Stuart Campbell's Blog
Train of thought
‘Just go into the shop and sign your books’. Not feeling in an egomaniacal frame of mind it seemed a difficult instruction, but I wasn’t going to argue with the man who got me into print. I supposed I could simper into the two branches of Waterstones that act as bookmarks at either end of Princes Street, sidle up to the Scottish poetry sections, sneak out my pen from deep recesses of my sodden raincoat, make the odd mark and scuttle guiltily away…
Blog interrupted by a bomb scare on the 8.35 from Waverley.
The evacuation was preceded by an altercation between guard and a sinisterly ordinary looking middle-aged woman in unflattering striped top. The guard shouted his last will and testament into his mobile phone, said a final farewell to both wife and mistress, crossed himself, promised to look at our tickets in another, and better, place before telling us to evacuate at Berwick Station. A very large red-faced drunk (an impressive achievement at 9.0 in the morning) shouted loudly blaming Gordon Brown. Presumably he had caught sight of a Taliban kalashnikov poking out of her inflammable crimpoline skirt. A tannoy request for a semtex sniffing spaniel went unheeded. A vanguard of formidable Women’s Institute members with the luggage racks barely hidden by straining blouses gathered ominously on the concourse. A phalanx of Lothian and Borders’ finest – and shortest- sauntered into the station. They listened patiently as the culprit presumably annunciated her own vision of Jihad. A personal vendetta against years of suffering blocked train toilets, ear phones that emit sufficient white noise to elicit confessions from her compatriots still languishing in Guantanamo Bay, and sundry grievances accumulated during a lifetime of loneliness. Back on the train an ominous quiet, peculiarly saintly expressions on the faces of other passengers, the odd angel feather wafting through the carriage, harp music percolating through the PA system…
Blog resumed south of Berwick
I heard myself saying ‘I’ve come to sign your stock’ ‘All of it sir?’ came the reply from a 12 year old shop assistant. ‘Who are you going to be today, Ian Rankin, JK Rowling?’ It occurred to me in that instant that I could do a very good JKR forgery based on endless scrutiny of the message she wrote on my son’s copy of the Prisoner of Azkaban when he was at primary school ‘To Sandy, I am glad you are still alive.’ A disturbing message in its own way. She explained she had dreamed the night before about a first world war ace called Sandy who was shot down in flames…’No I’m Stuart Campbell, author of RLS in Love ‘I was lead to a small clump of books hiding on a bottom shelf where I was left to annotate at will. There were temptations in the act. ‘This book is stolen’ ‘If you would like an elicit liaison with the author please phone…’No, not a good plan. I did though glance round hoping that customers would see me perpetuating an immodest act and assume that I was famous.
Back out into the pishing rain, it was the Festival after all. Knots of perturbed Japanese assuming they had stumbled into an avant-garde recreation of the blitz, rather than the Edinburgh tram works. Alternatively the worthy burghers had resorted to open cast mining in their main thoroughfare to stave off the recession. My thoughts had an unwanted echo in the ugly male voice behind me; ‘Fucking Scots, take all England’s money and can’t even build a transport system.’ Further down the street was possible evidence of his racist anger on the damaged face of the kilted mannequin guarding a kitsch souvenir shop. The missing nose was more likely the legacy of a drink and paranoia fuelled encounter with local youths taking exception to the way the dummy had looked at them. And then the surreal highlight of the entire international jamboree, a street performer beseeching passers by to sponsor his unique trick of standing upside down in a bucket of water. Given that hardly anyone could breathe given the ferocity of the rain it seemed a redundant offer.
Into the second Waterstones, and growing gallus. I was asked to peel off the ‘signed by the author’ labels and stick them on myself. I stole some extra labels childishly seduced by the thought of attaching them on Bibles in the theological department.
Two days later when browsing on ABE books, the site for antiquarian books, I found a dealer in Lancashire offering a copy of RLS in Love for £30. You can buy a much cheaper copy from Sandstone Press. And I will sign it for free.