Issue 6

We’ve made a slight adjustment to our advertising rates, which are now as follows:

• A single, one-off commercial advert - £35.00
• A run of adverts, one in each of six monthly issues - £75. (That’s just £12.50 for each edition.)
• Adverts from local, non-profit-making organisations, £10 for either one or two insertions, according to how much notice you give us for your event.
• Adverts from magazine subscribers, £10 for two insertions.

E-mail us on info@voiceforarran.com if you’d like to discuss the content and design of your advert. Payment is easy, through Paypal on this website or by cheque made out to Voice for Arran, sent to Aorangi, Whiting Bay, Arran.

Road Equivalent Tariff (RET) means that vehicles and foot passengers on the ferry pay no more than they would if Arran was connected to the mainland by a road. Should it be adopted on Arran, it would of course mean a substantial drop in ferry ticket prices, but there are other considerations, as follows:

  • More crowded ferry

If ferry tickets drop to a cheap price, this will obviously attract more visitors to Arran. This in turn may mean that islanders find it harder to book their cars onto the ferry, and may result in occasions when the boat cannot take all the drivers and passengers wanting to use it.

  • More crowded roads

Arran’s roads, as we all know, were not built for heavy traffic. Larger numbers of vehicles resulting from RET will increase road wear and require more repairs than are done at present. This will be an additional expense for NAC to consider.

  • Need for an additional ferry

It may be that the introduction of RET will increase demand on the Brodick-Ardrossan route to a point where the existing ferry cannot cope with it, and a new vessel will be needed. Many people have long felt that Arran should have two slightly smaller ferries, more easily able to negotiate the narrow entry to Ardrossan Harbour, rather than the present large single boat, so the additional need may add weight to an already pressing case. However, it is a major question to be considered by CalMac.

  • Management of increased tourism

There is an ongoing debate about how much tourism Arran can support. Those connected with the industry obviously welcome an increase, particularly in the current economic downturn, but there remain concerns that the island must retain the peace and tranquillity that are its chief attraction. Some people doubt whether there are enough bed spaces and refreshment facilities to cope with a big increase in tourist numbers, while others feel that business will always respond to need, and any shortfall will quickly be filled.

  • What sort of future for Arran?

The question of whether or not we assent to RET will affect the future of Arran. A far cheaper, heavily subsidised fare structure will undoubtedly attract more people to the island and of course provide islanders with cheaper transport, but it will force us to make radical decisions. Conservationists may feel that a big increase in the human population will increase pressure on the natural landscape and make the island busier, noisier and more urban. Those who depend on tourism in order to make a living will welcome an expansion of business. The many island dwellers who belong to neither of these groups will retain their love of Arran for its beauty and its lively, close community, and may fear that these basic qualities may be adversely affected.

  • What do you think?

The Arran Community Council would like to know what you think about RET. Please go to the “Contact Us” page on www.arrancommunitycouncil.org.uk and add your opinion on the easy-to-use response box. Or send your views to Voice for Arran if you would like to air them in public and get a debate going, or e-mail us on info@voiceforarran.com

Anyone who is green-minded, or who uses Facebook, may have spotted the www.avaaz.org petition against the extraction of shale oil for use as road fuel. But what, you may ask, makes it so controversial? The use of tar and oil is nothing new. The Neanderthals knew about these bituminous deposits some 40,000 years ago, and applied it to their stone tools. The Egypt word ‘mummy’ is a synonym for bitumen, which played a major role in the mummification process. The Sumerians and Mesopotamians used bitumen in their building industry, and the First Nations in Canada waterproofed their canoes with it, as did later ship builders in Britain. But back then, bitumen was harvested from places where it seeped out naturally to the surface. What is proposed now is very different.

The extraction of tar sands is one of the most destructive industrial projects humankind has ever devised. In Canada alone, an area larger than England is being excavated at the moment. The Athabasca river delta, once a pristine boreal forest with clean rivers and lakes, has become a devastated waste. The trees have gone, and instead there is an industrial desert of open pit mines and toxic ‘tailings’ ponds where the polluted water used to wash the tar accumulates. There is no known way to clean this water. Birds landing in it quickly die, and fish in nearby waters regularly develop tumours. The First Nations communities that for centuries hunted and fished in the lost forest are now suffering from abnormally high rates of cancer and immune diseases.

In Estonia, shale oil has been mined for almost two centuries, but its own records show that in 2002, 97% of air pollution, 86% of total waste and 23% of water pollution came from that industry. It also produces large quantities of carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas.

We know of course that the world’s ‘easy’ oil sources are running out. The rise in petrol and diesel costs makes that obvious. Excuses such as the Iraq war and the unstable situation in the Middle East mask the basic truth, which is that the dealers controlling the release of oil for sale are keeping the price up. There was a flurry of indignation when some nations decided to release some of their own oil reserves in order to challenge this monopoly grip, but nothing has basically changed.

Canada’s tar sands are replacing Saudi Arabia as America’s main source of oil – but at huge environmental cost. The steam process used to extract the crude oil emits 50 kg of CO2 per barrel into the air – but that’s not the end of it. To change 1 barrel of bitumen into crude liquid oil involves the burning of 28 cubic m of conventional gas, equivalent to 1 giga joule of energy – a sixth of the energy output per barrel of the crude oil. These costs do not factor in the energy use or exhaust output of the big earth removal machines and transportation tankers.

Our world runs on oil. The petrochemical industry makes possible every journey by road, sea or air. It supplies our household machinery, our pesticides, pharmaceutical products, fertilisers and building materials, our computers and our children’s toys. But does that give us licence to encourage oil extraction techniques that threaten the continuation of the planet? Quite clearly, the answer for our financial institutions is an unashamed Yes. The Royal Bank of Scotland has contributed more than £ 5.6 billion to companies involved in Canadian tar sand projects, and is continuing to do so. Representatives of Canada's First Nations attended the RBS AGM of in April to voice their opposition to the bank’s backing of this destructive process, but the complaints of the indigenous people were not acknowledged at the AGM, and were largely ignored by the media.

The European Union is introducing an important bill that seeks to impose strict pollution standards on car and lorry fuels and will effectively ban tar sands fuel. The UK is opposing it. There will be many people who are appalled by this. If you want to dissent from this attempted wrecking of a bill that would bring some control over a filthy and destructive industry, sign the petition against it. You can find it on the Voice for Arran Facebook page, or just go to Avaaz, the brilliant international site that channels opinion from all over the world about things that really matter.

Scotland’s online magazine, the Scottish Review, recently carried a piece on the oil outlook by our editor.

We have become used to the repeated astonishment of marvellous High School shows directed by Heather Gough, but A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Mrs Gough’s final production as a teacher at the school, was stunning. A packed audience watched spell-bound as the capricious plot began to unfold, shifting from family politics in the palace of Theseus to a ‘wood near Athens’ where an utterly different state of things prevailed. As the curtains parted to reveal the enchanted forest, there was a collective gasp and a round of spontaneous applause. Here was a silvery place of strange trees where stars twinkled above a sleeping blossom in which lovers could sleep unseen, a bosky kingdom ruled over by supernatural royalty with powers unknown to the solid courtiers of the ordinary world.

On Friday 8th July, the entire Wind and Brass section of the Scottish Chamber Orchestra will be playing in Whiting Bay Hall at 8.00 pm. Anyone who has been to the SCO concerts given by its string section in two previous years will be delighted by this chance to hear Scotland’s leading professional chamber orchestra again. This time they offer a fabulous programme of music featuring their talented wind and brass players. The pieces chosen range through three centuries of music, giving each instrument an opportunity to shine. There is music from Mozart’s delicious opera, The Magic Flute then a special arrangement of Beethoven’s Symphony No 1. From the well-known to the slightly less familiar, the players follow with Canzona by the early Baroque composer Samuel Scheidt, which features two trumpets and two horns. Then it is back to Beethoven for his magnificent Sextet for clarinets, bassoons and horns, written when the composer was a young man in his 20s.

Charles Gounod’s light-hearted Petite Symphonie has much in common with Mozart’s popular wind serenades, but whereas Mozart wrote these mostly for oboes, clarinets, horns, and bassoons, Gounod included the flute in his work and created a beautiful solo for the instrument in the second movement. SCO Flautist Lis Dooner spoke with enthusiasm of ‘the charm and elegance of 19th century France.’

The concert is presented in association with the Isle of Arran Music Society. The programme is part of an islands tour, so the musicians will also have performed at Seil Island Community Hall, Easdale on the previous Wednesday and at Crear, near Kilberry in Argyll, on the Thursday. The SCO’s busy international touring schedule has recently included Italy, Poland, Hungary, Turkey, India, Germany, Austria, Spain, Belgium, The Netherlands, Switzerland and the USA. That Arran continues to be included in these magical musical tours is due to the enthusiastic support shown for their concerts in previous years. Make sure you don’t miss this one! These players are truly fantastic.

Tickets are £12 for adults, £10 for senior citizens and £5 for children, students and unemployed people. You can pre-book them at Inspirations of Arran in Brodick or online at www.thebooth.co.uk. They will also be available at the door on the night of the concert.

On Sunday, 10th July, Corrie Film Club will be showing the astonishing Russian film, Andrei Rublev, about the monk and icon painter of that name. Directed by Andrei Tarkovsky, the 205 minute original cut was exactly what he wanted – but the relatively liberal Kruschev was deposed shortly after filming began, and the Brezhnev-era censors cut the film to little more than half its original length. It was not seen in its restored 205-minute version until twenty-five years after its creation. A recently released DVD, transferred from a pristine 35mm print, has made viewing possible for the first time, and critics across the world are ecstatic in their praise.

Andrei Rublev was a 15th century monk renowned as Russia's greatest creator of religious icons and frescoes – but the film is far more than his life story. Steve Rose of the Guardian calls it ‘the best art-house film of all time,’ and is lyrical about its beauty. ‘From the first scene, following the flight of a rudimentary hot air balloon, we're whisked away by silken camera moves and stark compositions to a time and place where we're no less confused, amazed or terrified than Rublev himself. For the next three hours, we're down in the muck and chaos of medieval Russia, carried along on the tide of history … We experience life on every scale, from raindrops falling on a river to armies ransacking a town, often within the same, unbroken shot.’

The film is set at the time of the Mongol-Tatar invasions and the growing force of Byzantine Christianity, but it is a visual masterpiece for all time. Steve Rose continues, ‘Andrei Rublev is precisely structured and entirely aesthetically coherent. Acts of creation are mirrored by acts of destruction, there are themes of flight, of vision, of presence and absence; the more you look, the more you see. And then there are the horses, Tarkovsky's perennial favourite: horses rolling over, horses charging into battle, swimming in the river, falling down stairs, dragging men out of churches. At times the screen resembles a vast Brueghel painting come to life, or a medieval tapestry unrolling.’

Don’t miss this, it’s fantastic. Corrie and Sannox Village Hall, 8.00 pm. You don’t have to be a member of the Film Club to attend – all are welcome and entrance is free.

The Lochranza Choir’s summer concert on June 5th was a special celebration, marking its tenth birthday. Originally formed by Betty Buchanan, several of those founder members still sing with the choir, but it has expanded vastly and now contains members from all over the island. When illness meant Betty could no longer continue as conductor, Diana Hamilton took over, together with her husband Douglas as accompanist. This formidably talented (and utterly charming) duo runs weekly rehearsals that are a delight to everyone, for the scrupulously hard work is lightened with a great deal of fun, and learning happens almost without realising it. As one choir member said at the concert, ‘It is amazing to be able to stand here and sing the Fauré Requiem – in public!’

One member of the listening public was Jim Henderson, who writes as follows:
‘I had never attended a Lochranza Choir concert before and went at the 11th hour to support a friend, Janice Christison. Having no idea what to expect, the evening’s entertainment was a complete surprise. From the moment the choir took their places and Diana brought the singers to attention the audience was in no doubt about the quality of music we were about to witness. I was extremely impressed – this choir could sing in any company and in any venue.’

The choir, comprised of 12 sopranos, 10 altos, 6 tenors and 10 basses, began with the Te Deum by C.V. Stanford, followed by Gabriel Fauré’s Requiem. This long work featured three solos, taken by John Cruickshank, Alison Richards and Ian Buchanan, and came to an end with the tranquil In Paradisum. The interval followed, with wine and nibbles supplied by members of the choir – and all for a ticket price of ‘only £5.00,’ Jim Henderson noted in amazement.

The second half was introduced by Fiona Crawford, who recalled with her inimitable humour the Choir’s early beginnings. The choir then plunged into a medley of Leonard Bernstein’s West Side Story music, then Ian Buchanan sang a solo. Mozart’s Ave Verum, written shortly before his death, was sung in Latin, then the choir switched to German for the lovely chorus from the German Mass by Brahms, Wie Lieblich Sind Diene Wohnungen. The rest of the programme had a lighter note, with solos beautifully sung by John Cruikshank, Aileen Wright and Laura Selkirk, then it was time for the audience to join in. The well-known hymn, Jerusalem by Charles Parry led on to John Rutter’s jazzy version of When the Saints Go Marching In, and the evening ended with a rousing rendering of the Battle Hymn of the Republic – a tune well known to everyone as John Brown’s Body.

As the packed audience dispersed into the Lochranza night after a loudly demanded encore, there was general agreement that this had been a great night. All proceeds go to the Beatson Cancer Research Institute.

An interesting art exhibition held in Brodick Church featured impressive large-scale prints by four young people at the High School. Each had chosen a theme to explore, but in every case, the vision and imagination used had resulted in extraordinarily telling and poetic images. Ten of the shots are reproduced below in our slide show. Click on any of the thumbnail pictures to see the slide show.

On the coming Sunday, 3rd July, David Underdown launches his collection of poems called Time Lines, at 2.30pm in Corrie Hall. David will be reading some of his poems, and copies of the new book will be available. All welcome.

With concerns about the provision of music education in the current climate of cuts, it’s welcome news that a professional guitarist and music teacher called Rex Pearson has set up a free website to offer guitar lessons for everyone. No cost, honest – not a penny.

Rex has seen the effects of the cuts first hand, and says ‘Tens of thousands of students are missing out on the opportunity to learn how to learn the instrument, many of whom are unable to pay for private tuition.’ In an attempt to fill the gap, Rex has created a new website with some of the best guitar lessons in the world, and made it completely free for anyone to use so that those who cannot afford private tuition are never disadvantaged. He says, ‘I wanted to not only make the website free for everyone but to make lessons that were better than anything anyone had ever seen before. It's time to make a difference in people's lives and give everyone the chance to play one of the most beautiful instruments in the world.’

The site only launched a few weeks ago and is already receiving fantastic reviews from all its members. Rex plans to move from the intriguing beginner guitar courses to advanced technique lessons, including full guitar songs.

Have a look at www.rexpearson.com. It’s a smartly designed, attractive site with a lot on it to discover. Click on one of the very straightforward video lessons that start from absolute scratch, and if you haven’t got a guitar, beg or borrow one. You never know where your talent may take you, and Rex certainly is a marvellous teacher.

Arran people reacted quickly to rumours that two of the island’s doctors might lose their jobs as part of the restructuring of Arran’s health services now being considered. An immediate petition was started by the Village Shop in Whiting Bay and forms were made available in other villages, collecting a large number of signatures. That immediate threat has been averted, but the withdrawal by the GPs of the Arran Health Group from providing Out-of-Hours services has meant there will have to be changes made. A press statement from Dr Wai-yin Hatton points out that NHS Ayrshire and Arran invests more than £1.5 million each year in primary care services for Arran. This amount will be reduced by about £119,000 to reflect the withdrawal of island GPs from Out of Hours commitments. The debate is ongoing, but meanwhile, the petition forms (copies kept) have been sent to the Ayrshire and Arran Health Board as evidence of the strength of feeling on Arran about the medical services. If you want to add your opinion, write to Dr Wai-yin Hatton, Chief Executive, Ayrshire and Arran Health Board, Eglinton House, Ailsa Hospital, Dalmellington Road, Ayr, AYR, KA6 6AB.

The injured bat found by nine-year old Victoria Mowatt of Whiting Bay has turned out to be a Parti-coloured bat, so called because of the distinctive fur on its back. The hair is brown at the base but silver-tipped, giving the little animal a ‘frosted’ appearance. We must apologise for printing the first assumption that it was a Leisler’s bat, but the Parti-coloured bat is just as much a rarity, if not more, since it is found almost exclusively in continental Europe and parts of Asia. There have been occasional records of this species cropping up in Britain, and they are thought to be individuals blown off course on migration. Most of these records occur on the east coast of England, and it is impossible to guess how ‘Victoria’s bat’ ended up on a Scottish west coast island. Severe weather may have had something to do with it, but the bat could even have made part of the journey clinging to part of a ship.

NTS ranger Corinna Goeckeritz has passed the bat on to Tracey Joliffe, an expert based in Dundee, for long-term care. Unfortunately, the bat will probably never be able to fly again, as she has a badly damaged wing. Her injuries suggest that she might have been caught by a cat, perhaps being easy prey after a long, exhausting journey from the continent. Tracey will care for her well, and is delighted to have her, as long-term captive bats can be very useful for educational purposes.

Bats are protected, and you must never attempt to touch one unless it is ill or injured. Advice on how to deal with bats around your house can be obtained from any Scottish Natural Heritage office or by visiting their website at: www.snh.gov.uk.

Following the heated Arran debate on wind turbines, we decided to run a series on renewable energy of all kinds, with as much factual research as possible. We begin with wind farms.

A quick trawl through the Internet shows an eagerness to offer finance that sometimes verges on the incoherent. ‘Project finance; a stack pound notes!’ (sic) one firm burbles, while offering to ‘provide an integrated package to develop suitable wind sites … with no capital outlay from the landowner.’ Another promises ‘a regular index-linked annual income based on the energy generated by the wind turbine.’ Even more attractive are offers of 100% unsecured wind turbine project finance for farms and businesses. One outfit offers ‘100% of project costs (post planning) without the need for security’ and adds, ‘This can be an extremely attractive.’ A telephone number is provided. Hardly surprisingly, landowners are keen to climb onto what sounds like a profitable band-wagon.

With wind energy, the fuel is free. Once the project has been paid for, the only expenses to be met are operation and maintenance, plus fixed costs such as land rental. However, the capital cost is high, between 75% and 90% of the total for onshore projects.

The capital cost breakdown of a typical 5 MW onshore project is shown below. The big blue section is the cost of the hardware involved. Add in the three next-to-largest sections, which cover installation work, and you are left with very little else to find.

Public authorities and energy planners require the capital to be paid off over the ‘technical lifetime’ of the wind turbine, currently estimated at 20 years. Hence, projects such as the small windfarm on the Isle of Gigha’s three turbines can pay off the construction costs quite slowly, while enjoying a handsome income for the island. The private investor, however, will have to recover the cost of the turbines during the length of the bank loan, which will probably be a considerably shorter time. He or she will also have to pay a higher interest rate that the one available to public authorities.

Basically, yes – and improving quite quickly. Between 1990 and 2002, world wind energy capacity doubled every three years. Each doubling saw prices for wind energy fall by 15%. A report commissioned from the European Wind Energy Association by the EEC in 2004 showed a drop of over 50% in production costs during the preceding 15 years. It remarks: ’As a rule of thumb, manufacturers expect the production cost of wind power to decline 3-5% for each new generation of wind turbines they add to their product portfolio.’ Future cost reductions will depend largely on how the market grows, but a doubling of total installed capacity will see the cost of new turbines falling by between 9% and 17%.

Wikipedia points out that there is far more extractable power available from the wind than from all other sources. A comprehensive study done in 2005 found the potential of wind power on land and near-shore to be 72 TW. The TW is a terawatt, or a trillion watts. 72 of these work out at 54,000 million tons of oil equivalent per year. That is over five times the world's current energy use in all forms.

A report commissioned in 2004 from BP by the Royal Academy of Engineering makes interesting reading. If the planet-threatening output of CO2 is ignored, then coal and gas are the cheapest forms of energy generation. However, all countries are being forced to put a levy on technologies burning fossil-fuels, and BP admit that this will change the picture. ‘The lower efficiency of steam plant, combined with the greater level of carbon found in coal compared with natural gas, means that the gap between CCGT plant and other coal-fired technologies will widen as the cost of CO2 increases. The cost of nuclear and other renewables (deemed to be carbon neutral) remain unchanged and, therefore, become more competitive as the specific cost of CO2 emissions increases.’ With a carbon tax of £30 per tonne, the cost of all fossil fuels doubles, from 2.5 pence per kilowatt hour to 5.00. Wind power remains unchanged at a level estimated by BP as 3.7p. Seven years later, this will be considerably less.

The main difficulty for the wind power industry is the intermittent nature of turbine generation. When the wind doesn’t blow, the turbine blades don’t turn. Electricity is very difficult stuff to store. Battery technology has always been bulky, heavy and expensive, relying as it does on metals such as lithium that are in short global supply. ‘Flow’ batteries, using two tanks polarised differently to induce a constant movement of current, may be a way to meet this difficulty, but at the moment, it puts wind power at a definite disadvantage. There is, too, the question of visual intrusion. Typically, wind farms are sited on exposed and windy places, which are apt also to be wild and beautiful. In 2011 we are much closer to a crisis of fossil fuel supply, and the whole question of renewable energy is moving into a state of some urgency, but it does not remove the need for scrupulous care about the use of wind energy technology.

As Maria MacCaffery pointed out in the Guardian recently, the sector employs 10,000 people and in 2010 it contributed 10bn units of clean electricity, the equivalent of 4 million tonnes of coal. Germany, not always recognised as a big wind-power user, has 80,000 people working in the wind energy sector. However Britain, perhaps because its relatively late entry into wind power meant it started with better technology, is more efficient. A single turbine here returns more than 40% more electricity than a similar one in Germany. As an island where wind is apt to blow for most of the time, we have a natural advantage when it comes to generating fuel-free power.

An EC-funded project conducted by ExternE was commissioned by the EU in 2010 in order to calculate the cost of any environmental damage involved in power generation. The resulting report stated that existing estimates of the cost of producing electricity from coal or oil would double if external costs,in the form of damage to the environment and health, were taken into account. By the same criteria, and the cost of electricity production from gas would increase by 30%. The study further estimates that these costs amount to 1-2% of EU GDP – in other words, between €85 and €170 billion. This does not including the potential cost of global warming and climate change. It points out that if those environmental costs were levied on electricity generation according to the impact it causes, many renewables, including wind power, would appear as the best alternative.

Things have moved very fast in the last two or three years. We are faced by incontrovertible evidence that the era of easily-available fossil fuel is ending, and the battle between the big power interests and the environmentalists is hotting up. At present, wind farm infrastructure is a product of the petro-chemical industry, which itself may be looking at a shorter life than anyone expected, but there are some possibilities that turbines could be built using fine timber for their blades rather than steel. There has to be a question mark over their sustainability in an Armageddon age where conventional manufacturing is impossible, but we are not there yet, and wind energy cannot be discounted. Nobody has put much thought into the idea of micro-generation, in which every building has a small turbine making its contribution to the national grid and to local use. The main problem is electricity storage, and it is to be hoped that engineers are working on new types of battery. Once wind energy can be kept and its use spread across slack periods, it will be far more useful. Meanwhile, each application must be judged on its individual merits. And we must not be seduced by the lure of the quick buck.

On Sunday 12th June there was an opening ceremony for the paths created by Roots of Arran in their Community Woodland on Brodick Hill. Murray Boal and his digger did the toughest work, but there has been a lot more chopping and lopping by hand since then, and the path is now officially in use.

The celebration was a three-generations-born-on-Arran affair with octogenarian Mrs Mary Matchett (nee Buchanan) officiating with the loppers. She was joined by son Keith and grandson Eden Robertson and flanked by Devi and Shri, Kadampan, Buddhist nuns.
 

Roots of Arran volunteer Juliette Walsh said, ‘It was great to have the nuns visit and bless the path alongside Keith Robertson’s mum, who lopped it open with royal determination.’ The new path gives access to the orchard from the beech grove, making the site easier to get at for the volunteers who maintain it and the schoolchildren who can use it as an educational resource.

On the Monday after the opening ceremony, children from Whiting Bay School came to the community woodland to work for their John Muir Award. This involved lopping back unwanted undergrowth in the orchard, measuring the age of beech trees (the oldest was found to be 265 years old), planting ash saplings and carrying out a flora and fauna survey. On the bus home the children said they enjoyed climbing and playing in the beech grove the most!

The names of those who sailed in the brig called Caledonia in the Clearances nearly 200 years ago are well known on Arran in today’s life, representing many of the island’s best-known families. Jim Henderson concludes his series on the Sannox emigration with a list of some of them.

Archibald McKillop had been the Duke’s tax collector and led the first expedition to Canada. Born in Lochranza in 1824, he was educated at Edinburgh University. A brilliant man, he joined the army in Canada and rose to be a Colonel. His son Archibald was equally talented and graduated from Toronto University. Unfortunately, while visiting his mother on a festive break at Lac Joseph he was struck on the head by an ox, which resulted in making him totally blind within two years. Despite this, he became a distinguished academic and teacher, and was widely and affectionately known as the blind bard of Megantic County.

Donald Blue, born on Arran in 1794, married Ann McKillop in 1824. The pair later went to Ontario and there raised five children.

Dugald Cambell married Mary McKillop while they were both still on Arran, and had four children by the time they emigrated. The fourth one, Donald, was born in Lochranza. He opened the first store at Listowel, located 600Km south of Montreal and 50 Km east of Toronto, in 1856. He was also engaged in farming and became a large property owner. An eminent and very active conservative councillor, he became the first Mayor and Justice of the Peace for Listowel.

Angus Brodie and Isabella Walker were married in Sannox by the Rev. McKay in 1822. Their son Neil was five when they boarded the Caledonia. Angus became Mayor of Inverness, the Canadian town named by the settlers after the Scottish city, and ran the municipality from 1858-1864. People respected him as a formidable politician.

Alexander Cook, son of Archibald Cook and Mary McKelvie, were married in Galston in March 1859 and emigrated the following year. Mary McKelvie, née Burns, was a close relative of the famous poet Robert Burns. She and her husband moved to Illinois where they raised 10 children.

James Fullerton came of the Kilmichael Fullertons of Brodick, who can trace their history to the time of Robert the Bruce in 1307. James married to Janet Murphy, and their eldest son James was born in Corrie. In 1848 this younger James walked south from Megantic County through the bush to Bedford near Boston (a distance of approximately 200 km) where he found work on a farm. He married Mary McMillan in 1851. They created a prosperous farm in the Bedford area, overlooking the City of Manchester. Their descendants became accomplished singers and taught vocal music at the State Normal School of Iowa.

William Gordon was born at Corrie-burn in 1818. In 1851 he travelled from Megantic County to the Californian gold fields, returning one year later after a successful trip. He married Mary Goudie in Quebec to settle in Lowell Massachusetts, 50 km south of Manchester in New Hampshire.

Three Mckinnon brothers went out to Quebec area. All of them were born in Sliddery, James in 1800, Donald in 1801 and John in 1803. James was a schoolteacher, and married the widowed Mrs John Kerr of Megantic County in 1838. They had one daughter. Donald married Mary Sillers and had 10 children, and John married Margaret Sillers and had 12 children.

John Murchie married to Margaret Hendry while they were both still on Arran. Their son William was born at Achadh Mor in 1805 and grew up there. The three of them arrived at Quebec on the brig Foundling in 1831 William married Elizabeth Sillers in 1838 and reared 10 children.

If anyone has more information on ancestors who went from Arran to Canada and would like to share it, we would be delighted to hear from you.

Two very simple looms can provide hours of interest and result in attractive little gifts such as coaster mats or bookmarks. Here are two ways to go about it.

1. Any clean and disinfected polystyrene food tray can be used. Thread a large-eyed needle with thick cotton or string and prick holes along the lips of the shorter sides. Then stitch warp threads as shown in the picture. Provide the youngest children with several thicknesses of various threads that they can weave over and under the warp with their fingers, leaving big loops at each end as they turn. This stops them pulling too tightly and creating the familiar “waisting” of the work and also allows the resulting mat to be neatly trimmed along the lip of the long sides of the tray. The weaving needs to be reasonably compacted before it is really finished, so make sure the criss-crossed threads are close and even. Then just break the tray away and trim the loops that are left, and you have a fringed mat.

2. This method uses a piece of strong card or mounting board. Cut quite sharp zigzags down the opposite edges, then wind a warp thread round the cut points, to and fro across the card. These little looms can be made any size. You can fill them with multiple thread weaving, to give them substance and an interesting texture. For this you simply need to thread several different kinds and colours of yarn through a bodkin or big-eyed chenille needle.

First experiences of weaving can be depressing for children when only a single thread is used, for the work is slow and children seldom progress beyond the first inch or so. These very simple looms seldom fail, for the work grows very quickly and children have the fun of choosing mixed threads of all kinds, noticing the different colour and texture of natural threads such as wools and cottons combined with man-made threads such as ribbons, raffias, string, etc.

The Firth of Clyde is the largest area of sheltered deep water in the British Isles. Not a lot of people know this, but its beautiful coastline will be celebrated during Clyde Marine Week, from 29th July to 4th August.

The week-long project, organised by the Marine Conservation Society, is being , Anne Saunders says, is to ‘get people thinking about how we affect our wildlife and environment through such things as beach litter, pollution, unsustainable fishing methods, and by disturbing wildlife and their habitats. We want people to see that they can be part of the solutions - by joining MCS beach litter projects, following our advice on fish to eat and fish to avoid, or by becoming an MCS member.”

All details can be found on the Clyde Marine Week website.

Arran’s Westminster MP must be one of the busiest members of the House. She keeps in constant touch, sending press releases on the various causes she has backed or opposed. Among much else, we have received the following:

If you have views on how the country should be run, here’s your big opportunity. The Speaker’s Parliamentary Placements scheme offers 12 people the chance of a paid internship in Parliament. The idea is to ‘give people from working class backgrounds the opportunities that currently just aren’t open to them, and take an important step towards making our politics more representative of ordinary people.’ Katy hopes that local people in North Ayrshire and Arran will consider applying. THIS IS A PAID JOB – WHY NOT HAVE A GO? Click on www.socialmobility.org.uk where you will find all details and an application form.

Katy secured a debate on the proposed closure of the Greenock Coastguard station, pointing out that the proposals will mean that coastguard rescue teams for the Clyde area could be co-ordinated from as far away as Aberdeen. She said, ‘These changes are based primarily on a desire to cut costs rather than to improve HM Coastguard … I am very concerned that if the Government’s proposals go ahead there is a very real chance that lives will be put at risk.

Latest Labour market statistics show 3,606 people on Jobseekers’ Allowance seeking work in North Ayrshire and Arran, with only 157 vacancies in the area advertised by Jobcentre Plus. Katy points out that this means there are 23 people seeking work for every job vacancy that becomes available. She said, ‘I hope the Government realises the harm its current economic course is causing to households and communities across North Ayrshire’ and appealed for a change of course ‘before further damage is done.’

The campaign for a Robin Hood tax on financial transations has Katy’s support. In common with parliamentarians across the world, she has signed a Parliamentary Declaration calling for the financial sector to make a greater contribution towards the economic recovery following the global financial crisis. She said, ‘In his last Budget speech the Chancellor stated that the country was “in it together” following the financial crisis. However as spending cuts are made and people are seeing their jobs lost, benefits slashed and local services reduced RBS was still able to pay around £950 million in bonuses with over 200 individuals receiving more than £1 million each. It is abundantly clear that the banking and financial sectors are not making a big enough contribution towards the nation’s economic recovery.’

Sally Campbell of C.O.A.S.T is appalled that farmed fish may now be labelled "Sustainable" and "Responsibly Sourced." She holds that it is vital to oppose the certification of farmed fish, as follows:

This is important for us all. As soon as a "Label" gets given, Salmond, Lochhead and others will trumpet the productivity of the Aquaculture Stewardship Council and every inshore area of the west of Scotland will be targeted for fish farms. The label will be used to "help" local authorities to allow planning. It is a really, deeply depressing picture. Please pass on to anyone who is interested in the sustainability of inshore waters. (If you are a WWF member please jump up and down!)

Sally holds that we need to oppose the spread of the fish farm industry on the following grounds:

• waste pollution and chemical contamination
• killing of wildlife including marine mammals
• sea lice infestation and the spread of infectious diseases
• the farming of non-native species
• escapes
• unsustainable and non-certified fish feed
• transgenic plants including GM soya in feed
• copper-treated nets and biocides
• use of antibiotics
• use of toxic chemicals such as cypermethrin and emamectin benzoate
• mortality rates of 20%
• deaths of workers

You can find C.O.A.S.T.'s response to Scotland's National Marine Plan on www.arrancoast.com.

We reproduce a shortened piece about the Lamlash Bay fish farm by John Campbell, for the interest of anyone who has followed its chequered history. The full text is on the C.O.A.S.T website.

I wonder what Saint Molaise (or Molios in today’s parlance), who is reputed to have once lived as a hermit on the Holy island in Lamlash Bay, would have thought about a salmon fish farm named after him and located in the bay. Maybe he would have praised its aims to feed the masses or maybe he would have questioned its need, knowing that on his doorstep fish would have been plentiful in the surrounding coastal waters at the time. Today of course we have the fish farm and little or no fish in the surrounding seas, which doesn’t make sense in terms of ecological diversity. The NTZ in Lamlash Bay is a start to address this imbalance, and it is important to grasp this opportunity for the bay to provide a focus for recovery of the marine environment.

COAST keeps an eye on the fish farm to ensure that those responsible for its operation keep its possible impact on the waters of the bay within its existing licence parameters. SEPA has already turned down an application to expand the fish farm beyond its present licence requirements because the site appears to be operating very close to or perhaps even beyond its assimilation capacity. The ‘dilute and disperse’ approach for disposing of environmentally significant contaminants is a pollution disposal philosophy commonly practised until the 1970s but largely rejected today as an acceptable means of contaminant disposal.

So what is happening at the Scottish Salmon Company’s (TSSC) operation at St Molios – and how do we know? At least it is not truckloads of dead fish that has been the case in the past! The answer is that SEPA has provided COAST with information in response to a ‘freedom of information’ request and this provides a very interesting window on what is going on.

Every marine fish farms regulated in Scotland is subject to a renewable CAR [Controlled Activities (Scotland) Regulations] licence, Water Environment 201. This is granted by SEPA, provided that the sponsor can demonstrate that the site will provide the necessary assimilation capacity. This is measured by applying a standard mathematical model of how much waste sediment is dispersed and how much deposited on the seabed. No one site is the same as any other, as there are differences in tidal flow, sea bed topography etc. Because of this, each site has its own dispersion characteristics and therefore its own restrictions in scale. These should ensure that each one can keep within its permitted limits. SEPA lays down limits to quantities of fish stocked (biomass) and hence the permitted quantities of food to be used. It also limits the quantities of medicines and other chemicals applied.

The reported results for St Molios are reproduced by permission of SEPA on the C.O.A.S.T website and show a scale of quantities used that is fairly typical of any similar moderately sized operation.

COAST will continue to monitor performance, helped by the fact that there is much more information available that has relevance to the environmental condition of Lamlash Bay as a whole.

Last week, North Ayrshire Council sent out one of its infinitely cautious news releases, preceded as usual by five paragraphs of warning that nobody unauthorised should get a glimpse of the attachment. The secret item turned out to say that the NAC website now has a facility called Report It, on which complaints can be made about such nuisances as graffiti, fly-tipping and dog fouling. The Press Officer glowingly says that you no longer have to phone the Council’s Customer Contact Centre. You merely log in with your name and email address, select a password and validate your account, then get on with your complaint. Still with me? Probably not. A lot of people in North Ayrshire don’t have computers, and even more of us retain an obstinate desire to talk to a real person. But the new process is “significantly cheaper than face-to-face or telephone contact as it speeds up the process,” so that’s what we’ve got.

It merits a resigned nod. But the statement that followed from Council Leader David O’Neill, (Portfolio holder for Corporate and Strategic Services), brought me out in a rash of fury. He said, “We are continually looking at ways to improve the customer experience and the services we provide to the people of North Ayrshire.” Customer? Since when did I become a customer of my local authority? What is it trying to sell? Why is buying assumed to be a good thing? It’s a very long time since the Uriah Heeps who worked in hotels and shops parroted the assumption that the customer is always right. The customer now is no more than the milch cow that must be kept just about alive so that its flow does not dry up. The term has become deeply insulting, and use of it by the Lord High Panjandrum of North Ayrshire reveals exactly how commercial, patronising and beady-eyed the authority’s approach to people has become.

Mr O’Neill will not of course see it that way. His assumption will be that addressing people as purchasers touches them at the highest level of their otherwise insignificant existence. Forget Descartes and his long-accepted precept, cogito ergo sum. Cogitation – thinking, in other words – is not of any value now. We are not here to think, but to buy. Emo ergo sum. I purchase, therefore I am. Nothing much about me matters as much as my status as an emptor, a buyer. Existence as a citizen, a householder, a student, a worker, parent, child or basic human being has potential nuisance value and thus belongs on the debit sheet. North Ayrshire residents can only achieve some credit by being customers. As such, they can (now more cheaply) communicate requests under the following headings:

• Fly Tipping
• Graffiti
• Abandoned Vehicles
• Dog Fouling
• General Litter
• Litter/Dog Bin Full
• Replace/Remove/Request Litter/Dog Bin
• Recycling Enquiry
• Missed Domestic Bin Collection
• Request Additional Bin

More vital topics such as faults affecting roads and lighting, railings and bridges “will be added to the site in the near future.” Those who cogitate may detect something of a priorities problem there, but perhaps the Cleansing Department is more computer-savvy than Traffic. I do not wish to know the reasons, I just want to see a crack or two appearing in the worship of purchase.

This poisonous philosophical equivalent of AIDS was injected into our psyche during the Thatcher years, when human beings gradually turned into cyphers as part of an economic game that was proposed as a tenable way to run the country. We all know what happened to that. The profitable fun of money-juggling stopped being amusing when the chips hit the deck. We, the hapless punters, wonder why we were ever suckered into admiring the sleight of hand, but we don’t know how to stop playing. However, the signs are there. We are seeing the stalwart refusal of Iceland’s tiny population to carry the can for the gambling that inflated their banks to explosion size. We are seeing the Greeks preparing to wreck the EEC rather than abandon their sense of being people rather than statistics. Their historic sense of democracy and the agora still holds. In Scotland we do not take easily to such cavalier attitudes, but it is time we began a small resistance. When on a journey, for instance, we should claim the right to be called passengers. Tannoy announcements sending “customers” to their platform or gate reveal reveal that we are valued only because we have bought a ticket. As such, the experience we undergo cannot be calibrated and does not count. If you think the deal looks a bit iffy, buy insurance. (And much good may that do you. In most cases, you’d be better off negotiating with a crocodile.)

Perhaps I should find one of those button-making outfits and get some made that say, I am not a customer. Worn in the right (or preferably, wrong) place, it might provoke some interesting conversations. Meanwhile, I have duly noted how to Replace/Remove/Request Litter/Dog Bin.

The Arran Ferry Committee, a clandestine organisation which publishes no agendas or minutes, has asked for an extra Sunday sailing, at 07:00 ex-Ardrossan, to be added to the Caledonian Isles timetable. Calmac require the current non-sailing time on a Sunday morning for staff training. If an early morning service is to be provided on a Sunday a later sailing will have to be removed from the timetable to allow this training to take place.

Calmac have contracted a company to take in internet survey asking for the opinion of the public on this timetable change proposed by the Arran Ferry Committee. If you wish to be involved in the decision regarding the Sunday service timetable then go to the survey site here and choose your preferred option.

You have a vote, so use it.

Please be aware that this survey leaves some tracking cookies on your computer without informing you. This is in contravention of the law which came into force on the 26th of May this year. Read more about the new law regarding the use of cookies here.

Michael Anderson likes a challenge but his goal of climbing Ben Nevis for his 70th birthday is going to be a mighty test of his stamina and determination. Michael is both deaf and blind and hopes to climb the highest mountain in Britain to raise money for DeafBlind Scotland, a charity which supports and campaigns on behalf of people with dual sensory impairment, a complex disability that can be incredibly isolating. Michael hopes to raise money towards a Training and Resources Centre that will support people with deafblindness, their families and guides/communicators.

I agreed to get involved with Michael’s challenge long before I met him. As soon as I heard about his plans to climb Ben Nevis I wanted to help if I could and put myself forward as a member of his support team. However, it was not until a grey midgey morning on the shores of Loch Lomond in June that I finally met Michael, his daughter Fiona and her partner Nina. Michael is a gentle man with a soft voice. His kind exterior belies a man with a core of steel. Meeting him for the first time, for a training day on Ben Lomond, I wondered what on earth I could offer Michael and his support team. My knowledge of the mountain is one thing, but my experience in guiding deafblind people and the additional challenges we might face was at that point non existent.

At first I walked alongside Fiona and Nina and watched how they patiently guided him along the early sections of the path. I wondered at how, taking Fiona’s arm, Michael intuitively followed and copied her motion, gauging the size of steps and unevenness of the ground by feel. Michael wears a hearing aid, and the two women loudly described the footpath before us. Suddenly Michael stopped. “We are in woodland?” We tried to explain how green corridors of oaks and birch surrounded us. “May I touch a tree?” Michael asked. Carefully we led him over to an ancient and gnarled trunk. “Ah yes,” Michael smiled “An oak”. Later he would identify a fallen birch by the feel of the papery bark under his fingertips.

Michael’s sense of direction is better than that of most sighted people, as is his balance, despite his damaged hearing. He has Usher’s syndrome, and has had a hearing impairment all his life; his sight has deteriorated slowly since he was a boy, and at the age of 33 he was registered blind. He recalls climbing a mountain with his brother as a child and the wonderful emotions that awoke in him: “it was an amazing, uplifting sensation, both in what one has achieved and what we could see.  That was my first ever climb and I believed a seed was sown”. As a younger man, Michael enjoyed walking in the hills around his Berwickshire home and he is still exceptionally fit and active despite his disability.

For me to get a handle on how best to guide Michael and become part of his team, it was time to experience a glimpse of his world. Approaching a rocky section of the path, I closed my eyes and took Fiona’s arm. I felt a huge leap of faith at this moment, and suddenly the act of climbing a mountain was condensed into each tentative step. Simple descriptive commands work best and though to the guide this can seem incredibly repetitive, it is vital information. “Step up and over, left a bit, forwards, rock in path”. This steady flow of information is the guidee’s lifeline to progress. Fiona and Nina are very skilled at this, but as we approached complicated sections of path I could see the concern etched on their faces.

Taking a turn at Michael’s side was nerve wracking initially, but his kind manner and careful concentration soon helped me to relax. Michael has an iron will and even though it was clear that he was weary, he never complained and continued to smile graciously. We left the treeline, and climbed up in to the grey clouds. He was keen to learn when the mist closed in. We described the views, and how they faded from sight. He sensed the cold wind, and the brightening of the sky as we approached the summit. Standing at the trig point taking photos, Fiona and Nina had tears in their eyes, but Michael’s face was a picture of pure joy.

Wise people say that when you reach the summit of a mountain you are only half way there, and for Michael this is more than true. Each step is placed with equal care in ascent and descent, and as fatigue set in, the reality of the challenge dawned on us. Progress was slow, and through the stony sections painstaking. Ben Lomond is a lighter shade of Munro than Ben Nevis, which standing at 1344m is a worthy challenge for any hill walker. The Ben Nevis path is rough and rocky, and the weather on the hill often violently nasty. We expect to be on the hill for at least eighteen hours, and will have to carry additional food, water and equipment. Walking back through the woodland on the banks of Loch Lomond, I felt humbled by the immense challenge ahead for Michael, and honoured to be part of making it possible.

• Michael Anderson will be climbing Ben Nevis on the 21st of July. His team will be alongside him, but every step will be his. You can support his incredible effort by donating to DeafBlind Scotland on Justgiving.com.
• To read in Michael’s own words why he is doing this challenge visit his blog.
• To find out more about the work of DeafBlind Scotland and the many other fundraising events they organise visit the DeafBlind Scotland website.
• To find out more about guided walks on Arran visit the Arran Wild Walks website.

The need for quickly accessible rescue services was underlined last week when the Tobermory all-weather lifeboat rescued a yacht in winds gusting at 55 knots. The 26-foot yacht Blue Stone had been at anchor in Tobermory, but its anchor did not hold in the gales sweeping through the bay. The Blue Stone began drifting at high speed into the Sound of Mull, with its skipper still on board. The Tobermory lifeboat was launched and succeeded in getting a line across to the yacht, then took her in tow. Lifeboat Coxswain Phil Higson said: "These were the worst conditions I have ever seen in Tobermory Bay in 19 years of service with the RNLI. The outcome could have been very different. At one point we feared that the crew might be in danger of being thrown out of the yacht. I'm pleased that we were able to recover both yacht and her skipper". Rod Collins, skipper of the Blue Stone said, "I am full of admiration for the RNLI and the Tobermory Lifeboat crew, and the speed at which they reached me. There can be no more reassuring sight that seeing a lifeboat approaching. I'm hugely grateful to everyone involved."

This week the crew of the Mallaig Lifeboat were honoured for their part in the rescue of the cargo vessel Red Duchess in gale force winds off the Isle of Rum in November last year. The RNLI picture, taken from the lifeboat, shows the Red Duchess in tow.

Anne Adams

Potato, Onion and Cheese Bake

Ingredients

35g (1oz) butter 35g (1oz) plain flour
435ml (¾ pint) milk
100g (4oz) mature coloured cheese, grated
1tbsp (1x15mlsp) chopped chives
salt and pepper
15g (1/2oz) butter
2 onions
200g (7oz) fresh baby spinach, finely chopped
300g (11oz) baby potatoes (pre-cooked and slightly cooled)
pinch of ground nutmeg

2 slices of bread to make breadcrumbs
30g (1oz) mature white cheese for topping

Method

1. Pre-heat the oven to 200c/400f / Gas Mark 6. To make the cheese sauce, melt the butter in a pan and slowly add the flour. Once it has formed into a paste add the milk slowly stirring all the time, add the cheese and allow to thicken, still stirring. Add the chives and remove from the heat.

2. Melt butter in a frying pan and gently fry the onion. Once softened, add the spinach, potatoes and cheese sauce. Season with salt and pepper, add nutmeg and allow to simmer for a few minutes.

3. Put the bread into a food processor to make breadcrumbs and grate the cheese then mix together. Pour the other ingredients into a baking dish and scatter over the breadcrumb mix. Bake for 10-15 minutes and serve immediately with seasonal vegetables.

While we wrangle with the fishermen and the European Commission about the fish quotas that cause millions of dead and dying fish to be dumped back in the sea, Norway banned discards 30 years ago, in the late 1980s.

New research done by scientists at the University of York and published in the journal Reviews in Fisheries Science shows that the ban has been of huge value in restoring fish stocks. The researchers undertook a long-term study of data on cod, haddock, saithe and herring numbers in the North Sea, and compared them with stocks of these species in the Norwegian North-East Arctic. The results are startling. Norwegian fisheries were in crisis when the discard ban was introduced, but all the species studied are plentiful now. The researchers analysed catch rates and the age structure of the fish stocks in the Norwegian fisheries and found proof that much of this recovery was down to the discard ban. The Norwegian Arctic fisheries are now some of the most prosperous in the world.

The North Sea, conversely, is rapidly emptying of any fish at all. The EC quota policy means that up to 75 per cent of the catch currently has to be dumped after being caught. Ben Diamond, who carried out much of the research during his MSc degree in the Environment Department at York, said the discarding of fish at sea has long been excused as ‘a necessary evil to help conserve fishery resources.’ Such an idea is only tenable, of course, if the fish caught and returned are still alive when dumped, but in fact there are virtually no survivors.

The report highlighted that current North Sea stocks have the potential to increase even more rapidly than their Norwegian counterparts did. Dr Bryce Beukers-Stewart, co-author and supervisor of the study, said he had ‘no doubt that a ban on discarding in the North Sea will benefit both fish stocks and fishermen.’ He cautioned that the ban would need to be introduced ‘sensibly and with the support of all stakeholders’ and added, ‘ Closing areas with high numbers of young fish, and the use of selective fishing gear and electronic monitoring systems onboard fishing boats will be key tools in this regard.’

The TV series in which celebrity chef Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall launched a drive to secure a ban on discards has done much to alert the public. The campaign to ban discards has generated almost 700,000 signatories to date, sales of alternative fish species have soared, and the EC has proposed plans to phase in a discard ban. Nevertheless, some sections of the fishing industry still argue that the measure will threaten fragile fishing communities by forcing them to land lower value fish. Dr Beukers-Stewart is not impressed by such protests. He says, ‘Discards simply squander valuable resources. Our research demonstrates that while there may be some short-term costs, a ban on discards is essential if European fish stocks are to become sustainable in the long term.’ The Norwegian experience offers valuable evidence that this is so.

John Le Carré’s Our Kind of Traitor, now out in paperback, is packed with tension. It’s also powered by a sustained anger with the high-level bureaucracy that extends its cold fingers to touch the people who do a real job. After a very few pages, you come to realise that this chilling fingerprint from the men of power can be lethal. The spymasters of old have given way to a club of self-seeking bureaucrats for whom small moves of political advantage are far more important that the survival or otherwise of someone sent out on a solitary and always dangerous job.

In this book, Le Carré tightens the tension by centring the plot round an unwitting couple, Perry and Gail, who treat themselves to a posh weekend of playing tennis on the Isle of Antigua, with no more imagined risk than overdoing the gin and tonic. They are not expecting to meet an ebullient Russian, covered with tattoos, a huge man who does everything on an outrageously large scale. Dima (the affectionate diminutive of Dmitri) moves in a world of money, passion and crime, and yet has a theatrical seam of vulnerability that is immensely attractive. He is surrounded by a large family, most of whom seem obscurely upset, and when one of two very silent little girls slips her hand into Gail’s, Gail knows she is helplessly involved. Dima tells Perry he wants a sympathetic ear at a high level of British diplomacy, and the innocent tennis-playing British couple realise with horror that he means Intelligence with a capital I. Their efforts to be sensible and remain uninvolved are swept away. They try to cut the holiday short and get an early flight home, but the planes are fully booked. Gail learns that the silent little girls are newly orphaned, their parents having died in a ‘car crash’ that in fact involved a hail of bullets, blamed on the Chechens – useful scapegoats in the violent world of new Russian commerce.

The reader, as helplessly as Gail and Perry themselves, is then ushered into a Whitehall office with suave men, one of whom is an amusing, lone-wolf maverick much loathed by the more established club members. The tennis-playing couple, scrupulous and decent as they are, find themselves sandwiched between dangers like people groping between the close walls of a dark alley. On one side is the unknown chessboard of secret European intrigues, on the other, the politics of the British boardroom. As the pages turn, the tension tightens.

The ending must of course remain top secret. By the time it comes, the reader is steeling him or herself for something not good – but no matter how many potential denouements have been juggled with, the shock is like a sudden punch. Le Carré is in a class of his own, a brilliant, disturbing writer with a mordant eye on the way we live (and die) now.

Our Kind of Traitor by John Le Carré, Penguin, £7.99 ISBN 9780141049168.

You can see a video of Le Carré himself reading an excerpt from the book if you go to Penguin Books/ Authors.

On June 24th, John Sillars, Chair of Isle of Arran Homes, performed the opening ceremony for a development that sees about 100 people now settled in new houses in Red Quarry Road, Corrie. Built in the old sandstone quarry, the attractively designed mixture of houses and bungalows has a surprisingly spacious sense of open-ness and calm, each individual dwelling having its own secluded garden.

The development is the most ambitious project undertaken by Isle of Arran Homes in its fairly short history. The shift away from traditional Council housing saw Arran’s Kirk Care Housing Association established in 1973, primarily for the provision of housing and support to older people. This in turn was taken over by the Trust Housing Association, and a consultation between tenants and North Ayrshire Council ended in agreement that all local authority housing stock on Arran would be transferred to Isle of Arran Homes. Around 80 homes have been built by Isle of Arran Homes since the stock transfer from North Ayrshire Council in 2000.

What's nicer than to use fresh garden produce in your daily recipes? Soon courgettes and peas will be ready to pick and eat. Here’s a quick and easy recipe – and bought veggies will do if you are not a gardener.

Ingredients:

6 baby courgettes or 3 bigger ones
1 cup freshly shelled garden peas – or you can use mange-touts or sugar snaps, chopped into pieces
1 red pepper
3 cloves of garlic
6 eggs
250 g ricotta
1 bunch fresh mint
pepper
salt
1 tb olive oil
1 lemon, zest only

Mix the eggs in a bowl, add a generous amount of pepper and set aside.

Grate the courgettes with a rough grater or cut into tiny cubes. Dice the pepper. Peel and chop the garlic. Chop the mint leaves finely. If your peas are not very young, quickly blanch them in boiling water.

In a heavy frying pan, heat the oil and roast the garlic, pepper and courgettes until the courgettes are slightly golden. Add the peas, lemon zest and mint and stir in. Season with pepper and salt then pour on the egg mixture. Crumble the drained ricotta over the contents of the pan and let simmer for about 10 minutes at low to medium heat or until the egg has almost set. Meanwhile preheat your grill at medium heat (or if you don't have one use your oven on top heat). Put the dish under the grill until the surface has turned golden and the egg has set.

Cut the frittata into slices and serve with a big mixed salad of leaves, tomatoes, cucumbers and edible flowers. Add some garden herbs like chives, parsley, chervil and nasturtium leaves to your salad and make a light and simple dressing of lemon juice and olive oil, seasoned only with pepper and salt.