Volume 05 Issue 1
The SRB Interview: Angus Peter Campbell
Angus Peter Campbell – The SRB Interview NOVELIST, POET, journalist, and actor, Angus Peter Campbell/Aonghas Pàdraig Caimbeul was born in South Uist in 1952. Campbell left Uist to attend secondary school in Oban, where he was taught English by Iain Crichton Smith. He graduated from the University...
Volume 5 – Issue 1 – Editorial
Volume 5 Issue 1 Editorial Between our last issue and the one you hold in your hands, Harold Pinter died. There are many things we could mention at this point to honour his memory – the plays, the poems, the screenplays, the Nobel Prize speech – but one in particular comes to mind in these...
SRB Diary: Indian Diary – Fancy a Beer?
Indian Diary – Fancy a Beer? – Jennie Renton RESTLESS in the early evening heat in the south Kolkata apartment, I head for the balcony and discover two geckos entwined on the floor, their bodies almost invisible against the greeny-yellow linoleum. Startled – but not enough to disentangle...
Brothers in Arms
Brothers in Arms – Stuart Christie WRITING IN the preface to l’Espagne Libre, in 1946, the year of my birth, Albert Camus said of the Spanish struggle: “It is now nine years that men of my generation have had Spain within their hearts. Nine years that they have carried it with them...
A Life in a Year
A Life in a Year – Alan Taylor IN 1786, BY WHEN he had reached the age of 27, Robert Burns was already a man with a reputation as a rake. His girlfriend, the woman he wanted to make his wife, Jean Armour, was pregnant with what would be their twins. Not surprisingly her father was appalled...
Volume 5 – Issue 1 – New Poems – Gordon Dargie
New Poems – Gordon Dargie More or less I think I see and hear the care with all the lines rehearsed but then I was a boy and Mum was acting strangely at the sink and telling me that I was very special and so they picked me. What was happening when what I asked was Where did I come from? But...
1979 And All That
1979 And All That – George Rosie MUCH AS I HATE the idea of sharing an enthusiasm with Margaret Thatcher we both agree that the 1980s television series Yes Minister and Yes Prime Minister were among the funniest programmes ever. The way that Sir Humphrey Appleby manipulated his hapless minister...
Mayday!
Mayday! – Christopher Harvie I ask myself, is it just a matter of a few dozen passengers, or do I watch the whole human race over there, haphazardly hanging on to some run-down cruise-liner, fit for the scrapyard and headed for self-destruction? I cannot be sure. I am dripping wet and I listen....
Breaking Up Is Easy To Do
Breaking Up Is Easy To Do – Harry Reid MAINLAND SCOTLAND, often encouraged by its indigenous media, has been too keen to sneer at the spiritual life of the inhabitants of the Long Island (Lewis and Harris) and in particular their efforts to protect the Sabbath. Demonstrations against...
Tete-a-Tete
Tete-a-Tete – Brian Morton FOUR RIVERS ran out of Eden. Three flow through Langholm, and young Christopher Grieve could tell each of them by its sound alone. It was a first lesson in native harmonics and a vernacular cadence that sought nothing less, when he became Hugh MacDiarmid, than to put...
Volume 5 – Issue 1 – Gallimaufry
Gallimaufry – Lesley McDowell and Theresa Munoz Scotland: A Very Short Introduction Rab Houston OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS, £7.99 pp140, ISBN 019923079X Racing through Scotland’s history in a hundred and forty pages isn’t an easy task: although a rare exception is made for Mary, Queen...