#Carradale

[ltwilliammowett]

The Carradale, by Peter Gerd Bilas (1952-)

[convexly]

Untitled by matt.bower Via Flickr: Carradale Golf Club, Scotland

[scotianostra]

Scottish novelist and poet Naomi Mitchison was born in Edinburgh on November 1st in 1897.

Best known as a novelist and social commentator, but Naomi Mitchison also wrote and published poetry, much of which is rooted in her Scottish background.

Born to Louisa Kathleen Trotter and John Scott Haldane, a distinguished scientist based in Oxford, where Naomi Haldane grew up. The Scottish connection remained important throughout her childhood, and she spent many summers at Cloan in Perthshire, the Haldanes’ family home. Although her formal education was limited, she was steeped in an environment of scientific and creative enquiry which influenced her entire life.

Naomi married Dick Mitchison while he was on a short break from the Battlefields of Flanders in 1916, he was later injured in the war and it had a profound effect on the rest of his life and hers.

Both of them passionately wanted the post-war world to be a different and better place and were determined to do something about it, with explosive energy, Mitchison managed to write prolifically and variously; to work in the pioneer days at the North Kensington family planning clinic and for many other good causes. Her husband went into politics and she supported him and his socialist values wholeheartedly. He eventually went to the Lords and Naomi hated being called Lady Mitchison. The Mitchison house at Hammersmith was famous for its parties in happy or anxious times. The guest lists covered a wide spectrum from all walks of life, politicians, writers, lords, unknown proteges, refugees and strange lost foreigners from all over the world.

This generous style of hospitality continued at their Scottish home at Carradale in Argyll. The large house gathered in all kinds of waifs and strays among the famous and unreproached scroungers; and then the Mitchison grandchildren and great-grandchildren joined the mix. Naomi's wartime diary, Among You Taking Notes... , is a vivid description of that period, and of her own pivotal role in it.

She would go on to become a local councillor and member of the Highland Panel, which began the process of Highland regeneration, but in both roles she was frustrated by bureaucracy and apathy, you can imagine The Highlands in the 60's!

Mitchison was able to write anywhere, which helped because - as a compulsive traveller - she could get on with her writing on planes or in trains. She went to the US in the 1930s, because she was worried about tenant farmers rights; to Vienna in 1934 when the Nazi-era storm clouds gathered, and she smuggled letters from endangered people to Switzerland in her knickers. In 1952, she went to Moscow as a member of the Authors' World Peace Appeal. She went regularly to Africa, especially to Botswana, where she was made a sort of tribal mother to the Bakgatla people and helped them practically. Wherever she was in the world, she seemed to have an instinctive understanding of the country and people around her, a remarkable woman.

In later years, she was sometimes anxious and depressed - not for herself, but for the future. She often said that two wars in a lifetime were too many. She was totally opposed to nuclear weaponry and was fearful that science would destroy, rather than enrich, mankind.

In old age, she watched many of her generation die: but with great generosity of spirit she visited and comforted many of them to the end.

Naomi Mitchison spent the last years of her life at Carradale, where she died in January 1999 aged 101.

Kintyre

I wake when the wind changes. Beyond the dark Firth far, Where the waves clap and the tides rustle and the herring are, At the far side of the great Clyde the wind ranges. I wake as it changes.

If snow flew or mist blew East on the hills of Renfrew, Here, Arran sheltered, we might never know, Get no breath of sleet or hard snow, Until across the mountain ranges The wind backs and changes.

Clear starlight as sleep takes me, But a cloud creeps from the side. My dream no more ranges Through a universe at rest, But quick through the window wide, From Atlantic on the west Or from east beyond Clyde, Leaps anxious into my breast. I wake when the wind changes.

[bikepackinguk]

Day Fifty-four

A good day spent yesterday resting up, giving the limbs some recovery, and with plenty of deadwood around was able to have a nice wee fire with considerable ease.

I should mention when I'm having a fire that I still follow Leave No Trace principles - mulch is kicked back, a shallow hole is dug, only dead wood used, and afterwards the hole is refilled and mulch spread back over as if no fire had ever existed. Leave things as you'd like to find them!

Back on with the show today, and out from Ballochroy it's back on the A road and chugging along south.

There's some traffic, but not too major, and aside from a couple of stiff hills to climb it's mostly level going with smooth road surfacing, which means the miles can be ploughed away whilst enjoying views of the Isle of Gigha nearby, with Jura and Islay off in the distance. It's even possible to see Ireland off in the distance from here.

Down the coast the road goes until hitting Westport, where we veer up into the hills and swing past the local airport, and on past Stewarton.

It's more climbs around the livestock-strewn hills south from here, but they aren't too awful and a few hours after setting off I roll into the coastline again at the tip of the peninsula by Southend.

This is a nice waypoint for me as I grew up and started off on this journey nearby Southend-on-Sea, so it's pleasing to get to the beach across the other side of the island with the same name.

After a bite to eat at the beach, it's back up the road and over the hills again to swing by Campbeltown to restock on supplies and take in the pretty harbour, before hitting the east side of Kintyre.

A steep climb out of Campbeltown and almost immediately is a picturesque view of the Isle of Arran running parallel to the coastline.

The hills begin in earnest once again on this leg and it soon becomes very tough going, with lots of spikey climbs and descents along with tight hairpin bends as the road threads its way around the hilly coastline.

It's wearying work and by the time I get past Carradale, I'm pondering a stop for the night to lie down and ket the legs recover, as it's been a lot of miles put in today as well as a lot of elevation.

Thankfully a ways through the trees is the very green Grianain Forest, which makes a grand place to shelter from the gathering winds.

Time to rest up, see you all tomorrow!

[walksnpics]

Saturday 1st February 2020

Carradale Circular

The minister (Alistair Dunlop) who married us 25 years ago was from the Carradale Parish.

GPS track of 4 mile walk

[veronicadelica]

Carradale House, London

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Weronika Dudka

[lemuseum]

[jzaphotography]

Carradale House, Ernő Goldfinger See More at jza.photography

[galleryofunknowns]

Francis Bernard Dicksee (b.1853 - d.1928), 'Portrait of Mary Francis Linton, Mrs. Austin Mackenzie of Carradale (b.1870)', oil on canvas, c.1918, British, sold for 100,000 GBP in Christie's British and European Art, December 2021.

[fischkombinat]

Brownfield Estate

[findamericanrentals]

Carradale Vacation Rentals By Owner, This lovely vacation rental cottage is situated in unspoilt countryside, with stunning views across the Kilbrannan Sound to Arran at the rear and views of the hills at front and side,

[vashikaranspecialistsinuk]

Vashikaran specialist pandit ji a love vashikaran expert will help you with your lover in controlling the mind, spirit, business with others and love spell.

[scotianostra]

On January 11th 1999 the novelist and politician Naomi Mitchison died.

Naomi Mitchison is best known as a novelist and social commentator, but she also wrote and published poetry, much of which is rooted in her Scottish background. Her Father, John Scott Haldane, a distinguished scientist based in Oxford, where Naomi Haldane grew up. The Scottish connection remained important throughout her childhood, and she spent many summers at Cloan in Perthshire, the Haldanes’ family home. Although her formal education was limited, she was steeped in an environment of scientific and creative enquiry which influenced her entire life.

In a life that spanned the twentieth century, Naomi Mitchison published over ninety books – novels, plays, short stories, poetry, essays, children’s fiction, travel writing, history and autobiography. As an active feminist and socialist, her writing was always politically engaged but she found that she had to promote her most radical ideals under the cover of historical or, later, science fiction. Her frank memoirs and the diary she kept for Mass Observation during the Second World War are important historical and social documents.

She wasn't afraid of controversy, her personal life drew as much attention as her work, from shocking contemporary convention in the 1920's by declaring her marriage an open one, she had continual fights with publishers who insisted on removing explicit references to sex from her books. Her novel, We Have Been Warned published in 1935, dealt with abortion and birth control was censored.

A rebel against social restrictions on women from her youth, she had a tendency to lash out physically at men to prove her point, once took a swing at the Labour Party leader Hugh Gaitskell and on another occasion whacked a dinner guest over the head because he asked the woman seated next to him to fetch his dinner from the kitchen, definitely a woman ahead of her time!

Married for 54 years and the mother of seven children, she was asked on her 90th birthday if she had any regrets. ''Yes,'' she said, ''all the men I never slept with. Imagine!''

She moved to a 300 acre farm at Carradale on the Mull of Kintyre in her late 30's, from there she "held court" to a influx of visitors, she made Mull of Kintyre a cool place way before Paul McCartney did!

There is so much more written about Naomi Mitchison, she preached that if intelligent people shouted long and loud enough at governments, she believed, truth would prevail. She travelled the world supporting injustice going to the US in the 1930s, because she was worried about sharecroppers; to Vienna in 1934 when the Nazi-era storm clouds gathered, and she smuggled letters from endangered people to Switzerland in her knickers. She ventured to the USSR hoping to find a socialist experiment that she could champion, sadly finding, amongst other things "a wasteful and repressive bureaucracy."

Naomi reached the ripe old age of 101.

Woman Alone by Naomi Mitchison

A woman comforts a man, staring Beyond his pillowed head, thinking Of other things, of needful cooking and sewing, Of flowers in a vase, of the idea of God. She is giving only her body. But the man is comforted, he does not know, Blinded by customary eyes, lips, breasts, tender hands, That woman’s mind is faithless It is not with him Nor with any man, for to her all men are children. She has been sucked by baby men, giving them her body As she now gives it. Suckling, she thought of other things, Staring out gently over small, breast-pillowed heads, thinking Of necessary things. Faithless. The woman alone.

[evilbuildingsblog]

Trellick Tower, Balfron Tower and Carradale House in London. Brutalist style social housing blocks (now Grade II listed)

[scavengedluxury]

Carradale House, London, 1988. Via here.

[veronicadelica]

Carradale House, May, 2020

Weronika Dudka

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