From: annarichmac@hotmail.co.uk
To: historymacA@btinternet.com
How’s the Da? What’s fresh, cove?
I did sit down with paper and pen but it reminds me too much of school and exams. So I hope you can accept this as the letter I promised.
And if you just mail back and say, You’re seeing it all blone, I’ll get in the kayak, up the road and swing a cheeky left at the top of Scotland and dive down to give you a scud on the lug. So there.
I know you’re still in the huff I didn’t pick anything historical for the dissertation. I know you had good ideas and I know you could have helped me. But you know too it’s something I’ve got to do on my own. You’re as bad as my olaid. She wants me to concentrate on Jane Austen of course. Maybe that’s historical enough for you too but there’s a slight problem. I don’t care which of these boring daughters gets the guy in the end. In fact I don’t fancy any of the guys. It’s like the characters are all queuing up and jumping through hoops, set up by the author.
So yes Da, the course really is working out OK. Just like you said on the phone, I’m getting supported to study the literature of lies. Poetry, fiction and film. I still remember your own suggestions. Correct me if I’m wrong but –
1. Napoleonic wars from the perspective of the Highlands and Islands women left to run the crofts.
2. The ’45 rebellion as seen by the effect of post-Culloden measures on the daily lives of surviving women in the Highlands.
3. The role of women in the Vietnamese war.
I know you did the historical novel for a module of the history degree and the bodach Tolstoy is the dude for you. Why do I know this? Cos you’ve only told me about twenty times. I don’t think you did Charles Dickens.
I’ve scanned an essay and I’m enclosing it as a Word doc so you should be able to read it OK. I’ve a feeling you’re going to like this one. It’s the novelist Nabokov talking about Jane Austen. He says it’s possible to achieve something near enough perfection if you do it on a small enough scale. He talks about a fan by Fragonard with delicate drawings. He says the mistress of irony is like that. But then he talks about the rough texture but the big scope of Dickens.
Now that leads me to the question. Are you still in the stone age of the movies? VHS bricks in the machine? Or have you got a DVD player now? Cos I’m going to ask you to get me David Lean’s Great Expectations with Finlay Curry as Magwitch as the Christmas present. Everyone stood up and clapped in the lecture theatre and I’d like to see it again. But then I’ll post it on to you.
Just to prove that I’m ignoring all attempts by respective parents to steer me into fulfilling their incomplete destinies – please know that my dissertation is likely to be on a completely different topic. So your conditioning programme, verging on brainwashing, has been a dismal failure. It’s completely accidental, our similar opinions on the work of Ms Austen.
OK I’ll let you into the secret. Fish. Don’t tell anyone but there’s a lot of fish in Scottish literature. Take herring – another scan winging up the broadband to you – Alasdair Reid’s The Colour of Herring. Then there’s the Greenock bohemian, W S Graham, in St Ives doing The Nightfishing. Norman MacCaig talking about the drifter Daffodil and basking sharks and trout and stuff. OK OK there’s Ted Hughes’ Pike as well which shows this obsession is not unique to Scotland. But doesn’t he come salmon fishing on the Grimersta now he’s a wealthy literary gentleman? I should include the poet who fishes the same water as us, even though he pays for the privilege.
Enough of work. Enough of life. Let’s talk mechanics. You seemed to hit it off with Les, that dinner at Mum’s. Or maybe it was just that no-one else was up to speed on the merits of VW engines.
Yes, we’re still together, very much so, since you won’t ask. In fact we’re well into a shared project. Excellent distraction-therapy, coming up to finals. Beats watering the cactus. Naturally I’ve totally disregarded your sage advice on the subject of vehicles. Yes, you’ve guessed, Les and me have found a Type 2. Not a split screen but the early one with the wee dinky lights – L reg. Tax exempt, if we ever get the show on the road. Les has the driving force purring away on the bench – the advantages of the air-cooled engine. But some body-parts are missing.
We won’t find them in bonnie Scotland no more. No nor Deutschland or the Netherlands but wait for this one. Did you know that merchant ships are carrying front and sliding doors and sills and snub side wings over oceans?
Ageing parent, the people’s car become the people’s van is worth serious money these days as a restored but mainly original model. We couldn’t look at buying one but I think we’re going to make one up, out of bits.
Please don’t be flattered into thinking any of this obsessional behaviour has anything to do with any interests or character traits of your own. But we might well have a camper-van to take the kayaks and ourselves where the waters run. Maybe not Babylon.
And Da, all the best – really – in the new house. But don’t be offended if we don’t stay the night – family house and all that. The old Leverhulme Drive. Don’t worry, your masterpiece of a garage-library combo will be well used. Designer-sheds and glasshouses and all.
I’ve nearly forgiven you for throwing out that starter-motor and giving away the bumper. The heat-exchangers will take a bit longer, to forgive. Do you know what they cost these days? Could you not have cleared out some files and folders instead? But I suppose it’s a part of Grumpy Old Man syndrome.
You’re going to be a classic but will you still cook for us please? Your calamari is flicking awesome. If you have the same gentle touch with the ladies, you’ll be OK. Have you figured out that new mobile yet? Don’t leave voicemails. I can’t afford to pick them up but txt me please. Don’t even try with the abbreviations. Xxx