kidmapper

windmills, wallace and the sneak into stirling

This is the part of the Kidnapped Trail that I thought might be best tackled on a bike (at Nick's suggestion). How wrong I was.

With the wind farm of Uam Var shadowing us much of the way, we followed the edges of fields, dodged across dual carriageways, found little-known footbridges and generally kept to the margins. Indeed we crept up on the Wallace Monument and Stirling Bridge without hardly anyone seeing us - just as David & Alan might have done 250 years or so earlier.

The *difference* of course is that the Wallace Monument wasn't there in their day. But my what an impressive and important structure it is! It leaves no doubt that you have stepped out of Rob Roy country and into William Wallace land (from Neeson to Gibson, eh, Brendon?).

Yet again, Stevenson has deliberately walked us into an important landscape. And in the book he chooses to get his characters there on an important date: the 23rd August - the day Wallace was 'martyred'. I suspect this mission to be in Stirling on the 23rd is what confuses Stevenson's timeline in this section of the book whereby he then 'loses' a day between here and getting to South Queensferry (Mr Rankeillor claims it's the 24th when David turns up in Chapter 27 but logically it should be the 25th.)

It's interesting to note too that Stevenson would have passed through his own adolescence watching the Memorial being built. And if that wasn't enough, it was the Stevenson family business that built the New Stirling Bridge just yards away from where David & Alan keep watch on the little old lady crossing the Old Bridge.

This isn't just a history lesson then, it's also a man looking back and re-casting and re-imagining scenes from his own childhood. This mix of the personal, the public and the political is, I think, one of the things that makes Kidnapped such a great book.

READING IN THE WILD 20: "if I cannae beg, borrow, nor yet steal a boat, I'll make one"

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maps and mashups

We have only a couple of sentences in the book to use as our reference point for today. A warm and comfortable hillside named Uam Var is mentioned as our destination, but we cannot find anything of that name on the map.

Luckily Andy spent quite a lot of last night in a whisky bar in Strathyre and was advised by the locals that Var could also be spelt Mhor in Gaelic (indeed we had lunch in the Mhor Fish shop in Callander today).

A close look at the OS map reveals that the south-west spur of the local hill Uamh Bheag is named Uamh Mhor, a possible approximation to Uam Var.

If any more proof that maps are wonderful and that geolocation can lead to magical things, let me point you no further than Jo Flintham's mashup of my Kidnapped Trail media. Because I have bothered to geolocate all my Youtube video. all my Flickr pics, all my Audioboos etc., it's possible for Jo to map all of this stuff out.

I'll let Jo explain what he's up to, except to say: isn't it amazing what can happen if we all allow each other to play around in this way?

Jo: "For anyone interested in technical stuff: php periodically talks to the APIs of YouTube, Flickr and AudioBoo to aggregate any geo-tagged content kidmapper creates; the webpage loads up a Gmap, and retrieves a RSS-like feed of all the content, and some Javascript classes add each item to the map, and display the media in their respective place-holders."

READING IN THE WILD 19: "the happiest ten hours of sleep in a fine, breathing sunshine and on bone-dry ground"

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THE PODCAST         THE TEXT 
          

the 'posh English w***er' is back

After a break of nearly a month, I return as the kidmapper to find several kind comments about my beard, sadly gone now, (thank you especially Kate and scswampman). Also a puzzling reference to Kevin McCloud from bushofgoats, and the very first vitriolic but perhaps understandable response from a Scot (now withdrawn by rangers11000) reacting to the idea of a posh English w***er like me pontificating about Scottish history and the fate of Scottish soldiers.

I have always felt uneasy about my right to pick up this book, take to the road and talk about Scottishness in public. What do you think? Is it OK for softy southerners to come up here and make fools of themselves if they want to?

I understand I may have lost the attention of many of you by taking to my bed for so long (as David does), but we now only have four days left together on the Kidnapped Trail, so it's your last chance to engage with this wonderful book, this wonderful landscape, and talk to me about the different ways you might like to take a book for a walk.

By the way I have company! Andy Grumbridge is going to walk the entire trail with me from Balquhidder to Queensferry. He hasn't actually read 'Kidnapped' (except as a graphic novel) and seems quite focussed on where his next meal is coming from. But the conversation is flowing and our spirits are high.
 
In particular, we talk quite a lot about other books from our youth which we might want to press into our childrens' hands, or indeed map out. If you have any ideas on that score, get in touch.

READING IN THE WILD 18: "It's a chief principle in military affairs," said he, "to go where ye are least expected"

Fourth Guest Reader: Andy Grumbridge

THE VIDEO

THE PODCAST         THE TEXT