Literature Archives - Page 4 of 10

How Aberdeen Was Short-Changed Over North Sea Oil

Aberdeen City, Featured, Opinion 15 Responses »

Aug 282015

A new book Oil Strike North Sea will be published on the 7th September. It is an overview and history of the search for oil and gas in the North Sea, something author Mike Shepherd has been actively involved with since 1980 and several of his own experiences are described in the book. Mike shares with Voice readers how the book came about, and his belief that Aberdeen Was Short-Changed Over North Sea Oil.

I had cooperated with Diane Morgan on her recent book, Aberdeen’s Union Terrace Gardens. Diane asked me to contribute one of the chapters in the book detailing the economic background to the abortive city garden project.

Working so closely with a professional author such as Diane had inspired me to write my own book and the North Sea oil industry was an obvious topic, particularly as not many non-technical books have been written on it.

Diane very graciously provided an introduction to my book and seems to have enjoyed reading it going by her comments.

I want to concentrate here on one small aspect and this is part of the chapter dealing with Aberdeen.

Although I’m Aberdonian born and have lived in the city for most of my life, the details of my research for this section astonished me when I realised its significance – it became clear that the Aberdeen area has been massively short-changed by both national governments over the last 40 years.

Let’s summarise the case: The tax take from North Sea oil and gas is now more than £300 billion. The amount provided by both the UK and Scottish national governments to support onshore North Sea oil infrastructure in the Aberdeen area – almost nothing. So who paid for the onshore infrastructure then? We did.

The funding was largely provided out of our local rates and council taxes. I’ll quote from the book, Running the Granite City Local Government in Aberdeen 1975-1996 (Davidson, K and Fairley, J 2000, Scottish Cultural Press), because I am not sure anyone would believe the figures if I merely cited them:

“The withdrawal of government support for industry meant that the public sector effort was primarily that of local authorities. Local authority estimates suggested that between 1975 and the early 1990s council expenditure on oil-related developments was well over £100 million per year throughout the Grampian Region.”

Check that, over £100 million per year. It’s ironic that several other regions in the UK have directly benefitted from North Sea oil revenues but not Aberdeen. The Shetland Isles, having gained revenue from the Sullom Voe oil terminal, have accrued an oil fund of over £400 million in two separate trusts; the Orkneys likewise have an oil fund of about £200 million.

Elsewhere, as a consequence of the agreement on licence boundaries in 1966, Northern Ireland gets 2.5 per cent of oil and gas royalties and until 1991, the Isle of Man received 0.1 per cent. Yet, an initiative by Grampian Regional Council to apply rates to offshore oil platforms was stopped by the UK government.

How did this situation happen?

Here is the explanation given in my book. When the North Sea started up in the 1970s, the Labour Party in government were keen to try and get as much of the industry as possible relocated to the Glasgow area.

There was an under-employed workforce in Glasgow that could easily adapt to the engineering skills required for North Sea oil, whereas the Northeast of Scotland was deemed likely to be overwhelmed both environmentally and socially by the oil industry.

They didn’t want the oil industry here. Despite for instance, the establishment of the new British National Oil Company headquarters in Glasgow, the oil companies in any case decided to move to Aberdeen.

Maggie Thatcher’s Conservative Party took over government in 1979.

It wasn’t their policy to give regional funding to support private enterprise even if the case was well-deserved; the Aberdeen area was considered remote and politically irrelevant for their purposes. A large proportion of the oil revenues was used to support a reduction in the top rate of income tax which in turn fuelled house price rises in England.

When the Scottish government turned up in the 90s, nothing much changed.

The political central of gravity in Scotland is the Central Belt and Aberdeen is almost as remote to Holyrood as it is to Westminster. Witness the case of the funding for the Aberdeen bypass by the Scottish government. In an extraordinary decision, both Aberdeen City and Aberdeenshire Council are each expected to fund 9.5 per cent of the costs, something neither council can afford given their debts.

Where does this leave Aberdeen? What happens once the oil industry leaves the area? Despite all the guff about city centre regeneration, Aberdeen’s big problem is its transport links with the rest of the country and its industrial base outside of North Sea oil activities. Aberdeen is just as remote now as it was before the oil industry came.

The UK’s motorway network stops at Perth and the roads north of Aberdeen are a joke; they have not received the investment they deserve. Even the railway between Aberdeen and Dundee is single track for a short section south of Montrose and this leads to a major rail bottleneck. There has been a lot of jaw-jaw about improving this section but it has never happened.

North Sea oil will leave a legacy to Aberdeen. While it has lasted, much of Aberdeen’s native industry has gone. One paper mill remains, the Crombie cloth mills have shut and Aberdeen’s two shipbuilding yards are no more. Aberdeen also used to hold one of the UK’s largest fishing fleets. Over the years Aberdeen has become largely a one-horse town and that horse is the energy industry.

A fairly obvious move would have been for the Scottish government to have promoted the area for renewables, but this hasn’t happened to any major extent. I see this as a major shortcoming, as there is an obvious crossover between the engineering skills of the oil and gas industry and renewables.

What is Aberdeen’s future? It should primarily be as a center for renewables but this would require a change in policy from the Scottish government in order to preferentially commit resources here. Some in our local business community see tourism as a growth area for the city even though a unique selling point for the city, it’s distinctive architecture and building stone, is being increasingly blighted by soul-less modern developments.

What is clear and has been clear for almost a decade is that there is a concerted need for a discussion on the future of Aberdeen. This should focus on funding, regional transport links and to promote a future Aberdeen as a centre for Scotland’s renewable energy industry.

The book launch for ‘Oil Strike North Sea’ is at Waterstones book shop in Union Street, 7pm on Wednesday 9th September.

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War And Peace In The Denburn Valley: A Review

Aberdeen City, Featured, Opinion 1 Response »

May 222015

David Innes reviews Diane Morgan’s Aberdeen’s Union Terrace Gardens – War and Peace in the Denburn Valley.

One of Aberdeen’s finest vistas is the 270 degree panorama of the northern city centre visible from the comfort of His Majesty’s Theatre’s glass extension, not uncontroversial itself as an architectural development.

Robert Gordon’s College, Cowdray Hall and its War Memorial, the Triple Kirks’ sadly-neglected but worthy brick spire, the beautifully-restored Belmont Street buildings, the impressive traffic-swallowing jaws of Union Bridge and Union Terrace’s imposing geometric granite facades can all be taken in with little more than a single swivel of the head.

In any weather, the view warms the heart of those with a love of sympathetic, integrated urban development. It defines Aberdeen.

At its centre is Union Terrace Gardens, the floor of the Denburn Valley, its greenness contrasting yet complementing the stark beauty of native granite.

Who would think that such an unimposing but beauteous defile would have caused controversy for centuries during its development, and very recent real conflict as its future divided opinion and caused lasting damage to political and even personal relationships in Aberdeen?

Diane Morgan is meticulous in her narration of the controversies that have surrounded the Valley’s development since its days as a bleaching green on the banks of the burn between Mutton Brae and Corbie Heugh.

As in her previous essential heritage volumes, she brings history to life, as if James Matthews and James Forbes, early pioneers of the Gardens’ development, are flitting in and out of the pages along with the original occupants of Union Terrace as that grand avenue’s status grew from tenemented cul de sac to become a highly-desirable residential and commercial location.

Conflicts are not new, we discover. Arguments over railway routes, disputed hotel names, kirk developments, bridges, Denburn Viaduct and even the trend for placement of inappropriate city artefacts in the Gardens, has seen the Denburn Valley a continual focus for debate and even rancour in the city. The current Dandara development on the Triple Kirks site means that controversy continues.

Of course, it is the recent divisive controversies that most will remember, and the author hands over to Mike Shepherd, the tireless former chairman of the Friends of Union Terrace Gardens, to examine in detail, and subsequently fillet, the business case for the City Square/City Garden Project, all the while displaying the emotional attachment that Aberdonians have for their Trainie Park.

Side-swiping at the mania for ‘connectivity’, Ms Morgan points out that Union Bridge and Denburn Viaduct have already solved issues with “the physical barrier of the Denburn Valley” which marks “the place where the new city took over from the medieval town”.

This is a superb perspective of the troubled history of Aberdeen’s centre, as impressive as the view from HMT.

Aberdeen’s Union Terrace Gardens War and Peace in the Denburn Valley by Diane Morgan
Black & White Publishing
ISBN 978-1-84502-494-9
238pp
£14.99

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Entries Invited For The Toulmin Prize 2015

Aberdeen City, Information No Responses »

Mar 202015

John Reid – Toulmin Prize. Credit: Leopard Magazine

Courtesy of Leopard Magazine.

The University of Aberdeen’s Elphinstone Institute has launched the 2015 Toulmin Prize, with £500 up for grabs for the winning entry.

The competition, now in its seventh year, commemorates the work of one of the North-east’s finest exponents of the short story.

John Reid (1913-1998) was an Aberdeenshire farm labourer from Rathen, near Fraserburgh, who spent most of his life working long hours for very small rewards.

In odd moments, he jotted down short stories, character studies and bothy tales. Eventually, as David Toulmin, he had a few articles printed in local newspapers.

The first of his 10 books was published when he was 59. The books consist mostly of short stories and reminiscences, with his one novel, Blown Seed, painting a harsh picture of farm life. In the later years of his life, Reid moved to Pittodrie Place, Aberdeen (later to Westhill) and was awarded an honorary degree by the University of Aberdeen in 1986.

The Toulmin Prize is open to all amateur writers over the age of 16. The short story – up to 4000 words in length – should be concerned with some aspect of life in North-east Scotland and may be written in Scots, including Doric, or English, or a mixture of the two. Previous prize-winners cannot submit an entry.

In addition to the cash prize, the winning entry will be published in Leopard Magazine and subsequently featured on the website of the Scots Language Centre.

The award for the best entry will be made at the University of Aberdeen’s May Festival, when the winning story will be read aloud by well-known North-east writer, Sheena Blackhall.

The closing date for entries is 31 March 2015. For entry details and a form, please visit: www.abdn.ac.uk/elphinstone/events/toulmin/

Text and photo courtesy of Leopard Magazine

Scotland’s Cruel Sea: David Innes Reviews

Articles, Featured, Opinion No Responses »

Mar 132015

By David Innes.

The recent Pentland Firth tragedy in which the Cemfjord was lost with all hands, demonstrates that no matter how sailing and marine technology improves, the treacherous Scottish coastline and our frequently-inhospitable weather refuse to be tamed.

45 years have elapsed since the twin tragic losses of lifeboats from Fraserburgh and Longhope and whilst technology and training have improved, there remains considerable scope for losses at sea.

In a clockwise circumnavigation of this coastline in Scotland’s Cruel Sea, Robert Jeffrey charts how along its entirety, marine disaster has befallen the unwary, the unprepared and the unlucky.

He recognises the bravery of those who have fought elements, waves, currents, rocks and fortune, be they mariners or rescuers.

He also tells of the frequent crass stupidity which saw seafarers ill-prepared for almost certain death – a steam-driven submarine with folding tunnels and multiple vents? You don’t need to make that up – it happened and is well-documented here.

Likewise, his exacting prose describes clearly how the Iolaire sank just outside Stornoway harbour on New Year’s Day 1919, with over 200 men, who had survived the brutality of The Great War, lost within sight of their homes, a tragedy that is still mourned in the Hebrides.

The Longhope lifeboat TGB, from which all crew were lost exactly 45 years ago on a mercy mission doomed to failure, was recovered intact, re-fitted and went on to serve for another ten years and 41 call-outs in Ireland. Who knew that?

He describes the June 1916 loss of the Hampshire as a harrowing experience for Britain, as Lord Kitchener was the most high-profile loss on Orkney’s west coast, in an ill-considered venture into a raging summer storm. The effect of Kitchener’s death, and the conspiracy theories it spawned, Jeffrey says, would be akin to the more contemporary deaths of John F Kennedy or Princess Diana.

Of most interest to Voice readers, of course, will be the marine losses affecting NE Scotland, including Piper Alpha which caused “collective shock” not only in the oil industry, but in the country and where the bereaved and survivors found it, “as difficult to extract fairness from the multinationals as it was to get the oil and gas to the surface”.

Linked to North Sea exploration, is the insightful chapter on Chinook and Super Puma ditchings and near misses along with a tribute to pilot skills which, Jeffrey points out, have prevented many more losses in extreme conditions.

The Tay Bridge collapse of Hogmanay 1879 also gets its own chapter and Jeffrey’s frustration is obvious as he tells of the forewarnings of structural instability, inappropriate train speeds and the fears of an ex-Provost of Dundee who would only travel southbound on the ill-fated structure. It’s a surprise to learn that the final death toll has never been enumerated and that the locomotive was recovered from the Tay and put back into service.

Scotland’s Cruel Sea is informative, sympathetic, cautionary and written so that non-technical readers can appreciate the issues behind the human suffering associated with our being an island race.

Scotland’s Cruel Sea by Robert Jeffrey.

Black & White Publishing
ISBN 978 I 84502 886 2
£9.99

To Kill A Mocking Bird At HMT Aberdeen – A Review

Aberdeen City, Featured, Opinion No Responses »

Feb 202015

Reviewed by Duncan Harley.

Daniel Betts as Atticus Finch in ‘To Kill a Mocking Bird’ at HM Theatre Aberdeen until Saturday 21st February.

“Mockingbirds don’t do one thing but make music for us to enjoy. They don’t eat up people’s gardens, don’t nest in corncribs, they don’t do one thing but sing their hearts out for us. That’s why it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird” says Miss Maudie in the 1960 Harper Lee classic.

In this, Christopher Sergel’s stage adaptation of the 55-year-old story, the central tenets of the novel, innocence and generosity, are well portrayed indeed.

From curtain rise to final bow, this production will delight theatre-goers and, crucially, fans of Harper Lee of all ages. It might even bring on a tear or three.

From the moment in Act One when the cast walk on stage, via the auditorium, the lights remain virtually undimmed; signalling to the audience that a degree of unbridled participation may be required.

Crucially, that participation does not require prior reading of the novel. All that is required is some attention and some imagination as the story unfolds.

Readings from the original novel are intertwined with the plot and the theatre-going audience is drawn seamlessly into small town Alabama in the steamy heat of the Depression-hit summer of 1933.

It takes but a few minutes to realise that this is a production like few others.

The set is almost bare aside from a few weathered chairs, some chalk-drawn town boundaries and an old rusted corrugated iron fence.

While novelist Harper Lee’s narrator Scout, played by leading lady Rosie Boore, swings on an old car tyre hung from the solitary tree in the Eastern corner of the yard, cast members recite extracts from time battered copies of the original novel.

This is the US Deep South at its most formidable. A place in time where racially-charged prejudice sits unmoving alongside a slow but inevitable force for reform. A story of injustice is about to be played out and only a very few could fail to be moved.

The tale is well known.

Local black man, Tom Robinson, played by Zackary Momoh of Holby City fame, is falsely accused of the rape of a white woman, and Scout’s dad, Atticus Finch, played by Daniel Betts, defends him despite the foregone conclusion of guilt due to simply being a “nigger”.

Daniel Betts as Atticus Finch. Credit: Johan Persson

Robinson is of course doomed, despite clear evidence that the accusers, Mayella Ewell and her father Bob, are lying.

Bob Ewell tries to exact revenge, imagining that he has been made a fool of, and is himself killed.

Scout embraces her father’s philosophy of sympathy and understanding despite her experiences of hatred and prejudice.

There is more. The story of Boo Radley, played by Christopher Akrill, for one; the riot scene where heroine Scout pours her childish innocence on the flame of the murderous intent of the townsfolk; plus of course the unrelenting sense of the injustice of it all.

The undoubted stars of the show are of course the child actors.

Scout’s childhood contemporaries Dill, played by Milo Panni, and Jem, played by William Price describe the unfolding drama.

Faultless, they excel. Alongside Atticus Finch, portrayed by Daniel Betts complete with round glasses and linen suit, they more than satisfy the (soon to be) legacy of Nelle Harper Lee.

For those of a critical nature, the English regional accents delivered via the actor readers of the narrative passages may be an issue, especially for those of us in Scotland. After all, this is a novel with a Yankee inner voice. Aside from that it is a faultless production.

Perhaps in a decade or so Harper Lee’s forthcoming sequel ‘Go Set a Watchman’ will be dramatised for theatre audiences. Meantime this Regent’s Park Open Air production is a must see.

In fact it would be a sin to miss it.

Directed by Timothy Sheader, ‘To Kill a Mocking Bird’ plays at HM Theatre Aberdeen until Saturday 21st February.

Tickets from Aberdeen Performing Arts Tel: 01224- 641122

Images © Johan Persson

Words © Duncan Harley

Old Susannah No. 171 – Still All Loved up

Opinion, Satire and Humour 9 Responses »

Feb 122015

Following on from last week’s Valentine’s Day themed column, Old Susannah is still feeling the love. After all, this is Aberdeen. By Suzanne Kelly.

Tally ho! The Deen is awash in romance; you can smell it in the air. Then again, that might just be a nasty whiff coming in from the sewerage plant.

In major news, it seems that civilisation may not end if we don’t build a glass office building next to Marischal College. Millions of jobs were to go, connectivity would be lost, and we’d lose our vibrant and dynamic edge that our planners have worked so hard for a decade or so to give us. However, it seems that protestors may interfere with our modern progress. After all, when has the city ever ignored protestors before?

We can’t thank our planning supremos enough for making us the 2014 Carbuncle Award Winner. Surely now that we’ve got this award, the city of culture award can’t be far behind.

I’m sure the awards will start flooding in, just like all those extra tourists clogging the roads from the airport to Trump Links and MacLeod House.

In fact, with all the good feeling and love in the air, here’s a few affectionate definitions.

Mutual Admiration Society: (English Compound Noun) An assembly of like-minded groups or people to share affection and respect.

It would have been enough to restore anyone’s faith in human nature; I’m sorry my invite was somehow lost in the post. But this past week, Donald Trump, Aberdeen Journals Ltd, Damian Bates, and other journalism superstars got together to pat themselves on the back, and sing the praises of journalism today.

It was hugs and kisses all ‘round when 60 business leaders (<swoon!>) got together to sing the praises of the Scottish Newspaper Society. These respected figures included Trump, as well as a few respectable figures from quangos and some nice banking VIPs.

And what do businessmen like most about our newspapers? Is it for impartiality, for thorough, unhindered, unbiased investigative journalism? Here’s what The Donald said:

“I’ve had my battles with the Scottish press and seen my fair share of tough headlines, but the impact of advertising in the Scottish media – particularly The Press and Journal and Evening Express – can’t be underestimated,”
– http://www.thedrum.com/news/2015/02/09/donald-trump-joins-scottish-business-figures-backing-campaign-scotlands-newspapers

What do the executives value? Advertising. What more can you want from a newspaper? Absorbency, I suppose.

That the Scottish Newspaper Society sought Trump’s endorsement doesn’t make the group look at all uninformed, star-struck, advertising-starved or parochial. After all, Trump does get into the papers now and then. In the rest of the world, it’s for reasons such as failing golf clubs, bankruptcy, links to organised crime, lawsuits and environmental damage. But that’s just negative nit-picking by The Haters.

Here, executives, newspapers and little people like us love him because he flies into town and has a red carpet when he lands. It’s because he hired our local sweetheart Sarah Malone Bates and used her extensive golf and real estate experience to forge our boring coastline into something else. And not what has he given us? Billions of pounds, millions of jobs, put us on the map, and of course the world’s best golf course ever. Really.

Any battles he’s had with the Scottish press have sadly either faded from my ageing memory, or have not been with the Press & Journal: I wonder why? I guess love is blind.

You can see the full list of business figures backing Scottish newspapers on the Scottish Newspaper Society website – that will keep you busy for many happy hours. Aberdeen Chamber of Commerce, Small Business Federation, Trump, etc. etc.: This is a mutual admiration society like no other.

COMPETITION TIME: How many organisations on this list have links to ACSEF? Answers on a (large) postcard; winner gets a BrewDog or a P&J – their choice.

And what does a paper do to earn this lavish praise from otherwise neutral billionaire Donald Trump? What kinds of riveting articles command his respect? What incisive slants on local stories are we being served up this week? Old Susannah is happy to serve up some examples.

“Aberdeen store could be turned into 5 smaller stores.”

We’ll remember where we were when we heard this story.

And then if you want a good laugh (even if it’s at the victim’s expense), we had:

“Man found guilty of putting face in woman’s cleavage”

As the story advised:

“A MAN who clamped his mouth to a stranger’s chest during a night out has been ordered to carry out 150 hours of unpaid work. Remigiusz Zdziech was found guilty of putting his face in a woman’s cleavage while on a night out.

“The victim, who cannot be named for legal reasons, felt “distressed and shaken” by the incident. Zdziech, 28, denied the offence but was found guilty.”

I guess what one paper describes as ‘putting face in woman’s cleavage/clamping a mouth to a stranger’s chest’ is what some of the rest of us might be tempted to call a sexual assault and leave the specifics out of it to spare the victim any further distress – but there you go. If it’s good enough for Damian Bates to publish, then it’s good enough for us to accept without question.

And yet somehow Old Susannah can’t help but feel there is just the slightest hint of sexism in the writing. But I’m just a silly old woman anyway.

Absence Makes The Heart Grow Fonder: (English saying) – belief that being away from loved ones makes them love you more.

Never was a saying more true than this past week when our former Chief Executive Valerie Watts decided to play hard to get. Our former leader was to have been questioned at a hearing into the letter sent out last year, wherein it was stated that the city council wanted to stay in the Union. Everyone missed Valerie tremendously. If anyone could have given an honest and complete explanation, it would have been her.

Indeed, when it comes to her honesty, it is beyond question by miles. And here’s just a small sample of why that’s so.

So what kept her from her beloved former city? In her current job in Belfast, the Permanent Secretary had invited her to a meeting. Picture how conflicted and torn she must have been! Choosing between a meeting with her new lovely boss and her old love of Aberdeen. Some say she could have chosen to meet the Permanent Secretary another time (perhaps for movie and a meal – not to rush into anything of course), and come here to see us. But she chose to make us wait.

We will be waiting, Valerie. The whole hearing has been kicked into the long grass by this femme fatale with her natural looking suntan and honest smile. Let’s hope next time she’s supposed to appear at a hearing on this matter she doesn’t have a pedicure or facial planned instead. See you soon Valerie. We’ll wait.

Erotic Love: (Compound English Noun) Form of affection or desire which is sexual in nature

What could say ‘I love you’ more than a few lashes with a leather cat ‘o nine tails? What says ‘I care’ more than a complicated set of ropes and pulleys? How best to demonstrate the ties that bind you to someone than by tying them up?

You won’t be aware of this due to the lack of hype, advertising and promotion, but a romantic film is about to hit the big screen (in a non-violent, loving sort of way). Fifty Shades of Gray is coming (ahem) to a cinema near you soon. Is it (as I already suggested on Facebook – sorry) just money for old rope? No, this spanking new spanking film is set to change how the middle classes do DIY.

Hard to believe, but I’m told the film is even more riveting than the dialogue in the book. I’d go see it myself, but I’m a little tied up right now.

Don’t worry though – it can’t possibly lead to any further lack of respect to women. How could it?

Have fun all you B&Q-ers; best get down to the superstore before they run out of winches, pulleys, rope, cord and chains. Say good bye to spontaneity with a few DIY projects that will have that spare bedroom all decked up as if it were a haunt of Jeffrey Archer’s.

But what happens when you and your beloved eventually fall out and have an argument? Will you feel stupid, used, creepy, lame, ashamed, cheap, weird? Of course not – off you’ll go to your mini-dungeon locked room, and the dominant one will be pulling the strings once more.

I’m sure no one will ever carry this too far, get hurt or need to call the fire department and the sanitation services. Have fun, and remember, love isn’t dead. It’s just gagged, blindfolded and trussed up somewhere.

Happy Valentine’s Day all.

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[Aberdeen Voice accepts and welcomes contributions from all sides/angles pertaining to any issue. Views and opinions expressed in any article are entirely those of the writer/contributor, and inclusion in our publication does not constitute support or endorsement of these by Aberdeen Voice as an organisation or any of its team members.]

Youth And Age In The Old Curiosity Shop

Aberdeen City, Information No Responses »

Nov 182014

Youth and Age in The Old Curiosity Shop: Nell as an abused child was the theme for November’s local Dickens Fellowship meeting. Our great friend and University of Aberdeen alumnus Professor Grahame Smith introduced the subject, admitting that his is very much a 21st century interpretation of the novel which divides Dickens’s readers most. By David Innes.

Grahame argued that critics, including Huxley and Wilde, who derided The Old Curiosity Shop missed the novel’s intensity in their dismissal of Nell as an over-sentimentalised caricature.

Rather, our guest argued, she is an innocent abroad in an immoral world, although signs are there that she is just a normal child with typical childlike attitudes and reactions.

Whilst not streetwise, she is no innocent, even shown laughing at life’s absurdities in the early part of the novel.

Nell’s downfall, we were persuaded, is almost-wholly due to extraordinary external pressures on a character too young and undeveloped to bear burdens that would have been extremely stressful on a well-adjusted adult.

Quilp’s incessant stalking lechery, her grandfather’s gambling addiction, neglect and his dereliction of all paternal responsibility, and the horrors of industrial Britain laid bare as she and her grandfather journey away from their immediate metropolitan troubles, all conspire to break the child’s spirit.

Grahame drew parallels with Little Dorrit in both young characters’ methods in dealing with their elders’ fantasy worlds. In Nell’s being failed by the adult world, there are parallels with Bleak House. Nell’s ‘loathing of food’ and her being ‘too tired to eat’, it was suggested, hint at anorexia, a recognised clinical condition unknown in 1841.

The lively discussion which followed Grahame’s thought-provoking talk engendered further thoughts on the abusive nature of Quilp’s relationship with his wife and mother-in-law, and the role reversal in modern society where children protect and manage families in which parents are drug addicts or alcoholics, to keep family together and to provide a veneer of normality amid chaos.

The odd narrative structure, the clumsy (some might say) device Dickens used to flesh out what was originally a short story, was also explained and dissected during a fascinating evening in expert and inspiring company.

Dickens Fellowship Meet Again: Tues 11 November

Aberdeen City, Information No Responses »

Nov 072014

By David Innes.

The Dickens Fellowship in Aberdeen will hold its next monthly meeting on Tuesday 11 November.

Following two inspiring talks on Dickens and the Sentimental Tradition and on Dickens’s role in Urania Cottage, Fellowship members are keen and primed to begin the in-depth look at this season’s novel, The Old Curiosity Shop.

We are delighted to welcome back an old friend and supporter of the Aberdeen branch, Grahame Smith, whose session on Bleak House last season was a highlight of the
year

Focussing on this season’s featured book, Grahame’s subject will be Youth and Age in The Old Curiosity Shop: Nell as an Abused Child.

As ever, Grampian Housing Association are generously hosting the event at the Association’s offices on the corner of Huntly Street and Summer Street, where off-street parking is available.

We’ll be meeting from 1900-2100.

Admission is £3 for the evening, or on payment of an annual membership fee of £20, admission to all meetings is free.

More information here: https://sites.google.com/site/aberdeendickensfellowship/

President Guest At City Dickens Fellowship Meeting

Aberdeen City, Articles No Responses »

Oct 172014

By David Innes.

Aberdeen Dickens Fellowship was honoured to have Professor Jenny Harley as guest speaker at its October 2014 meeting. Jenny is President of the International Dickens Fellowship and Scholar in Residence at the Charles Dickens Museum.

She is well-known to Dickensians for her publications The Selected Letters of Charles Dickens (OUP) and Charles Dickens and the House of Fallen Women (Methuen). The latter topic was the Fellowship’s focus for the evening.

Angela Burdett-Coutts, a woman of considerable means, being the heiress to Coutts Bank fortune, was a significant philanthropist, funding Ragged Schools and concerned about the plight of homeless and other unfortunate women in London Piccadilly.

She turned to Dickens to assist in creating a refuge for such women, some who would have been sacked servants without references, others prostitutes and not a few ex-prisoners.

The relish with which Dickens took aboard the project in 1846 is remarkable. He planned the refuge to replicate a familial environment, drew up a behavioural code, based on Maconnochie’s reward scheme, micro-managing the establishment of the house, Urania Cottage, in London’s Shepherd’s Bush.

It aimed to educate its unfortunate residents with a view to helping them to become ‘good domestic servants’, the type that would be attractive to employers. Yet the agreement was that those who had passed through Urania Cottage’s rehabilitation would need to be cut off from former immoral associates for fear of backsliding into former ways.

Transportation to the colonies to begin new lives was seen as the solution to this potential issue. Unfortunately for history, Dickens’s Case Book in which he recorded personal interviews with Urania Cottage hopefuls has been lost. He was notorious for fits of consigning personal records to bonfires.

The focus then shifted to the portal of ‘fallen women’ in Dickens’s writing. Oliver Twist (1837) had already shown Nancy in semi-sympathetic light, but in the novels which followed the establishment of Urania Cottage, Little Emily and Martha (David Copperfield 1849), Charley and Esther (Bleak House 1852), Sissy Jupe (Hard Times 1854) and Little Dorrit and Maggie (Little Dorrit 1855) are each examples of women suffering misfortune, saved by education, altruism or personal effort.

In the case of the Peggoty family in David Copperfield, there is even a successful and prosperous migration to Australia.

It is reasonable to suppose, our guest commented, that character and outcome in these works were in some way influenced by Dickens’s Urania Cottage experiences.

In researching Charles Dickens and the House of Fallen Women, Jenny Hartley was painstaking. She described how her efforts eventually took her to Adelaide and Melbourne – “that was the fun bit” – to try to conclude whether or not the experiences of Urania Cottage had enhanced former residents’ lives.

Dickens himself made some comment. In Household Words, he wrote of seven successful marriages of Urania House women, but tracing those who had passed through its doors was difficult for Professor Harley, in no small way due to the reluctance of Antipodeans, in decades past, to acknowledge transportees in their family history.

The jewel in the crown, however, is Rhena Pollard, one of the more feisty and assertive of Urania Cottage residents, and on whom, Jenny mused, Tattycoram (Little Dorrit 1855) may have been based.

It was to audience delight that we were informed that Rhena was traced to Canada, married successfully in Ontario, bearing eight children to Oris Coles. Pictures of the prosperous-looking Mr and Mrs Coles and of a plaque commemorating Rhena’s story were a happy conclusion to a fascinating and highly-informative talk from a dedicated and genial Dickensian.

The local Fellowship’s next meeting is on Tuesday 11 November.

Our good friend Grahame Smith of the University of Stirling will kick off our series of meetings studying this session’s featured volume The Old Curiosity Shop, with a seminar, ‘Youth and Age in The Old Curiosity Shop: Nell as an Abused Child’.

We will meet at Grampian Housing Association, at the crossroads of Huntly Street and Summer Street, Aberdeen, from 1900-2100. Annual membership costs £20 and includes admission to all meetings. Entry to individual meetings costs £3. We are a welcoming and convivial collective.

Aberdeen Dickens Fellowship Kicks Off New Season

Articles, Opinion No Responses »

Sep 192014

By David Innes.

The Aberdeen Dickens Fellowship was delighted to welcome Professor Valerie Purton to talk at its first meeting of the 2014-15
season.

Taking the theme from her 2012 book Dickens and the Sentimental Tradition, Valerie showed, in the context of this season’s featured book, The Old Curiosity Shop, how sentimentalism was a well-established literary device, existing centuries before Dickens created Little Nell and Kit Nubbles.

During her talk, Valerie drew on the biblical pathos inherent in Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice Jacob, medieval Mystery Plays, Richardson’s Clarissa and Goldsmith’s The Vicar of Wakefield among others. Goldsmith was a particular favourite of the youthful Dickens.

The virtue and moral steadfastness of characters like Little Nell who almost inevitably suffered pathos-laden deaths or gigantic moral dilemmas, originally moved readers to tears on publication but were later lampooned and ridiculed. Oscar Wilde famously declared,

“One would have to have a heart of stone to read the death of little Nell without dissolving into tears…of laughter”.

Dickens and the Sentimental Tradition argues that Dickens, and others, set out to educate their readers and to demonstrate the importance and superiority of emotion and feelings through the creation of characters like Little Nell. Valerie argued that in some ways Dickens’s development of a sentimentalist tradition in The Old Curiosity Shop was a deliberate move to counteract the effects of the increasing industrialisation of England, and that sentimentalism popularly lives on in television drama, soap operas and the methods used by charities to raise funds by appealing to our emotions.

This was a wonderful way to start the third season.

Membership of the Aberdeen Dickens Fellowship costs £20 per annum, or attendance at individual monthly events £3.

The next meeting will be held on Tuesday 14 October, where the guest lecture will feature Jenny Hartley, speaking on Urania Cottage, the home for “fallen women” to which Dickens gave considerable support. The meeting will be held in Grampian Housing Association, on the corner of Huntly Street/Summer Street from 7-9 pm.
https://sites.google.com/site/aberdeendickensfellowship/

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