R D Kernohan on Arran
David Torrance on Iona
Catherine Czerkawska at Loch Ken
Chris Holligan in Elie
Rose Galt in Girvan
Alex Wood on Arran
Andrew Hook in Glasgow
Alasdair McKillop in St Andrews
Sheila Hetherington on Arran
Anthony Seaton on Ben Nevis
Paul Cockburn at Loch Ness
Jackie Kemp in a taxi
Angus Skinner on Skye
The Scottish Review is on its annual summer break and will resume publication on Tuesday 24 July
I nearly kent
my faither
A poignant memoir by Jim Fiddes
Celebrate
Places Seldom Mentioned
A love poem for the summer by
Gerard Rochford
Holiday memories
are made
of this…
A celebration in photographs by
Islay McLeod
The most memorable
holiday in Scotland
that I never had
The glories of the
hydro hotels by
Kenneth Roy
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Today’s banner
A Scottish holiday
Drawing by SR’s resident cartoonist, the one
and only
Bob Smith
Postcards from Scotland 4
Arran. Photograph by Islay McLeod
My early memories of holidays in Scotland are all a bit of a blur. There are a few photographs of me standing between my parents with my face screwed up because of the sun. Being of a fair complexion I burned easily and hated it. One holiday however emerges from the blur of memory. I suppose it must have been during the second world war. What I remember clearly, and have occasionally thought about ever since, was a particular incident.
We were on holiday in Whiting Bay in Arran. I was with my mother who was sitting away from the shore reading a book, while I was playing around the sea and the rock pools. Something floating in and out with the tide caught my attention, and I went to investigate. It turned out to be the mainly decomposed body of someone wearing what was once a uniform. I must have been around 10 or 11 years old at the time and was well aware, at least in theory, of what the war meant. But this body, gently moving in and out like seaweed, filled me with horror. I shouted to my mother who came over to look and then rushed off to notify the police.
While she was away I was able to see that there was no head left, and that the limbs were largely bones protruding from fragments of uniform. I think it would have been difficult or impossible to identify the body. Over the many years since that time I have sometimes wondered who it was and thought about the family receiving the message ‘Missing, believed killed’. When I feel discontented with my life I think of that incident.
Robin Downie
Bruce Gardner
Fiona with Tidy the cow
Fiona MacDonald
Orkney. Photograph by Islay McLeod
Walter Humes
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