfinnan should have its own agent.

[SS]
Mmm, it is amazing. And if they want it to be even nicer, the people who go and visit it for Harry Potter and the Glenfinnan Viaduct or to pay homage to Highlander, they might want to stay a little longer than just watching the steam trains clatter through. It is a lovely place. It’s very picturesque. But sometimes you think the most they see is the viaduct and the car park, and that’s it.

[JB]
I think you would agree with that, Anna.

[AR]
Yeah, definitely. Loch Shiel is incredibly beautiful. It’s an area of rich historic significance, and obviously Glenfinnan Monument is the spectacle and its own historic significance. It’s a monument that we care for. We have had other filming; obviously the Harry Potter films have used that area very well and it’s become internationally recognised for that.

I’ve been up to see the viaduct but I’ve never been on a tour. I think it’s great that people are able to do these whistle-stop tours of the Highlands, but I also think if people do have the opportunity to stay a bit longer, there’s a lot to learn – the same with places like Culloden and Glencoe. Any of these places that are so steeped in significance and internationally known. It’s really easy to go somewhere and your brain just thinks ok, I’ve seen the thing I wanted to see and then you go. But there’s so much to connect with if you’re open to spending a little bit longer and reading into the history.

[SS]
Glencoe is such a fantastic cinematic property in any case; it can look different by every turn. There is of course that bit of it that I think we call Bond Bend when we’re driving past, where there always seems to be somebody stopping the car, not necessarily an Aston Martin, but looking off meaningfully into the distance. I went past it one Halloween and found two zombies standing by a motorbike, adopting the Bond pose. So, there’s a challenge for invention and ingenuity to other people. But it’s a place that can look austere but it can look romantic. It could be a place where you fall in love or have a massacre.

[JB]
It’s certainly a spiritual place. On that note, we’ll take a short break and when we come back, we’ll talk more movies.

[MV]
From coastlines to castles, wildlife to wilderness, when you become a member of the National Trust for Scotland, you can enjoy the very best of what Scotland has to offer as often as you like. And you can help to protect it. The National Trust for Scotland is Scotland’s largest conservation charity; by becoming a member, you join thousands of others who are all playing their part to care for the places we love, for generations to come. Join us and become a member today. Just search National Trust for Scotland.

[JB]
Welcome back to the Love Scotland podcast where I’m joined by film and TV critic Siobhan Synnot and the National Trust for Scotland’s Film Manager Anna Rathband, and we’re having a flick through some well-known Scottish-based flicks. Let’s move on to another cinematic trend – horror – and a movie set in Scotland that has stood the test of time. Perhaps it wasn’t deemed a classic when it first came out: The Wicker Man.

[SS]
Yes. The Wicker Man, set on a Scottish island but shot actually in Dumfries & Galloway, principally around Newton Stewart. A great lesson, if you want to watch especially closely again, in how the Scottish weather can be deceptive, because of course it looks like it’s around harvest time. Certainly, it’s plenty sunny but in fact in order to give that illusion of a warm sunny scape, all the actors had to suck ice cubes before take because it was so cold. If they didn’t use the ice cubes, you could see their breath condensing! That telltale glamorous life of Hollywood!

[JB]
A part of it was shot at Culzean Castle. Is that correct?

[AR]
Yeah, they used Culzean as Lord Summerisle’s home, Christopher Lee’s character’s home. We still get people visiting all the time on their Wicker Man pilgrimages to go and visit the castle. We have people who go every year with their friends and that’s a really wonderful thing. And it is such an iconic movie. Obviously, Christopher Lee’s a titan of British and international cinema. So, it’s really fun that that was part of Culzean’s history.

[SS]
It’s a film that’s only grown in stature. At the time it was seen as possibly a flop, something that should be buried. But it gained momentum from 1973 and that partly is because it was written by Anthony Shaffer, a terrific writer of all sorts of stories, and directed by Robin Hardy, perhaps his greatest success. Christopher Lee, I think, invested a lot in it. Now, there are rumours of course that there’s even more Wicker Man than we actually see. But bits of it were cut and put under a motorway in order to bulk it out!

[JB]
Didn’t Christopher Lee say that it was one of his favourite movies of his? He thought it was one of his finest performances.

[SS]
Absolutely. And it’s an incredible mix of horror and suspense …

[JB]
For anyone who hasn’t actually watched it, we should say it’s roughly about devil worship on a remote Scottish island.

[SS]
Edward Woodward is a policeman who has been drawn to investigate the disappearance of a girl, only to realise that this is not necessarily the case and he’s been pulled into a much bigger game and he is one of the pawns. Now read on!

[JB]
Anna, how much does storyline matter when a production company comes to you? Are there any storylines that you would turn down basically, because you have concerns about it being linked to a Trust property?

[AR]
I think we’re quite careful on the whole. It’s not something that we have problems with, because if it’s a fictionalised account, often the set dressing they’re doing of the interior of a property means it wouldn’t look the same anyway, and they’re not referencing the real people that lived there. But sometimes we do get enquiries, more from factual programming rather than TV or drama series and feature films, where there’s maybe a bit of miscommunication and people’s interpretation of the history and the lens that they then look at that through.

So sometimes we do have to be quite careful, especially things to do with island life because obviously, we care for lots of islands. St Kilda, Fair Isle, Canna, Iona … St Kilda is no longer inhabited, but lots of the islands that we care for are still living communities, who are just people getting on with their lives and they just happen to live in an incredibly beautiful remote location. I think sometimes …

[JB]
There’s a stereotype, isn’t there?

[AR]
There is a stereotype. I think that’s a romantic way to look at it. It’s great that people are interested in island life, but I think it has to be taken with respect for the people who really live there and who really work there. As you know, if you live on one of those islands, you do about six different jobs. Everybody runs the shop and also runs the boat and is a schoolteacher and a postie.

[SS]
It sounds a little like part of Anna’s job is to manage expectations. Because sometimes what people think is Scotland just doesn’t exist. You think about Brigadoon back in the day – the movie about an enchanted village that turns up every 100 years, starring Gene Kelly. Arthur Freed, the producer, went all over Scotland looking for Brigadoon and decided nothing in Scotland looked like Scotland. So, he went back to Los Angeles and planted some heather and made it there instead.

But Scotland’s versatility – I think we should celebrate that. It can look like itself but you can also have Glasgow playing Edinburgh, like Trainspotting. And you can have for some reason – possibly somebody in the nationals is very good at selling the place – we get a lot of Glencoe and Glen Nevis appearing in films like Rob Roy and Braveheart despite the fact that Rob Roy and William Wallace were nowhere near the area at the time. Rob Roy was a Border thief, if you like. We also have, for example, the south end of Harris turns up in 2001: A Space Odyssey as Mars.

[JB]
And Skye in Prometheus.

[SS]
Yes, yes. And, you look at the current crop of blockbusters and we had World War Z where the streets of Glasgow were doubling for American streets. It’s played Gotham of course as well, most recently in the still unseen Batgirl, but also we’ve had it playing New York for Indiana Jones’s latest instalment, which is still to come. So, I suppose the great thing about Scotland is sometimes you may be standing in Scotland, at a set at a famous Scottish location, but just not know it because it’s playing something else entirely.

[JB]
Anna, have you ever had any requests to use a location that you think, Oh, I never thought of that before?

[AR]
I think especially with the increased use of CGI to make locations. Sometimes, when we’re on either a tech reccie or actually on site for filming, and you’ll hear the director and the photographer in the crew talking about the shot that they’re getting. And you think, what angle are they seeing? And it’s incredible when you see it all stitched together what they can do.

And actually, it’s funny saying about Glencoe because we had a little bit of filming for the Detective Pikachu, the Pokemon film. They sent a LiDAR team, which is a fancy type of 3D scanner. They put the camera down and scan the whole landscape and then put it into the movie. And so I watched – I love Ryan Reynolds and who doesn’t love Pokemon? – I watched the movie and I thought, I wonder if Glencoe is going to turn up or not? And then within the first couple of minutes, it’s where the baddie’s base is; there’s this base nestled in the bottom of the valley. It was great! Who would have thought it?

[SS]
I suppose the earliest example of that kind of trickery that I can think of – not trickery, but smooshing of landscapes – is, of course, Local Hero, which combines Arisaig and Pennan to create a lovely harbour town. A beautiful picturesque village with a beautiful harbour, but they were from two sides of Scotland and brought together for this one film.

[JB]
That doesn’t really fall into this stereotypical look at Scots as locals, country yokels locals. That’s canny Scots dealing with big money Americans, and they basically take the Americans for a ride almost because they know what they’re after.

[SS]
As Bill Forsyth said, the theme is you can’t eat scenery. Yes, they live in a beautiful place. Yes, everybody who visits thinks it’s lovely. But by preserving a particular way of life, they’re also denying people the chance to thrive as a community. So, it’s a terrific movie. It still, I think, stands the test of time, with Burt Lancaster flying into Scotland as just a point of light, that gets bigger and bigger. Some beautiful moments.

[JB]
40 years old, my favourite film of all time, Scottish or not. In 2023, 40 years. We’ve talked about the magic of cinema transforming places, but there’s also the reality of Scottish heritage and we’ve touched on Outlander. When the location scouts came here, Anna, they must have walked into Culross in Fife and thought all their Christmases had come at once.

[AR]
[Chuckles] It’s certainly been used a lot! 39 Steps used it as well. And The Little Vampire, which came out in the early 2000s, and then Kyun! Ho Gaya Na – the Bollywood movie with Aishwarya Rai and Vivek Oberoi used it as well. I think it’s definitely a very unique place, even just to go as a visitor; it’s a unique place. Captain America used it as well for the first Avenger movie.

So yeah, it gets all this for such a little village. There’s about 450 people live in Culross and it gets a huge amount of attention, which is fantastic because obviously the income – certainly for the National Trust for Scotland, the income goes directly back into conserving the Palace and the other sites that we care for in the village. It’s always funny and interesting to see how people are going to use it, and it’s a beautiful place. It’s very, very special.

[JB]
That’s something we haven’t really touched on is Scotland’s increasing attraction for global cinema.

[SS]
You think about Kyun! Ho Gaya Na. For just a 6-minute fantasy sequence, they flew all the crew and the leads over in order to have a sequence where they were dancing around Scottish castles, because to a Bollywood audience, Scotland was the byword for exoticism. Eilean Donan of course, which has appeared in so many …

[JB]
Again, it should have its own agent!

[SS]
Errol Flynn was there for The Master of Ballantrae. David Niven, of course, was there for Bonnie Prince Charlie. Christopher Lambert was there; I think it was playing Glamis for Highlander – that’s how convoluted Highlander was. Loads of movies. But, even now you see Bollywood being drawn to Scotland. During lockdown, I live near Govan, every day on my constitutional walk, I would see a film called Bell Bottom being made. It had commandeered a hotel. Everybody was in this one hotel, socially isolated, but I would see fascinating little insights into what the plot was. One day, you would see a shooting range being built just outside their hotel; the next day, it would be an airport lounge.

So even now, we find that Scotland is incredibly versatile as a location and very attractive as you say to global audiences.

[JB]
Anna, are you seeing more requests coming in from international filmmakers? I suppose we have, apart from Indian cinema, the growth of Korean cinema too.

[AR]
Yeah, definitely. And we’ve had quite a few Korean factual programmes over the last year that have come to Scotland and come to our locations. I think it’s great that the increase with streaming services means that there’s more content being produced. Netflix have studios all over the world now. So, there’s a much bigger area for stories to be told and for diverse stories to be told. It’s really great when we have international productions that come over and want to use the locations that we care for, for their stories. I think that’s really significant to be able to share these landscapes.

[JB]
And what I think is interesting, is that no matter how well known a location is in Scotland, if the film that’s made there is big enough and iconic enough, it becomes part of the history of the place.

[SS]
Yes. Yes. Like James Bond Bend in Glencoe. Oh yes, exactly. And of course, you know that bit in Waverley station from Trainspotting where Ewan McGregor looks up during the title sequence and laughs. How many people have you seen on a Friday night, recreating that particular scene?! But I think it’s particularly important to Scots because I think Scots are a big cinema-going, cinema-watching nation by habit and repute. So, to be part of the movies is really important to us.

The only thing is that we find so often that we have great stories to tell but sometimes, more often than not, we find it’s other people, other countries that are telling them. So, it’s important to have locations, but it’s also important to have an indigenous film industry.

[JB]
Absolutely. Let’s end with a difficult question. This has not been planned so I’m just going to land this one on you both – your favourite film with a location in Scotland or made in Scotland or that touches on Scotland, Siobhan first.

[SS]
Oh, I’m going to have to think very quickly and I’m not very good at thinking very quickly. We talked about …

[JB]
You’ve got so many in that brain of yours.

[SS]
Well, we talked about Local Hero, which I love so much.

[JB]
That’s mine. I’ve bagged Local Hero.

[SS]
Do you know what? I’ll say I Know Where I’m Going because we’ve mentioned that briefly before, and it’s from the 1940s. It’s Wendy Hiller as an ambitious, young woman, who is … It’s called I Know Where I’m Going and she thinks she knows where she’s going in life, but she gets stranded on a magical island – that’s played by Mull – and she gets beguiled by one of the men that she’s stranded on the island with, and her whole life changes. And it’s a lovely romantic watch.

It’s also quite an eye opener on life on Mull at the time, but it’s so beautifully done. Along with Whisky Galore!, it’s an unwitting snapshot of life that … you don’t see that sort of unselfconsciousness in cinema anymore, do you?

[JB]
There’s an innocent warmth there. Anna?

[AR]
I think I would say Skyfall because it’s Scotland as Scotland on an international stage. Obviously Daniel Craig isn’t a Scottish actor but he’s playing a Scottish character who, in the world of James Bond, hasn’t been back to Scotland for a long time, and the fact that he connect with his roots and it’s one of the most vulnerable times that you see James Bond in any of the films ever, I think it’s hugely significant. It’s that scene where they’re driving along the road and the scenery’s just unfolding in front of them, with Judi Dench. I think it’s just a beautiful piece of cinema.

[JB]
And on that phrase ‘a beautiful piece of cinema’ we will roll the credits on this episode of Love Scotland. Thank you to my guests, the Trust’s Film Manager Anna Rathband.

[AR]
Thank you, Jackie; it has been lovely. Thank you, Siobhan.

[JB]
And to film critic Siobhan Synnot for your whistle-stop tour of Scotland on screen.

[SS]
Yes, I feel slightly bad we didn’t fit in Monty Python and the Holy Grail, but …

[JB]
Let’s move on swiftly, shall we!

[SS]
We’ll have to have another podcast another time!

[JB]
There’s certainly enough material there. You can get more details of Trust properties that have been used as film and TV locations on our show notes or visit the Trust’s website.

And if you’d like to hear a little more about Anna’s role, scroll back on your Love Scotland feed to our December 2020 episode called On Location. But from me for now, that’s a wrap.

[MV]
Love Scotland is brought to you by Think and Demus Productions, on behalf of the National Trust for Scotland. Presented by Jackie Bird.

For show notes and more information, go to nts.org.uk and don’t forget to like, subscribe, review and share.

Transcript

Three voices: male voiceover [MV]; Jackie Bird [JB]; Dr Martha McGill [MM]

[MV]
Love Scotland – from the National Trust for Scotland. Presented by Jackie Bird.

[JB]
Hello and welcome to the latest episode of Love Scotland. As I speak, Halloween is but a few days away – the annual celebration of the spooky and the supernatural. But travel back a few centuries, and ghosts and ghost stories were with us all year round. In fact, Scotland’s evolving relationship with its supernatural friends and foes can give us an insight into what was happening in society at the time. Dr Martha McGill from the University of Warwick has been leading research into these shifting spirits, and she joins me to share her findings. And if we’re lucky, I hope we’ll get a few good ghost stories along the way. Hello, Martha!

[MM]
Hello, Jackie. Thank you so much for having me.

[JB]
You’re very welcome. I’m looking forward to finding out all about this! Big picture first of all. Can Scotland’s relationship with the supernatural be measured compared to other countries? Are we particularly keen on the idea of ghosts or has our appetite changed over the centuries?

[MM]
Honestly, my suspicion is that we’re not more obsessed with ghosts and other supernatural beings than people from any other country. Certainly, you get stories of strange, creepy phenomena from all over the place. That said, there was definitely an attempt to market Scotland as an especially haunted place. We see this particularly from the 19th century when typically educated men writing in periodicals start off this vision of Scotland as somewhere particularly beset by ghosts. And it was a way of crafting this distinctive cultural identity and helping to market Scotland as a tourist attraction as well.

[JB]
Well, we didn’t do too badly with that. So, let’s travel back in time. When does your research start and what did you find?

[MM]
If we go back to the medieval period, that’s when we first start getting ghost stories recorded in Scotland. These stories are quite different from the sorts of stories we’d think of now when we think about ghosts. There are a couple of common patterns for stories from the Middle Ages. Firstly, you often see stories of dead souls returning from purgatory; purgatory being this realm that you go to after death, where your sins are purged away from you by tormenting fires so that you become fit to graduate to heaven. But, supposedly souls would return from purgatory often to beseech the living to say more prayers for them, to help speed up their passage basically. And these returning souls might look just as they had when alive, or sometimes they had these symbolic appearances that would vary as they progressed. They might turn up in the first instance looking completely black all over, and then as they went through purgatory and their sins were cleansed away from them, they would turn white and their clothing would become all white and shining and glowing. It was a different mode of presenting spirits compared to what we might think of as common now – the ethereal, gliding phantom or whatever.

The other thing you get in the medieval period is stories of revenance – essentially risen corpses. These are basically your modern-day zombie. They’d be mouldy or dead bodies that would drag themselves up from the grave and go and terrorise the local village. They were very physical, corporeal. They could attack people. They could sexually assault people as well. So again, a very different kind of spectre to what we would think about if we thought about a ‘ghost’ now.

[JB]
What did they tell us about society at that time? Was there a particular fear of death?

[MM]
Was there a fear of death? Yes, of course. When we go back several centuries, as we’re doing here, you’ll go back to a period where life expectancy is likely in the 30s or so. People are continually surrounded by death, and telling these stories is one way to contend with that. Telling these stories about souls coming back from purgatory is on the one hand a way to reassure people that their relatives are going on the right path; they might be being getting hideously tortured by flames in purgatory but ultimately they’re on their way to Heaven! But at the same time, these stories are a way for the Church to spread particular messages. Obviously, stories about souls coming back from purgatory were a way to moralise, to tell people to make sure you’re behaving yourself, make sure you’re making the right donations to the Church and saying the right prayers, and all of that sort of thing, because the dead really do need you to do this … The stories about revenance as well were typically stories about people who had lived wicked lives and then died bad deaths, so they were warnings against being evil essentially.

[JB]
They weren’t just arbitrary ghost stories; they generally served a purpose.

[MM]
Yes, absolutely. I think that’s one of the reasons we see ghost stories changing so much over the centuries. They answer different purposes at different times. They evolve according to the broader theological context or social contexts because, yes, they’re continually being used for different purposes.

[JB]
So, when did things change?

[MM]
Well, the Reformation shakes things up. We get to the 16th century – the Reformation in Scotland is 1560 – and Protestantism rejects this idea of purgatory, essentially. For most Protestant theologians, there’s two possible locations after death: Heaven or Hell. This made ghost stories a bit problematic. The idea was that no-one would ever be allowed to leave Hell; nobody would ever want to leave Heaven; so there wasn’t anywhere for ghosts to come back from. Certainly, in the first few generations after the Reformation, we see a rejection of the idea that dead souls might come back to earth. What we do still see is the idea that the Devil might conjure up apparitions to trick people. We also see various stories about fraudulent Catholic priests perpetrating ghost hoaxes to con people out of their money – this stuff is used as anti-Catholic propaganda.

[JB]
How were these stories being shared? If it was top-down, if a lot of them came from the Church, how did they disseminate them?

[MM]
I should clarify first of all – it’s easy to talk about the top-down stuff, because that’s the stuff that survives; that’s the stuff that was written down! I’m sure that, on a popular level, people were telling their own ghost stories, and these might well differ from the stuff the Church puts out. Certainly, when we start getting folklore and ballads recorded, those do include ghosts, often a slightly different kind of ghost from the one the Church authorities might talk about. I think first of all this stuff was circulating at all levels of society anyway.

And then the stuff we see written down by the educated authorities, is often stuff that brings together that popular folklore with some proper theology! It puts this veneer of respectability onto it by attaching a moralising message. In terms of how that would then get circulated, it depends a bit on the specific period we’re talking about. Some of the stuff was written down in chronicles, in histories, surveys of local folklore. Some of it made its way into cheap pamphlets, which would circulate around the country and were often illustrated, so they would be accessible in some way even to illiterate people. They might get read out or sung, in the case of ballads, at the tavern in evenings. There were ways for communication between different levels of society about what ghosts were like essentially.

[JB]
Was this also around the time when the fervour for witch hunts reached its peak?

[MM]
Yes. Scotland’s witch hunting kicks off from 1563, which is when witchcraft is made a capital offence. That coincides with the Reformation and is broadly a time when ghost stories are giving way to stories of the Devil and his machinations. There’s a kind of crossover there – you get more witches and at the same time more of the Devil. Those two things go hand in hand because witches were supposedly servants of the Devil. I suppose you’ve got a negative combination in the first instance! The point when the witch hunts are kicking off is also the point when stories of actual dead souls coming back are declining.

But then later in the 17th century, we see a resurgence of these stories about actual ghosts – dead souls rather than just diabolic tricks. There isn’t a kind of formula we could adopt to explain how witch hunting affects ghost stories, or vice versa.

[JB]
Do we know specifically what the Church had to gain from the witch hunts?

[MM]
Ok, this is a big question! The Church broadly wants to stamp out evil in society. You’re looking at a period of high mortality, a period of frequent subsistence crises, a period of outbreaks of the Plague and so forth. From the perspective of your ministers, these are signs that God is angry with the nation and that they need to be stamping out sin. What we see, especially from the later 16th century, is this attempt to craft a godly society, which means partly you’re stamping down on all kinds of sexual misdemeanours; partly you’re stamping down on things like drunkenness, blasphemy, swearing; but also, you’re pursuing witches. You’re pursuing these figures who are supposedly in league with the Devil, attacking your broader society. Obviously, it was a hideous miscarriage of justice, the witch hunts, but I think for the most part the people perpetrating them – which was partly people on the local level accusing their neighbours and then partly educated authorities – were doing what they thought was best and what they thought would genuinely cleanse their society of evil.

[JB]
During all of this, were there geographical differences in beliefs surrounding the supernatural? Did the Highlands fear what the Borders feared?

[MM]
This is hard to say just because of the paucity of surviving material. It’s your elite Lowland figures in the later 17th century who are recording these stories, and there’s no obvious differentiation between Highland and Lowland stories, or stories from the middle of the country and stories from the border. We do start to see a very clear differentiation in the kinds of stories that are getting recorded from the later 18th and into the 19th century, which is when we start getting this particular vision of Scotland crafted to appeal to tourists. Then we really see a shift towards a distinctive Highland ghost emerging. This would typically be the ghost of an ancient warrior who might come back in armour and might battle with travellers. It would be hale and hearty and would like to eat oatcakes! These stereotypes of Highlanders got regurgitated and adapted into ghost stories. We definitely see that at some point. I’m tempted to say that the Highlands compared to the Lowlands had more fairies, fewer ghosts. Although when you get these ancient warrior ghosts, it’s something that’s getting crafted onto the region rather than something that is actually coming from the Highlands.

[JB]
I understand there was lots of stories about grief and ghosts involved with grief, perhaps advising people to stop grieving.

[MM]
Yes, we’ve talked a bit about the kinds of stories that theologians or ministers told. This is something that was much more coming out of popular culture. You see this especially in surviving ballads about ghosts. The idea that ghosts would come back to say, ‘oh, you’re crying so much; your tears have soaked through my shroud and now I can’t make to Heaven because my shroud is too heavy’! This idea that you have to let people go, essentially. I think these kind of stories circulate on a popular level, just as a way of helping people contend with death, spreading this message that death is something you need to accept, and that you need to try and not grieve too heavily because that would upset the people who are gone.

[JB]
Well, let’s let those people go, if only for a moment. I think now is a good time to have a short break. And when we come back, Martha, we’ll discuss how ghosts evolved in later years and we’ll also chart the rise of the celebrity spectre. We’ll be back in a moment.

[MV]
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[JB]
Welcome back to the Love Scotland podcast where I’m talking all things supernatural with Dr Martha McGill. Martha, when we reach the 18th century, our view of the supernatural changes, and we get something that you’ve described as the ‘romanticisation of ghosts’. What was that?

[MM]
This is something that kicks off from the latter half of the 18th century especially. This is when the Church loses control of the narrative basically! We get a move away from ghosts as religious propagandists and ghosts increasingly move into this more slightly more fantastical sphere. Gothic literature is becoming popular around this time, promoting the idea of haunted castles and ruins – dark, creepy ghosts that haunt places as opposed to ghosts who come back to people to deliver a specific message and then get back to the grave. At the same time, we get the spread of an early Romantic movement, which takes up stories of ghosts and turns them into something sublime or picturesque, and makes them part of this image of Scotland as a dramatic, windswept Celtic realm.

So yes, we see a move away from ghosts used for religious ends and ghost stories written down for people who really believed them and thought they could convert society, towards ghosts becoming tourist attractions and becoming probably more modern in terms of how they appeared, the kinds of hauntings they perpetrated.

[JB]
Why this change at this time? Just before the break you mentioned the Highland warrior, and this was just post-Jacobite Rebellion – did that have anything to do with it?

[MM]
Yes. Post-Jacobite Rebellion, post-1745 and the failure of the Jacobite movement, the Highlands are quite brutally repressed. You get the power of the Clan Chiefs is severely curtailed; Highlanders are no longer allowed to carry weapons, things like this. You also get a move to supposedly ‘civilise’ the region by a lot of road building, establishment of schools, and so forth. And when the Highlands become ‘pacified’, and when Highlanders start serving and distinguishing themselves in the British army, with the Napoleonic Wars especially, then you get a movement towards romanticising the Highland warrior figure. The Highland warrior figure was no longer a threat to national security essentially, in the way that he had been during the Jacobite period. It’s safer to turn it into something beautiful and glorified, and all the rest.

[JB]
As you said, around this time, this is when the peripatetic ghost was joined by the ‘working-from-home’ phantom, if I can put it that way! There are many Trust properties who have their own in-house apparitions, so perhaps now might be a good time to run through a few, Martha? I think you’ve been researching some for us.

[MM]
Oh, there’s lots and lots and lots! I was going to just mention a few of my favourites.

Crathes Castle has supposedly a Green Lady. This was the spirit of a young woman, allegedly. Supposedly, she’s seen by the fireplace. She wears a green dress, and she has this baby cradled in her arms. Apparently, when the castle was renovated in the early 19th century, the bones of a child were under the hearthplace. There’s an idea there that this was possibly a case of infanticide perhaps, that meant this woman seen cradling the child could never rest since, or some murder for other reasons.

[JB]
I think there’s a Green Lady in Fyvie Castle too.

[MM]
Yes, I was just going to say the Green Lady ghosts straddle this really interesting line between being forlorn, sorrowful, pitiful figures – and that’s what we get at Fyvie. The ghost at Fyvie is supposedly the ghost of Lilias Drummond who died in 1601. Legend has it that her husband Alexander Seton starved her to death because she didn’t give him a son; she only had daughters. Supposedly, when he remarried, her screeches of protest were heard outside the bedchamber, and the next morning her name was found carved into the windowsill. She’s an example of a very sad Green Lady essentially. Again, a figure you might pity.

[JB]
I understand House of the Binns also had some pretty villainous ghosts.

[MM]
Oh yes. House of the Binns supposedly has the ghost of Tam Dalyell, or ‘Bluidy Tam’ as he was known. A 17th-century Royalist general, who was held responsible for persecuting Covenanters. This is a pattern that you see relatively commonly – these figures who were thought of as local villains often end up with ghost stories attached to them. It’s hard to say often when these ghost stories come from precisely because it’s typically not until the 19th century that they actually get recorded, but yes, supposedly Tam haunts his former residence. He gallops around on a horse. He played cards with the Devil when he was alive, so there are spectral remnants of that. We see actually a really similar case in Edinburgh, in Greyfriars Kirkyard, which is supposedly haunted by Bluidy Mackenzie – George Mackenzie – another perpetrator of evils against the Covenanters in the 17th century. So yes, these figures who are known as villains in the local imagination end up with this dark reputation after death, and this often attaches itself to this idea that they can’t rest; they’re not allowed to go and settle themselves in Heaven because they’ve been too evil during their lives.

[JB]
And also in the 19th century we get the concept of the celebrity figure, perhaps a royal?

[MM]
The 19th century is the time when all of this really gets turned into tourism. You start getting this vision of Scotland as a peculiarly haunted place perpetrated abroad and so forth. I think the idea of royals coming back as ghosts is especially associated with that. People have heard of someone like Mary, Queen of Scots and like the idea that they might be able to see a ghost of her! You get famous figures turning into ghosts in a way that might not have happened as much traditionally. I think people would have been a bit careful to tell a ghost story about Mary, Queen of Scots back in the 16th or 17th centuries because that might be implying that she had done evil herself, wasn’t allowed to rest properly; or that the Devil was allowed by God to raise her corpse and manipulate it, which probably also meant that she had died as an evil figure. You’d have to be a little bit careful about spreading these sorts of stories in earlier times when it was all still closely knitted to theology. You were making particular aspersions essentially about the dead person. When all of that loosens up and when ghosts were used more broadly just to market a certain vision of the nation, we get celebrity ghosts.

[JB]
When did we begin to become more sceptical of ghosts? Indeed, have we become more sceptical over the centuries?

[MM]
I think it’s really hard to say what happens in terms of belief. You can’t measure belief if you go back to the 16th or 17th centuries. No one was handing out surveys asking exactly what do you believe when it comes to the disembodied dead or whatever?! How many people believed in ghosts? Who knows. Certainly, from the later 18th and 19th centuries, the figures who wrote these stories down were getting more sceptical about them. They’re increasingly shared as sort of folklore curiosities rather than as statements of fact, but whether that reflects shifting levels of belief is hard to say. It might just reflect shifting views in intellectual culture about what is acceptable to profess in the public sphere. There’s various credible theories that people in private go on believing in ghosts despite what they’re writing down. They still feel a bit of a shudder when they walk through dark graveyards at night, or whatever it might be.
To come up to the modern day, ghost belief has been increasing in the country since the Second World War. There’s no immediately neat correlation we can make with changing education levels. I think it’s more that ghosts come in and out of fashion at different times. For example, during periods of warfare, you will typically get a big boom in ghost stories and a big boom in recorded levels of belief as well. I think ghosts answer cultural purposes more at some times than at others, but it’s complicated to try and say that levels of belief have declined in any consistent or steady way.

[JB]
I suppose that fashion, that increase in the belief of ghosts and the after-life from the Second World War and indeed the First World War when there was a surge in spiritualism, that’s just got a lot to do with people surrounded by death and that they needed some way of dealing with it.

[MM]
Yes, absolutely. You see, of course, the stories adapt themselves to that as well. There’s a big rise in stories of returning soldiers or spectral armies fighting in the air. You get these stories going back. A big boom of them come from the mid-17th-century civil wars as well. People again use ghosts to answer the concerns of their time. The stories change, they evolve, and they meet different emotional needs. Unfortunately, there’s an awful lot of death to be contended with during warfare so you do see ghosts roped in for that purpose.

[JB]
I know your specific period of interest ends around 1800 but if Dr Martha McGill was researching attitudes to the supernatural in the early 21st century in Scotland, what might you conclude?

[MM]
I think there’s still an awful lot of belief about, more than people might in the first instance assume. Certainly, my experience of researching this stuff is that everybody has a story! Everybody I speak to, when I mention that I work on ghosts, will say: ‘oh well, when I was 8 …’! I think these stories are still very very much with us. And again, we can speculate about why that is and what sort of cultural purposes they serve nowadays. One interesting theory actually is that there was a period when ghosts fell out of fashion because they got replaced by alien stories; suddenly everyone was talking about seeing UFOs. Now that’s faded away again and the supernatural has had a sort of resurgence. Strange apparitions have turned into emanations of the supernatural rather than aliens. As we’ve said, things change over time. My impression is that stories are still very much with us in the present day and still offer people an outlet for grief and again contribute to a particular vision of Scotland that, for various reasons, people want to market.

[JB]
Absolutely fascinating. Thank you, Martha, for joining me and giving me a different perspective on those things that go bump in the night.

Martha’s book, Ghosts in Enlightenment Scotland, is out now. Martha, thank you once again.

[MM]
Thank you very much. It’s been lovely to chat to you.

[JB]
If you’d like to find out more about the ghosts that haunt the National Trust for Scotland properties, make sure you check the website and the show notes for this episode. As well as the sites we’ve mentioned, you’d be in with a chance of spotting some spectres at the House of Dun, Drum Castle, Craigievar Castle, Haddo House and even Killiecrankie, as well as many others. If you’d like to spend a bit more time with Scottish ghosts today, scroll back through your Love Scotland feed to find our October 2021 episode ‘Meet the ghosts of Culross’.

That’s all from me. Until next time, goodbye!

[MV]
Love Scotland is brought to you by Think and Demus Productions, on behalf of the National Trust for Scotland. Presented by Jackie Bird. For show notes and more information, go to nts.org.uk and don’t forget to like, subscribe, review and share.

Transcript

Three voices: male voiceover [MV]; Jackie Bird [JB]; Rosemary Goring [RG]

[MV]
Love Scotland – from the National Trust for Scotland. Presented by Jackie Bird.

[JB]
Hello and welcome to Love Scotland. Today, we’re focusing on a tragic heroine whose life has been a fascination for more than 400 years. The story of Mary, Queen of Scots isn’t confined to the history pages either. Like a 16th-century Marilyn Monroe, her life and loves have been picked over down the years as we’ve analysed her bad judgements politically and the bad men romantically. Despite the passing years, she remains box office as confirmed by the plethora of books, TV dramas and movies about her life. And now a new book – Homecoming: The Scottish years of Mary, Queen of Scots. And I’m happy to say its author, Rosemary Goring, is our podcast guest today. Thank you for coming along, Rosemary.

[RG]
Hi. Great to be speaking to you.

[JB]
Well, we’re going to start with the difficult questions! Why does Mary continue to garner so much interest?

[RG]
Well, it is a really interesting question because in some ways I can’t answer that except to say that you’re right – people keep coming back to her. They keep wanting to pick away at her story and see if they can find a new dimension to her. I think it’s because she was so complicated a figure; we’ve never quite fathomed her. She’s both tragic but on the other hand she was incredibly successful. She was extraordinarily talented and yet she failed so dismally. And there’s never been a way of reconciling the different parts of her character that completely explain what happened to her and why. So, I think that’s why we keep returning to her.

[JB]
And before we talk about the real Mary, have you got a view after all your research on all those movie and TV depictions of her?

[RG]
Ah well, this is where I have to confess I can’t watch those, because I just scream at the screen. Every time Mary meets Elizabeth, I’m out of the room! To be honest, I can talk about the books but the movies, they have just gone over my head … deliberately.

[JB]
Absolutely! Because that meeting did not happen.

[RG]
It did not, and it was the one thing that Mary was desperately keen that would happen. And I think Elizabeth, as she grew a little wiser, realised that it must not happen. You can totally understand why somebody doing a film or a novel would make that happen – it’s great dramatic material. Even when I was writing this book, I was partly wishing I was writing fiction because there you’d have a chance to change what happened and even maybe change the ending. You can do that with dramas but unfortunately not with straight history.

[JB]
Absolutely. So, what was the interest for you personally? Was it the complexity of the character?

[RG]
In part it was the complexity. It was also I wanted to find out for myself, or come to my own conclusions about, whether Mary was responsible for her own downfall, or if Scotland and Scottish society and politics played a large part, or even the entire part, and can be blamed for what happened to her. I’ve been trying to take that thread through the book and at the same time I wanted to place her very specifically in her Scottish context because a lot of her story took place outside of Scotland, but I believe that it was Scotland that made her the woman that she was. And I thought that all the locations where she actually made history tell you a little bit about the world that she lived in and how she responded to it.

[JB]
We’ll find out your conclusion, I hope, about whether or not she was entirely the architect of her own downfall, but let’s begin for people who are not quite so au fait with the history. As you’ve said, you decided to tell the story through the Scottish places that she lived, she visited or in many cases fled to. And reading your book, finding out that there were so many occasions she had to seek some sort of sanctuary, was that really a metaphor for her life?

[RG]
Ah well, latterly it certainly was. The first few years of her life were very happy, even if she was under danger from Henry VIII who was desperate to marry her off to his young son. Even from the start, you’re right, she was seeking sanctuary in a sense that her mother whisked her away from Linlithgow where she was born, up to Stirling Castle which was a great fortress, and then even further locations beyond that. She had to be packed off to France when she was still 5 because everywhere in Scotland was still too dangerous; the threat was too great. And then later in her life obviously, when she was escaping her enemies, she took refuge OR they took her captive.

So yes, it is a sort of metaphor for her life, but actually I feel it doesn’t tell the whole story because at various points in her life she was majestic and she was in control and she was a terrific figurehead for Scotland in her early years as a queen. So, I like to think of the places where she took sanctuary … I more think of the ones when she was an adult as places where she would go for spiritual resuscitation or to gather her thoughts, rather than she was timorous and scared.

[JB]
Let’s get some anchor dates. She was born, as you say, into Linlithgow Palace 1542. The bulk of Linlithgow is very much a ruin these days, but you describe throughout the book in great detail what these places were like in their heyday – the grandeur of the 16th century and the lives of those living there. How important was this in terms of trying to convey the context of the life into which Mary was born?

[RG]
Very important. I think it’s really difficult today to imagine what a castle like Linlithgow would have felt like and appeared to be like to ordinary people. People in those days, when I say ordinary, they had so little compared with us today. So, the splendour of a castle or a palace was partly, in a way, to reinforce royal authority, whether for the people in the country itself or for people who were visiting – visiting dignitaries who needed to be shown that Scotland wasn’t a dreadful, poor, hole-in-the-corner kind of country, but somewhere that you had the finest crafts and arts, which was a really Renaissance country.

Which of course Mary’s father James V, and her grandfather James IV, had worked so hard to do. They were fascinated by the arts and by culture, and they made sure that the buildings that they had much to do with were renovated to look as splendid and as completely modern as was possible to be. I felt it was really important to set the context of where her story unfolds. I love socio-economic history. I think it tells you so much about a period. It tells you almost as much in some ways as political history because it is in these tiny details of whether it’s tapestry hangings or the way people ate or the way that they lived and the hours that they worked – that tells you so much about what was going on in society.

[JB]
Yes. And so, from Linlithgow, as a baby, before she was a year, she moved to Stirling, to be crowned.

[RG]
That’s correct, yes. That was a really amazing castle. Again, it had been partially built by her grandfather and her father. It was still actually being built when she and her mother, Mary of Guise, hurried up there. They managed to make an escape – or her mother managed to make an escape – which was very wily. It has been described often, Stirling, as the brooch between the Highlands and the Lowlands – the brooch in the centre of Scotland. The view that you can actually see from the castle, I always feel it’s a way of looking at Mary’s kingdom, what she had inherited. I always think that it’s such a shame that she didn’t live to a great old age to look back on the country that she had reigned from the ramparts of Stirling.

[JB]
Because she had to leave there at 5 years old, or leave Scotland.

[RG]
She did, yes. And before she could leave, they decided that she would sail to France, to the safety of Mary of Guise’s family and the French Court. They decided that to do that, she would sail from the west coast. She was taken to Dumbarton Castle, which is this incredibly daunting castle on this basalt lump of stone – very, very grim. But the young Mary, who had all her friends around her, seemed very happy here, and very happy to sail off to France. When she had sailed off, her mother took refuge in Falkland Palace because she was so upset at losing her daughter.

[JB]
When she went to France, who were her key predators, if you like, at that time?

[RG]
You mean back in what you could call Britain?

[JB]
Yes.

[RG]
Henry VIII was very much her key predator because he wanted to marry her off to his youngest son. And wanted her at that point, before she was married, from the age of 10 for her to be placed at the English Court where she could be coaxed and taught to be the kind of queen that they wanted her to be, as the wife of his son. And of course the Scottish parliament would have nothing to do with this. They realised what this foretold so this is why she had to be got out of the country, because Henry VIII wasn’t subtle. My goodness, he had a lot of brute force behind him, and if he wanted something, in the end he could probably get it.

[JB]
What struck me is that children like Mary, although born into great privilege, were just pawns on a European chessboard, to be moved and married at will.

[RG]
Totally that. Anybody who feels envious about royalty, probably pertains today to some diluted extent as well, these were not enviable lives. They might have been luxurious, sumptuous but my goodness the danger that lurked around the corners. That’s what you can see in some of the buildings that Mary lived in and passed through in Scotland, is just the implicit threat in how military they all are – the battlements and the dungeons they all have. This was a life of grave danger at almost every turn. You never knew where your next assassin was lurking.

[JB]
Hmmm. We won’t spend too much time discussing her time in France. She arrived there when she was 5. Were they happy years?

[RG]
I think they were happy, actually. She only saw her mother once during the whole time she was in France, and that was for a very long visit, for almost a year, when Mary of Guise went there. And other than that, she and her mother corresponded regularly and they were very close, despite the actual geographical distance. So that when Mary of Guise did die, before Mary came back to Scotland, that was for her a terrible bereavement. But, that’s jumping forward a bit.

She was very happy at the French Court because she was something of its darling. The king thought she was beautiful. He did think that the Scots were a slightly rough lot [chuckles] and one of the Court thought they didn’t wash as thoroughly as they ought to! I’m not sure that would have been true of Mary because I get the feeling that she was enormously fastidious, and also she had lots of maid servants and courtiers around her to make sure that she was immaculately turned out. And she was given her own court when she was old enough to actually be acknowledged properly, formally.

[JB]
And she became queen, but for a very short time.

[RG]
Exactly that. She married the dauphin, became queen and it’s hard to imagine the sycophancy that they would have been treated with as a couple, but also the loneliness of that position. Because actually the dauphin as king never had any real power; he was a very sickly young man. It was Mary’s uncles – the Guise brothers – who really held the strings of power. And so, a very tricky time for her. I think after her marriage, and once the dauphin was so unwell and died, these were not happy years. These were quite menacing years for Mary. She realised her position was precarious.

[JB]
Did she have to return to Scotland? Did she have any say?

[RG]
She did have a say. I think she could have decided, and she at one point considered, not returning to Scotland. She certainly didn’t leap to return as soon as she was, if you like, freed of being the queen of France. As soon as she was the dowager queen, she could have got on a boat and come back. She didn’t do that; she searched for other marital options because she wanted to be married and there was power in marriage, particularly given what alliances she could have made throughout Europe. For me, that’s a black mark in the book against Mary – in that she did not seem to be committed to coming back to Scotland and picking up the reins. She was happy with Scotland to be ruled by people just sitting in the country and making sure things carried on.

There was a delegation – somebody came to visit her, her step-brother the future Earl of Moray came to France to tell her that she would be very welcome in Scotland. And one of the reasons – it sounds as though an obvious thing, of course you’re queen, you would be welcome – but in the time that she had been in France, there had been the Reformation. A Catholic queen was suddenly not sure if she would be wanted in a Protestant country. He came over to reassure her and say yes, do come back to Scotland. Maybe that helped sway her mind, but my feeling is that she had become so accustomed to the comfort of the French Court, that she was very Frenchified even though she had had her Scottish Court around her the whole time she was there. She spoke in Scots. Apparently, her English wasn’t so good but her French was excellent. I think that Scotland did not, without her mother being there, feel like home for her.

[JB]
But at the end of the day, she made the decision to return. She returned an 18-year-old widow. That phrase itself elicits sympathy.

[RG]
It does, doesn’t it? It’s hard to imagine: you’d been married, you’d been widowed and you’re suddenly in charge of a country which is pretty fearsome. It’s in the hands of (I would say) rabid Protestant sect who obviously had to be a bit rabid to effect a Reformation. They had to take the law into their own hands. Whatever you think about that – whether it was a right thing to do or the wrong thing – they were a very fearsome bunch.

[JB]
What was she like as a young adult arriving in Scotland? That’s a tricky question, I know, because in your book you say even historians can’t agree on her character.

[RG]
One thing we do know is that she was extremely good looking. People all said, even the people who loathed her or everything she stood for, how beautiful she was. She was extremely tall – she was almost 6ft. She was beautifully dressed because she loved clothes. She would wear high heels to accentuate how high she was. She had auburn hair, fair skin – she was lovely. I think actually that made such an impression on people, that carried her a good way into the good will of the people as this Catholic queen returned. She was very fun-loving; she absolutely adored partying. She loved music – she had as much music around her at Holyrood Palace as she could possibly manage. She loved playing cards and dice – she’d sit up all through the night gambling. She loved outdoor pursuits – hunting and hawking. She was a really athletic, fun-loving girl basically.

[JB]
Well, she sounds great, and this is very upbeat. And I think this is a good time to take a break because, spoiler alert, the next tranche of Mary’s Scotland years didn’t go too well.

Rosemary, we’ll take a short break and we’ll be back in a moment.

[MV]
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[JB]
Welcome back to the Love Scotland podcast where I’m discussing the life and locations of Mary, Queen of Scots with Rosemary Goring, whose new book plots Mary’s tragic timeline alongside the castles and palaces in which she sought refuge.

Rosemary, Mary seems to have been constantly enveloped in a web of religious and warring powers, and caught between ambitious and ruthless men. So, this question: did she ever stand a chance?

[RG]
Well, I think probably not, actually. I think the dice was loaded against her from the start. I think if you look at European politics of the time, these were huge tectonic forces crushing in on Scotland and on what she was hoping to achieve. In a way, the world she was working in was far too difficult for her ever to succeed. I think she could have managed to have avoided her end – the terrible end that she came to – but I don’t know that she could ever have been a fully effective monarch.

[JB]
Was that because of something lacking in her character? Her intelligence? Her experience?

[RG]
I definitely think she lacked experience, but then so have many other kings and queens. She had flaws in her character, but again so have many other kings and queens. I think the actual period that she was born into, in the midst of religious conflicts, with a country that had had a recent revolution, really made it very difficult. Even the most astute king or queen would have found it hard. I think it was exceptionally hard for somebody who was on her own but was looking for a partner, looking for the stability of that in an extremely male world.

[JB]
Yes, because I have to say – it’s not exactly a feminist stance – but I was thinking, as I read your book, what that woman needs is a good man by her side! And that is precisely what she didn’t get. After being married to practically a child, she made two dreadful marriages in Scotland. What do those matches tell us about her?

[RG]
That is really interesting because I think when she married Lord Darnley against all the advice she was getting, against the advice of the 4 Marys who were her great friends all through her life. Despite what they were saying, she went ahead and married him. Some have said it was pure lust – and it’s entirely possible that there was an element of that. I think she was desperate though for somebody who she could lean on and trust. Why she thought Darnley was that figure, I do not know. But she did that, and probably within weeks she realised what a mistake she had made. He was just turning out to be incredibly vile. He wasn’t just ambitious, he was vicious.

[JB]
In the book you’ve described him – and I’m sure there are many more adjectives – as ‘venal, vain, immoral, unfaithful, a lout’ … and she couldn’t see it. She just couldn’t see it.

[RG]
She couldn’t. And then suddenly she saw it all, and I think that must have been a terrible moment for her because by then she was pregnant, and what could she do? She had this desperately unpleasant man who actually posed a threat to her own life, as she soon began to realise, with the murder of Rizzio, during which she was almost murdered … or always believed that she was an intended victim as well. So that was an absolutely calamitous marriage, and you can feel for her. She said that at one point, if he wasn’t dealt with – whatever she meant by that – she would take her own life. She couldn’t live if they were still together.

[JB]
And of course, Darnley met his end in a plot that involved her second husband, the Earl of Bothwell, who you describe as ‘just a thug’.

[RG]
[laughs] An educated thug, yes! He really was. It was very noticeable apparently, after Mary married him, that her own language grew much coarser. That she had been infected by the way he spoke and behaved and thought. Marrying him was an act of absolute desperation, and I think it shows just how far she had fallen from her own ambitions, actually, and from her own sense of integrity. When Bothwell became the prime suspect for Darnley’s murder, which was almost from the very start, there was a kind of white-washed trial in which he was completely exonerated, and people began to get very uneasy at the sight of their queen consorting with this man.

When he first proposed to her, she actually refused him, but then it became clear that really she needed somebody as thuggish as him to help her see off her enemies. It was an absolutely calamitous decision. On the day of her wedding, she was found … wedding’s too nice a word for them getting married really, it wasn’t a joyful occasion … she was found bitterly crying. She was already regretting it. I suspect she never wanted to marry him, but because he had possibly raped her, certainly because she may have thought she was pregnant, she had to go along with it.

[JB]
Do we know for sure that Mary played a part in the murder of Darnley, her first husband, that she was somehow an accomplice with Bothwell?

[RG]
No, we absolutely don’t know that she was an accomplice. That’s one of the things that is impossible to say for sure. It seems really hard to think she knew nothing of what was planned, given the kind of men that were around her and given the signals that she’d been giving off, but essentially she was a gentle person. She wasn’t vindictive; she wasn’t bloodthirsty like many people in positions of power. And I think it is possible that she deluded herself into thinking that this could be dealt with diplomatically, or in some way having him banished, without actually having him murdered. I personally don’t think that she ever explicitly said that she wanted him killed or ever played a part in that.

[JB]
But if you marry a thug, I suppose that’s what you get. [laughs]
Let’s talk about some of Mary’s favourite places, because obviously this is the premise of the book, and you describe them so wonderfully. Let’s talk about Falkland Palace, which is a National Trust for Scotland property. What was its role in her life?

[RG]
Falkland Palace really was one of her favourite places. It had been one of her mother and father’s favourite places as well. This was a little hunting lodge in the heart of Fife in Falkland Forest. This is where they would retreat to enjoy themselves, not necessarily in sorrow as when Mary of Guise went there after Mary had gone to France, and not as when her father had gone there after the Battle of Solway Firth when he thought that he was about to die, which indeed he did. This was a place where they could have fun and they could sort of let their hair down and go hunting, which they just loved to do. For them, it was a holiday place; it was a place of happy memories. And it was sumptuous and beautiful – it’s a jewel box of a location.

[JB]
It also had one of the earliest tennis courts, and lots of stories abound about Mary playing real tennis, but I was interested to learn in your book there’s no firm evidence that Mary actually played there.

[RG]
Not that I can find. I was reading a book by a couple of tennis experts, and they said it would have been very unseemly for a queen to have played tennis. Well, Mary did lots of unseemly things in a very charming fashion. It’s entirely possible to picture her playing tennis, but if she ever did play tennis there, she can’t have been completely smitten by it because she allowed the court to go into complete disrepair during her time. So, that doesn’t seem to me something that somebody who loved playing tennis would have allowed to happen.

[JB]
And there are also many claims that Mary adored a good game of golf, but it’s like the stories about Sean Connery – if everyone supposedly had their milk delivered by Sean Connery, he would have had a pretty major milk round! No real proof that she played golf around Scotland either?

[RG]
Well, there’s one reference to her playing golf, and this is in a list of indictments of her, of what a flibbertigibbet she was and what terrible things she did in the wake of her husband’s murder. Goiffe, as they called it, was one of them, but it’s a single reference and it’s done to discredit her. Maybe she once picked up a golf club? I don’t know, but she certainly wasn’t out on the Royal & Ancient every other weekend!

[JB]
And every club that now says Mary, Queen of Scots played here … perhaps, perhaps not so much! You described overall writing about Mary as like ‘wading through quicksand’. What makes it so difficult?

[RG]
Firstly, there’s the volume of material, both from her own time and in all the centuries since. And secondly, it’s trying to find a voice that is completely trustworthy. It’s only in our own times that historians are more judicious, and they balance up this fact against that fact and all the probabilities. In the early centuries, people just wrote tracts which were either entirely against here – she was a complete sinner – or she was an absolute saint. And it’s only now that the scales of justice are being allowed to be weighed slightly more judiciously. That for me made it very difficult. And also finding out what I felt as I went through writing it was also hard, because you could not fail to have sympathy for somebody like Mary. She’s a magnificent character and there’s so many good things about her, and yet always knowing the end of her story, retrospectively, makes it all the more tragic as you see the desperate decisions that she made and the holes that she dug for herself.

[JB]
You can see down the years just why dramatists have been drawn to her. What did you glean from visiting so many of her haunts?

[RG]
What a very varied place Scotland is. The different parts of Scotland that she was meant to keep under control, just how different they are geographically, the people in these different areas all had different temperaments and customs. Also, just how very hard a life somebody in her position or in aristocracy in general, had, given the look of buildings where they lived. They weren’t comfortable. They would have put hangings up on the walls, but these were not wonderful places to live. They didn’t live in luxury as we would understand it.

[JB]
And there was menace everywhere, and I suppose the entire country, with (as you say) she was a Catholic queen in a newly Protestant country. It must have been deeply intimidating.

[RG]
I think so. And I think people made sure that she felt that, because really the clique around her – her closest friends obviously were not judgemental – but the men who wanted her gone wanted to make sure that she was kept in a state of alarm. They did not want her to be practising her own faith, even though she had been promised that she could do this so long as she was relatively discreet. Although I don’t think in her early years she was anything more than conventionally devout, it still mattered a great deal to her to be able to take Mass and to read the Bible as she wanted to do. I think she was very much a fish out of water by the time she arrived in Scotland and I think she was always made to feel that her position was extremely precarious.

[JB]
You said that looking at the palaces and castles where she lived, or where she took refuge, was a chance to ‘catch a glimpse of her’. Was there any moment in your search or in your research where you thought ‘I saw her; I get her’?

[RG]
I think there was one. I must admit I do write historical fiction and so I am quite fanciful. But the place where I really felt that I could almost have seen Mary was at Port Mary Cove, which is just beyond Dundrennan Abbey, where she spent the last night of her time in Scotland and where the boat came to take her off to England. From Port Mary Cove you can look out across towards Cumbria and Workington, where she was going to land, and you just have this terrible sense of what might have been if she had listened to all her advisors who were begging her not to get into the boat, not to sail off but to stay in Scotland, or even sail to France. And at that location, I just feel there’s an atmosphere. You can really feel it as you walk on that beach.

[JB]
So, she was aged just 24, with fewer than 6 years of rule. Why didn’t she flee to France for a happier ending?

[RG]
I know! Why didn’t she? That’s the huge question. Because she could have gathered support there, or at the very worse she could have stayed there. She had her own income, and she could have had a perfectly acceptable life and would have saved her own life rather than dying desperately. That’s one of the many questions that hang over her – why, why, why?

[JB]
She made her way to England. It didn’t work out well. She was held for 19 years before her execution. She’d lived, I think, roughly less than a quarter of her life here, yet her reign is indelibly stamped.

[RG]
Yes, it really is. I think she’s made a big impression on Scotland in various ways, increasingly in good ways I think. Initially, when she escaped and then when she was executed, I think she was seen as a justification for saying women cannot be rulers. This was the big argument in the 16th century anyway – could women rule effectively? All through Mary’s young upbringing, she was asked to write school essays on this subject. I think for her detractors, the way she behaved and what happened to her was just a vindication of their own view that women weren’t fit to rule.

But I think in the centuries since then, people have had a much more nuanced view of her. I do notice now that a lot of young women are very drawn to her story because I think they feel they can identify with somebody who was in the very top position in an extraordinarily male environment, an aggressively male environment – very few people she could actually trust and rely on. I think modern women are starting to see in her something if not as a role model, then as somebody whose example is very interesting, and they have a great sympathy for the challenges that she faced.

[JB]
What do you think Elizabeth I had that Mary didn’t, that enabled Elizabeth I to reign for so long and so successfully?

[RG]
She had very good advisors, who actually sometimes told her what she was doing effectively. She listened to them. She also had I think I would call a cooler temperament – she wasn’t as impetuous. She would take time to think about things and sometimes do nothing at all rather than make a decision, in the hope that something would resolve itself, which was actually a very canny way of behaving in lots of situations. She didn’t have the charisma that Mary had, but I think at the same time that’s a plus in the way that she was a much calmer ruler.

[JB]
So, Mary died aged 44. The final irony though was that the person who did get the English crown, and the Scottish one, was Mary’s son James. So, in a way, she lived on.

[RG]
Absolutely. In a way, the story went in the direction she had always hoped for, and in a very simple way, a very un-bloody way. Whereas if Mary had pressed her case for the English throne, there would have been terrible bloodshed. But it just fell naturally to James VI. As you say, she got what she’d always hoped for.

[JB]
Rosemary Goring, thank you very much. Thank you for sharing your thoughts on Mary with us.

[RG]
Thank you.

[JB]
And Rosemary’s book Homecoming: The Scottish years of Mary, Queen of Scots is out now. And if you want to walk in Mary’s footsteps in Falkland Palace, or in Alloa Tower where she also stayed, just head to the National Trust for Scotland website for all the details of opening times and for even more information on Mary’s life and times.

If you’ve enjoyed this podcast, please subscribe for free and join me next time. Until then, goodbye.

[MV]
Love Scotland is brought to you by Think and Demus Productions, on behalf of the National Trust for Scotland. Presented by Jackie Bird. For show notes and more information, go to nts.org.uk and don’t forget to like, subscribe, review and share.

Transcript

Three speakers: male voiceover [MV]; Jackie Bird [JB]; Ciaran Hatsell [CH]

[MV]
Love Scotland, from the National Trust for Scotland; presented by Jackie Bird.

[JB]
Hello and welcome to Love Scotland. You join me on the shoreline at the St Abb’s Head Nature Reserve in Berwickshire – a picture-perfect spot today. Behind me, a dramatic wall of cliffs. It’s early autumn; there’s a bit of heat in the sun, but those cliffs are quieter than they were a few months ago when tens of thousands of seabirds were nesting there.

But I’m afraid I’m not here to report on a good news story, because St Abb’s Head has been one of the places that’s been affected by the largest avian flu outbreak in British history, as my companion today, ranger Ciaran Hatsell, knows only too well. Ciaran, it’s great to meet you in person!

[CH]
You too, Jackie. Good morning. How are you?

[JB]
I’m well. Now let me give our listeners a bit of a back story. We chatted virtually during some of the darkest days of lockdown, and you painted such a picture of this place that we were planning to meet up again, when the birds were all here, to tell the great story of St Abb’s. That is not how your year turned out. Tell me about it.

[CH]
Unfortunately not. So, normally seabird season is my favourite time of year. The sights, the sounds and the smells on the cliffs are phenomenal. The cliffs are like a football stadium, jam-packed with guillemots all shoulder to shoulder. The noise is phenomenal – kittiwakes cawing away. Thousands of birds. We start in the spring: the nesting for the season, sap starts to rise … and, unfortunately, it turned out to be probably one of my least favourite seabird seasons ever. On 5 June, we had our first case of avian flu.

[JB]
Was that the first inkling that something was wrong or had you heard about other outbreaks?

[CH]
There had been whisperings of St Kilda in the Hebrides, and Shetland were starting to see outbreaks in gannets and great skuas. A bit of a continuation from last year, when there was a very small (or relatively small) outbreak. And from there, really the ball started rolling and never stopped. So yeah, like I said, I’ve never wanted a seabird season to end, but this year I was almost willing them to leave the cliffs and get out. Because in the summer they’re all in one place, packed into the cliffs – it’s basically a mosh pit of disease. They spread it between themselves. Seabirds are gregarious birds; they’re very social. And so, this means that the disease spreads between them very quickly. We weren’t able to lock them down; we can’t put barriers on them.

Unfortunately, it’s not just local here to St Abb’s; the effects were huge here locally but we’re talking about an international issue here. It’s a global issue. This is the biggest outbreak of this strain of avian flu that we’ve ever seen.

[JB]
So, take me back. Tell me when you got an inkling that something was wrong here.

[CH]
On 5 June, I found a dead gannet, which was washed ashore on the rocks, kind of splayed out in a very unnatural place. Death in a seabird colony is part of life, and you get used to it. But this was an adult gannet on the top of the rocks that had basically just come ashore and died. That’s not normal behaviour. And from there, I feared the worst … and the worst hit us.

The gannet population here is very new. This is really exciting news in the seabird world – the chance to study a newly forming colony of any seabird is really unique and quite special. So, I felt really privileged to be able to see it from almost the beginning. Gannets nested here for the first time in 2016, and they were going from strength to strength. This year, we had 109 nests, and sadly we’ve got 1 left. There is still, as of yesterday, one chick that’s getting ready to fledge and it’s nearly reached it. But that’s the last one. The one and only chick that we had out of the 109 nests – and the rest were lost to avian flu and bad weather.

[JB]
And how many gannets would that have been?

[CH]
We lost just under 100 here, but if you look at the Scottish context, it’s well into the thousands. Currently we’re in the quantification stage. Ellie Owen, who is our new senior seabird officer, her and Craig Nisbet who works in St Kilda are currently trying to quantify how many birds we’ve lost on St Kilda. With anything like this, it was a bit of a surprise to happen to the seabirds, because we didn’t really expect it, but now we’re looking to quantify, and we’ve got to play catch-up.

Ellie and Craig are working to quantify what’s happened on St Kilda. Bass Rock, which is just up the coast from here, is the world’s biggest colony – they’ve taken aerial surveys and they are currently in the process of getting a count, to be able to look at a number of how many birds we have actually lost.

[JB]
Have we any idea even at this early stage?

[CH]
Well into the thousands.

[JB]
Tell me about the species affected.

[CH]
I will, yes. The species that have been hit the hardest, probably the two were gannets and great skua. Great skua, for example, are one of the rarest seabirds in the world. The world population is about 16,000 pairs roughly.

[JB]
That’s not much.

[CH]
Now, in Scotland, we’ve got about 60% of the world’s population – just under 10,000 pairs. Great skuas are a bit of a bad guy. They get a bit of a bad press; they eat puffins, some of them. I know, I know. Some of them eat puffins, but they also are one of the most charismatic, enigmatic, brilliant seabirds. They’ve got character – they’ll fight gannets. They’ll smash them into the sea and eat the fish. They’re real fighters; they’re special birds, and in Scotland, like I said, 60% of the world’s population.

Now again, we’re in the quantification stage. We’re trying to work out exactly how many we’ve lost, but we’re well into the thousands. So, the percentage of birds lost – for great skua – we’re looking at potentially a population level event for this species. We’ve never lost them on this scale before.

[JB]
Sorry, when you say a population event, what does that mean?

[CH]
It means that the species were already fairly vulnerable. And now we're looking at this could have a massive knock-on effect. And potentially, we could be looking at localised extinctions of this species in certain areas.

[JB]
And that doesn’t happen these days – or it certainly hasn’t happened to birds for a very long time.

[CH]
No. Disease in wild birds has always been a thing. This strain of avian flu has come from intensive poultry farming basically. One of the most frustrating things is that it’s an anthropogenic cause; it’s something that we have caused as humans. The birds have contracted this disease through no fault of their own and are now spreading it globally. We’re seeing, well, tens of thousands of birds lost across the world just because of what we’ve done.

[JB]
You’ve talked about gannets, skuas, anything else?

[CH]
Kittiwakes and guillemots. Here at St Abbs, probably the most tangible impact was on the guillemots. Guillemots are our most numerous seabird here. They call them the northern penguin. One of the best things that I think you can see in Scotland is the fledgling time for guillemots – it’s what we call jumpling season. The tiny chicks that can be as young as 15 days old will fling themselves off cliffs, hundreds of metres high, straight into the sea. The noise is phenomenal. The adults are calling, trying to encourage the chicks to jump. The chicks are whistling away. It’s like a really piercing whistle. Now, when you get thousands of birds leaving at the same time, the sea’s nice and flat calm, the noise is like nothing you can hear. It’s a cacophony! It’s phenomenal.

[Audio plays of seabirds]

[CH]
Unfortunately, this time of year, we were seeing them jump, but unusually what we were seeing was we were finding a lot of the chicks dead in the water, and really unusual is that hardly any of the gulls were touching them. They weren’t scavenging them at all. There were hundreds; there were piles of dead chicks in the water.

Now, part of my job and the job of a lot of people in conservation, became a kind of dystopian ‘bring out the dead’ situation. Every day I was going out and trying to quantify how many new birds we had dead on the colony. In some areas, I was actually collecting the birds as well. So, you could visit a lovely peaceful nature reserve and you see people in full Hazmat protection suits with masks on, putting dead birds in bin bags. It’s like something out of a film from the future. It’s something that I never thought I’d be doing as a conservationist. It’s not something I ever wanted to do. Everyone who’s in this profession does it for the love. We don’t do it for the money; we don’t do it for the fame. We do it because we’re passionate and we love seabirds and we love wildlife. That’s why we do it. And so, when something happens on this sort of scale, and especially when it’s something that humans have caused, it really affects people.

We were having regular avian flu meetings, and it was great to hear stories from other people and share knowledge and share stories and find out what’s happening elsewhere, because that gave us a real sense of community. It’s easy in these remote locations – places like St Kilda and Fair Isle and some of the other nature reserves like Nos and the Isle of May – it’s easy to feel quite isolated. You’re on your patch and your patch becomes your life, for that short summer season. Now, talking to each other really connected us and the birds connected us, and unfortunately it was in a very negative way, but there are positives that can come out of this. I think it has brought the seabird community in particular closer together. And hopefully, it’ll mean we can work together to try and do our best to combat this in the future.

[JB]
Whenever you were going around picking up dead birds, was there a particular moment for you? What was the worst time?

[CH]
I think probably some of the earlier times, when I was going down to the beaches when it was fresh. There was the first and second day that I found any sort of big numbers. There was over a hundred – 113 guillemots that were just floating in the water, all in one big pile, basically. And it was just, as I was saying before, that fledgling season is so exciting. It’s so exhilarating, and it’s one of my favourite events of the year. And to see the chicks that have put the leap of faith, straight off the cliff into the water, just lying there lifeless was … it was pretty sad.

[JB]
It should have been a celebration of new life. And all it was was death. Tell me, do the birds who have caught avian flu, what are the symptoms that they show?

[CH]
It’s quite varied and this is something that we are all looking into as well. A lot of the time it will be a bit of confusion. They’ll shake their head a lot. I saw birds swimming in circles, so they were often swimming in circles flapping. They were uncoordinated, as if part of the brain wasn’t working properly. I watched a guillemot in the sea – its balance was completely all over the place. It was trying to right itself but kept capsizing and eventually that died within a couple of hours.

Now, one of the fortunate things about avian flu is it seems that it’s a fairly quick death for most birds. They’ll get it, they’ll contract it, they’ll die very quickly – but it doesn’t make it any easier to watch. Like I said, we were going out and doing daily patrols. Something we’re trying to learn actually is the symptoms and how it manifests itself and how it spreads. It’s different for different species. What we think was one of most common factors is that the species that were hit the hardest, they have what we call club sites. It’s a bit of a strange word and it’s quite an appropriate word I suppose, because a club site is a group of non-breeding birds – young birds basically. They will hang around in social places. So, for great skuas, they have these freshwater pools where they all hang around in one place. They’ll bathe, they’ll wash; I wouldn’t say they’ll talk to each other but they’ll socialise. It’s thought that the disease can last in water for up to 200 days. So, for great skuas in particular, for birds that are using these communal bathing pools, it’s thought that these are really a vector of the disease or hive of the disease.

[JB]
I had no idea it could stay in water and especially for that long.

[CH]
It’s thought that salt water should kill it, but fresh water, which some seabirds need for washing and drinking, unfortunately it can hang around in those areas for about 200 days. And that means that it can potentially survive from season to season, and it means that this problem probably isn’t going away anytime soon. But by learning these things, learning the symptoms, learning how it spreads, these are really key things in understanding the disease and then looking at potential ways of mitigation – how we can help, if we can help.

I think that feeling of helplessness actually was something that was quite common. Normally, you feel like you can do something – and for some people picking up the dead birds from around the beaches was something small that we could do. The reason we were doing it is to stop other birds scavenging it and potentially passing it on. That felt pretty much the only thing we could do. There wasn’t really much else we could physically do. So, you did feel a bit helpless, which is very frustrating because we’re used to react to things – and action’s a big part of conservation. We have to take action where we can. But yeah, at this stage, we were just pretty helpless.

[JB]
What do we know about this new strain and how it’s mutated?

[CH]
It was found in the early 2000s; that was when it first manifested itself. It’s thought to have come from intensive poultry, originated in Asia. Now, the way that food production works but also the way that wild bird populations work, once it worked its way into the wild bird population, it was almost impossible to control. We’ve seen poultry places have had to cull thousands of birds in the food production side of things. It’s now looking into pheasants, that they’re potentially going to contract it. I think it’s really time that we looked at the way that we eat, the way that we consume, and the way that we even use our leisure time. We need to think about these activities that are potentially going to cause diseases that are going to affect wild bird populations. I think it’s time for us to really think about everything that we do and how we can help.

[JB]
Well, that actually takes us on to what we’re going to talk about in the second half of this chat Ciaran. So, I think it’s an excellent time to take a break. And when we come back, we will talk about the immediate future – what it holds and what’s being done to try to avert even greater harm in the coming months. We’ll be back in a moment.

[MV]
If you’re a whisky lover, a nature lover, a fun of Burns or a Scottish history buff, there’s an episode of Love Scotland just for you! Head back through our archives to hear the in-depth stories behind Scotland’s history and landscape. Seasons 1–3 are all online now. Don’t forget to review, like and share.

[JB]
Welcome back to St Abb’s Head where ranger Ciaran Hatsell and I are talking about the avian flu outbreak. It does seem a bit odd, Ciaran, to be sitting in this wonderful location with the sea lapping in this bay, ramblers above us, a bit of wind, bit of warm autumn sunshine – talking about such a terrible time that you’ve been having. The bigger picture I suppose is that avian flu is damaging species already under pressure from things like pollution and of course climate change.

[CH]
That’s it. These birds, it’s probably the last thing they need. There’s all sorts of pressures that are put on them. There’s offshore developments. There’s climate change, changing sea temperatures, lack of food. So many things were putting them under strain. So, the very last thing we needed was this … almost, I was calling it bird covid, basically, because that’s the best way that I could describe it to people. It’s swept through wild bird populations in a devastating way. And it was the very last thing they needed.

[JB]
And it’s now moving into urban areas?

[CH]
It is, yeah. Like I said before, you can’t lock birds down. Some of the birds that are here, they’ll migrate to West Africa; some of the birds that are affected, like the terns, will go as far as Antarctica. To birds, the world is a relatively small place; they’ll nip from place to place and not really bother about it. But that also means that they go from place to place and spread the disease, and there’s nothing that we can do to really mitigate against it.

[JB]
So seagulls and raptors in urban areas particularly?

[CH]
The gulls that breed on the coast will often go inland. They’ll go to rubbish tips, where they’ll congregate in the winter and they’ll spread again to places like Africa, Morocco, but in very urban areas. It’s not a risk that is isolated to the coast. Bird flu can be anywhere; it can be in any sort of wild bird population. So yeah, it’s a big risk.

[JB]
And tell me, what is the risk in terms of contagion to humans?

[CH]
It’s thought to be very low. This strain, it has been found to pass to humans but it’s extremely rare. The advice that we give people basically is if you find a dead bird, don’t touch it. You’re supposed to report them to Defra and that means that they can find out how many birds have died in what location – potentially come and test these birds as well. But the main thing is: don’t touch it. Keep your distance from it. Keep your dogs on leads because there have been cases potentially it passing through to canines.

There are also potential cases in grey seals in North America and Canada. It’s thought to have spread into grey seals in small numbers. That’s a big worry for here. The North Sea has been hit massively hard, especially places like the Bass Rock and Shetland. It’s been hit really hard. Now we’re getting towards seal pupping season here, and with the way things have been going with Storm Arwen, with avian flu this summer – I wouldn’t say I’m expecting it to get into the seals, but there’s a bit of foreboding and potential dreading, just hanging in the background, that it could potentially spread into grey seals.

[JB]
It’s a neurological disease so I suppose that makes the symptoms a bit more difficult to detect until they’ve really taken hold.

[CH]
It can be, yes. Obviously, it will affect … the way we were seeing the birds reacting, they were swimming in circles. They were confused and disorientated. Their balance was all gone. So, they can display these signs, but one of the things that we’re looking to do is coordinate our response on this.

The fact that it’s happened is horrendous, but what we can learn from it is potentially really big. Looking at symptomatic birds, sharing knowledge, speaking about it. There’s been the seabird conference in Cork this year, where there was huge lectures on avian flu and how different areas dealt with it. I think that the coordinated response is what’s needed: conservation organisations working together to try and come up with a response. That will help us mitigate as much as we can.

[JB]
There seems to be almost an unprecedented coordinated response to this.

[CH]
Yeah, so at the moment they’re looking at the avian flu task force being set up. That’s initiated by NatureScot but it’s actually involving all organisations. The National Trust for Scotland, we own sites that contain millions of seabirds. We’re potentially on the forefront of this outbreak. And our sites are really important. Our people on the ground are the people who are going to gather the data; they’re the people that are going to help learn about this, and help quantify what’s actually happened.

[JB]
What I don’t understand is when I was working in news a few years ago and there was a single bird in Cellardyke in Scotland, and I was sent out there to cover it – it was banner headlines. This terrible outbreak seems to have flown under the radar.

[CH]
It does a little bit. I mean, I think we’ve so much else going on in the world, in the chaotic world that we live in. I think it did take the background a bit, and I’ve met people who’ve said ‘I’ve not really heard about it’. On the flip side, a lot of our visitors seem to be fairly well-informed. They were coming and asking. One of the first questions they asked was oh, how has the avian flu been here? How has the outbreak been locally for you guys?

It’s a difficult one really. I think it depends what kind of information you choose to absorb. I suppose, what websites you go to, what news outlets you follow. It got covered in small bits. The St Kilda outbreak was massive, in great skuas and gannets. They tried to do a bit of media coverage of that, but I think it’s something we should be talking about. People should know about these things. We need the good and the bad in equal measure. These bad news stories are unfortunately more common.

It seems to be a common theme in conservation. Although the good news stories, we try and cling to and shout about as much as we can, unfortunately we need to give light and dark a bit of equal coverage really.

[JB]
I think it’s possibly because, as you said earlier, risks to humans are very, very rare but the impact on the greater biodiversity must be something to be concerned about in the future.

[CH]
It’s massive. We look to seabirds as biological indicators of the health of our habitats. They’re a really good barometer for how the ocean’s doing, for example. If seabirds are thriving, we know that the food source is ok. It’s a very complex thing but there’s a lot we can learn from seabirds. Now, the fact that these apex predators are declining in massive numbers, especially great skua – the great skua is probably the one that I’m most worried about. I think that’s one that I’ve heard people say because they’re the bad guys, because they’re the pirates of the sea, I’ve heard people say, ‘oh, that’s great the populations are declining, so these species will do better’. That’s not how ecosystems work. I think they get a really bad press and I’m worried.

This season, in the autumn we look for passage seabirds out to sea. In the early mornings, I’ll be out with a telescope looking for birds like Manx shearwaters that winter in Brazil, and all the different skuas that are flying past us and winter all around the world. And great skuas, I’ve seen a handful this autumn; normally you’d be seeing hundreds. So yeah, the scale that we’ve lost this species in particular is really really concerning. In this age of biodiversity crisis and species loss, I am worried that this is going to be a species that we may potentially lose in the next 20/30 years.

[JB]
Oh dear. What about restrictions for visitors? We hear some visitors today. It’s going to be a lovely day. There have already been restrictions in other sites. So, what about here?

[CH]
For here, fortunately, most of the seabirds are on inaccessible offshore stacks. There’s a reason that they’re nesting here: it’s because people and predators can’t get to them. When we’re on site, one thing I was trying to do was clean up the corpses. I was going around in full PPE cleaning up the dead birds, so that was dual purpose – it was to stop it spreading between species, to stop it getting to freshwater places, but also to make sure that people weren’t at risk as well. People who were walking the dogs, we don’t want the dog grabbing a dead bird and ingesting it at all because it’s potentially dangerous.

With regards to restrictions here at St Abb’s, we didn’t have many. It’s an open access site and it wasn’t too bad, but one of the main reasons that some of the islands were shut, for example, was to stop people walking through the colonies for risk to themselves, but also it is a stress reducer.

When people are walking through seabird colonies, they do cause a certain amount of disturbance and stress on these birds. Now, anything that we could potentially do to limit that and reduce that stress was one of the reasons that some of the islands were shut, just to stop people and reduce the extra stresses and pressures that were already on seabirds while they’re going through such a difficult time.

[JB]
Ok. I feel this is very doom and gloom. I’m searching for a light at the end of the tunnel. The scientists are clearly doing their thing. I read something the other day that they have spoken about trying to get ahead of the outbreak, whatever that means. What’s your best guess? Do you think the birds could develop some resilience or resistance to this?

[CH]
So, the good news is that not all the birds are dead, basically.

[JB]
Ok, let’s grab hold of that.

[CH]
Let’s get hold of that. When we started this season, before the outbreak here got very bad, we were looking at population increases this year for most species. We were looking at a really positive picture. I was very happy. The populations looked healthy; what we call the productivity – how many birds fledge per nest – was looking really positive as well.

Now, when we started losing birds, I was thinking the worst. I was thinking, well, that’s it now; it’s a complete washout. Later in the season, we were seeing hundreds, if not into the thousands, of young kittiwakes, on the water that had fledged. They had a really, really good season, and kittiwakes are one of the species that are really on the brink. They’ve struggled in the last 30 years; we’ve seen around an 80% decline here. But if you look at the 10-year picture, we’re starting to see a slight upturn in the population.

So, there is light at the end of the tunnel; there is hope for some species. This disease is not going to go away overnight. We’ll do our best to monitor it and stay on top of it. But yeah, I think we’ve got to try and remain positive because if it is just all doom and gloom, then what have you got? Nature’s one of the most uplifting and brilliant things that any of us can get involved in and immerse ourselves in. So, I think we need to … You can still go out and see thousands of seabirds here at St Abb’s. There is that twinge in the background, what’s going to happen next year. But we’ll just wait and see.

[JB]
Brilliantly summed up. An optimistic note. Ciaran Hatsell, thank you very much.

[CH]
Thank you.

[JB]
And if you’d like to find out more about the avian flu outbreak and how it’s affecting specific National Trust for Scotland sites around the country, visit the website or follow the link in our show notes. There, you can also find more advice on what to do should you find a dead or dying bird including a reminder not to approach it and to report it to the government helpline. That’s 0345 933 5577. I’ll give you that number again. That’s 0345 933 5577.

Thank you for listening to this Love Scotland podcast. I hope that when I’m next back here with Ciaran, it will be for happier news.

[CH]
Absolutely, you’re welcome anytime, Jackie.

[JB]
But from us, for now, bye-bye.

[MV]
Love Scotland is brought to you by Think and Demus Productions, on behalf of the National Trust for Scotland; presented by Jackie Bird. For show notes and more information, go to nts.org.uk and don’t forget to like, subscribe, review and share.

Transcript

Four voices: male voiceover [MV]; Jackie Bird [JB]; Roger Hutchinson [RH]; archive recording [AR]

[MV]
Love Scotland, brought to you from the National Trust for Scotland; presented by Jackie Bird.

[JB]
Hello and welcome to the latest episode of Love Scotland. The archipelago of St Kilda is one of the most remote parts of the British Isles. A dot in the Atlantic Ocean, 41 miles west of Benbecula in the Outer Hebrides. Today it’s home to hundreds of thousands of seabirds, but it’s most famous for its human story: the evacuation of its native population in 1930, which brought to a close an extraordinary story of survival.

Today we’re going to focus on that tale of resilience in the face of disease, war and great hardship. It’s the tale of what happened to a community who relied on each other for survival. Journalist and writer Roger Hutchinson has long been immersed in this fascinating story, and his book St Kilda: A people’s history reveals the lives of those who called the island home. Roger, welcome to the podcast.

[RH]
Hello Jackie. Nice to be here.

[JB]
As I said, we’re going to focus on St Kilda’s last years, but to understand the greater history can you tell me, when do we think people first arrived there?

[RH]
We don’t know exactly, obviously. But in prehistory, which is to say in the Stone Age, not long after people arrived in the Outer Hebrides, we can conjecture, because the St Kilda islands, the biggest one Hirta is visible from the west coast of Lewis and Harris and North Uist. So, we must assume that the people that built the Calanais stones in the centuries BC went over to St Kilda, probably initially for hunting purposes in the spring and summer, and eventually somebody settled there.

[JB]
When did people outside the islands begin to become interested in St Kilda?

[RH]
St Kilda has probably been the most visited, and certainly the most written about, of all the Hebridean islands. It’s never really been a secret. In the early 17th century the Skye man Martin Martin wrote about St Kilda in his famous travelogue; ever since then, it’s been known. It really sprang to attention though in the 18th century when people like Captain James Cook were exploring the Pacific Ocean and reports were coming back to the UK, to Britain, of these extraordinary civilisations in places like Tahiti and Hawaii. And it suddenly became obvious to people, it became clear to people that we didn’t have to go to the Pacific to find this. There was such a settlement actually just a couple of hundred miles off the west coast of Scotland.

[JB]
They were called the islands on the edge of the world.

[RH]
It was a book called The Islands on the Edge of the World, yes, which pretty much summarised the way that they were painted. They weren’t of course on the edge of the world; they’re on the edge of Europe. It’s best to look upon St Kilda as a very distant and remote Hebridean island.

[JB]
Learning more about what it was like to live there, tell us about that. They ate seabirds?

[RH]
They ate seabirds alright. When the census began to be taken in St Kilda, which is roughly the same time as in the rest of Scotland and the rest of the UK, they described themselves initially as cragsmen, the men that is. And that’s fair. Up to modern times, adult men and even lately women and children were scaling the cliffs. It’s the highest cliffs in Europe, some of them, and they were scaling them to pluck young gannets and puffins and all sorts of other birds off the cliff sides, initially to eat. And always to eat; they never stopped eating seabirds. Latterly an export trade in feathers was developed for soft furnishings in the rest of the UK.

[JB]
I’ve seen photographs from the late 19th century/early 20th century, and it was so brave and so physical. As you say, these were men scrambling down cliffs to reach the birds.

[RH]
This is true and to us, it seems unfeasible; to them it was actually just a way of life, something they’ve been doing since they were young.

[JB]
When I was doing some research for this, Roger, I saw an old black and white photograph of two feet, side by side – one belonging to a visitor to St Kilda and one belonging to a local lad. The foot from the visitor looked very much like a normal foot, but the foot of the young man had sort of evolved. I mean, the toes were almost like claws.

[RH]
Yeah. I know those photos and they wouldn’t have been faked. Certainly St Kildans will have had different feet to us because ever since they were children, ever since that young man could walk, he would have been clambering up the sides of stone buildings, of cleits and barns and byres and houses, because it’s what they did. And then not long after he could walk, he’d have been cramping up and down cliff sides. If you do that from the age of two, three, four, your feet will look quite different to the feet of you or I by the time you reach adulthood. I don’t think it was a Darwinian evolution. I think it was more like the gnarled hands of a manual worker.

[JB]
So, the local people, they lived this very, very hard life and they were in isolation, but I believe it’s when more and more people started to come to St Kilda that the problems began, because the ships brought more than sailors and visitors; they brought disease.

[RH]
Yes, to a degree. This never ended, although they were never completely insulated from the outside world. Every summer since the Middle Ages, the factor of the MacLeod estate in Harris, who owned St Kilda, would go out with an entourage. He would sail out to collect rentals and anything else the St Kildans … any other excess the St Kildans had produced. When the factor arrived, it was always recorded that the locals went down with a flu or cold, or something like that. People didn’t bring life-threatening illnesses to St Kilda. It’s not as if all the St Kildans keeled over and died the moment a sailor landed there. That didn’t happen. Sailors and people from the Outer Isles and from the rest of the world frequently ended up in St Kilda.

[JB]
Whenever those ships were arriving, with some regularity there, when are we talking about and how many islanders inhabited St Kilda?

[RH]
There was as much as 200 people at times. There was a large smallpox epidemic. Again, we assumed it was smallpox.

[JB]
When was this?

[RH]
300 years ago, and that wiped out almost everybody but a handful of young men who were actually out birding on the rocks. The whole of Village Bay and Hirta was killed, went down. And so, the place was repopulated from the other islands: from Harris and even Skye, and from Bernera and North Uist. Most of the people who were in St Kilda from about 1700 onwards, or from the early 18th century onwards, their families are actually from the rest of the Outer Hebrides.

[JB]
Were the people who lived on St Kilda seen as somehow different by those who travelled to these islands on the edge of the world?

[RH]
People from outside who visited the place, particularly in the 19th century when visiting got easier, did romanticise it. They saw St Kilda as a blank slate, a tabula rasa, that you could write anything on, and they did write anything on it.

[JB]
I read a horrifying fact that, at one stage, the infant mortality rate was something like 80%. When was that?

[RH]
It must have been one of the worst in the world. That probably dated back a long way into the 18th century. Word of mouth tells us that the great majority of newborn babies died within a week or two. It was such an an epidemic that St Kildan parents wouldn’t Christen their children until they lived for a month. It was typhus it seems, and not until the 1890s did it begin to be dealt with. More than anything else, it was this that kept the St Kildan population so low. Had there been a normal survival rate among the kids, among the infants, the population could have reached 200+ and been reasonably stable. As it was, from the 18th century onwards, it dipped to 100 or below 100, until they got a hold of the typhus, which was when nurses arrived in the island in the 1890s. The population didn’t grow normally. After the nurses arrived, the population first stabilised and then began to grow again.

[JB]
So, this was the resurgence then, in the late 1890s.

[RH]
There was an Indian summer of the St Kildan population and St Kildan life about 120/130 years ago, between the 1890s and the end of the First World War.

[JB]
Is this around the time that tourists started coming to the islands? Because there is lovely early footage of very well-dressed incomers mixing with clearly the local people.

[RH]
Tourists began to arrive in the middle of the 19th century, before then. Yes, I mean, it became quite the tourist destination. Boats were chartered by entrepreneurs and there were cruises to St Kilda. Loads of people familiarised themselves with the place.

[JB]
Why were they drawn there? Was it this Romanticism that you touched on?

[RH]
Yeah, the fact was here was this bizarre discovery, which supposedly had a royal family and supposedly had a parliament. It didn’t, of course. There was no royal family on St Kilda and the St Kilda Parliament was just a grazings committee, common among crofting areas. It was just a meeting of the men to decide what to do that day or that week.

[JB]
So, there was a sort of tourism boom then. How did the islanders react to this?

[RH]
Well, they adapted to it. They began selling things to tourists! They sold scarves and things that they made. They tried to sell keepsakes. The famous Margaret Fay Shaw, an American woman who just died at the turn of this century at a grand age, who came to these islands in the 1920s and eventually settled in Canna. Margaret actually went to St Kilda in the 20s, while it was still populated, as a tourist. When she came back, she had these lovely little keepsake souvenirs – a scarf and other things like that. So, they adapted; they tried to sell things to the tourists. And they sold them trips to the cliffs as well, which was inadvisable, but nobody died there.

[JB]

Can I just add something to your story about Margaret Fay Shaw? This is from one of her writings, and this just shows you how the islanders did indeed adapt to tourism. She writes: ‘I was asked by a Mrs Gillies to come in by her fire. She was wearing a tartan square about her head, which was most becoming. I thought she might have woven it herself, but when I asked, she replied, do you know Cowcaddens in Glasgow? That’s where they come from. I can give you a nice new one.’
So, it’s the equivalent of going off somewhere and then finding ‘made in China’ in the beads that you’ve just bought!

[RH]
That’s exactly right. That rings perfectly true!

[JB]
We’re into the early stages of the 20th century, and that is when the First World War comes along. Its impact, Roger, is not as we’d expect, which is, I think, a good time for us to take a quick break and then we’ll be back in a moment.

[MV]
From coastlines to castles, wildlife to wilderness, when you become a member of the National Trust for Scotland, you can enjoy the very best of what Scotland has to offer, as often as you like. And you can help to protect it. The National Trust for Scotland is Scotland’s largest conservation charity. By becoming a member, you join thousands of others who are all playing their part to care for the places we love, for generations to come.
Join us and become a member today. Just search National Trust for Scotland.

[JB]
Welcome back to our Love Scotland podcast where author Roger Hutchinson is telling me all about St Kilda, dubbed ‘the islands on the edge of the world’. Before we pick up our story, let’s have a listen to some archive of the islanders themselves. I’m reliably informed that this song is about an angry sheep.

[AR]
[Gaelic singing from several women]

[JB]
The women of St Kilda – what an evocative recording. So, Roger, we’d reached the First World War in our story, and although devastating for much of the world, its impact on St Kilda was surprising.

[RH]
Sure, sure, sure. Well, after the defeat of the typhus bacteria in the 1890s, the population stabilised and began to grow, in that newly born children began to survive. And so, by 1900/1901, the population was beginning to grow a bit, and it got back up from 70 or 80 up to about 100. And that included young men and women, which is all very optimistic for a Hebridean island, as it still is. They were just getting on with their lives as cragspeople and crofters, and doing what they could. Some people going away; others staying – the usual.

And then war broke out in August 1914 and a military base, a spotting base, a reconnaissance base, a military unit was established in Village Bay in Hirta. The effect that had was dynamic really. Because, apart from the fact that there were now several or dozens of young men hanging around the place, they built a barracks with a canteen. Local women were employed to cater to them, and as cleaners and all the rest of it. Local men, particularly the younger men of course, were employed as spotters and they went up to the hill tops around St Kilda and Hirta to keep on the western approaches along the North Atlantic Ocean. Look out for German ships, in other words.

And so, that brought not only company and fresh people (mainly young men) but also money. For more or less the first time, St Kildans were on wages, and it was good money. And also, there were naval boats going in and out of Village Bay, and they were hitching a lift on them and so were experiencing Glasgow – having weekends there, even weeks there. So, life was very interesting and exciting. The excitement reached a height I suppose when a German U-Boat pulled into Village Bay and began to shell the telegraph station. They actually spent ages trying to hit the pole, which would have been like shooting a matchstick. They failed to knock over the pole but they destroyed a couple of houses and a couple of byres. Nobody was hurt luckily, let alone killed, and the U-Boat went away again.

So, for those four years, St Kilda had what we might call now a Western economy of employers and employees, and local people on a wage and with opportunities, and the ability to travel. Doors seemed to be opening to them, which they’d never previously glimpsed through.

[JB]
What happened when the war ended?

[RH]
Well, that’s it. When the war ended, the army unit was taken away, removed and the army presence just disappeared. The women no longer had any work, nor did the men. There was no need for them to go spotting from the hilltops. The trips to and from the mainland went away too, and suddenly they were left in what must have been a very quiet and empty island, after four years of relative excitement and busy-ness. Young men and young women after that began to go away at quite a rate of knots. The population fell from over 100 down to just over 30, in the space of ten years.

[JB]
Gosh. And when did those remaining islanders realise that things just were not tenable?

[RH]
The sort of life that they led, even without depending on birds to eat, even just living on the sheep and the cattle and what they grew as most other crofters did; the life that they led wasn’t really sustainable without young people, and particularly young men.

[JB]
To hang off cliffs.

[RH]
Yeah, or to cut peat, carry it back 2 miles to the village, which the women did of course. But older women and young children, which was the bulk of who was left, and old men, couldn’t do this. They couldn’t sustain that lifestyle without younger generations; it was just physically not possible. And this dawned on them throughout 1928/29. And then there were a couple of particularly sobering deaths of young women in St Kilda.

[JB]
There’s a woman in particular called Mary Gillies. Tell us that story.

[RH]
Well, there were two actually. Both oddly enough … One died in hospital in Glasgow, having been gotten to Glasgow, but she died there. The other one died in St Kilda itself. Both early in 1930. This was discouraging to the point of trauma to the people there. In consultation with the nurse and the minister, they prepared a petition which they sent down to the Scottish Office, pleading with the Secretary of State to be evacuated that summer, stressing that they just couldn’t see how they would survive the winter. They were probably right.

[JB]
This sort of evacuation had never been done before. Why did the government agree? Did the islands’ fame perhaps play a part?

[RH]
I think it’s more because they came across a particularly interesting and sympathetic man at the Scottish Office. The Under-Secretary of State who was assigned the St Kilda case was a man called Tom Johnson, who’d become famous earlier as a young, radical Labour politician. He was in the first Labour administration and would later be known as the father of the Highland Hydro schemes in the 1940s and 1950s. Tom Johnson was obviously a decent bloke, as well as a good organiser.

And he promptly went to St Kilda. When this petition arrived, he didn’t waste any time before getting on a boat and going there, and he spoke to all the people. It wouldn’t have been difficult – there weren’t that many of them. The minister and the nurse and everybody, and he was convinced that they were right. That they were left in such dire straits that they would basically have to be sent meals-on-wheels throughout the winter or they would have to be evacuated.

So, Johnson very imaginatively began arranging not just accommodation for them on the mainland but also work for those that wanted it. Luckily the state had just acquired several Scottish estates as forestry land. And one of the bigger ones was in Morvern, a Gaelic-speaking part of the West Coast, opposite St Kilda on this side of the Minch. And so, he arranged for them to have cottages for anyone who wanted them, and work with the Forestry Commission for the younger women as well as the men.

[JB]
This was 1930 and we’re talking 36 islanders. It became a big media story of the time, didn’t it?

[RH]
Huge. This is where Johnson also stepped in. He was very aware of that. The fact of St Kilda being evacuated, it’s the news from New Zealand to the United States, all across the English-speaking world and beyond it. Obviously, journalists flocked to St Kilda to cover the evacuation. Johnson ordered two big ships into Village Bay for the day of the evacuation. One of which was a naval vessel, which would take away the islanders; and the other was a merchant ship, which would take away their livestock, their sheep and their cattle. The day before Evacuation day, he sent the sailors ashore to pick up every single journalist. And there were several who were trying to hide on St Kilda – they picked them all up and put them on the merchant vessel with the livestock and sent them back to the mainland. So, the St Kildans had 24 hours of peace and silence and solace with their minister and their nurse, their Bibles.

[JB]
And do we know what they did in that 24 hours?

[RH]
They prayed and they spoke and sat quietly about, and they left an open Bible in each house in each room. And they left peat on the hearth. And when they were ready in the afternoon of departure day, the early afternoon, sailors came ashore and helped them carry their belongings, and helped the elderly onto the ship. And they cruised out of Village Bay. The women were invited to take tea in the captain’s mess, which is rather sweet. And some of them sat at the rail; stood at the rail and watched St Kilda disappear behind them.

[JB]
So, they were reluctant but they were pragmatic.

[RH]
Most of them. It depends on the age, Jackie. Let’s be frank here. If you’re a young person – and some were teenagers – you’re not leaving all your life behind; you’re going off to something new and possibly exciting. You’ve got your whole life ahead of you. If you’re older in your 60s and 70s, you’ve got more to regret and more to leave behind. And this was routinely the case – people of middle age tended to be gone by that time anyway.

[JB]
There are a few documentaries on YouTube, and if anyone listening to this wants to find out more, then I thoroughly encourage them to source them, because there are first-hand accounts by those interviewed years later who were evacuated. And they still seemed to be mourning the loss of almost a way of life, the older ones?

[RH]
Well, it was a way of life. Absence makes the heart grow fonder. Any Hebridean of any age actually, who’s left any Hebridean island, will look back to it fondly, whether they came from Barra, Lewis, Skye, Raasay or St Kilda.

[JB]
The last evacuee, she died only a few years ago?

[RH]
Actually, I think the last evacuee to die – wasn’t that Norman Gillies, who died about three years ago? There were infants and kids. Not many, but there was a handful of school-age kids who were taken off in 1930 who survived right into our time. And they didn’t all go to Morvern. Some of them went on to Oban and Glasgow; some of them settled further north, near Kyle of Lochalsh, in that area.

[JB]
As you’ve said, the story of St Kilda has been widely romanticised but what do you think the biggest misconception about St Kilda is?

[RH]
That they were different to anybody else.

[JB]
They were just like us. They just had a different way of life, a harder way of life.

[RH]
Because of the bird population, St Kildans were never in danger of starving. You couldn’t say that in Harris or Uist even – there were many other places where people did go hungry in certain seasons. St Kildans always had their birds. That’s why they first went there, and it’s probably what sustained them at the very last. There was always wildfowl to eat.

[JB]
If we went today – and we can – what would we find? Would we find evidence of that life that’s long gone?

[RH]
Oh certainly. They were inveterate builders with stone. They never really came out of the Stone Age. They continued building and building and building, and the remnants of their storage cottages called cleits – storage byres – and their homes are all over the island. Their walls – these gargantuan, complex wall systems like something out of the Minoan culture in Crete. Just remarkable. It’s another world there. It’s like Machu Picchu but on a vast scale.

[JB]
A huge thank you to Roger Hutchinson for telling us all about St Kilda, past and present. And a reminder that Roger’s book is called St Kilda: a people’s history.

Of course, there’s lots more about the World Heritage Site of St Kilda on the National Trust for Scotland website, including how to arrange a visit there. Lucky you!
Well, that’s all from this Love Scotland podcast. It would be great if you would subscribe to the series – it’s all free – and never miss an episode. Until next time, goodbye.

[MV]
This episode of Love Scotland is a Think production in association with the Big Light Studio, presented by Jackie Bird. Post-production by Brian McAlpine. Producer for the Big Light is Cameron Angus McKay. Executive Producer is Fiona White. Research by Ciaran Sneddon.
For show notes and more information, head to nts.org.uk

Transcript

Three voices: male voiceover [MV]; Jackie Bird [JB]; Flora Fraser [FF]

[MV]
Love Scotland, brought to you from the National Trust for Scotland; presented by Jackie Bird.

[JB]
Hello and welcome to the first episode of a new series of Love Scotland. Between now and December, we will be releasing weekly episodes of the podcast and I’ll be discovering even more about Scotland’s rich history, heritage and wildlife.

[Music plays and water laps against a boat]

The music you can hear – ‘The Skye Boat Song’ – may have given you a clue about our subject matter. We’re journeying back to 1746, just weeks after Prince Charles Edward Stuart’s forces have been routed at the Battle of Culloden. The Prince’s hopes of claiming the British throne from the House of Hanover have been dashed, and the Jacobites have scattered to the winds.

Charles spends the next five months a wanted man, hopping from one Hebridean island to the next. My interest today lies with one journey: a perilous crossing from Benbecula to Skye. And particularly with one person: Flora McDonald. Aged just 24, she is an unlikely Jacobite heroine and is only remembered now for her part in that daring escape.

But little is known of what happened to her in the immediate aftermath. And as it turns out, her entire life is a compelling story of a woman with connections to two of the biggest conflicts of the 18th century. Here to tell us all about it is another Flora, Flora Fraser, the historical biographer and author of the recently published Pretty Young Rebel: The life of Flora MacDonald. Flora, welcome to the podcast.

[FF]
Thank you, Jackie; great to be here.

[JB]
You are a hugely successful historical biographer, and many of your subjects have been women across the centuries. But Flora MacDonald, I think I’m correct in saying, has been with you since birth.

[FF]
Yes, I was named after her. We were quite local to the ’45 story, and Culloden was 10 miles away, the other side of Inverness. Flora MacDonald was everywhere when I was growing up. She was on tartan boxes, and Bonnie Prince Charlie was still primarily a romantic story. And then, of course, John Prebble and others actually started unpicking the horror of the ’45 for those who fought in it. But although Bonnie Prince Charlie’s reputation is not what it was, Flora’s has remained unsullied – the courageous heroine, and that was how I knew her when I was growing up.

[JB]
As your career as a writer progressed, were you always going to write about her or did something pique your interest?

[FF]
It was looking at images for my last book, a book about the marriage of George and Martha Washington, and looking at images of American revolutionary characters, Alexander Hamilton – of course, Hamilton is now beyond famous. And I suddenly found among all these generals, the Allan Ramsay portrait of Flora MacDonald – and I thought, why is this portrait, which was made in either London or Scotland in the 1740s, featuring in the 1770s in America?

And then I remembered that when Dr Johnson and Boswell make their famous Highland tour in 1773, they visit Flora, now a matron wife and mother of seven, on Skye. And she says, effectively, you were lucky to catch me because I’m off to America.

[JB]
There’s a lot to unpick here. Let’s go back to the beginning. Give me a flavour of what Flora’s early life was like.

[FF]
She is what I would call a Highland gentlewoman. She had grown up in the Western Isles and had recently moved with her stepfather and mother to Skye. She is part of the MacDonald of Clanranald family, based if you like on Uist. She’s going about her business. She’s never left the Hebrides apart from one trip to cousins on the west coast.

She’s an unknown person and would be unknown to history, although I’m sure dearly loved by her immediate family, except at midnight, she’s looking after her brother’s herds on South Uist. And at midnight, she’s awoken by a cousin who’s outside and he says ‘the Prince is with me. He needs your help’. And Bonnie Prince Charlie, or Charles Edward, has been on the run since April, when the Jacobite army was pulverised by the Redcoats at Culloden. These Hanoverian officers and men are within a mile or so of Charles Edward, and he looks a total ruffian. He’s covered in midge bites, he’s unshaven. He’s a mess and he’s been sleeping in the heather; hasn’t slept in the bed since Culloden. And Flora says, ‘help him?’

[JB]
I think it was Flora’s stepfather, wasn’t it, who masterminded this plan?

[FF]
Yes, he’s a fascinating character.

[JB]
But it wasn’t just inherently dangerous perhaps in the crossing and making a crossing at night, but in Flora, potentially being captured, could she have refused her stepfather’s request?

[FF]
She absolutely could have, and she initially baulks at this midnight request, not least because the request was that she take the Prince dressed up as her Irish maid, Betty Burke, over the channel, the Minch, 30 nautical miles to Skye and announce to the militia who were guarding the coast, ‘Oh yeah, I’m just taking this Irish spinster or spinning woman to my mother on Skye’!

The whole thing was so dangerous. The Prince had an incredibly distinctive face, this very long pale face, even though he was sunburned and midge-bitten! And he was very tall – extremely tall for a woman. But above all, as she said, my character would never survive effectively being in the company of a man. And by that she meant that she’s a bachelor woman, and in the 18th century her whole future – if she has a future and isn’t arrested, transported – depends on, as it did for the majority of women, being virtuous, by which virginal was meant. Otherwise, marriage would not follow; and without marriage, your lookout was far less favourable.

[JB]
Which is a completely different way of looking at it. What I got from your book and your research was that so much of the narrative has been debunked. The romantic narrative of Flora as a rampant Jacobite sympathiser, willing to risk her life for her Prince: not the case. And also the fact that the Prince was 6ft tall dressed as a woman fooled no one. Everyone thought she was trying to smuggle someone, but they just didn’t know who.

[FF]
Exactly. Because there were so many people involved. These were small populous islands, both Benbecula and South Uist. In the 18th century, the whole of the Western Isles was known as the Long Island. When not under water, it’s so connected. People were just all around, going about their daily business; the same on Skye.

So, when she finally acceded to her cousin’s request, and to the Prince’s request, she was asked by somebody, ‘Why did you put your character on the line in this way?’ And she said, ‘I would have done the same for you, had you been in distress.’ So it was, and I do believe this, honestly it was an act of clemency to help the Prince. Many of these Chiefs or lairds simply wanted to pass him on because they didn’t want him to be taken on their land. Even if they were sympathisers to the Stuart cause or not, it would be a dishonour to the clan to have him taken while he was on their land.

[JB]
Another aspect that was unknown to me is that so many other women were involved in the plot – to help make an outfit big enough for a ‘6ft-tall Irish woman’, who help hide him. There was a network of intelligence, and that’s particularly interesting because when we read of women in history, they often come across as one-dimensional, as quiet and complacent, but of course, that wasn’t the case.

[FF]
No, no. The network of women – it was Lady Clanranald, the Chief’s lady who helped Flora sew this costume for the outsized maid, but they used this network. A MacDonald lady was going to Skye ahead of Flora and the Prince. She went to Lady Clan, as she was called, this wonderful Clanranald woman, and Flora asked her to warn Lady Margaret MacDonald, who was the wife of another clan chief, that the Prince was coming.

Both Lady Clan and Lady Margaret on Skye had kept the Prince when he was in hiding for nearly a month, before the officers came near and he had to scarper. But they sent him shirts, as they called it ‘supplies of linen’; they sent him the London newspapers. You just find these women all the time doing this marvellous thing of lying through their teeth. And Flora does this too, absolutely lies through her teeth about never seen the Prince, never, never; until they know that he’s been passed on to some other place and that he’s not in danger nearby, and then they say, ‘oh yeah, sure he was here, he was here’.

[JB]
So what actually happened on the night of the escape?

[FF]
Well, contrary to some people’s belief that Flora rowed the Prince 30 nautical miles in the middle of the night in storms over to Skye. There was a crew of five, who were told of course that this person – they could see it was a man – but they were told it was a Jacobite rebel who needed to escape, and that was happening all over the Highlands at this time. The King’s son, the Duke of Cumberland, was at headquarters at Fort Augustus on Loch Ness, and he was sending out these parties to root out the rebels. So, that was a perfectly good excuse.

Flora at all points – and we don’t know that she insisted on this – but the fact is throughout the week that she was with the Prince, and I think it probably felt to her like a year, she was at all points chaperoned by her cousin Neil – that was the cousin who came and told her the Prince was outside or by a local lady. So, she was actually never alone with the Prince.

[JB]
Do we know how the two got on, or what she thought of him, or indeed what he thought of her?

[FF]
Well, when he was with her for that week, he treated her as if she was a royal princess. He called her my lady. He got up, he treated her with the utmost care and respect on the voyage, and it was very stormy. He’s intensely grateful when they finally part. He says, ‘Madam, I hope to see you at St James’s, which is the royal palace in London where indeed the royal families still receive, but it was then where court was held. So, he was saying, I hope the Stuarts are restored to the throne. Actually, he never came back to Scotland again. We don’t know that he ever thought of her again.

[JB]
And what did she think of him?

[FF]
She remained – I believe absolutely, and maybe in some ways despite herself – devoted to him all her life. I think a large part of it was this was something that many Scots of that time felt. The Stuarts had been on the throne in Scotland since the 14th century, and the Hanoverians had come in 1714. There was a sense in which the Stuarts for them were the true kings and queens of Scotland.

[JB]
So, the escape goes to plan. Charles is offloaded to sympathisers and eventually heads to the Continent, but what I didn’t know is that Flora is betrayed and captured. And it’s at that cliffhanger, we’re going to take a short break.

[MV]
From coastlines to castles, wildlife to wilderness, when you become a member of the National Trust for Scotland, you can enjoy the very best of what Scotland has to offer, as often as you like. And you can help to protect it. The National Trust for Scotland is Scotland’s largest conservation charity. By becoming a member, you join thousands of others who are all playing their part to care for the places we love, for generations to come.
Join us and become a member today. Just search National Trust for Scotland.

[JB]
Welcome back to the Love Scotland podcast. I’m joined by the renowned historical biographer Flora Fraser and we’re talking about her book, Pretty Young Rebel: The life of Flora MacDonald. Just before the break, Prince Charles Edward Stuart has made his escape from Scotland and Flora was heading back to her ordinary life in the Highlands. Or is that how it worked out? Flora, you can take up the story.

[FF]
Well, Flora, having said goodbye to the Prince at Portree, heads to her stepfather’s house at Armadale in Skye, and she’s there for only a few days, not telling anyone at home what’s happened over the course of the last week.

[JB]
What a secret to keep!

[FF]
I know, isn’t it extraordinary? Her mother knew nothing. And then the summons came for Flora to report to a local militia officer; a militia that is set up in the government interest.

[JB]
How did they find out that Flora MacDonald was involved?

[FF]
They were just tracing the Prince. They did trace his footsteps all the way, but it was the boatman. They were threatened with this hideous instrument of torture, the Barisdale, which involved a spike from above or from below, about to pierce your throat – at which point, I’m not surprised they gave up the information.

[JB]
Flora was brought in for questioning. They eventually discovered that Betty Burke was actually Prince Charles Edward Stuart; she was in deep deep trouble.

[FF]
Yeah, she was in serious trouble. Everybody who had facilitated the escape of the Prince were all brought down to London to stand trial.

[JB]
And that includes Flora.

[FF]
That includes Flora. Her first captor, General Campbell, was very much a government man and officer of distinction, and he’s on this ship. When she’s brought on board, he examines her, interrogates her if you like. But he treats her like his daughter, as she later says. She has some quality about her, Flora, and the captains of these ships treat her like a very great lady. She’s given a cabin of her own when they stop in Leith. She’s like a Jacobite rockstar – all the Jacobite ladies in Leith and Edinburgh rode out to dine with her. The captains put everything at her service, their servants, they send for clothes.

[JB]
I think this is where the title of your book comes from, doesn’t it? Pretty young rebel? That’s how she is described by one of her captors on that ship, who it seems was absolutely captivated by her, but in a very fatherly way. She was taken to London. Was she imprisoned?

[FF]
It’s always been said she was in the Tower of London, which she wasn’t.

[JB]
Was she facing a death sentence?

[FF]
It was very unclear. I don’t think they would have done it. She was already well-known, featuring in the papers and there were engravings. She was, if you like, under lock and key, but in the house of a King’s messenger. It was curious … it wasn’t parole but it meant she wasn’t in a jail.

[JB]
What I find surprising is, as you mentioned earlier, that her alibi, if you like, was that she would have helped anyone in similar need. And what is equally surprising is that they seem to buy this!

[FF]
Yes. And it was General Campbell who wrote from home in Argyll to a London friend. ‘When I asked her why she did it, she said I would have done the same for you had you been in distress’.

[JB]
And the newspapers and the periodicals of that time, they leapt on the story and, as you alluded to, she became something of a celebrity. But what astonishes me reading the book, and perhaps it shouldn’t, is the amount of fake news that surrounded the entire tale. What they didn’t know about Flora – and they were so hungry for information – they made up.

[FF]
Absolutely. They said she was a great heiress; she had literally no money. They said she and the Prince stayed alone in a cottage where she cured him of the itch.

[JB]
Lots of salacious stuff as well.

[FF]
Cartoons and engravings, which were the equivalent of photographs in the tabloids. These prints, these engravings were sold everywhere.

[JB]
Flora herself, she realised that she had captured the public’s imagination and she played along with it.

[FF]
Yes, she certainly did. Rather than complain, she makes friends with her captors. Eventually, when there’s a general amnesty later in 1747, she does become a great social catch for everyone who wants to see this phenomenon: the girl who it seems captured the Prince’s heart, brought the Prince to safety. Didn’t matter if they were strong Hanoverians, it was a very romantic story.

[JB]
Basically, luck is on her side, the authorities are a bit fed up and their finances are depleted – and that’s what leads to a general … Pardon may not be the correct word, but they back off and Flora is allowed to go back to Scotland. Is she a heroine or is she a villain for putting others in danger?

[FF]
She heads back notably with a purse of £1,500 collected for her by English Jacobite supporters. Now, they didn’t come out to finance or to help the Prince and the Jacobite Army. Some have argued that this was a sort of guilt money, but the great thing is that Flora got this vast sum of money and she goes back to Skye and she marries. He’s young, he’s handsome and he’s the son of the factor (or land agent) for the MacDonald of Sleat estates on Skye. He’s been educated by the chief in Edinburgh in the expectation that he will succeed as factor, which he indeed does.

[JB]
How old is she at this time, roughly?

[FF]
She’s 28.

[JB]
So, she’s in her late 20s, she goes on to have seven children, the last I think in her mid-40s?

[FF]
Yes, it’s 1766; she must be 44, I think.

[JB]
So, she lives a life – she’s known, she’s a bit famous. She has a bit of money. She has her children, she’s intent on providing for her children and giving them a leg up in life. So, she plays on her past fame and her connections, to get them positions as she grows older.

[FF]
Absolutely. Alan, I think it’s fair to say, is not the man his father was.

[JB]
He’s not the brightest bulb in the box, is he? He may be good-looking and all of that …

[FF]
Oh, he’s very good-looking. You can’t say he’s feckless, because he tries; the trouble is he gets it wrong, everything.

[JB]
He’s not great with the family finances, is he!

[FF]
He sure ain’t. I feel bad because it’s her money that she collected through her canniness in the South.

[JB]
Ultimately Flora, who’s now around 50, her husband and some of her family, they leave Scotland. They head to America to try to make another fortune, but their timing couldn’t have been worse. They emigrate straight into the early stages of the American Revolution.

[FF]
Flora’s son-in-law, who’s an experienced marine officer, doesn’t unpack interestingly nor does he buy a home. He rents one, because he sees that this is really serious and then it all erupts.

[JB]
It all kicks off. And sadly old Alan MacDonald doesn’t. He ends up leading Highland troops on behalf of the British government – there’s an irony for you – against the Revolutionaries. There are claims that Flora herself was involved in the various battles, and at one stage rallied the troops herself. Is this just invented?

[FF]
Flora, according to some accounts, rode up and down the line of the Highland army as it set off for the coast, on a white palfrey, urging them on. I don’t think so. I can’t say she didn’t, but there is a really, really detailed narrative of the Highland army every step of the way until misfortune greets them on a creek near the coast. And there is no mention of Flora.

[JB]
So, let’s jump forward. The revolution doesn’t go well for Alan and the government forces. Flora comes back to Scotland. She’s in her late 50s, she’s in ill health, but then there’s another twist – her fame is rekindled. How does this happen?

[FF]
Well, Boswell publishes this extraordinary and detailed account of him and Dr Johnson staying with Flora in the house – Kingsburgh – and publishes this lengthy description, so funny, of Flora and Johnson having good crack together. She comes off as what they call in America ‘having real street smarts’. She’s witty and enjoying it – never forgetting I think Presbyterianism is in her soul, in every bone – but she’s a lot of fun, I think. And you see that in Boswell’s description.

[JB]
Then bizarrely, she receives a pension from the Hanoverian Prince of Wales because of a connection of her son Johnny. How the heck does that come about?

[FF]
Well, it’s networking. One of Johnny’s superiors, who’s a McPherson of Skye acting as Governor-General in Bengal. Sir John comes back to see family in Skye. Scots, both Highland and Lowland, supplied the Empire with officers, with administrators and so that wasn’t surprising. Flora’s son-in-law had been 23 years old a marine officer all over the world – Manilla, Ponticelli – but he talks to Flora and is rather shocked at her reduced state, both health and financial. He asks her to write a memorial of her sufferings after helping the Prince, and her sufferings after losing their steading in North Carolina. And she writes this extraordinary account in 1789 of these events.

The ’45 is 40 years earlier and yet she tells it like it was yesterday. And a memorial was specifically to elicit financial aid. So this was to elicit financial aid. John is an intimate at that time of George, Prince of Wales; later George IV. He gives it to the prince and the prince says, give her a pension of £50 from me a year. So, Flora gets a pension, but apparently the Prince of Wales, munificent as he was, forgot to pay Sir John back!

[JB]
So, what were her final years like?

[FF]
This memorial that she wrote, two memorials, were almost the last that we know of her. She wrote them in 1789, which of course was the year of many things: the French Revolution, George Washington’s inaugurated as the first president of the United States. All these things connect in a way to her public life, but she dies quietly.

[JB]
How old was she?

[FF]
She was 68. Rheumatism was her terrible affliction.

[JB]
Why do you think her story endures? Is it just the romance of it all?

[FF]
I think it’s her character. Yes, of course it’s a romantic story, especially when it’s simplified. When it’s simplified, it’s an act of courage. I don’t think her story will ever go away because I think it’s her character that endures down the centuries. She had no control over the Prince appearing outside the sheiling. She had no control over Alan losing her money, sadly. She had no control over the rent hikes on the estate. She had no control over the American Revolution. But I think it’s her response to whatever is thrown at her – she responds in the same quick, canny and ultimately intelligent, more than intelligent. She actually, I think it’s not wrong to say, that she responds with a strong moral sense to what’s thrown at her.

[JB]
It’s an incredible tale about an incredible life. Thank you so much for telling us all about it. Flora Fraser, thank you.

[FF]
Thank you so much, Jackie; a pleasure to talk to you.

[JB]
And Flora Fraser’s book, Pretty Young Rebel: The life of Flora MacDonald, is out now. If you’d like to find out more about the Jacobite uprising of 1745, then be sure to visit the National Trust for Scotland website. You’ll find information about the Culloden Battlefield site, which is open to visitors year-round, in the show notes. You can also discover other Jacobite linked locations, including the Glenfinnan Monument which acts as a tribute to those who died fighting for the Jacobite cause. Or if you’d like to listen to more episodes about the Jacobite uprising, scroll back through your Love Scotland feed to find our 2020 episodes about Culloden and the Glenfinnan Monument.
But that’s all from this edition. I hope you’ll join me next time. Goodbye.

[MV]
This episode of Love Scotland is a Think production in association with the Big Light Studio. Presented by Jackie Bird.
Music and post-production by Brian McAlpine; producer for the Big Light is Cameron Angus MacKay. Executive producer is Fiona Whyte; research by Ciaran Sneddon.
For show notes and more information, head to nts.org.uk