Well, not the front … but page 31.
I do like it when a piece of published writing has a second lease of life – or even a third or fourth.
From 18 January 2019, my story A Time to Reap is being serialised in a daily newspaper, The Courier, which covers Dundee, Fife, Perthshire and Angus …
… in 2016 it was in another D C Thomson publication The People’s Friend …
… and in between those dates Ulverscroft published it in large-print for libraries …
… and I brought it out on Kindle.
It’s set in a Scottish Highland farming community in 1963 and as I was brought up in such a community at that time no research would be required.
Or so I thought.
The main characters, including my heroine, farm manager Elizabeth Duncan, are of course grown-ups; I was quite wee in 1963. And just because you were brought up on a farm doesn’t mean you know anything about farming – especially if you spent most of your childhood indoors reading Malory Towers.
Among the many questions I asked Google/my cousin David/a farm-implement blogger/fashion-expert friend/lawyer husband of (different) friend and an old farming manual bought in a junk shop, were:
How bad was that snowy winter 1962/63?
How do you make a haystack?
How would you look after your sheep in those conditions?
What would you be planting/harvesting in the different seasons?
Good reasons for expanding a dairy herd?
How do you persuade an angry bull into a pen?
What style/colour of dress would suit tall, fair-haired Elizabeth to wear to the gillies’ ball?
How much did it cost to send a letter in 1963?
Did you have to get a provisional driving licence then?
Adoption law in Scotland at the time?
And this was the end result …
It’s April 1963 in the Scottish Highlands. Elizabeth Duncan, widowed with two small daughters, is the farm manager on the Rosland estate, the job previously held by her husband, Matthew. Following a hard, snowy winter, her working life is made more difficult by the unpleasant estate factor.
Elizabeth enjoys support in the small community from family and friends, including her cousin Peggy and local vet Andy Kerr. The arrival of an American visitor at Rosland House unsettles her in a way she hadn’t expected but, after Matthew’s mysterious death, a new relationship has been the last thing on her mind. However, as she dances at the annual estate ball in September, that may be about to change …
Capital Writers 