Tag Archives: Eland

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The Christian Watt Papers

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This book has left me filled with admiration for the fishwives of Fraserburgh.

Christian Watt is, for I hear her still, so proud and so strong, despite all kinds of hardship and loss. Four of her seven brothers die at sea leaving her parents in despair. It is not long until her mother dies, physically exhausted from years as a fishwife.

“… with their skirts kilted above the knees they waded into the sea summer and winter with their men on their backs to ensure the men would go to sea dry …”.

Yet despite the hardships Christian marries a fisherman herself, and it is as a fishwife, and mother of ten children, that life begins to overwhelm her. She faces more deaths by drowning, including that of a favourite son and then her husband, the impact leaving her struggling with poverty, the law, and her mental health. Eventually, strained beyond coping, she is certified and admitted to the asylum in Aberdeen on a permanent basis. There she begins to write. Calmer and cared for, she details the wars and events, lives and challenges that surround her, her children and their community as they move into the new century.

Christian dies in 1933, trusting implicitly in God.

This version of her papers – first published in 1988, and edited by General Sir David Fraser, a descendant of the Fraser family that knew her so well, and to which she was related – keeps her voice alive. Brave and kind, it speaks out consistently against subservience, poverty, prejudice, racism, snobbery and war. I loved it.

Copyright Georgie Knaggs & The Phraser 2023

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Life at Full Tilt – I love the title for a start

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This arrived in the post today, and I am so looking forward to reading it.

I opened the front cover of the book and discovered a map of the world with arrows racing out from various points on different continents, each arrow ending in a book written by Dervla Murphy. I counted 24 in total, and those may be just the ones from which extracts have been taken for this book. That’s a lot of ground to cover.

There are just two titles that I recognise, and have read, from those listed on the inside map. The last one I read was Wheels within Wheels in which Dervla describes her family and early life, and the circumstances that led to her setting off on her bicycle – the trips getting longer and longer.

It must have been quite a task to choose a selection for this book. I hope to have the time to savour them slowly.

Thank you Eland.

Copyright Georgie Knaggs & The Phraser 2023

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Interview with Barnaby Rogerson: Part I – North Africa

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Barnaby Rogerson (in the white shirt) with Nigel Barley (author of the Innocent Anthropologist). The photograph was taken at the Eland Open Day in early December 2017.

Barnaby Rogerson (in the white shirt) with Nigel Barley (author of The Innocent Anthropologist). The photograph was taken at the Eland Open Day in early December 2017.

The day is sunny, the bus ride easy, and the grey door is exactly where it should be. There are no signs … just a button to press, and then a set of narrow grey stairs to follow in a spiral to the top.

I climb the smooth steps and at the top a door is open. Just inside a tall, elegant, eager dog waits to say hello. Beside the dog is a slightly less-leggy man. He is, as I presume, Barnaby Rogerson, author of In Search of Ancient North Africa – a History in Six Lives, and one of the directors of Eland Publishing.

Behind them both is a book-filled den.

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