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Isla Dewar - Author
Isla is a bestselling author. Born in Edinburgh and now living in Fife, she was once a Guide."Keep working at something, even if you don't want to do it, till you
master it."
A holiday in Lochinver when I was about nine. The people round the corner from us in Edinburgh had a house there and the two families went for a month's stay. Every morning the children had to walk to the local farm for milk, which we brought home in an old fashioned metal canister.
The house was three miles from the village and we'd walk in most days to buy sweets and whatever our mothers needed. Mostly, though we roamed. It was July, and hot.
We were free to explore the surrounding hills and play wild games - hide and seek in waist high bracken. We charged about being Redcoats and Highlanders. At nights, we'd all gather round the table, nine of us in all, to eat, play cards and laugh. We did a lot of that.
What I really loved, though, was the companionship. The closeness of walking for miles with my then best friend, Isobel, talking with hills and heather around us. And us lost in our imaginings.
Not really. It has had an influence on my reading, though. When I was young I loved reading Robert Louis Stevenson - Kidnapped and Treasure Island. Then, John Buchan. Now it's Muriel Spark, Ian Rankin, Louise Welsh and many others, too many to mention.
I'm a bit like Ellen in Women Talking Dirty. I dream too much, muse a lot and spend
too much time staring out of the window lost in private mental meanderings. I'm also like Madeline
in The Woman Who Painted Her Dreams.
It took me a long time to come round to doing what I really wanted to do in life. Why, I don't
know. What I do know is that the route to real happiness is finding out what you really want
to do in life, and working to achieve it. Failing is nothing. It hurts, but if you don't accept
it, it makes you stronger. Not trying at all makes you miserable.
I used to think ambition a terrible thing. I associated it with greed and the horribleness of
being self-seeking. But now, I know it isn't. Ambition is good. It makes us look at ourselves
and work at being what we want to be.
This has nothing to do with hurting others or stabbing colleagues in the back. It has everything
to do with getting the most out of yourself and your life.
When I look at things that are uplifting or challenging or that have, in some way changed the world - in medicine, music, art, literature, engineering, whatever - I know that ambition was behind them.
Someone worked to make the book, the song, the building, the cure, the painting - whatever, the best it could be. Not really for the praise or even the money, but for the satisfaction of knowing they have given their all to produce something worthwhile.
Not a review, nothing that has been written down publicly. It was a small comment made to me
at an event. A woman told me she had difficulty reading. She had only read one book in her life.
It was one of mine. She loved it so much she'd read it several times. I am immensely proud of
that.
I have now written two books for people who are called reluctant readers. Not that I believe
they are reluctant. Reading just takes them longer, and they have lively minds.
I don't know exactly how letters and words appear on the page to them, but what they see doesn't
make the same instant sense as it does to others. They certainly aren't stupid. They simply
have a different way of looking at the world. It has opened up to me a new perspective on how
to think and how to view things. Actually, it's quite exciting.
To be considerate to others. And to keep working at something, even if it was something I didn't want to do, till I mastered it.
I enjoyed being part of a group. I liked the companionship of teamwork. People putting their heads together to overcome a problem, and those same people having fun together when the work was done. I also remember being very proud of being in the Swallow Patrol, which I thought absolutely the best patrol with the most wonderful Patrol Leader.
Yes, I remember my uniform. I remember the pride I felt when I passed my Tenderfoot. I vividly
remember having to tie my scarf at the back of my neck in a reef knot, something I can still
do.
I was particularly proud of my belt, I had a whistle and a penknife attached to it. Of course,
everyone is a lot more circumspect about knives these days. Mine was rather blunt, and the blades
were hard to pull out. But I loved it. And I was always disappointed that I never used the thing
for removing stones from horses' hooves. Not once in my Guiding years, no matter how hard I
looked, did I ever meet a horse with a stone in its hoof.
Holly Golightly, probably. I'd like to ask her about the importance of being a free spirit and being true to who you are. Also, I'll take a liberty here, I'd like to meet Lizzy Bennet from Pride and Prejudice. I love her; she's so lively and quick witted. I'd love to ask Lizzy if, now she is married to Darcy, and likely to have children, is there any danger of her turning into her mother?
I have two. Actually I have a lot more than that. But, I'll say Annie Proulx because she writes
wonderfully about a landscape she loves, characters she enjoys and her language is wonderful.
And Carol Shields, now dead alas.
She wrote with beautiful perception of the ordinary. She made matter-of-fact daily doings seem
complex and important, and her observations of everyday comings and goings revealed tragedy,
joy, heartache, frustration and magic. She was a poet, novelist and a marvellous short story
writer. And one of my heroes.
This is so hard, but I think Katharine Hepburn. She was a one-off. An actress who bucked the
Hollywood system, and was true to herself. She dressed the way she wanted, she loved the man
she wanted, though the relationship was difficult at times. She loved sports, swimming, cycling,
tennis. She was at one time dubbed 'box office poison', but fought against it.
She bought the rights to the Philadelphia Story, got the film made, starred in it, insisted
on selecting her own leading man. She went on to become the most Oscar-winning and Oscar-nominated
actress ever. She was her own person.
Other people I'd like to hear from are Mae West (not at all what she appeared to be, she was
hard working, rebellious and witty), Dorothy Parker and Billie Holiday.
I'd not so much like a letter from these people as to be in email contact. I'd like regular
updates on their thinking and musing. Their crack, if you like. I love the crack, chatting in
one of my favourite things to do along with the aforementioned staring out of the window.
Any charity that helped women who were suffering after a stillbirth. Any charity that looked for a cure for arthritis, a painful and sometimes neglected disease. Any charity that helped children in Africa with AIDS. I don't think a million pounds will be enough. Can I have more?
To find out more about Scottish writing please see www.bbc.co.uk/scotland/arts/writingscotland
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