| M096 |
My name's Matthew Fitt. I'm a writer and a teacher, until the writing dries up and I'm dragged kicking and screaming back into the classroom.
Erm, and the classroom that I escaped from a few years ago, I haven't gone back in ever since.
Erm, I I have nae lecture for you er this evening, erm I have nae data, nothing er to analyse, er basically cause I've got nae strength left after this week.
Er, it's been a brilliant week er for our project, Itchy Coo.
And you're looking at the the result of that at this very moment.
Er we launched th- this book, "The Eejits".
Er, the original version is the "The Twits",
by Mr Roald Dahl, who quite conveniently erm would have had his ninetieth birthday, had he survived,
erm on Wednesday.
Often er, wh- when we were trialling this with kids, erm we er [laugh], we asked the kids if they could translate the word "twits" into Scots for us,
and some of you may be faster than others, but erm "twats" is what the the children erm suggested,
so now I say, erm, "The word begins with E", and erm, everything's fine.
Erm, this is Itchy Coo's t- twenty-fourth title.
We were established in two thousand and two,
with the remit to produce "Braw Books for Bairns o Aw Ages".
And erm it's myself and James Robertson, who, er we're all disappointed because he was not put on the shortleet for the Booker Prize yesterday for his novel "Testament of Gideon Mack" which is a shame,
but erm he said he got erm suitably drunk er to make up for it.
And erm supported by the Scottish Arts Council, which we're very grateful for the the funding they give us.
Erm we receive erm around about, it's been, it's actually been cut every year erm since we've erm been in existence, but we receive around about thirty thousand pounds or thereabouts.
Er the publisher, Black & White Publishing receive now a separate grant for the publishing of this,
so most of th- the money that comes to us is for outreach,
and schools liaison. I'm the schools officer,
and James is the editor.
And erm in reference to "The Eejits", well I'll just, I'll read this in a wee second cause I'm just delighted to have this book.
Erm I translated this but J- James, his name appears er somewhere, but erm he he he erm is very much all over this book,
because when I was translating Roald Da- Dahl's work, I was just erm havin a lot of fun and changing things and and goin in to all sorts of strange avenues, and er James said "Naw, son, get a grip", and I did.
And we have a very authentic, er translation,
which means that children can refer, instead of a, to a glossary, although they could look at erm at SLD er products,
erm they they can look at this, side by side, and they've been doin it already.
I was in Duns yesterday, and the children were doing exactly that.
Can we just have a wee look at this, cause it's erm [tut] er, just erm.
If you go to page six,
and if you're goin to have your tea later on, I apologise for this, it's er.
[audience laughs]
The secret behind these books is erm is their modern and er dynamic quality.
And er also being able to have a wee bit of budget to get the top illustrations.
We have Quentin Blake's originals, as you can see, it's exactly the same as the the English version.
So, Mrs Eejit.
"Mrs Eejit was nae better than her guidman.
She didna hae a ha- a hairy-bairdie face but it wis a richt scunner that she didna because a baird wid hae hidden some o her boggin features.
Git a swatch at yon.
"Hae ye ever seen a wumman wi a mair hackit coupon hingin on her than that? I doot ye havenae.
But the unco thing is that Mrs Eejit wisna boarn an eejit. She had a bonnie enough face when she wis a wee lassie.
The hackitness had grown on her year by year as she got aulder.
Hoo dae ye hink that wid happen? Weel, wait and I'll tell ye.
If a buddie has hackit thochts, it sterts tae shaw on the coupon.
And when that buddie has hackit thochts ilka day, ilka week, ilka year, the face gets mair and mair hackit until it gets sae hackit ye cannae thole even tae look at it.
"A buddie that has guid thochts" on the other hand, "canna ever be hackit.
Ye can hae a squint neb, a shamgabbit m- a shamgabbit mooth and twa chins and sticky-oot teeth, but if ye hae guid thochts they will aye glister oot o yer face like wee blinks o sun and ye'll aye look braw.
"Naethin glistered oot o Mrs Eejit's face.
In her richt haund she cairried a shauchlin-stick.
She yaised tae tell folk that this wis because she had er plooks on the sole o her left fit and walkin wis sair.
But the truth wis she cairried a stick sae she could skelp things wi it, things like dugs and cats and wee weans.
And then there wis the gless ee.
Mrs Eejit had a gless ee that wis ayewis glowerin the wrang wey."
Indulge me just for the next wee bittie.
"The Gless Ee. Ye can play hunners o pliskies wi a gless ee because ye can tak it oot and pap it back on aga- in again ony time ye like.
Ye can bet yer life Mrs Eejit kent aw the pliskies.
"Yin mornin she took oot her gless ee and drapped it intae Mr E- er Eejit's joog o beer when he wisnae lookin.
Mr Eejit sat there slowly sookin his beer.
The faem made a white ring on the hairs aroond his mooth.
He dichted the white faem ontae his sark sleeve and dichted his sark sleeve on his breeks.
"'Ye're up tae nae guid,' Mrs Eejit said, keepin her back tae him sae he widnae see she had taen her gless ee oot.
'Whenever ye haud yer wheesht like that I ken fine weel ye're up tae nae guid.'
Mrs Eejit wis richt. Mr Eejit wis schemin awa like daft.
He wis tryin tae think up a sleekit pliskie he could play on his wife the day.
"'Ye'd better caw canny,' Mrs Eejit said, 'because when I see ye stertin tae scheme, I watch ye like a hoolet.'
'Ach, shut yer gub, ye auld carline,' Mr Eejit said. He kept sookin awa at his beer, and his sleekit mind kept workin awa at the latest ugsome pliskie he wis gaun tae play on the auld wumman.
"Aw o a sudden, as Mr Eejit teemed the last drappie o beer doon his thrapple, he catchit sicht o Mrs Eejit's awfie gless ee gowkin up at him fae the bottom o the joog. It made him lowp.
'I tellt ye I wis watchin ye,' keckled Mrs Eejit. 'I hae een everywhere sae ye'd better caw canny.'"
[audience laughs]
[?]Nae a sense this ain[/?].
Erm we l- we launched this in Falkirk library on erm on er Wednesday er mornin.
And it was quite funny, cause th- the BBC were there, and erm a gentleman came over, and he grabbed three kids immediately, he had to leave before the end of the the launch.
And I was plannin to run through erm a few Scots exercises to get the kids in the right frame of mind to look at the Scots.
It was a class of er of bairns that had never heard of Scots before, never thought about it.
And the BBC erm interviewer grabbed three and took the book up, before we'd realised what had happ- what was happenin, and he was askin them to read from it.
And they were really really strugglin.
We al- we also found out a bit later on that the the children were erm from a special dyslexic school,
which didnae help matters, erm although the article that came on, the feature item that came on er Newsdrive managed to say "Well, this is the reason we should have more Scots books because children can't read", and so it worked in our favour.
But erm er this book is not, we- we've got twenty-four books now and we- we've had all sorts of erm a book called "King o the Midden" and "Blethertoun Braes", there's Mrs Nae Offence and all sorts of characters like that.
We've got the Bahookie dug, [?]who's in wi his[/?].
So we have been down there at the lowest common denominator, and erm, but that's that's been a trick as well to try to engage children with these books, you have to start with what they're familiar with.
Erm there's a gentleman in Glasgow, I'll not mention his name, er I like him a lot, I respect him a lot, but th- he's he's a Double, Double O man, or or a O.U. man,
and there's a big debate there about this, and we'd have no problem at all with usin the language of the Broons, you- people would find in the Broons.
It's the only example of erm Scots prose that the mass erm of people were looking at in the twentieth century, so.
But we have to get children up to a standard where they can read er Dunbar and Henryson and Burns properly.
And this book is almost erm startin to get towards the halfway hoose.
Erm it is manky, it's mingin, it's got all the stuff, and I mean the title, "The Eejits", has engaged so many folk.
Erm in fact by, it was launched on Wednesday morning, and by Thursday evening erm the word "reprint" was being mentioned, erm five thousand copies may already have gone, we're not quite sure, erm Tesco's have taken us on as well.
Erm, the Daily Record have taken us on.
I- normally it would be the erm literary pages of the of the Sunday heavies, but erm er the fact that the Record is wanting this and wanting to know more about it means we'll get a much erm more diverse audience than we ever have in the past.
So we're hoping this one will be the start of something, it's been a milestane for us this week.
And er but er Chris was complaining she had to get up at half-past six, was it, on the
[Chris Robinson in audience clarifies 'Twenty-past six!'] Twenty-past
six on Wednesday morning, which we're very grateful for that er, we've all been up at that time this week talkin about it.
Er every single newspaper in Scotland picked up the story.
And erm this is something extra special so we hope that does does very well.
Erm another book that we have erm er launched recently is a follow-up to something you may know, "Katie's Coo", wee smiles in the in the group as I I showed them there.
Erm Tam was askin if these are erm durable, th- this one is, this one, this one's okay, it's erm, it's got all the er the favourites, er this was launched a year ago.
Mr McConnell came to launch it at the Book Festival which is a sign that erm the the Executive are starting to be a bit more erm er receptive to this.
Er "Katie Bairdie had a coo, black and white aro- aboot the moo, wasnae that a bonny coo, dance Katie Bairdie."
Er, it's late in the day so you're no goin to have to sing this today, but erm "Three Craws", it's got all the all the standards. [audience member says 'go on']
I came across a, came across a Primary Five class in er Mid Calder, who had never heard of the Three Craws.
And although it is still quite a standard one, the schools still do it.
Erm and someone else told me they'd come across a similar group who had the same problem.
Erm children are not erm hearing these from gran and grandad, mum and dad, they're being plonked in front of DVDs and erm they are hearing American erm songs and rhymes, and can do that very very well,
but the Scots ones are being lost, and whether that tradition is important or not, of course it is, er the language is being diminished erm from there.
But erm our publisher likes to si- sit in Leith with a big cigar and think up ways of making money, so erm "Katie's Moose" is the follow-up, exactly the same little series,
erm we're talking about maybe Katie's ferm, Katie's claes, Katie's beasties for next year,
but erm this one is erm er a keek-a-boo book, and erm
you have to have nails to get these open.
Erm, where's er Katie's moose? Then Katie's moose is er runnin roond, runnin, runnin aboot the hoose, er chargin all over the place.
And where's er Katie's dug? This rhymes, so Katie's dug is gonna be unner the the rug.
There he is, and erm, what have we got, erm Katie's erm, Katie's pig is daein a jig,
Just right there.
And dead simple, erm Katie's bear, Katie's bear was gonna be on the flair, but the illustrator didn't like the illustration, so
erm the bear's got an awfy, er awfy sair paw, or his paw's awfy sair,
to rhyme there.
And it's it's engaging the, it's engaging the kids, but th- we have erm, so here, Katie's Craw, now this is for nursery and "Katie's Craw's on the wa aboot tae fa",
and that's erm sowing the seeds of the Three Craws, it's erm so it's a good song, and it's something that erm er was put in there in the early stages.
And of course, Itchy Coo, we- we're no po-faced, we know that you have to er have a sense of humour to to make this work.
And so Katie's coo is obviously
[audience laughs, and someone answers 'On the loo']
On th-, aye, you got the the measure of this now, but
the kids absolutely love this, they really enjoy this, and er if I pass that just round there, and I pass that, have a look.
Pass that one that way, oops sorry.
Go that way too.
But erm it is erm, the project has erm er been very very successful,
and er we've sold eighty thousand copies of all these titles.
That was until Wednesday, I think there'll be a few more sold now.
Erm as the schools officer, I've been to erm five hundred schools and libraries in the past er the past four years.
And just in this week, for example, I was working with erm, pupils in, [tut] first and second year pupils in Duns library, that was erm done through the school,
erm on Tuesday, an Advanced Higher conference for pupils, er sixth-year pupils in Blantyre, for South Lanarkshire, and there was f- forty of them.
And wi the sixth-years, that's quite an interestin erm thing we're doin this year.
We're trying to s-s- what's, what's erm, starting to bother myself and James is that our names are startin to appear too much on these books, it's not because we're delighted, you know, we don't want to end up gettin our names on any books,
but erm we we realise that there's too much, like at the start we tried to farm this out,
and we've got a couple of titles, Hamish MacDonald and Sheena Blackhall,
but we're looking for, we're looking for erm for new talent for this, it's it's it's it's becoming embarrassing actually.
And erm it's only because we have these tight deadlines, and we can turn them around because we know what we're looking for.
So we're trying to develop erm er talent throughout Scotland, and that's what Gavin Wallace has given us money for this year.
And erm particularly in sixth years, heading in to university,
not just information about what Scots is, although you've got to get past that at the start,
erm but trying to develop erm er a core of creative writing skills that the children can can use.
I was actually up here not long ago, couple of weeks ago with the sixth-years er from Edinburgh.
One boy from Leith, er er name called Adam, Adam [CENSORED: surname],
erm and he had never heard of this before,
Scots-speaking family, and erm there were other schools from Balerno, they were they were, they thought it was very interesting but they didn't really have very much to do with it.
But this lad from Leith, erm you could see him having this epiphany, you could see him changing,
and erm realising that he could do this, and er he was enjoying doing his English, but this Scots gave him a different voice.
So we're trying to outreach to those er children around the country, as much as possible.
The, I've only been handed this document here, the Curriculum for Excellence thing that's gonna come out, and erm speaking with a teacher's voice I just look at this and go "Oh, naw!"
But erm I know it's erm, it is an opportunity,
erm for er for what I'm not quite sure yet, but it is an opportunity.
And and the one thing, that right on the front here, right on the front here, erm "confident individuals", the word "confident" erm is is the key to this.
Er, I was talking to Graeme about this, I I don't think that the erm, the bodies, the the powers that be, quite understand quite understand the potential of Scots erm for social inclusion and for cultural entitlement.
Erm, w- we've seen, I've seen erm children in, say, New Cumnock in Ayrshire,
where they are not engaging with er with reading at all, and erm I've come to a group with erm some quite difficult text that I had handy, and erm it turned out that we got through the simple stuff in about two minutes.
In fact, I've got this exercise to do with the bairns, where I've done it to, I've inflicted this on a few people in this room,
erm where the- they put their airms up in the air, and the hands on their heid and they touch their shooders and doon their taes.
And this group in New Cumnock were finishing the sentences [laugh] as I was coming through the exercise,
whereas quite a lot of the kids will just st- stand there goin "Oh my God, should he be in here?" er, "Why's he doing this?"
But erm and that group in New Cumnock who, ah t-, if you know the area,
erm the group in New Cumnock more than likely were P7s would be, would go into high school, and would probably be at the periphery of the of the English classes, just sort of sitting there until it was time to get out, and
and we managed to re-engage these children on erm, with erm, well very quickly we were reading Greek mythology in Scots, the book we've got "Hercules - Bampots and Heroes".
Erm and also "The Hoose o Haivers", which has got a lot more er tales in it.
So, erm, the the potential of that, I don't quite th- I don't quite think that the Executive have really seen this in action, so we're trying to erm to demonstrate er this to them.
We have erm Patri- Patricia Ferguson hopefully coming to a class sometime soon.
But we've had we've had Frank McAveety, just before the Piegate thing.
Erm, in fact, we worked so hard and then he lost his job.
Erm he was at a school in Sighthill in Edinburgh and he- he'd loved it, it was erm, er and we thought "Oh great, this is the, this is the, this is the moment, it's gonna happen."
And we come across these moments all the time, erm becoming quite used to them.
It may be that Patricia Ferguson's excited and then the election happens and she moves on.
It seems to be an individual thing. You can't quite tell folk on committee about this.
There has to be this individual e- epiphany is the word I used before.
Erm so we're hoping that's goin to, goin to happen.
The, we have a project as well in Letham Primary School in Livingston, erm where we have Cathrin Howells erm from Literature in Learning,
who is er going to monitor a class, er I'm just going to do the mad stuff that I normally do with the kids, erm over the year, develop the teachers' skills with Scots,
and Cathrin for the first time is is going to to monitor this, we have erm Jim McGonigal at Glasgow Uni is is going to erm provide the academic support for this,
and at the end of this we, hopefully we'll have a report erm proving, well there mi- it might be disaster and there's no benefits at all,
but already I've seen quite a few erm quite a few things that w- hopefully will, when they're in report form and they're they're they're looking spruced up in that way, th- they will start to change folk's minds,
because we've got tons of anecdotes, I've tons of anecdotes that erm er James and I have and other teachers tell us, but there's nothing there in black and white.
And so that's hopefully this year we'll have er a a piece of, erm, have a document that can er possibly change folk's opinions.
Erm, and erm we're also doing erm a translation of Stevenson's "Kidnapped" for the Edinburgh City of Literature.
It's erm, er in fact I was doing it this morning, I'll be doing it when I go back tonight, because it's due er sometime in the middle of next week.
Erm and it's the graphic novelisation, it's not the whole thing, it's the graphic novelis- novelisation that's been commissioned, in English, English originally,
er it's been great fun, doing it, in fact er myself and James have been batting emails back and forward in the past few days, trying to translate er some of Stevenson's more Latinate terms, and
erm we thought Ebeneezer Balfour's brilliant, because you just put it straight in, it's er exactly the same.
Erm, and erm so that's coming some time in the New Year,
to coincide with the Edinburgh City of Literature erm promoting "Kidnapped" by er by Stevenson.
I- it's a it's a big project and er but there's only two of us, it's myself and James Robertson,
erm John Corbett's on our advisory board along with er Yvonne Manning and erm Jim McGonigal and Janey Mauchline of South Lanarkshire education.
I-i- it's frustrating at times to see erm the possibilities of Scots,
erm a- and nothing happening, I I think you think cause that seem to be a kind of consensus this afternoon as well, it's erm it's got so much potential but it doesnae ever seem to f- get over that last hurdle.
Er I think that the secret is to be as as positive as possible.
Erm we try to do that through the books but also in what in what we say.
Erm not this organisation but other or- other Scots language organisations can sometimes carp a wee bit too much and all the the powers that be hear is, are negative voices.
And I think it's quite easy to just, you know, close the door on that, but if you're giving positive erm arguments, in fact, arguments that they they cannae really erm ignore,
because you're using their buzzwords like social inclusion,
and cultural entitlement, I apologise for using them with you, but that's exactly what they want to hear.
Erm if if that's, i-i- if you start to talk their language then they do respond.
Erm but erm the big secre- the big the big trick is going to be as was mentioned today, getting from Arts into Education.
And erm that erm at the moment er does not look likely but
but er er we're hoping that there will be some progress there in the future.
I I know folk have to g-, so if you do have to leave, I d-, I really don't, I just, I'll no be offended.
Erm I'm gonna play something here just now, erm this is another project I was involved in, nothing to do with Itchy Coo.
It's a guy called Simon Thoumire, erm who is in charge of erm Foot Stompin' Records and "Hands Up For Trad".
And er, he takes on dozens of projects, and er he's quite mad.
But erm a f- a very talented musician.
And there is there is an alternative Eurovision Song Contest, okay.
Er, and er it's called Liet-Lavlut.
And er it's been held in Friesland, in in the north of Holland for the past er four or five years.
And erm er the Frisians always seem to win, believe it or not, cause they fund it,
but er [laugh], er a S- a Sami erm folk singer won it last year,
and so they've agreed to have it in the north of Sweden, so it's in Östersund this year.
And they invited erm applications for this er and erm we submitted one, submitted a Scots one.
And it's called "Daimen Icker in a Thrave".
And erm I'm gonna I'm gonna play this just now, okay just to let you hear this, er th-th-the- the quality of this is not brilliant, but erm
it's [?]one of the[/?] strange one where everyone's sitting looking around going
[audio recording of 'Daimen Icker in a Thrave']
[speaking over audio recording of 'Daimen Icker in a Thrave'] [laugh] [?]Who made that?[/?] [laugh]
[audio recording of 'Daimen Icker in a Thrave']
[speaking over end of audio recording of 'Daimen Icker in a Thrave'] Okay. Now, I I mean I don't know, the quality of this isn't brilliant but erm off the off the recorder, but erm er
and and you can make up your own minds if you think that's a good song or not,
but erm er, having let you hear that, having inflicted that on you, I have to say that it didn't get accepted. Aw!
And er er the-the- we're not quite sure why not, erm,
because I think that's of quite high-high- high enough quality.
Erm, I can say that because I wrote the, I wrote the words, but the the music itself is some- to do with somebody else, you know?
And erm erm it's q- it's quite interesting, I haven't quite worked out why, so I wrote off to the erm to the er the organisers asking for some feedback.
Er because there's a Gaelic erm band who have had one accepted too.
Th- this is not in any way sour grapes, and [inaudible] folk look at me thinkin "Och, you're no use, you're a bad loser", but it's not that at all.
The Gaelic one erm was erm er not as good.
[audience laughs] And that's just fair enough, right?
But erm, just musically, it was a good [inaudible] lyrics but it wasn't as good.
And the Gaels had been in the year before, and that's absolutely fine.
And I think th- I think they came third er in in the last year's competition.
Erm but erm th- a Manx, [laugh] a Manx song erm was accepted, and also erm Cornish.
Erm and so we we just wanted to get some feedback to see.
It was really to see if erm if it was a toss-up between this song and another song, if they really believed this was a language.
And the response was was quite interesting.
Erm apparently, [laugh] apparently Scots is a is a former dialect of a national language.
Erm which that, I mean everyone's looking puzzled, and I'm extremely puzzled by that.
Erm Welsh is a is a is a stateless language,
erm I don't know if that brings with with you [inaudible] I'm not quite sure,
but erm they seem to have a strange list of er, I've brought it along if you want to look at it,
of what languages are and how they, what categories they fall into.
And erm I'm not in any way blaming the Europeans for this, I I think it's erm incumbent on the Scots language community to get out there and get the message erm across.
Er Bob Fairnie who runs the Scots Tung newsletter erm is going on about the fact that Scots isn't represented in the the Eurolang erm website,
and I think that's where a lot of the organisers of these competitions get their information.
And so I'm not quite sure, I was trying to get to the bottom of this, I haven't, I've got no answers, solutions to this one.
But erm the gentleman is called Birger Winsa,
and he is a Finn, and erm, he's very amenable to discussion about this.
He actually asked us erm er erm er for a definition of Scots, because [laugh] they weren't sure.
So erm, but I think erm, th-the- there is very, the infrastructure for promoting Scots within Europe is is quite poor, there is no, [laugh]
the dictionaries are working away doing amazing things, we're we're producing these books,
but there is no bureaucracy, there's no other organisation.
There is another organisation but it's erm I I don't think it's erm, it's strong enough.
And so there's another element there, a a PR element
that is missing, and erm I think the dictionaries does a bit of that, and we try to do the same thing too, but we can't do it all, we're trying to, too busy doing our own projects.
So erm that's erm, that's one of the results, I think, I'm not quite sure, maybe I'm just talking mince but it might be one of the results.
Erm I asked about another project, and erm there's a a website called the Eurom-Eu-Eu-, Euromosaic,
and er you might know that one,
And they have a very very small bit of information about Scots, in fact someone said er on the website that they didn't consider Scots, they weren't going to Sc- consider Scots as a language this time round.
So it didn't seem to have that strong, seems to be very random.
And there needs to be a a strong voice coming out of Scotland er to to Europe, and so maybe er maybe there's something that can be done about it in the future.
Er I'm g- gonna finish with a a just a wee bit here.
Erm I I mentioned at the start I'm I'm a writer, and apart from translatin Roald Dahl and writin about dugs, coos and bahookies, er I published a a book called "But n Ben A-Go-Go" a number of years ago, six years ago. [laugh]
[sniff] Er and erm I have a a new novel coming out,
pff, naw I'm not, [laugh]
I've got I've got a chapter coming out, [sniff] erm till I find it, er and we've come to the end of a whole series of Itchy Coo books, and what's really disturbing me the most is that I'm being described as a children's author.
And erm that's horrible. [sniff]
Erm I d- never set out to be a children's author, and erm it took me a long enough time to stand up in a pub in Dundee and say that I was a writer.
Er to have to do the same thing as to say I'm a children's author, er my job would be in in serious danger,
so er but I have a new novel, it's a sequel to er "But n Ben A-Go-Go" for those of you who may know it,
and er it's fifteen years later, and I ha- I'm really re- wantin to read this today because I want to kick- kickstart myself into writin it again.
Erm, once I get the other things oot the road, but er and it is, you're gonna hear aboot erm a senator called Criggie,
I'm not gonna read too much of this but er er and he has been in the past, er he wakes up in a room and he kinna goes back, he slips back into a memory.
"Senator Calvin Criggie opens his bawkie-bleck een an, for as lang as it taks twa tricks- for twa ticks tae go roon, Criggie canna mind whaur he is.
"The Senator's hauns jine automatically forenent his face.
He canna stap his body tensin intae a foetal baw.
There is suddenly swite on his tap lip.
He gawks at the hauf-daurk room he finns himsel in but sees nothin throu the anonymous gloam that ca- that can conn- reconnect him tae the world as he left it lest nicht.
"He fechts tae stey calm but awready the flegs are raivellin throu him, chappin his braith intae wheezlie pechs, garrin him howk his een wi his nieves an kick wi radge frichtened sturts at the bedclaes taigled aboot his feet.
Afore he can think himsel oot, his dream-mogered imagination defaults, flingin him back temporarily tae the cauld prison cell whaur he tholed fufteen fellie year o captivity on the Asian moontain city o Nanga Parbat.
"Time chitters like haar as the roch cell waws, coorse wi damp an rodent kich, close roon aboot him yince mair.
He grups his wime as hunger preens stob throu him like his, s- stob throu like dirks throu his gut.
An as if the menyie o Ceilidh Rescue troops hadna shoodered in the prison door a twalmonth syne on Hogmanay an shot the loun deid like a radge deleerit dug, Hahn, the Senator's cell maister, lours again as he did for fufteen year in the baillie o the room,
his goat an kye bowff claggerin Criggie's throat while he baitchels tae a pouder the banes in the Senator's neb wi his iron-tappit gowk stick.
"Paralysed in slow-mo drow, Criggie canna richt breathe as panic threatens tae stap his thrapple.
Fae his squatterin consciousness he recaws Doc Hazelrig's words.
'Think wi yir hauns, Senator. Let the air in tae let the pain oot.'
Gruntlin, he steers his fingirs tae his face an manages tae claw his gab.
His mou this time isna stappit wi rags.
His heid isnae wabbit fae chloroform.
Criggie's no back on Nanga Parbat. Hahn's no here. Hahn is deid."
Thank you very very much for that. [audience claps] [inaudible] read there. [laugh] Cheers! Er. |
