http://www.sandstonepress.com/blogs/ Stuart Campbell's Blog en webmaster@sandstonepress.com Copyright 2010 2010-07-28T07:23:51+00:00 http://www.sandstonepress.com/blogs/stuartcampbell/07/2010/smoke_signals/ http://www.sandstonepress.com/blogs/stuartcampbell/07/2010/smoke_signals/ Lothian buses are carrying advertisements for the two Edinburgh crematoria. Warriston or Mortonhall? It is a dilemma, they both look nice in the picture. On balance I think Warriston if only because I have a fond memory of Richard Holloway starting the service before my dead friend John had been brought in. I had misgivings about visiting Pashupata, the sacred Hindu cremation site in Katmandu, but had been intrigued by the smoke rising gently from the riverbank throughout the day. I wished neither to intrude in private grief nor be a vicarious guest at a human barbeque. The car… 2010-07-28T07:23:51+00:00 http://www.sandstonepress.com/blogs/stuartcampbell/07/2010/jhaipur_to_phulera_junction/ http://www.sandstonepress.com/blogs/stuartcampbell/07/2010/jhaipur_to_phulera_junction/ Jhairpur Station belongs to the insect realm not the human world. Initial bewilderment was compounded by a posse of youths pointing at my bald head and asking, ‘How old you?’ The reply ‘61’ elicited hoots of laughter and the sarcastic comment directed at my spouse, ‘Nice young man’. She probably agreed with the underlying sentiment. Presumably few men in India grow old enough for their hair to drop out. The booking hall presented the odd challenge of deciding if Phulera junction was at the end of broad gauge or standard track. Isambard Kingdom Brunel meets Thomas the Tank Engine. The… 2010-07-20T09:06:53+00:00 http://www.sandstonepress.com/blogs/stuartcampbell/06/2010/rls_football_traitor/ http://www.sandstonepress.com/blogs/stuartcampbell/06/2010/rls_football_traitor/ When researching RLS in Love I stumbled upon a remarkable fact; Stevenson was a football supporter from a very early age. In a letter to his father the 13 year old writes, ‘My dearest Papa and Mama, I am getting on very well. I hope papa’s cold is better and that mama is keeping well. Yesterday I was playing at football. I have never played at Cricket so Papa may comfort himself with that. I like football very much and it seems nicer than…’ Disconcertingly the letter breaks off at this point as a boy drops by looking for… 2010-06-26T10:37:44+00:00 http://www.sandstonepress.com/blogs/stuartcampbell/03/2010/the_letter/ http://www.sandstonepress.com/blogs/stuartcampbell/03/2010/the_letter/ I’m still not convinced that I can’t take them with me. When I first started collecting books, and Stevenson in particular, the decades seemed to stretch so far ahead that the ultimate destination of the library seemed irrelevant. That is no longer the case. I have tried to cultivate a Buddhist acceptance of the transitory nature of life and book collections; I acknowledge that attachment if unhelpful but I still don’t see why they shouldn’t accompany me on my last journey. Perhaps it would be possible to be walled up with them in an IKEA self assembly flat pack mausoleum… 2010-03-01T19:57:39+00:00 http://www.sandstonepress.com/blogs/stuartcampbell/02/2010/group_confession/ http://www.sandstonepress.com/blogs/stuartcampbell/02/2010/group_confession/ I’m not certain if a blogspot is the best place for a confession. In this secular age it may have to do as an alternative to kneeling in the dark before some old priest and intoning ‘Bless me father for I have sinned’… ‘On your own or with others my son?’.. ‘On my own father but there were others watching, and I have done it in several places.’ The first occasion was a book group in a posh part of Edinburgh. The sin was secretly enjoying being the centre of attention and being treated with a deference scarcely merited as… 2010-02-22T20:15:27+00:00 http://www.sandstonepress.com/blogs/stuartcampbell/09/2009/edinburgh_international_book_festival/ http://www.sandstonepress.com/blogs/stuartcampbell/09/2009/edinburgh_international_book_festival/ Now that the bulldozers have moved into Charlotte Square to scoop up the turf flattened and bleached by thousands of feet during the Edinburgh International Book Festival, it is time to reflect on the experience of being a featured author. It was heady stuff. Being issued with the Author’s Pass on blue lanyard guaranteeing entry to the writer’s Yurt. Self consciously removing it in case I was mistaken for a tosser when browsing in the bookshop. Just resisting the urge to proffer it instead of my pensioner’s pass on Lothian’s buses. Sadly not resisting he urge to wear it in… 2009-09-22T21:02:26+00:00 http://www.sandstonepress.com/blogs/stuartcampbell/09/2009/train_of_thought/ http://www.sandstonepress.com/blogs/stuartcampbell/09/2009/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… 2009-09-13T19:05:59+00:00 http://www.sandstonepress.com/blogs/stuartcampbell/08/2009/the_launch/ http://www.sandstonepress.com/blogs/stuartcampbell/08/2009/the_launch/ Initally it seemed like an early festival performance of Ienesco’s The Chairs as the frantic host (me) rushed to the door of Stevenson College’s stylish Music Box scanning the bleak Sighthill horizon looking for potential punters willing to give up an hour or so, drink some wine and buy a copy of RLS in Love at a vastly deflated price. The campus car park has been infested with rabbits who seem to breed if you so much as look at them. In my mind’s eye I saw row on row of spectacled rabbits sitting alert in the audirorium peering… 2009-08-16T11:14:12+00:00 http://www.sandstonepress.com/blogs/stuartcampbell/07/2009/blogmare/ http://www.sandstonepress.com/blogs/stuartcampbell/07/2009/blogmare/ I’ve been dreaming about the forthcoming launch of RLS in Love, but not as a pleasing fantasy in which the waves of rapturous applause part to let through the latest bright young thing to lighten up the literary firmament. Apart from anything else I’m sixty. Not even a twilight dream of fame coming late to one bathed in the aura of hard won wisdom. It was a nightmare. For years I have woken in cold sweats after the same recurrent dream in which I find myself in an examination hall for an exam I had forgotten about. Or turning over… 2009-07-01T21:36:57+00:00 http://www.sandstonepress.com/blogs/stuartcampbell/06/2009/tusitala_and_his_cave/ http://www.sandstonepress.com/blogs/stuartcampbell/06/2009/tusitala_and_his_cave/                             Tusitala and his Cave Tusitala, the story teller. The title bestowed on Stevenson by the Samoan islanders whose main appreciation of literature was as an oral tradition which celebrated the heroes and legends of the past. Who tells stories these days? As an English teacher I spent enough years trying to coax stories from generations of reluctant adolescents not to harbour illusions about the scale of the challenge. Media students juggle wordless story boards. Up and down the country old folk are pursued by young folk… 2009-06-22T22:02:34+00:00 http://www.sandstonepress.com/blogs/stuartcampbell/06/2009/hobnobbing_or_nobhobbing/ http://www.sandstonepress.com/blogs/stuartcampbell/06/2009/hobnobbing_or_nobhobbing/ Hobnobbing or nobhobbing Delighted to be invited to the launch of the Edinburgh International Book festival I turned up far too early and made several tours of Parliament Square before reluctantly joining the queue for what was obviously a fashion show for the under 25s being held in the unlikely environment of the Signet Library. Surprisingly I was in the right place judging by the recyclable goody bag containing a copy of Granta, a festival programme, 5 postcards and a miniature of Highland Park. Assuming that I had missed the sign for elderly and infirm participants I hid behind a… 2009-06-13T18:09:09+00:00 http://www.sandstonepress.com/blogs/stuartcampbell/06/2009/travels_to_my_aunt/ http://www.sandstonepress.com/blogs/stuartcampbell/06/2009/travels_to_my_aunt/ It was last Friday when the text came through, ‘RLS in Love at Printers’. I had just driven for over three hours to visit my ancient and frail aunt at a seaside resort in Lancashire. I felt a frisson of loss not unmixed with panic. I could make no more changes to the manuscript. No matter what thoughts came to me during the night I couldn’t tinker with it in the morning. Even if I remembered someone else who deserved a mention in the acknowledgements page, I couldn’t add their name. Another enemy for life. After the welcome respite afforded… 2009-06-04T21:39:27+00:00 http://www.sandstonepress.com/blogs/stuartcampbell/06/2009/welcome_to_my_new_blog_spot/ http://www.sandstonepress.com/blogs/stuartcampbell/06/2009/welcome_to_my_new_blog_spot/ My name is Stuart Campbell and my new book, RLS IN LOVE: the Love Poetry of Robert Louis Stevenson, is to be released by Sandstone Press on July 15th.  The files are with the printer now so, for me, after a year of intense work, and many years gestation before that, it is a time for patience. RLS has been a source of fascination to me, an inspiration, and a sort of quest that has taken me all over the world.  Among my collection of artefacts is a drawing by RLS of himself with his (soon to be) wife Fanny… 2009-06-03T11:27:06+00:00