writing

‘A Last Journey’ Launched!

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This is the story of our lives abroad and home in Scotland before Lewy Body Dementia got its claws into Bill and destroyed his life.

The launch was held at the Festival Theatre, Edinburgh where friends and family gathered to hear me talk about the book and how it came about. Alex Howard, Creative Engagement Coordinator for the theatre was the emcee and introduced the readings and took questions from the floor.

A Last Journey is available from https://lumphananpress.co.uk/bookshop/ or from Amazon.

Ann Burnett’s Memoir ‘A Last Journey’ Unveiled

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Award winning writer Ann Burnett is releasing her memoir A Last Journey, at the Festival Theatre on October 15th 2024.

Age Scotland have given Ann an award towards its publication.

This is a touching, funny and moving story of Ann and her husband Bill’s life together before Lewy Body dementia took him over, and her struggles to look after him until his death.

Dementia. It wasn’t what the couple expected at all. They had ‘imagined themselves doddering along till their eighties’ but dementia had other ideas.

Inveterate travellers, living abroad and experiencing life in different countries, they suddenly became confined to their home because of dementia and lockdown  

It’s Coming Soon…..

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I’ve written a book. A memoir all about the last few years when instead of writing I became a carer for my husband Bill. He was diagnosed with Lewy Body Dementia in March 2019 and died in March 2022. Only three years it took for that terrible disease to kill him.

I stopped writing during those years. I had neither the time or the energy to do it. My life was subsumed into caring for Bill. I tried to get as much help for us as I could so I joined Dementia Research. A student contacted me looking for people she could talk to about having carers in the home so for six months I had sessions over Zoom when she asked me about how things were going. I talked. And talked. She recorded our sessions, transcribed them and sent them to me after she had completed her research.

I also wanted the professionals who were dealing with Bill to be aware of the person he’d been, and not to regard him as just a poor old soul so I wrote a brief summary of all the things he’d done, his sporting achievements, the countries we’d lived in and the sights and experiences we’d had as a family and made sure there were copies of it in all his medical files.

After Bill died, I read the student’s transcripts over and realised how much I had forgotten about those terrible days. I wanted to recall other aspects so I started jotting down brief paragraphs about trying to find food that he could eat, about the sheer exhaustion of it all and what it did to me, about the carers who came to help, about the guilt and the sadness and the laughs. Yes, we even managed to laugh at times.

Then there were the diaries of our travels that I found when I was clearing out, the letters I’d sent home, the articles I’d written for an online site dealing with countries to see and visit. A tremendous amount of material and the only thing to do with it was to shape it into a book.

It took me over a year and many tears and much frustration but it’s now finished. Hopefully it will be published in the autumn.

Can’t wait to share it with you!

The Coach Trip (Part 1)

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I’d just finished reading The Coach Trip by Izzy Bromley aka Imogen Clark when a friend asked if I would like to go with her on – a coach trip! Me? A coach trip along with a bunch of oldies? Except – I am an oldie now.

So in the spirit of adventure or at least, trying something different I agreed. It was only four days and we would stay at an hotel and travel around every day and return to it for dinner and bed. So I wouldn’t have to unpack and repack and breakfast and dinner were included. My first mistake was not putting the label supplied on my case. “There’s always one,” moaned Donnie the driver, as we set off on a mini tour of central Scotland picking up other adventurers. Eventually we were all accounted for except for one poor soul that Donnie hadn’t been told about and was left languishing on a pavement until the company sent a taxi to pick him up and chase after us to Perth. We crossed the Forth Road bridge on our way, the three bridges looking glorious from the coach window.

The First Forth Bridge

We didn’t see the best of Perth as the road beside the river was closed so we wandered round the shops, had lunch and dithered until it was time to get back on the bus. Donnie stopped at the Queen’s View overlooking Loch Tummel before heading for the hotel situated on its banks. There is nothing more beautiful than Scotland in the sunshine and no wonder Queen Victoria like it so much. Mind you, it must have been a fair trek by carriage to get there. Or had steam trains reached there by then?

The Queen’s View at Loch Tummel

We settled into our rooms and headed out to grab a seat along the shore of Loch Tummel at the edge of the lawn. We had packed some cocktails and with it being so hot, we had to knock back several before dinner.

And at dinner, we had classic peach melba with tinned peaches! I have a story in my collection, Take a Leaf out of My Book, entitled Peach Melba, about four old dears who escape from a care home and have a meal out with peach melba as dessert. Was I turning into one of them?

Getting the Old Brain into Gear again!

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I’ve been writing again! The incentive was the Scottish Association of Writers conference programme setting out all the competitions to enter if you attended. So step 1, I booked my place for the 2023 conference in March and step 2, began writing. I won’t say what I wrote and in what categories I submitted (ok some are old efforts freshened up and edited) as it’s all anonymous and we won’t hear the results until the actual conference.

Not only has it got me back writing, but I’m looking forward to meeting up with friends I haven’t seen in ages and wondering if the room parties are still part of the weekend. How many folk can you squeeze into a bedroom? And how many bottles and packets of crisps can be consumed? And that’s on top of packing away glorious meals three times a day along with elevenses and afternoon tea.

And then there’s the talks and the discussions and the workshops! A stupendous few days which set you up for the rest of the year.

I’ve also got myself a wee job as a researcher for the Dementia Friendly podcast project at the Festival Theatre in Edinburgh. I interview various people who work in the theatre or who are associated with the DementiArts programme. I summarise it and hand it to Willy, the podcast presenter who uses it to conduct a recorded interview with them for the podcast. You can listen to the first one using the above link.

I also write a column for the DementiArts magazine that the theatre brings out. It’s called Hidden Lives and I tell the stories of people living with dementia and what surprising and wonderful stories they are.

I’ve also booked a place with a conference on How to Get Published run by the Writers and Artists along with the Open University in Edinburgh in March. Another chance to pick up tips and ideas as well as doing a bit of networking.

And if all that doesn’t get me started, then I’ll give up!

Beginning the Journey Back

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It’s been almost two years since I last wrote for this blog, in fact wrote anything at all. A stretch of time which was taken up with caring for a dear loved one until the end. But now I’m beginning another part of my life and gradually, oh, so gradually, I’m starting to write again, not long involved pieces but short articles for various newsletters on a subject I learned a lot about over the past two years – dementia.

This terrible, incurable illness is no respecter of persons, waiting generally until old age before visibly striking. But over many previous years it has been insidiously creeping through brain cells and destroying them. Looking back, I can see many tiny signs that we missed, symptoms that we dismissed as one offs, as typical of the ageing process and pushed aside. Not that anything much could have been done as like many neurological diseases, dementia in all its forms is incurable. It is terminal.

Depending on your “luck” you can have it for many years, or it can rampage through the body in no time at all. We weren’t lucky. Our form of dementia took only three years from first diagnosis until death.

But dementia has also given me a way back into writing. Capital Theatres in Edinburgh have a dementia programme, ensuring that their premises and performances are as dementia friendly as possible, and publish a dementiArts newsletter 4 times a year. I have been writing a column, Hidden Lives, about the previous lives of those now living with dementia: a musician, a potter, a marathon runner, an acrobat, an inventor – all sorts of people with amazing and fascinating stories to tell of what they’ve done and been.

I’m also still very much involved in our local dementia group and write about our activities and outings. Life doesn’t stop because you have dementia – you only need to read Wendy Mitchell‘s blog to realise that!

So back to the keyboard and get busy! I wonder if the past two years have enabled my writing brain to lie fallow, to take a break and let what happened percolate through my mind to emerge at some later date as a rich harvest of subject matter – if that’s not mixing metaphors, overwriting and generally producing purple prose!

How have you managed to put your life together again after a loss, an illness, a change of circumstances?

The Times They are A-Changin’

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For almost two years now, we’ve had nothing but change in our lives and it will continue.   Some changes are good and invigorating, others less so and difficult to get our heads round. But we persevere and take the good with the not so great. One result is that blog pieces and posts have diminished somewhat as time and energy have been taken up by other responsibilities.

Another result is that my writing has changed too. At the moment, I’m publishing short pieces, articles on the history which our new area is steeped in, and which are being published in a variety of magazines and online.

magazine cover

The American magazine, The Highlander, popped through my door and I was delighted to find I had two articles in it. One, Orkney’s Ancient Palaces, was the very first piece I sent several years ago and which gave me a fillip when it was accepted, and the other, on Christian Maclagan, was a more recent one that I wrote. Christian who? I hear you say. Scotland’s first female archaeologist, no less, and a redoubtable woman to boot. Like many other intelligent and learned Victorian women, she was ignored and her researches and findings were disregarded.  She was also denied full membership of the Society of Antiquaries, a situation she was extremely angry about.

Recently, Scottish Field magazine published a piece about Susan Ferrier, another clever Victorian lady writer, now almost unheard of, and online, a piece on the Cadell family of Cockenzie House, a few miles away from where we now live.

What’s in a name – the history of the Cadell family

The men of the family were an interesting lot, entrepreneurs, artists, publishers and actors, and of course the inevitable black sheep who made a name for himself in Australia and who came to a sticky end.

Cockenzie ladies

The unknown women of the Cadell family  (c) Cockenzie House

But what of the women of the family? More Victorian women who live on only in the photographs left behind and in a slim volume of writing penned by one of them? It is hoped that funding will be available to allow research into their hidden lives, through hopefully, diaries, household accounts and letters.

On another front, I have bought back my rights to my two ebooks and will republish them myself at a later date with revisions and new covers. Watch this space!

And a new tack – I have written a song! A singing group we attend is run by a very talented musician who has composed a piece just for our group and who asked if I would write the words. It will be premiered at the Gathering, a getting together of the many groups around East Lothian supporting those with dementia at which we will be singing. I hope they like Morning, Mrs Magpie!

Morning Mrs Magpie,
Here comes the day!
You bring a fresh start to life and living again
Good times are on their way.
Laughter and sunshine
Embracing me.
Voices uniting in music,
Friendship and harmony.

Progress – or Not?

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What do the Traprain Law Treasure, Susan Ferrier, Vaclav Jicha, the first Nursery School in the world and Christian Maclagan have in common?

No idea? I’m not surprised as this random collection of topics are all subjects I’ve written articles about recently and which have all been accepted for publication in a variety of magazines here and overseas.

The Traprain Law Treasure is the largest hoard of Roman silver ever found in Europe and which was uncovered 100 years ago in East Lothian. At present, some of it is on display in Haddington. It is quite stunning and hard to believe that it spent almost 1500 years buried on a hillside.

treasure

Traprain Law Treasure

Susan Ferrier was a best-selling author in her day (the 19th century) and a good friend of Sir Walter Scott while the first nursery school in the world was set up at New Lanark, near Glasgow, by Robert Owen in the 1800s.

book cover 2

Susan Ferrier’s bestselling novel

Vaclav Jicha was a World War II flying ace killed in a plane crash near Haddington in 1945.  Jicha Street is named in his honour in the town where he is buried. Many years after the war, his Czech fianceé discovered where he was laid and visited his grave every year till her death in 2010.

Jicha-portrait1

Fl Lt Vaclav Jicha DFC AFC

And Christian Maclagan was the first Scottish female archaeologist and a feisty woman to boot! She was unable to read her papers on her research to the Society of Antiquaries or be recognised for her work on Scottish prehistory because she was a woman.

Maclagan_-_Keir_of_Gargunnock

One of Maclagan’s drawings of a broch

 

 

Circumstances mean that at the moment articles are what I am writing rather than longer pieces. I can’t commit to the long-term tunnel vision I require to write novels but I don’t want my writing muscle to atrophy so article writing suits me fine. It also means we can have days out to research and visit places associated with my topics; these so far have included the National Museum in Edinburgh, a graveyard in Haddington and a lay-by on the A1!

I have also met and corresponded with some lovely people who have helped me in a variety of ways with photos and insights and pointed me in the right direction when I wandered off topic.

But I have realised that there are many more advantages to the type of writing I’m doing at present. I send the articles to the editors of the various magazines I’m contributing to and I receive a yes or a no and that’s all I have to do. No hassling people for reviews, no checking Amazon rankings to see where I appear, no constant feeding of social media to keep me in the spotlight, no blanket flooding of Facebook and Instagram and Twitter in the hope of a few sales. All that time I would normally have to spend on such activities I can spend WRITING!

Recently when I was totting up my earnings versus expenses from my writing, I realised that I had spent more on advertising my ebooks than I had actually earned from them. I know I only have two published and that I’m not the most dedicated of self-promoters but I would need to have many more ebooks out there to make it worthwhile. For articles, I sit back and wait for the cheque to arrive when the magazine publishes my piece. Simples!

There has been a change however. Perhaps the pendulum is swinging back again; apparently ebooks are losing their popularity compared with ‘real’ books and independent bookshops are making a comeback though they will never be as cheap as Amazon. However there is nothing more pleasant than browsing in a good bookshop, especially if there’s coffee to be had too, and there’s always the serendipitous chance of coming across a book that speaks to you, that you’ve never heard of, would never have thought of buying but which touches something in you. Until Amazon can give the browser an experience similar to that, then bookshops it is.

Maybe magazines are also due to rise phoenix-like from the ashes of their purported demise. There are still many out there which seem to defy all the odds and continue selling, if not as many copies as before, then enough to keep them viable. And the good old People’s Friend has just celebrated its 150th birthday and takes around 1000 feature articles each year.

I certainly hope magazines start to flourish again. I much prefer to read from a magazine or book rather than from a screen. A hard copy is there when you need it, you can flick backwards and forwards at will, and it won’t interfere with your reading pleasure by changing font size or page when you inadvertently stick a finger in the wrong place. And the batteries in a book or magazine never run out.

Sometimes, progress needs to take a step back now and again when we realise that the new ways are not as good as what we had before.

The Edinburgh 7 Awarded Degrees After 150 Years

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My article on the Edinburgh 7 was published recently in the Highlander magazine as The Edinburgh 7 and Their Fight to Become Doctors. It told how, in 1869, seven women applied to study medicine at Edinburgh University. They were accepted but with various restrictions and were the first women to register for a degree at any university in the UK.

cover highlander

After many difficulties, including a riot when they tried to sit an anatomy exam and male students pelted them with mud and shouted obscenities,  they completed four years study but were prevented from taking their exams. This meant that they could not graduate and they were forced to complete their degrees abroad. However, their leader, Sophia Jex-Blake, qualified in Dublin and returned to Edinburgh in 1878 where she was the first female doctor in the city.

article edinburgh 7

Now Edinburgh University has decided to right a wrong and on Saturday July 6th 2019, 150 years after they matriculated, it will award them posthumous MBChB degrees.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-edinburgh-east-fife-47814747

plaque

The Plaque at Surgeon’s Hall