Hidden in the Heather

A Newsletter for Family and Friends                                                                        August 2007 Charlotte Alvoet Bleh Schulz/McIntosh (Dundee, Scotland and Phoenix,  Arizona)

Ev’ry road through life is a      long, long road,
Fill'd with joys and sorrows too,
As you journey on how your heart will yearn
For the things most dear to you.
With wealth and love 'tis so,
But onward we must go.

Keep right on to the end of the road,
Keep right on to the end,

Tho' the way be long, let your heart be strong,
Keep right on round the bend.
Tho' you're tired and weary still journey on,
Till you come to your happy abode,
Where all the love you've been dreaming of
Will be there at the end of the road.

With a big stout heart to a long steep hill,
We may get there with a smile,
With a good kind thought and an end in view,
We may cut short many a mile.
So let courage ev'ry day
Be your guiding star alway.

(Written by Sir Harry Lauder upon learning of the death of his son, British Front, World War I)

THE VOYEUR,  Intimate Voices (1984) ,  Tom Leonard, b. 1944

what’s your favourite word dearie
is it wee
I hope it’s wee
wee’s such a nice wee word
like a wee hairy dog
with two wee eyes
such a nice wee word to play with dearie
you can say it quickly
with a wee smile
and a wee glance to the side
or you can say it slowly dearie
with your mouth a wee bit open
and a wee sigh dearie
a wee sigh
put your wee head on my shoulder dearie
oh my
a great wee word
and Scottish
it makes you proud

  

 

 

 

 

Margaret Macdonald (1864-1933)    Margaret  Macdonald was born in England, but came to Glasgow with her family around 1890.  She met Charles Rennie Mackintosh while enrolled as a day student at the Glasgow School of Art.  She was considered to be one of the most gifted and successful women artists in Scotland at the turn of the twentieth centure.  Margaret produced art in a wide variety of mediums – watercolours and textiles being the most well known.  Margaret often used gesso in her work.  Gesso is thinner than paint with a slightly rough surface when applied.  The original gesso was a mixture of calcium in a thin base of animal glue.  Religious paintings and icons on wood were probably painted over gesso.  In 1900, Margaret married Charles Rennie Mackintosh.  During her marriage she collaborated with her architect, artist, and designer husband in the producing panels for interior designs and furniture.  Their work is most known for the designs associated with Miss Cranston’s Tea Rooms in Glasgow (Willow and Buchanan Street), the Hill House, and the House for an Art Lover.  Margaret’s own output declined due to ill health and she died in London in 1933, five years after her husband’s death.  There are many art critics who now believe that Charles Rennie Mackintosh benefited greatly from his wife’s collaboration and inspiration and there is a renewed interest in the works of Margaret Macdonald as an artist in her own right, and not only by her association with her husband, the Glasgow Four and the Glasgow School.

The Spurtle       Lewis Grassic Gibbon, whose real name was James Leslie Mitchell, is one of Scotland’s outstanding authors.  He was born 13 February 1901 and spent his childhood in a croft in Aberdeenshire and his writings reflect those years of his childhood and youth.  Here is what he wrote about high tea in Aberdeen in Scottish Scene, published in 1934.