GH950520-000000 GH950520-000000 950520 Tory peer in Wiggin row is accused by Ofgas IAIN WILSON, CHIEF REPORTER 3 1 978305100 EXCLUSIVE THE Scottish Tory peer and holiday park owner named in the Gas Bill ''cash-for-amendments'' scandal has been accused of an involvement in a bogus application for licence forms in connection with piped supplies to caravans. The application was made in the name of Mr H Grimsby-Smith of Wandsworth, London, according to the gas industry's regulatory body Ofgas. Lord Cochrane of Cults was told in a letter from the watchdog's then director general, Mr James McKinnon, that such an action was ''irresponsible, at the very best''. Earlier this week, Lord Cochrane, owner of Craigtoun Meadows Holiday Park in St Andrews, was embroiled in the cash-for-amendments furore surrounding ex-Tory Minister Sir Jerry Wiggin. Sir Jerry, a paid adviser to the British Holiday and Home Parks Association, faces suspension from the Commons. He tabled an amendment to the Gas Bill which would promote BHHPA's interests by cutting red tape on gas supplies under the name of MP Sebastian Coe -- without Mr Coe's knowledge or permission. It is now alleged that Lord Cochrane -- who merely advised the BHHPA on drafting the amendment which went to Sir Jerry -- has also used a third party to promote personal interests. For years he has championed efforts to remove bureaucracy in the supply of gas to holiday homes. In 1993, he raised a private member's Bill in the Lords to exempt liquid propane gas suppliers such as caravan park owners from the bureaucracy and regulation costs. The alleged bogus application to Ofgas was made in 1991 when Lord Cochrane, facing tough regulations at his holiday park, was involved in a long-running battle with Ofgas over his application for supplies. The Herald can reveal that, in a letter to Lord Cochrane that year, Mr McKinnon told him that, in the course of reviewing his case, he had established that an application in the name of Mr H Grimsby-Smith of Wandsworth, London, was also made. He wrote: ''As far as I can determine, that was a bogus application which we had followed up. I can only say that I regard such an application as irresponsible, at the very best.'' It would appear that -- in his mission to cut red tape -- Lord Cochrane had wanted to expose shortcomings within Ofgas, the Office of Gas Supply, including charges to customers and the timescales involved in processing applications. Ofgas was established in 1986 and legislation drafted which subjected LPG suppliers to the same regulations as mains gas suppliers. According to sources, Lord Cochrane, 68, has also used ''Grimsby-Smith'' to obtain information from rivals in the holiday park industry, including the receipt of brochures and prices. Lord Cochrane, who lives near Cupar, said yesterday that the application to Ofgas was to test its ''extremely unsatisfactory procedures''. He stressed that the application had not been made by him. However, Lord Cochrane's lawyers later confirmed he had asked a third party to apply for forms from Ofgas. The explanation for doing so was that Lord Cochrane was ''genuinely interested in what the administrative follow-up procedures of Ofgas were on applications for such forms''. The statement concluded that there was some concern at the time that any such application was treated as a formal application and followed up accordingly. Lord Cochrane insisted: ''My actions were justified . . . it was a test of routine Ofgas procedures that were extremely unsatisfactory. I did not make the application. Why should I tell you who did?'' He said there was a Grimsby-Smith, but would not elaborate. At Craigtoun Meadows yesterday, no-one had heard such a name. In his letter, Mr McKinnon -- clearly annoyed at Ofgas spending time and money on a bogus application -- also refers to a dispute over its charge for the Section 8 application sought by Craigtoun Meadows Ltd, chaired by Lord Cochrane. Ofgas had originally quoted #288.75 for the licence, but on considering the work expended on the application -- including the legal, safety and security regulations -- the final bill came to just under #400. Mr McKinnon wrote that the bill represented ''exceptional value for money.'' He added that, in the interests of Lord Cochrane's customers, the matter would be drawn to a close and the charge of #288.75p would stand, despite the much higher actual costs laid out in the case. The letter concluded with the allegation that Mr McKinnon had determined, as far as he could, that the application made in the name of Mr H Grimsby-Smith was bogus. An Ofgas spokesman said yesterday that it had started work on the basis of a ''Grimsby-Smith'' telephone call requesting an information pack and licence application forms. GH950520-000001 GH950520-000001 950520 Fishermen in aid plea 3 9 978305101 THE fishing fleet in the East Neuk of Fife is facing a crisis and is appealing for Government finance for a major modernisation programme. North-East Fife MP Mr Menzies Campbell said yesterday that, in private talks with him, the East Fife skippers had voiced ''considerable anxiety'' about the ageing fleet. ''The fishermen expressed their concern over the future of the smaller boats in the Scottish fleet, which are so important to the economy of particular communities such as Pittenweem,'' Mr Campbell said. The Pittenweem fleet was in urgent need of modernisation. In an appeal for financial assistance to Scottish Secretary Ian Lang, Mr Campbell said: ''Many of the vessels are approximately 20 years old. The age of a vessel has considerable implications for its safety, quite apart from the need to maintain an efficient and up-to-date fleet.'' Mr Campbell has made it clear that the current economic conditions in the community would not allow investment to modernise the fleet, and Government intervention now was required. He added: ''In North-East Fife, the fishing industry is a vital part of the local economy. Unless the fleet is modernised, it will suffer a slow but inevitable rundown.'' He called on the Scottish Secretary to make clear the Government's policy regarding the maintenance of the village-based fishing industry and what steps are being taken to ensure it continues. GH950520-000002 GH950520-000002 950520 Wembley win for Reds fan 3 3 978305102 A YOUNG Manchester United fan from the Black Isle in Ross-shire will be at Wembley today after winning an all-expenses paid trip to the FA Cup final. Rachel MacSween, 14, entered a contest to write a report on a televised match for a football magazine. She said yesterday: ''A friend at school, who got the magazine a day before me, told me I had won. I couldn't believe it.'' Rachel is being accompanied to Wembley by her father, Calum, the deputy rector at Fortrose Academy. She has her reporter's notebook at the ready -- part of her prize is to write her own match report of the United and Everton match for Shoot magazine. ''I started being interest in Manchester United about two years ago,'' explained Rachel. ''The attraction was Ryan Giggs and Paul Ince, but then I realised what a great team they are and now I support them all. ''I've got tickets for Manchester United's match against East Fife in August, but this is the first time I'll have seen them play live.'' GH950520-000003 GH950520-000003 950520 The plant that looks like a bird 3 11 FEATURE SCOTLANDS HOMES GARDENS ILLUS 978305103 THEY'RE called Birds of Paradise. Otherwise a tongue-twisting strelitzia reginae. And they're gorgeous, evergreen perennials that make really delightful house plants, with those unique flower heads for all the world like a bird's head. Very common in their native South Africa, they're not quite so everyday in this part of the world. It's possible to grow them from seed, the experts say, but you need a fair bit of patience for that. It can take up to six months for germination, and possibly two years for a flower to appear. Not every garden centre stocks the seeds -- seven cost #2.29 -- but the Ipswich-based Thompson & Morgan supply them. They may need potting on every other year, when shoots can be be taken for propagating in John Innes No 3 potting compost. ''The real secret is to keep the winter temperature around 55deg F and the best place would be a conservatory,'' says Andrew Duncan of Duncan's of Milngavie. ''They're striking plants, and it so happens we have just sold one we had been looking after at the centre for a year or two. ''This one was four years old, in a large container, standing about three feet high. It went for well over #100. A beautiful plant.'' GH950520-000004 GH950520-000004 950520 Keep on tucking-in IAN WALLS 3 11 FEATURE SCOTLANDS HOMES GARDENS 978305104 IT'S nip-and-tuck time in the garden. Attending to fiddly jobs requires patience. Top priority is support for plants like herbaceous perennials. If not supported, they can flop and never be the same again. Various methods are suitable. Strong twigs can be pushed into the ground. Use a crowbar to make the hole. I prefer stout stakes, in the middle of clumps, and loop strong green twine round the plants. It avoids that sack-of-potatoes look. Sweet peas need support, too, and you have to decide whether to grow them as single cordons on canes, or as a hedge when strings or netting will suit. In the vegetable garden, normal peas need support too. If they don't get it, they flop and the pods rot. I use wide mesh sheet netting and stakes. Then there are climbing or rambler roses. Are they against a fence or a wall? In the latter case, wall nails are needed. Alternatively, trellis can be put up to avoid damage. Some shrubs, such as Russian vine and clematis montana, support themselves, twining round rustic fences. But there may come a time when restriction is needed. If you fed your lawn in mid-April, it could need light feeding again, particularly if it has developed a layer of thatch over the years. Skimping regular mowing can do irreparable harm. So can over-close cutting. There is also pinching and supporting to do in the greenhouse. Tomatoes are growing lustily. They need regular twisting round string or tying to canes. Side-shoots have to be removed, unless you prefer to grow on two or three stems -- a perfectly practical arrangement. Remember, you will need more water and feeding for the extra stems and fruit. Spring bedding displays are fading. Decide whether you will save bulbs for next year. If so, let them die back naturally in a dry spot, with plenty of air. GH950520-000005 GH950520-000005 950520 Cutting comments IAN WALLS 3 11 FEATURE SCOTLANDS HOMES GARDENS ILLUS 978305105 THE irony about some shrubs is that, when you first plant them, you want them to grow quickly -- then they just keep growing till they become a big problem. They can overhang the lawn, obstruct access, or generally make a nuisance of themselves. So what do you do about it? You obviously don't want to be pruning drastically when a shrub will flower in the next month or so. That would deprive you of the colour it was planted to provide. Nor do you wish to be too harsh with a shrub that has just flowered, and destroy the new wood where flowering will take place next year. The logical answer is moderation rather than drastic cutting back. Many vigorous shrubs do not seem in the least deterred by harsh cutting. Things like flowering currants, many berberis, Portuguese laurel, and Philadelphus fall into this category. Cytisus or broom, and the popular azaleas, come into the moderate pruning category -- after flowering, of course. You can't suppress enthusiasm for growth. Some shrubs thrive on being cut back hard in the autumn or early spring. They break away with new growth. I can think of hardy fuchsias in this respect, along with Cornus alba varieties. The green-leaved varieties can be cut to within a few inches of the ground, any time in early spring, every few years. Pruning back a third of the variegated types gives the best compromise between good leaf cover and brightly coloured stems. There are lots of shrubs which perform well with little or no regular pruning. Romping away at times does them no harm at all. If you are really concerned, take time to refer to a good reference work or ask at a centre where they have an advice desk. GH950520-000006 GH950520-000006 950520 Beware of the weevil 3 11 FEATURE SCOTLANDS HOMES GARDENS 978305106 * ONE of the most invasive of garden pests, and possibly the most difficult to control, is black vine weevil -- Otiorhynchus sulcatus -- which can be found in gardens, greenhouses and even indoors throughout Britain. Gardeners are being warned of accelerated development of the weevil larva -- which means that pupation and emergence of adults may be earlier than normal -- and have been turning to biological control, as other methods have not been successful in preventing population growth. The adult is a small black beetle-like insect, seldom seen because it is nocturnal and hides among pots and stones during the day. Its presence is shown by irregular holes in leaves and shrubs. It attacks young shoots, especially camellias and rhododendrons. Male weevils can't fly but will get into glasshouses and neighbouring gardens. The female has potential for a serious infestation of the main enemy, the larva, as a single adult female can lay up to 1000 eggs in soil or potting compost. The larva is is white and up to 8mm long. Once hatched, it will feed over three months before pupating, and the damage caused is widespread. It will attack both house and greenhouse plants. Most susceptible are fuchsias, primulas, begonias and cyclamen. The use of nematodes as biological control has been possible for several years. They are released into the soil, increasing the indigenous population, and search out host larva on which to feed. The nematodes invade the larva and inject a bacterium which kills the larva by blood poisoning. Nematodes develop and reproduce new generations. The main controlling factor is soil temperature. Nematodes are inactive below 10deg C and need 14deg C before they start searching out the larva. Pan Britannic Industries launched the Biosafe system in 1994 and it was a great success. There is now have a new formulation, WDG, which is said to offer considerable advantages. Today's tips * THE intrusion of coarse grass into your lawn is bothersome. It's so prostrate the mower skips over them, so if you have a cylinder mower, try the wire rake attachment to bring the grass upright for close-cutting. * Be wary of turfing now, unless you're prepared to water regularly until new turf is established. If going ahead, fork the laying ground and put on a dressing of coarse sand. But early autumn is a better time. * PLASTIC lemonade bottles, with bottoms cut off, make excellent mini-cloches for a variety of plants. They should be pushed well into the ground to stop them blowing away. Dut don't forget to leave the cap off as ventilation. GH950520-000007 GH950520-000007 950520 New cuisine adds more heat to the kitchen ANNA BURNSIDE 3 10 PROFILE WEEKENDER ILLUS 978305107 KITCHENS reveal a lot about their cooks. Gerry Goldwyre's, in a converted outhouse, is a scaled-down version of the professional chef's, with the overhead rack of pans and ladles, giant ice-cream machine, industrial oven, and ferocious gas rings. A net of Sainsbury's lemons spills on the counter, the coriander plant has lost most of its leaves. The famous blow torch, which so impressed the Masterchef judges, is there too. The dishes from last night's demonstration are still dirty. He runs hot water over them and makes a powerful cup of Nescafe Blend 37. Goldwyre won television's coveted foodie award in 1994. Now, after a year of planning and learning, he has a scheme of his own. Collaborating with Goan cook Abha Rodriguez, he has created an east-meets-west cuisine, which, he reckons, can't fail. With typical serendipity, he bumped into Rodriguez in a restaurant. Untypically, for someone so media-friendly, he hasn't given his new baby a catchy name. ''I always had fantastic interest in food from the Indian sub-continent, the Far and Middle East, India. Curry is perceived by most people as something you have after nine pints, you go for a vindaloo with extra chillies on the way home. I know it's better than that, so about six months ago I set about analysing that kind of food. How could we use it in a classic way, mixing a combination of classic cooking styles with the Indian sub-continent's spices. We've come up with some real little gems.'' He acquired his hot tooth when he was working as an architect in the Middle East and eating in the newspaper-for-tablecloth joints frequented by Indian labourers. ''But it never ever looked good, that was the only drawback. Even with colour and herbs on the top it never ever looked attractive. ''For years, I've tortured myself, wondering how I can make it look better. I came up with this idea of using the spices and herbs almost as infusions, as starters for sauces. Now if I was making a vegetable stock, or beurre blanc, I'd add some pastes that I've made up, so it would get the flavours but not be totally overpowering.'' These pungent potions, the spicy hearts of his east-meets-west dishes, live in large coffee jars. Unlabelled, they don't have names, just working descriptions: ''This is my spicy tapenade'', ''Try this chilli jam''. As his Masterchef appearances illustrated, Goldwyre is a ''really risky, shoot from the hip, have a go'' kind of cook. Give him a carrier bag of goodies, a few pans and a blow torch and he'll make dinner. He develops his recipes in the same way. In his ideal kitchen, which he designed himself, with a fridge full of goodies and a shelf of booze and oils, he makes it up as he goes along. ''I was doing puris in here with Abha and I thought, I could do something with this, so I pulled out all my bits, mixed some feta cheese, sun-dried tomato and coriander, put them inside. Then I'd maybe sprinkle some cumin, some coriander over the top.'' Other ideas are at different stages of gestation. ''Pasta, with spices in the dough. That's something I want to do next. I made some bread last week, with fresh coriander. It was sensational. Now I want to use it as polenta, with a salad. See those little creme brulees? I'm going to flavour them with a teabag full of cardamoms.'' Television has made all this possible. The publicity that followed his Masterchef victory, watched by 12 million, has allowed him to add cooking to architecture and watercolour painting as his money-spinning occupations. Having seen how the media works, he's convinced that his new venture is perfect for the cameras. ''There are so many angles: the combination of vegetarian Asian female and a carnivorous white male. I can just see it, I would make a classic European dish, Abha would make a classic Indian dish, so you'd have both ends of the spectrum, and then we'd put it together and see what came out.'' Until the men with the cheque books find their way to Dalkeith, Goldwyre and Rodriguez plan to teach small courses for keen dinner party cooks. With his passion for good ingredients, unconventional techniques, taste for Indian spices, added to all the tips he's gleaned from professional chefs, Goldwyre reckons he has plenty of material. ''The idea is to have about a dozen in here, so they can actually feel the heat. To me that really is so important. And there will be constant tasting. I've been at food demos before and it's so frustrating, you think what did they put into that, what kind of wine vinegar was it, how strong, was it sweet . . . until you actually taste these things you just can't tell.'' He insists on using Scottish produce, which he believes is the best in the world, but does his shopping in the supermarket. ''I hate this attitude that you can only make a dish with a particular ingredient from a little shop just outside Worcester.'' Apart from the blow torch -- for caramelising tarte tatin, tanning peely-wally sponges, puffing up omelettes -- he favours readily available equipment. ''I'm not a professional restaurateur, that takes a whole different set of skills but I now know a lot about cooking. What I want to do is be able to pass on what I've learned -- techniques, how to work out flavours, combinations of flavours, preparation, certain ways to pull it all together so that when you're having a dinner party, you don't have what I call blotchy-neck syndrome. ''No one wants to prepare anything when they've got their glad rags on, you've got to know how to prepare it in advance. If you don't, you finish up with soup, casserole, a pudding that's been sitting around for 10 hours, never something that's fast, flowing, quick, zappy, straight out of the pan. I'm going to teach people to put that on the table without getting sweaty palms''. * Gerry Goldwyre and Abha Rodriguez's classes will start later this year. For details contact 0131-660 4865. GH950520-000008 GH950520-000008 950520 Make a splash with a pond PHILIP STERLING 3 10 Advertising Feature SCOTLANDS HOMES GARDENS ILLUS 978305108 NOTHING can match the delights of a water feature in your garden. The glint of a fish, the gurgle and splash of a fountain, the hordes of aquatic plants to place in and around the pool -- all combine to create an invigorating, yet calming, corner in your garden which is impossible to emulate. Traditionally, however, ponds have been time-consuming and costly to build, difficult to maintain, and prone to cracks and leaks. Until now, that is. Preformed polythene pools are the latest addition to the constantly-growing list of accessories available from your garden centre. Their main advantage are ease of installation, strength, and resistance to puncture. At around (40-60cm) deep, the best pools provide enough water to protect fish from excessive heat or frost. A good pond should also feature planting shelves about 20cms beneath the surface. These allow marginal plants to blend into the water's edge. Sizes and shapes are almost endless with a wide array of waterfalls, rock cascades, falls, and fountains to personalise your own creation. So how does the budding water gardener go about putting in a pond? Actually, it's surprisingly simple, providing care is taken and it is done in one or two vital stages. Once a pool shape has been chosen and positioned in the garden, dig a hole slighty bigger than, but following the pond outline. The base of the hole must be covered with at least 5cm of sand to protect the pool bottom from stones and help level the pool. Now place the pond in the hole ensuring the top is kept completely level -- this is vital to keep your pool full. The space between the pool and the hole must now be filled with soil, which should be carefully compacted. Fill the pool with water at the same time, keeping the water level and soil level the same so that the weight of the water stops the pool from moving as the soil is pushed down. Make sure the plant shelves are also well supported. It's important to check that the top stays absolutely level during installation. With the pool in and supported, it's best to leave things for around a week to allow the soil to settle before decorating the edges, or thinking about a fountain or waterfall -- for which you will need a submersible pump. Fortunately, they are easy to install and simple to operate. Coming in a wide range of sizes to suit every garden pond, the pump is sited above the bottom of the pond on bricks or other support. This ensures silt cannot clog the strainer. Next, connect the pump to a suitably earthed mains supply. Submersible pumps must be wired with a waterproof cable connector or junction box, or permanently connected to the fixed wiring of the house mains system. An earth leakage circuit breaker must be used. When laying the cable from the pond to the house, take care to hide the flex in the stones and growth around the pool's edge. The last step is to connect the pump to the fountain, cascade, or waterfall. Use as short a length of hose as possible -- this helps to reduce friction within the hose and maximise the jet of water. Garden centre experts will advise on the appropriate diameter of hose for size of pump. Wildlife prefer pooled effort THE choice of one, two, or three-stage fountains, with or without ornamental features such as a frog, dolphin, or kingfisher, to add the finishing touch is staggering. You might plump for a cascade, a waterfall, or you may prefer the bell fountains where the water is forced into a circular or bell-shaped jet. Whatever you choose, the attraction is immediate but your pump and fountain will also perform a second, environmentally-friendly function. It circulates and aerates the water increasing oxygen levels, which will benefit plants, fish, and other wildlife attracted to the pond. Fish will play in the splashing water because the extra oxygen increases their activity, especially on a hot summer's day when oxygen levels can drop sharply. Your pool and fountain now up and running, all that remains is to fill and surround it with the fish and flowers of your choice. The choice is as wide as the different shapes and hues on the garden plants and shrubs -- with everything from broad-leaved water lilies, to truly aquatic plants growing under the water -- good oxygenators, and floating plants drifting on the surface. Placing the marginal and bottom growing varieties in a planting crate is a useful tip because it stops soil muddying the pond. It also allows the owner to move them and control growth without the problem of digging under the water. Specialist loamy soils and composts are available from garden centres, and covering them with stones keeps the growing package in place. For good flowering during the summer or when re-planting, fertilise once a year. It's a whole new world of gardening, and whether you want a small decorative pond, or a stately fountain, the addition of the water of life will never fail to provide a growing interest. GH950520-000009 GH950520-000009 950520 Honesty is what this potter's about JENNY CARTER 3 7 FEATURE SCOTLANDS HOMES GARDENS ILLUS 978305109 LOVERS of hand-thrown ceramics with a homely, honest feel will be attracted to the plain, serviceable work of Robert Sanderson with its rich dark brown glazes.. Edinburgh-born Robert studied ceramics in England and spent some time in Australia, New Zealand, and Tanzania -- but it was a love of his native land and the lifestyle he could enjoy here that drew him back. Now well established at his Perthshire base, he has been enjoying the luxury of a #10,000 bursary from the Scottish Arts Council to enable him to develop new directions for his wood-fired pottery. Robert's work has a timeless appeal. It is domestic pottery and very much meant to be used, not just admired from afar, and he likes the idea of utility and frequent handling. ''It's important to me that people enjoy my work,'' he says. There is nothing pretentious about it. The plain stoneware with its rich dark brown glazes and strong, satisfying shapes is more influenced by Japanese culture. Clay bodies from Devon and Dorset are mixed with sand to a sloppy soup-like consistency, then wrapped and allowed to mature for a year while drying slowly. Robert uses a kick-wheel for his throwing, a technique that allows him maximum spontaneity. Like most creative people he feels very close to the objects he creates and knows a good pot as soon as he has thrown it. For this reason as much as any he prefers his work to be largely undecorated. ''My pots are very quiet,'' he says. ''But I like to think they make people smile. I think decoration detracts from the shape of the pot.'' All of Robert Sanderson's work is wood-fired -- once only -- in his home-made kiln. Wood-firing is a complex and lengthy process that demands careful stacking, not simply to reduce breakage but to maximise the effect of the passage of the flame through the kiln. Many pieces are glazed only on the inside, the effect on the outside being the result of the light and shadow of the flame. ''The position of a pot in the kiln is crucial,'' explains Robert. ''It's like doing a three-dimensional jigsaw. The shape of the piece and what it is standing beside is as important as the throwing of the piece.'' It's a big investment in time and effort. Firing takes from 24 to 27 hours and the temperature rises to 1300[DEG]C, using around one-and-a-half tons of wood. During firing, the kiln requires constant attention. ''I have learned to understand flame as a creative medium,'' says Robert. ''I have discovered that flame and heat have a controllable effect on clay. Wood ash, given time and a high temperature, melts to give a smooth, glassy surface. That fascinates me.'' A keen student of his subject, Robert has presented papers at a number of international conferences on ceramics and has also written articles jointly with his wife, Coll Minogue, also a potter. His work has been exhibited in galleries around the world and he has been invited to the Chelsea Crafts Fair and Art in Action in Oxford. You will also find him from time to time at craft fairs around Scotland. If you would like to visit him at his workshop, please phone ahead. Robert sells everything from individual items to a complete dinner service. Being effectively vitrified by the firing, they can withstand the acidic soaps used in dishwashers and may be used with impunity in oven, freezer, or microwave. You should not take them straight from the freezer to the oven, however. Prices range from #8 for a small mug to #12 for a bread plate and #18 for a dinner plate. A large teapot costs #55 but a five-inch cereal bowl costs only #9. * For a full list or further details, contact Robert Sanderson at Cowden Cottage, Abercairney, Crieff, Perthshire PH7 3QZ, tel 0764 683273. GH950520-000010 GH950520-000010 950520 Making a pastime out of past times GERALDINE ABRAHAMS 3 7 FEATURE SCOTLAND HOMES GARDENS ILLUS 978305110 Geraldine Abrahams meets an avid era-collector. COLLECTING furniture and ornaments from different eras has become a popular pastime in recent years, not least because it is the kind of hobby in which everyone can participate. TV programmes like The Antiques Road Show enjoy top ratings while a nostalgic mood sweeps the country creating a yearning for things of the past. But Gary Little was in there before most of us. He has been gathering what he calls ''simple, stylish design'' from the 1930s and 1950s for the past seven or eight years. Gary's ''private collection' includes treasured art deco hand-painted jugs and vases designed in the 1930s by Charlotte Rhead, a designer who is growing in popularity although, as yet, she has not reached the renown of Clarice Cliff. ''I love the bright colours in the vases,'' says Gary. ''They have a style and a quality you don't get now.'' He also has some small tables from the 1930s, but his pieces de resistance must be the exquisite French lamps from the latter part of that period which were among the first items he bought. They generally feature reclining ladies holding up large, circular light panels. ''I think they give a real feeling for the period in which they were designed,'' he says. ''They reflect a time when everything was stylised and people had a better life. They make you think of a time when Britain appeared to be carefree, even if it wasn't.'' Gary's love for that time has not precluded collecting from other eras. Fascinated by the American influences of the early 1950s, he has various knick-knacks from then, including porthole-shaped bevelled mirrors which line the bathroom walls. He is not a professional collector. He buys things because he likes them and suggests that in the 1990s finding what you are looking for is becoming increasingly difficult. ''It's getting harder to collect now because in the eighties a lot of people were getting into antique-collecting,'' he says. ''That pushed prices up and has made things harder to get. At the same time, from watching television programmes like the Road Show, people think -- wrongly -- that anything old must be valuable.'' He considers that there is no point in collecting seriously today unless you have a source. For the more casual collector, he suggests it is best to go with what you like. With a wider variety, it is necessary to have much more knowledge. The obvious sources are second-hand shops where it is still possible to have lucky finds and, for quality, the auction houses when they are featuring specialist periods. Despite his advice to focus on a particular style or period, Gary has been unable to resist some artefacts from other times, like the mother of pearl table dating from 1880, the vases designed in 1910 and 1920, and the 90-year-old wooden ventriloquist's dummy which took him five years to find. Pride of place is taken by a 1971 Norton motorbike, in pristine condition, which recently took him to Spain without mishap. ''Collecting is a great hobby and it doesn't have to take a lot of of time,'' he says. ''If you have an interest, you make the time.'' GH950520-000011 GH950520-000011 950520 Mistress of the tactile textile KAY JOHNSON 3 6 FEATURE SCOTLANDS HOMES GARDENS ILLUS 978305111 The creations of Jilli Blackwood (left) are now more accessible, notes Kay Johnson. THE luxurious layered and embroidered silk cushions made by Jilli Blackwood, one of Glasgow School of Art's most innovative textile graduates, have in a sense finally come home. After years of exhibiting in such prestige venues as the Victoria and Albert Museum, the CCA Gallery in Cambridge and even in Santa Fe, New Mexico, Jilli's very tactile creations can now be purchased at Linda Reid Plus, Giffnock. Jilli, who specialised in embroidered and woven textiles at GSA, uses a whole range of fabrics and techniques in her work. The workroom in her home in Glasgow's West End, has a 16-shaft Harris loom and a Bernina sewing machine -- both important to her work, though at the moment, the Bernina has the edge. ''There was a time when I thought I would give up the weaving because it is both expensive and time-consuming,'' she says, ''but I couldn't do it. The weaving and the embroidery feed off each other.'' Using a range of rich jewel-coloured silks, she layers, machine embroiders, frays and sometimes slashes or draws threads, in order to produce wall-hangings, throws and cushions with strong textural appearance. These techniques, together with her woven pieces (which in the past have also included different fibres ranging from wool to leather) have not only produced textiles useful for soft furnishings but also for the fashion industry. She has undertaken numerous commissions for lengths of fabric for designers in Britain (and in Germany) and has herself made jackets and hats to order. ''I am very much a textile person whether you call it art or design,'' says Jilli. ''Textiles are very often the cow's tail in that people are more apt to buy ceramics or jewellery. I feel it is my job to show how innovative and wonderful textiles are.'' Her textiles have appeared in the Designer's Guild in London and also featured in several books including Crafts (International) edited by Martina Margetts. She has large works in private collections in the US and Spain and also in museum collections, including the Glasgow Museum & Art Gallery, Kelvingrove. Her work will feature in a travelling exhibition of Scottish Contemporary Textiles which opens in Galashiels this summer. Jilli's very distinctive style of work is part of the new emphasis on design being promoted by Linda Reid Plus. Linda's first shop in Fenwick Road concentrated on fabrics, bed linens and towels from all over the world. When she moved to larger premises, with 9000 square feet, she was able to present 24 different room settings. In addition to soft furnishings, she now provides a complete range of ideas for the home from carpets and flooring to furnishings, lighting, wallpapers, ceramics, ornaments and objets d'art. Linda, who visits degree shows at GSA and Edinburgh College of Art, to look for new talent, also attends exhibitions and trade fairs throughout Europe to select high-quality items. ''We can assist with the refurbishment of everything from offices and hotels to kitchens and bathrooms,'' says Linda. ''This new store is a dream come true. I've always wanted to show everything under one roof and to be able constantly to change the stock and the room sets where goods are displayed.'' * Linda Reid Plus, 188 Fenwick Road, Giffnock, Glasgow. Tel: 0141 620 1299. GH950520-000012 GH950520-000012 950520 The bear truth about those flying ducks ANTHONY TROON 3 6 FEATURE SCOTLANDS HOMES GARDENS,BAD TASTE CLINIC 978305112 * FLYING ducks? Don't give me flying ducks. They are supposed to represent the nadir of wall-hung bad taste, but they are extremely manageable. If your house goes on fire you just unclip them and run; alternatively you just leave them to burn. They are no problem, because there's never more than three of them. Teddy Bears, though, are a different kind of house-aninal. They are reckoned to be good taste. The unfortunate family in the Borders whose house went on fire last week has hundreds of them. Firefighters and neighbours formed a human chain to pass the bears hand-over-fist down the stairs and outside to safety and 400 were rescued, some suffering smoke inhalation. You can sense some subtle double-standard here. If your house caught fire and you shouted to the firepersons as they dashed in ''The ducks! Save the ducks!'' then, somehow, I can't see any human chains being formed. But there is one advantage; once the firepersons realised you had flying ducks on the wall some sixth sense would tell them the fire had been started by your chip pan. These things are linked by what I, as a Disneyland Professor of Bad Taste at the University of Camelon, would term ''lifestyle stratification''. I may have mentioned before that I have a friend who collects ceramic frogs. To be honest, they tend to collect themselves these days, spawning uncontrollably by parcel post and airmail. He thinks he has around 300 but, not being an actuary by nature, he's not terribly sure. They present a slight problem in that any stranger visiting his house notices them immediately, falls silent and starts to look anxious. He got rid of an insurance salesman that way without having to say a word. ''Vic,'' I asked him, ''what would you do if your house went on fire?'' Pause. ''It's all right,'' I said reassuringly, ''I'm not threatening you.''1 The answer was illuminating. He said he would save his photograph collection first, his record collection second, and the frogs would have to hop it on their own. This shows a man and a house-animal breeder who modestly conceals his innate good taste under an outer show of the bad: a splendid chap. Now here's a true-life enigma. A friend going to college for three years asks you to look after her budgie. You pass it on to your mother-in-law, on the grounds that she already has one and a second won't be too much bother. Unfortunately, your friend's budgie does a carpet-landing and is pounced upon by your mother-in-law's youngest son's cat, which she has also been left with while the son goes off to discover himself. The question: what do you tell the friend? She's been back from college for a year now, and is starting to ask. GH950520-000013 GH950520-000013 950520 And two little piggies stayed at home AILEEN LITTLE 3 5 FEATURE SCOTLANDS HOMES GARDENS,BEST FRIENDS 978305113 CASE HISTORY: The Rev Helen Percy could not rate Grace and Prudence more highly. Not just because these qualities are in keeping with her vocation -- she is Church of Scotland minister to six rural parishes -- but because they are her household pets. Four-year-old Grace and two-year-old Prudence are Vietnamese pot-bellied pigs. They present a familiar sight in Kilry, a five-house hamlet at the foot of Glenisla, where they are occasionally to be found in Helen's house but more usually have the run of her half-acre garden. ''There was a border,'' she explains apologetically, ''but they like eating things you've just planted.'' The lawn looks distinctive too -- its craters are evidence of the pigs' superior digging technique. It's a trick which caused problems shortly after Helen Percy moved in. One day, the animals pushed their snouts under the fence and escaped when she was out. But, maintains Helen, the incident demonstrated a wonderful community spirit. ''The neighbours found a bucket with pig nuts in the shed, rounded them up, shut the gate, then left a note for me on the kitchen table.'' Angus folk, says Helen warmly, are used to animals -- ''they know pigs are clean and intelligent''. Unlike certain parishioners in her previous, urban charge. Helen's new neighbours appreciate the important facts of country life, such as that pig manure is very good for sweet peas (Grace and Prudence do tend to eat the flowers, though). But why does Helen like such unusual pets? ''I always wanted a pig -- or pigs. They're so ugly they're beautiful. It's like having toddlers; they wind you up by pulling the cloth off the table or by disconnecting the telephone. But they're intelligent enough to be funny.'' Her wish was granted when she adopted Grace from a farm where the pig was was considered a nuisance; and Prudence joined the family more recently after a friend decided to pass her on before moving house. Grace and Prudence are popular with the local schoolchildren too. GH950520-000014 GH950520-000014 950520 The Lyon, the switch and the lord's hope GEORGE HUME 3 18 FEATURE WEEKENDER ILLUS 978305114 WITHOUT argument the ''nicest'' practitioner in British politics, a prince among men, a lord on the green leather benches of commoners, Lord James-Douglas Hamilton, Minister of State at the Scottish Office, stoic holder of a wafer-thin marginal seat and utterly loyal to the true blue cause, is going to court to scupper his cousin. At stake is a cool half-million pounds -- largesse of the late 10th Earl of Selkirk, which Lord James wants to see in his 16-year-old son's blazer pocket: a fortune which the cousin, Alasdair Malcolm Douglas-Hamilton, a banker, believes should go to his account. The bizarre convolutions of heraldry and inheritance -- as well as possession of the half million quid -- will be hammered out in the country's most arcane court, that of the Lord Lyon King of Arms, Sir Malcolm Rognvald Innes of Edingight, Commander of the Royal Victorian Order, Baron Yeochrie, Member of the Queen's Bodyguard for Scotland, and Secretary to the Order of the Thistle. At a date yet to be determined, but certainly not before September at the earliest, Lord Lyon, in baroque attire aspired to by few Scottish Office ministers or bank staff, will stride into court to hear claim and counter claim, fearlessly prepared -- if he so determines -- to overthrow an alleged ruling on the succession by his late father who, as Lord Lyon, was asked to determine the matter long before the question of the cash came up. He came down, it is claimed, in favour of the banker, now girding his loins to fight for his arms. It is the banker, Alasdair Douglas-Hamilton, who has made the running so far, having presented his petition to the Lyon office late last month -- copies of which have yet to be successfully served on Lord James, his brother the Duke of Hamilton, Scotland's premier peer, Lord James's 16-year-old son, and the Lord Advocate. The recent postal strike has delayed the paperwork and the 21-day period for the lodging of answers has yet to get under way. When due process has been gone through a date will be set, sometime in the autumn legal term, for the Douglas-Hamiltons' day in court. Thus will the scene be set for a production that would be worthy of a ''house full'' notice if staged in Lothian Region's financially challenged Festival Theatre . . . itself much in need of half a million pounds. How has it all come about? On Monday, November 28, last year, the House of Commons was, so to speak, on the edge of its seat, poised to vote on the issue of Britain's payments to the European Union and keenly aware that, for the Government, it would be a close-run thing. As it was a confidence debate, every Tory vote was vital. But, as is so often the way when political parties stand on their dignity and prepare to go to the wire, nature sticks out a leg to trip them. Just four days before the big debate on Europe, Lord James's uncle, George Douglas-Hamilton, 10th Earl of Selkirk, a former First Lord of the Admiralty and childless, died, and the busy Scottish Office Minister inherited the earldom -- on the face of it at any rate. The next step, possibly, was a move to the House of Lords and a nail-biting by-election for the Tories in Edinburgh West, where Lord James commands a majority of just 879. But what about the EU vote? With at least even chances of his becoming an earl, Lord James would not be able to file through the Government lobby in the Commons; would not even be allowed into the Chamber -- and just when his vote could be crucial. Dismay in the Whips' office, a tight timetable for salvation, family discussions far into the night at Lord James's home in North Berwick. Should he or should he not? Duty, the family decided, came first, and before there was time even to take a tuck in the late Earl of Selkirk's ermine, Lord James saved the day -- renounced his claim to the title, spared his party a hard time in Edinburgh West and cast his vote to help the Government squeak through with a slender majority. Gratitude was his reward as the Tory party hailed him hero . . . splendid fellow, very decent thing to do, selflessly loyal. As he set off to lodge his Deed of Disclaimer at the Crown Office, his uncle not yet buried, the four-day-earl himself put it thus: ''Having discussed the matter with my family it is quite clear what I have to do. I owe it as a duty to my constituents, whom I wish to continue to serve, and as a matter of loyalty to the Prime Minister and to the Conservative Party, to support John Major in the voting lobby.'' Unswerving duty to the boy from Brick Lane at no small cost to himself. Noblesse oblige. Unable now to enjoy the peerage, Lord James could console himself with the fact that, on his death, it would pass to his son, John Andrew. During the lacuna that had now fallen on the North Berwick branch of the Douglas-Hamilton family, Lord James's cousin, named as heir-apparent to the earldom in Burke's Peerage and Baronetage, likewise in Debrett, would enjoy the title and keep the family name forward in the Upper House; or so it seemed. Then came the reading of the will. To renounce in haste can be to repent at leisure. Distributing his bounty, the late 10th Earl laid it down that whomsoever succeeded him would get a sum of #500,000, as well as family portraits and, as Henry Clark, the 10th Earl's executor, puts it, ''a few other items''. Tabards and tricorn hats were immediately brushed and sponged in the elegant offices of the Lord Lyon in anticipation of action to come. It was not long in coming. Lord James instructed counsel to stake a claim on behalf of his son, retaining Sir Crispin Agnew of Lochnaw, Bt, to fight his corner before the Scottish College of Heralds -- an arena in which Sir Crispin should feel at home, being Rothesay Herald in the Court of the Lord Lyon. The cousin who also claims -- Alasdair Douglas-Hamilton -- a specialist in trustee work for the Bank of Scotland and known as the Master of Selkirk, although he makes his home in St Boswells, has appointed John Murray, QC, the former Lord Dervaird, as his second for the duel before Lord Lyon, determined to fight for the title, the cash, family portraits, and the ''few other items''. Mr Douglas-Hamilton says he always expected to inherit, and claims to hold the clincher in the battle ahead, already locked up in his lawyer's office safe -- ''a letter from a previous Lord Lyon stating in reasonably clear terms that I would succeed when my uncle died''. Notwithstanding the court battle ahead, relations with his cousin James are, he says, ''fine''. If the letter now in close custody sets anything out in reasonably clear terms it will shine like a beacon over the murky waters of an action where heraldry, stripped of its finery, will appear to the un-enobled public to be the practice of muddle, confusion, and obfuscation. Lord James's renunciation of his claim to the title may have saved the day for John Major and established him in the public mind as heir-apparent-historic, but the core question which Lyon Court will have to resolve is just this: was the title his to renounce? Should it not be Alasdair, the old pretender -- James's senior by a very few years -- who is installed in the Lords? Avoiding a single word which might hint at prejudging the issue, Lord Lyon has been at pains to explain to all who ask, how the Douglas-Hamilton double whammy has come about. Rules governing the succession to the earldom, bestowed in 1646 by Charles I upon his cousin Lord William Douglas, younger brother of the 1st Duke of Hamilton, are, says Lyon, ''extremely complex''. Further, they are written in Latin. Their thrust, explains Lyon, was to ensure as far as possible that the titles of the Dukedom of Hamilton and the Earldom of Selkirk stayed apart -- requiring that the Selkirk title would pass to the younger brothers of successive dukes. Late last century however, nothwithstanding the original arrangements, the earldom and dukedom were merged and when, in 1940, the 13th Duke died, the 14th Duke's younger brother, George, became the 10th Earl. He it was who died inconveniently last November, leading Lord James, immediate younger brother of the present and 15th Duke, to make his disclaimer. Clear so far? Possibly not for long. Step forward and be recognised, Alasdair Douglas-Hamilton, cousin of James and contender for the prize whose father, a former Tory MP, was the younger brother -- after George -- of the 14th Duke. Alasdair's father died in 1962; the 14th Duke in 1973. Had Malcolm survived, George Malcolm could have been expected to inherit the earldom. What Lyon is certain about is that when it comes to heraldry -- half-a-million-pound fortunes regardless -- there can be no quick fix. ''You cannot hatch it up. The parties have to prove it,'' he says. Lord James Douglas-Hamilton, a boxing blue, is ready in his corner. Mr Alasdair Douglas-Hamilton, in his, is prepared to give a banker's account of himself. Seconds out -- may the best man win, to the victor the spoils. GH950520-000015 GH950520-000015 950520 Pique performers BEVERLEY BROWN 3 4 FEATURE SCOTLANDS HOMES GARDENS,BEST FRIENDS ILLUS 978305115 ''THE peacocks have been resident much longer than we have,'' says Margaret Williams, ''but we quickly discovered that, as well as looking beautiful, they are real characters too.'' No-one keeps animals for purely decorative reasons but, as a bonus, some species are undeniably more attractive than others and can add a certain something to any room. But not many extra interior touches are called for when home is a gracious B-listed country house designed by Robert Adam. Margaret and Fred Williams bought their magnificent 10-bedroomed house hotel (which also has nine self-catering cottages) in Skelmorlie five years ago. Built in 1840, the sandstone house with its galleried landing and cupola reminiscent of Culzean Castle. The building is set in 15 acres of impeccable landscaped gardens with spectacular views over the Firth of Clyde to Arran, Kintyre and Argyll. But where the Williams family may rule the roost inside the house, the acres outside are very much the domain of 12 strutting peacocks whose male splendour provides the final decorative touch to the garden's exotic and abundant shrubs, palm trees and conifers. The grounds of Manor Park are strictly for the birds, as they see it. ''They don't move an inch for cars and if you hoot your horn they disdainfully return the hoot and stay put,'' says Margaret. Peacocks are also creatures of habit. ''Each winter they come up to the house and stand with their feathers outstretched, over the kitchen grating to enjoy the heat from the ovens,'' she adds. ''And they can be very habitual about food too. We used to wonder why they immediately descend from all directions as soon as the bin lorry appears. The noise is deafening as they chase the lorry up the driveway. This is because the binmen always share their packed lunches with them! Heaven help us if they ever arrive empty-handed!'' The peacocks lay their eggs in the long grass of the walled garden and Margaret has sometimes known a mother to bring her chick right up to the front door in winter, as if to say ''it's your turn to feed the baby''. ''Although we give them bread every day, they are largely self-sufficient from the fruits of the garden and really only need us for food in the winter.'' Peacocks are beautiful birds that clearly add an extra dimension to a garden. But maybe not to suburban gardens. ''Yes they are decorative,'' says Margaret, ''but they are also messy, eat the plants and are incredibly noisy, with a raucous call that can start at dawn. And although they don't fly as such, they can reach up to the roof, or over a fence. ''I don't think that keeping two peacocks in a semi-detached garden would be good for neighbourly relations.'' This suddenly makes garden gnomes seem an attractive alternative. They may not look as pretty, but they don't wake you at dawn. * Tel: 01475 520832 for details. The so-cool cats CASE HISTORY: Neighbours call them ''the snobs'' as they sit haughtily in the bay window at nurse Angie Wallace's home in Langside. But looking elegantly ornamental is not easy for Daisy and Harley (as in Harley Davidson because he purrs loudly) and Avia (after the sports shoes, as Angie teaches aerobics). ''They love their nightly hairbrushing,'' says Angie, ''but we have a weekly dematting session with a steel comb -- which is different matter. And neither are they wild about the daily cleanse, tone and moisturise routine to keep their faces clean.'' They're home-lovers too. ''They get into the garden occasionally but are not at all street-wise.'' GH950520-000016 GH950520-000016 950520 Underwater Wandas ERIC KENNEDY 3 4 FEATURE SCOTLAND HOMES GARDENS,BEST FRIENDS ILLUS 978305116 FISH make undemanding pets. They add a welcome splash of colour to the living room and ask nothing more than a daily pinch of food in return. You don't have to them for walks, chase them off the suite, or take them to the vet's for injections. They don't bark at the postman or have to be searched for fleas. Neighbours don't complain about them fouling the path. There's a lot to be said for fish. I have one of those small, four-gallon aquaria designed for tropical fish that like to swim round in circles. Which is just as well really. I have some neon tetras, some zebras, guppies and a catfish, none of them more than 2cm long. When I want to show off I call them my paracheirodon innesi, my brachydanio rerio, my poecilia reticulatas and my corydoras but this is utter pretentiousness as they cost less than #1 (or libra nova). They do the job, though, darting here and there without bumping into each other, coming to the surface for food, obligingly swimming through the decorative arch at the bottom of the tank, and giving the impression of having too much to do and too little time. Moving colour, in other words, and all you have to do is keep the water temperature at about 25-28 deg C, make sure it is clean and filtered, and be on the alert for algae. The heating and filtration equipment you buy with the tank more or less takes care of that for you, but you have to replace a certain amount of the water on a regular basis, with the occasional need for a full-scale clean-out. This latter exercise is a demanding and exhausting experience for both myself and my fish, and I have had many a reproachful look from a paracheirodon innesi in the course of one. When combined with an equally fishy stare from one's uxor irata (displeased wife) over the inevitable spillage, it adds up to a daunting time for the aquarist. Talking about the uxor, she is on dodgy ground when complaining about an aquarium spilling water, as it was in this case the uxor that gave it to the vir. To survive this trauma, fish should be healthy. It's advisable to buy your livestock from reputable local dealers, of whom there are many and who come in all shapes and sizes, rather like the fish. The names of such specialists as The Aquarium in Glasgow's Chisholm Street, and the Olympia Pet Centre in East Kilbride, spring to mind. You can buy an aquarium like mine for about #80 including heater, thermostat, lighting and filtration equipment, gravel and a plant. Larger tanks can cost several hundred pounds and can be supplied in various sizes and shapes of cabinets to fit in with your room and decor. The fish themselves can cost as little as 65p and as much as #70 or #80 for the more exotic species. Your aquarium should be situated in part of the room which does not get direct sunlight. Coloured gravel and ornaments help create a pleasing effect. A wide variety of plants is available which have three functions: they provide cover in which fish can hide, they help oxygenate the water, and they look good. All in all, aquaria can be colourful yet restful additions to the family home, especially if you remember to feed the inhabitants, thus avoiding the unpleasant sight of former fish floating at the top. GH950520-000017 GH950520-000017 950520 Industrious Glasgow boy who excelled in a cameo role JAMES HOLLOWAY 3 32 PROFILE WEEKENDER,SCOTTISH MASTERS ILLUS 978305117 JAMES TASSIE was born on July 15, 1735, in the village of Pollokshaws and grew up at a time when the Clyde valley, and Glasgow in particular, was beginning a period of unprecedented prosperity. He was trained at Robert and Andrew Foulis's art school, sited in Glasgow College where, besides learning a specialist craft, he was given a rounded artistic education. The Foulis Academy provided scholarships for its pupils and in 1763, possibly supported by the academy, Tassie left Glasgow for Dublin, a centre of the jewellery trade. There he worked as assistant to Dr Henry Quin, the Professor of Physics in the city's School of Physics and learnt from him the art of manufacturing imitations of antique cameos and intaglios, a skill which Dr Quin had been practising in Dublin with great success. After three years in Dublin, Tassie moved on to London where he lived for the rest of his life. He seems to have been successful from the start. As a maker of portrait medallions, his work was unrivalled. The formula of the vitreous paste used by Tassie, which he and Dr Quin had invented in Ireland, was kept a secret from his competitors. Tassie would model his portrait from the life if possible, though he did work from other artist's portraits. He used red wax and two or three modelling tools. Sittings took only two-and-a-half hours. Tassie's earliest portraits were head and shoulders, which were then mounted on an oval glass, backed by coloured paper. As Tassie's skill increased, he learnt to cast the whole medallion in vitreous paste, so that the head and body were of the same material as the background. Like many London-based Scottish artists, a high proportion of Tassie's sitters were Scots, and if they could not come to him he was prepared to go to them. A notice in the Glasgow Courier on September 20, 1791, announced: ''Mr Tassie of Leicesterfields, London, and Dr D Allan, of Edinburgh, have been for some days here, upon a visit to their friends. The excellence of these Artists in modelling from life, and in painting with truth and character, has been for many years known and acknowledged over Europe, and does honour to this part of the country where they received their birth and earliest education.'' If Tassie's portrait medallions are what he is best known for today, and he made some 500 during his lifetime, it was his reproductions of antique gems which secured him international fame. In 1781, his name came to the attention of Catherine the Great of Russia. Tassie's bill for Catherine's commission still survives and it shows that the Russian order was a financial coup as well as a professional triumph. He was paid #2310 for the entire order. Tassie's work became widely known through another channel -- publication. In 1791 an elaborate, scholarly, and handsome two-volume work was printed. To illustrate it, Tassie called upon the skill of his old friend, David Allan, recently appointed master of Edinburgh's Trustees' Academy. To Allan and his design students, James Tassie's career must have seemed exemplary and inspiring. A boy of modest background, trained like themselves at art school in Scotland, who by an intelligent application of science to art perfected his medium to rise above his competitors and become a leader in his field. His association with fellow craftsmen improved the quality of their products while making a fortune for himself. He was, above all, a professional. * James Holloway is Assistant Keeper at the Scottish National Portrait Gallery GH950520-000018 GH950520-000018 950520 On safari in the forbidden land BILL MCDOWALL 3 22 FEATURE WEEKENDER ILLUS 978305118 THE kudu screamed as it died, going down under the weight of five lions. The kill was the climax of a hunt through the warm African night. And as the lions had hunted, we had stalked them, safe but feeling exposed and vulnerable in an open-topped Land Rover. First the big cats disappeared into the undergrowth. Then there was a rustling in the darkness as a herd of kudu, spooked but not yet panicked, blundered into the silent pride. Suddenly the bush was boiling lions and the antelope was down. We watched them eating just 10ft away. They ignored us, concentrating on their feeding frenzy. Everything was eaten and when they had done only a bloody smear was left on the grass. The lions would spend another half hour licking the blood from each other's faces. The cold fury of the kill and its speed left us trembling, and breathless, and unsure what exactly we were feeling -- a strange mixture of exhilaration from the adrenalin buzz and guilt that we should feel so excited at being voyeurs at the passing of a law of nature. This was Mala Mala, one of South Africa's most exclusive private game reserves and one of the few where, if you can afford it, you are almost certain to see the big five -- elephant, leopard, rhino, Cape buffalo, and, of course, the king of the veldt. Mala Mala, a tribal name for the sable antelope, is on the border of the huge Kruger National Park, about an hour and a half flight from Johannesburg. Earlier we had seen a massively maned male patrolling his territory and from fewer than 20ft away been shocked and scared by the lion's roar -- a primitive, evil, deep-bass rumble that echoes hollowly inside your chest, and makes the short hairs on the nape of your neck spring up. The lion treated us with huge indifference, almost as if we were invisible although we were aboard a vehicle reeking of hot oil and excited humanity and using a powerful flashlight to slice through the darkness. Chris Daphne, head ranger at Mala Mala, explained that the animals, both predator and prey, had become accustomed to the vehicles and had over the years decided we were neither a threat nor food. They had filed us away in some portion of their brain as an irrelevance. Certainly the leopard we had seen the previous evening at sunset, before the tropical storm, treated us with lofty disdain. She had killed a duiker, a small antelope, and was dragging the carcass into the high branches of a jackalberry tree above a dry watercourse. Beneath the tree and close enough to hear the cat's jaws crunching on the bones were three Mala Mala Land Rovers, spotlights blazing and cameras clicking. One bound by the magnificent beast and she could have been in the vehicles with us. Eventually the leopard abandoned her kill and washed herself like a huge domestic cat, her golden coat reflecting in the spotlights, her eyes flashing with disdain as she stared at us. After around 20 minutes she snaked head-first down the tree and into the deep bush. ''Ah, that was a really good sighting,'' sighed Chris, as exultant as the rest of us. As we had been watching the leopard the evening sky was darkening ominously with thick cloud obscuring the half moon. With awsome suddenness jagged lightning crackled across the sky. There was no thunder. Then came the rain, lightly at first causing everyone to struggle into wet-weather gear just in time to huddle against a downpour. Earlier we had seen elephants dusting themselves down with vast quantities of dirt sprayed from their trunks. One approached the Land Rover. He was huge and had only one tusk -- the other had been broken in a fight. Although he was about 15ft away he seemed to loom over the vehicle, his enormous ears spread wide intimidating us. ''They don't charge, hardly at all,'' said Chris. I didn't believe him, especially when disturbed by the whine of a camera motor drive he lumbered even closer. The Land Rover backed away and he settled back to giving himself a dust shower, scooping up shovelfuls of the red African earth and spraying it over his back. The rhino was only a youngster -- just about the size of a delivery van -- and a lion had attacked him leaving raw slashes along his hindquarters. Oxpecker birds were perched on him excavating parasites from his wrinkled hide and feeding on the blood that still oozed from the wounds. ''The birds keep the wound from infecting but they also keep it open. It's going to take a long time to heal,'' said Chris. Cape buffalo, dozens of them, surrounded the vehicle as placid as domestic cattle. It was hard to believe that buffalo are among the most dangerous and feared of all the African animals, with a well-deserved reputation as man killers. Most dangerous of all are the old solitary bulls who, supplanted in the herd by younger, fitter animals wander off in a massive huff. They take out their vile temper on the world and will charge practically without warning. They called Mala Mala a camp. No Boy Scout ever lived like this. We stayed in rondavels, circular buildings with tall, thatched roofs, complete with air-conditioning. We ate in the boma, a circular enclosure under the stars sitting in a ring around a blazing camp fire, drinking fine South African wine and telling tall tales. Ah, the simple life, any millionaire can have it. At around #335 a night for the main camp, it does attract the rich and famous, like Elton John, Joan Collins, and even Lady Thatcher, who visited with former South African President F W de Klerk. Within the game reserve, established in the 1930s there are two other camps. Kirkman's costs around #235 and Harry's is the least expensive at around #150. The bush came as a complete culture shock. We had spent the previous night at the gloriously vulgar and totally over-the-top Palace of the Lost City in Sun City, southern Africa's answer to Las Vegas. The architecture, with stone kudu leaping from the central tower, is unashamedly brash. The interior misses no opportunity to scream overstuffed opulence. Yet, in a crazy way, it works. Sun City, a two-hour drive from Johannesburg, is the creation of American multimillionaire Sol Kerzner and, in the bad old days of apartheid and narrow Calvinism, Sun City was where South Africans came to avoid South Africa's strict morality laws and gamble, because the entertainment complex was actually in one of the so-called independent homelands, Bophuthatswana. Jean Mestriner, general manager of the Palace of the Lost City, admits it is more showbiz than homely. ''What we try to do,'' he said, ''has much in common with theatre; it's an art form. We strive to make each day a memorable performance from a cast that includes chefs, bellhops, waiters, and housekeepers.'' The storyline for this epic production depends on a legend -- a myth of Africa involving a nomadic tribe which built a fabulous city in the depths of the jungle and lived in harmony and luxury until an earthquake struck. The survivors fled, never to return and the city slumbered in the African heat until it was rediscovered and rebuilt. Nice myth, but the Palace was built from scratch in just 19 months. The developers grew a jungle in the desert. They created a tropical beach where artificial waves pound the white sands. There are two golf courses, one of which hosts the annual Sun City million-dollar challenge. The thirteenth hole has real crocodiles in the water hazard. There is a spirit of optimism in the land, especially since the elections just over a year ago passed off relatively peacefully, despite fears of a bloodbath. That optimism is reflected in tourism bookings. The forthcoming Rugby World Cup will boost tourism even more and will be a stiff test of the country's infrastructure. Even so, Africa is now one of the world's most exciting destinations. South African Airways flights from London are running at better than 90% capacity and hotel bookings are well up. SAA has eight black pilots under training. They admit it's just a start. Liz McGrath, the dynamic owner of the Cellars Hohenort country house hotel at Constantia outside Cape Town, said: ''We were really worried before the elections but since then bookings have taken off.'' Her decision to buy the former farmhouse and vineyard and convert it into a five-star hotel was not just a gamble, it was a statement of faith in the future of the country. It appears her optimism has been justified. A few days before I arrived, many of the Queen and Duke of Edinburgh's entourage stayed at the Cellars -- the guest book bulged with Buckingham Palace addresses. The decision by the Queen to present Nelson Mandela with the Order of Merit mirrored the respect in which the President is held by almost all sections of South African opinion. He rose higher, particularly in white opinion, by refusing to show bitterness despite his years of imprisonment. He even invited his jailer to his presidential inauguration. But, just a 20-minute drive away from the Cellars hotel, set in a beautiful wooded hillside is the embodiment of one of the most serious problems he faces -- the Crossroads squatter camp. More than a million blacks live in corrugated-iron squalor on the doorstep of Cape Town airport. Even there tourists can go, but only with a proper guide. One company offers minibus tours of the townships claiming that the squatters are keen to let the outside world know of their living conditions. The shanty towns cannot hide the splendour of Cape Town -- one of the world's most beautiful cities. It is dominated by Table Mountain and by taking a short trip from the city you can bathe in two oceans -- the Atlantic and the Indian on the same day. Beaches are beautiful white sand and we saw dolphins just offshore. Take the cable car up Table Mountain for the best views, if the day is clear, but all too often the mountain wears its tablecloth of cloud. At the top there is a restaurant, cafe, and souvenir shop. In Cape Town itself we stayed in the Mount Nelson Hotel -- a pink confection originally built by the Union Castle shipping line to house their VIP guests out from England. It is very colonial, full of chintz furnishings and heavy leather. An establishment of solid comfort now run by Orient-Express Hotels. People in Cape Town are proud of their latest shopping and leisure development -- the Victoria and Alfred Waterfront. Note the Alfred, not Albert, since the docks the development is based on were named for the late queen and her son Alfred, not her husband. Alfred inaugurated the docks in the last century. In common with other dockland sites the area fell into disrepair. (Just think of Glasgow.) Massive investment, however, turned it into one of Africa's most fashionable shopping and entertainment experiences. Every night it swings into the small hours with jazz and rock music. The atmosphere reminded me of the Glasgow Garden Festival although Cape Town's waterfront is a permanent attraction. Out of town are the farms and vineyards growing grapes that are making South African wines world famous. Many offer wine tastings in the hope that you will be tempted to buy a few bottles. Rumour has it that while South Africa was still the forbidden country many of those fine Chilean wines being praised by experts actually started life off on the eastern side of the Atlantic. Shipped in bulk from South Africa they were bottled and labelled in Chile and sold as South American produce. There is no need for subterfuge now. The pound is strong against the rand and South Africa is reckoned in the travel trade as the next big thing. It has the infrastructure already. It has great beauty and a variety of cultures -- there are now around 17 official languages -- and a need for investment and foreign exchange. How good it is to be able to go there, not just with a clear conscience, but knowing you are experiencing the early days of a new nation. * Bill McDowall travelled to South Africa courtesy of South African Airways and stayed at hotels featured in the holiday brochure the airline operates through Jetsave. GH950520-000019 GH950520-000019 950520 A less active part for Arfur ANTHONY ARMSTRONG 3 32 FEATURE WEEKENDER,HERITAGE, ILLUS 978305119 Creatures which have spent their lives in captivity are helping work to conserve species which are under threat in the wild, reports Anthony Armstrong. London Zoo's celebrity lion, Arfur, has headed north to a final resting place in Edinburgh. The animal which gave so much pleasure to adults and children while he was alive is now scheduled to continue in the public eye as a stuffed exhibit in the Royal Museums of Scotland's wild cat section. He will be in good company. Unknown to most members of the public who file through the exhibition halls, a joint operation between the Royal Museums and Edinburgh University has created a research programme using animals, birds, and reptiles donated by zoos and collections all over Britain. Creatures which have spent all their lives in captivity are playing a vital role after death in work to conserve species which are under threat in the wild. ''We use animals and birds from a lot of well known zoos. They have all died naturally -- nothing is killed for us,'' says Dr Andrew Kitchener, curator of mammals and birds at the Royal Museums. ''Some species like snow leopards and clouded leopards are the subject of international breeding programmes. Because they are so rare we often know very little about them. The research we can do on specimens that have died in captivity can make an invaluable contribution to their survival in their natural environment.'' The Royal Museum's team tend to use a first donated specimen to be mounted for display. Subsequent examples of the species are kept for research and the organs and bones are stored. Dr Kitchener says: ''When an animal is stuffed the skin is mounted on a foam or fibreglass shape cast from the carcass, which gives accurate muscle definition. ''We are not sure yet exactly what is going to happen to Arfur. His skin is actually being tanned at this moment. We would like to stuff him but, because he was ill before he died, part of his skin was shaved to make it easier for the vet to inject him. Just how this will show up could be a problem and we might have to be selective about what pose he is in. We try to choose poses that replicate an animal's behaviour in the wild.'' There has been no problem with a huge brown bear called Bruce who was for years a star attraction at the Highland Wildlife Park in Kingussie. Bruce is about to take the stage at the Royal Museums in his newly immortal stuffed form and will eventually feature in a history of Scottish wildlife exhibition in the new Museum of Scotland being built in Chambers Street, Edinburgh. Bruce actually came from Romania but is the type of bear which last roamed wild in Scotland 1000 years ago. Some specimens travel. The skeleton of an extremely rare Madagascar Teal which originally came to Edinburgh from Jersey Zoo is currently on loan to the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago, and the Edinburgh team is in touch with scientists all over the world. Edinburgh Zoo, close at hand, is one of the museum's key sources. A spokesman said: ''More or less every mammal or bird that dies is offered. The biggest recently was a female giraffe that had to be put down because she had an inoperable leg condition. We have kept her head and neck here but the Royal Museums have the rest of the skeleton for teaching purposes.'' For those wondering how the experts go about such a king-sized job, the zoo reveals this trade secret. The skeleton is boiled after dissection using a well-known brand of domestic washing powder. The spokesman said: ''I don't know what it does to clothes but the bones come out beautifully clean and white.'' GH950520-000020 GH950520-000020 950520 QUALITY OF A DOG'S LIFE WENDY JACK 3 2 FEATURE SCOTLANDS HOMES GARDENS CARTOON ILLUS 978305120 They're pretty, they're fun and (generally speaking) worth buying the equipment for. But while animals might enhance your life, home and garden, caring for them and sharing with them is not always easy. Decor they ain't. We're beginning to understand, animal psychologist Valerie O'Farrell tells WENDY JACK. TIME was when few people would admit to having a problem pet. While family and friends could see Fido was creating difficulties, puce-faced owners dismissed appalling behaviour with lame excuses like ''highly strung'' or ''highly pedigreed''. But the past decade has seen big changes, believes veterinary clinical psychologist Dr Valerie O'Farrell who works at the Dick Vet School in Edinburgh. ''People now realise that something can be done,'' she says. ''It's percolated into public consciousness that this sort of thing has come into the veterinary curriculum. In the past people either kept quiet or thought vets would only suggest euthanasia, or give vague, useless advice like 'pull yourself together and be firm with the dog'.'' It's easy to pin the blame for apparently neurotic domestic pets on the fact that so many people now go out to work, isolating them. However, Dr O'Farrell says there is no statistical evidence of this. ''Certainly, more people don't see it as essential to give cats access to the outdoors. ''In theory, you can create an acceptable home environment. If they've never been allowed out, have plenty of toys, enough interest and other cats to play with, it can be all right. It's not on, though, for people just to go out to work and leave a cat with nothing to do or hunt. I've seen problems arising from bored cats shut in flats, spraying or running after people to hunt them instead of prey.'' And dogs? ''They are pack animals and can have all sorts of problems if people go out and leave them alone. A dog will sleep naturally for four hours during the day. If people work part-time, most dogs will resign themselves to that. If left alone all day, however, they'll be awake part of that time -- and bored. They'll seek company and not find it.'' Many problems which find their way to Dr O'Farrell are frustration-related, often caused by loneliness. ''Some destructiveness in the owner's absence have a purpose in that it may be directed at the door the owner left by,'' she explains. ''Some of it's just nervous tension like destroying wallpaper or a sofa -- an outlet for frustration. Looking at our own lifestyles, then, may help in understanding some apparently bizarre behaviour in our pets. A dog left alone, which doesn't necessarily display distress, may come to regard itself as the leader of a pack. ''A dominant-type dog may get more dominant over the owner at home. I've seen cases of owners trying to get into the kitchen and the dog growling, saying 'no, you can't come in here, this is my territory'.'' Encouraging owners to act more dominantly when they're at home help deal with this. ''The thing is to keep in mind what effect lifestyle changes will have on the dog. It's easy to get them accustomed to anything if they know what to expect, but they do need company. I don't think it's on for someone to contemplate a dog if they're going to be working full-time. They'll be stacking up problems.'' Sometimes, apparently, neither owner nor dog is at fault when difficulties arise. ''There can be simply a mismatch between the two,'' explains Dr O'Farrell. ''Someone looking for a child substitute can't treat a dominant dog like that, because every time it wants something and gets it, it's taken as confirmation that it's dominating the household and can take more. It's not necessarily that you've done anything wrong, just that this particular dog has to be handled differently.'' How do you choose a dog or cat that's right for you and your family? Temperament is the most important factor, believes Dr O'Farrell. ''Some breeders are not as careful as they might be in producing animals in relation to temperament, though others are now being very responsible in this way.'' People looking for a dog which will depend on them and be good company should go for a spaniel type, whereas those seeking an animal which won't need them so much might choose a terrier, she suggests. She advises meeting a puppy's mother, and if either of them is timid or aggressive, resist the emotional pull. Make sure too that the pup has been brought up in the house, not in a breeder's run outside. ''One of the things that will spoil a puppy for life is not having been exposed to domestic sights and sounds during what's called the socialisation period, that's up to 12 weeks. Cats even more so -- that's up to seven weeks.'' If you're rescuing a dog or cat from a shelter, be aware that you may be taking on problems, she urges. ''For some good souls, there is extra pleasure in rehabilitating a problem, just as there are foster parents who get extra satisfaction from taking on problem children. Some, however, take such animals because they don't want to spend much -- but what you pay for a dog is peanuts compared with what you are going to pay for it throughout its life, in food, vet's fees and so on. Think carefully.'' * Dr Farrell is the author of Dogs' Best Friend and Problem Dogs, both published by Methuen. His own little canaryisland CASE HISTORY: ''I was brought up with birds in our nursery. They flew free and made their nests in the curtains. The terrible thing was, we couldn't pull the curtains. If somebody did move them, the nests fell down.'' Not surprisingly, with such vivid childhood memories, octogenarian society photographer Brodrick Haldane still keeps birds in his Edinburgh flat, colourfully fluttering around in their double cage in a room where dozens of his photographs of the rich and famous gaze down from the walls. If they sat still for long enough to be counted, they would probably number 14 or so . . . canaries and finches but none of the more exotic species in which he has delighted in the past. ''Now they've stopped the permit for certain birds being imported, which means you can't get the exciting ones I used to have. They're not terribly strong, of course. What's strange is that when one dies, another dies. ''I have some affinity with birds,'' he muses, ''I love them, I love watching them. When a bird dies, I'm in a terrible state.'' Are they difficult to keep? ''A lot of trouble, and they make a frightful mess. The seed is everywhere, even when they're caged. They are not flying free just now, but it still gets everywhere, all over the floor.'' Not all his visitors have admired his beloved birds: ''Sometimes I've had people here who didn't like them, especially women. Sitting here one day, one of the birds flew in and this woman ducked her head and got in a terrible state. ''A friend and I bought the biggest cage we could get -- I didn't like the idea of them having to be locked up all the time -- then he added another cage to the end. He was in the process of making the most enormous cage, it was going to be so big, just terrific, but suddenly he had to go away. It's never been done. Such a pity.'' Prettier than that picture CASE HISTORY: When Elizabeth Miller retired from British Gas nine years ago, she considered choosing a #600 painting as a retirement gift. But she chose Orville instead, a white Goffin cockatoo, only marginally less expensive. This did not surprise Elizabeth's colleagues -- she already had Smokey, an African grey parrot with a magnificent red tail, as well as a blue-fronted Amazon, plus Sacha,the papillon dog. And that was just inside her detached home in a village south of Glasgow. Outside there was an aviary, now home to three pairs of cockateils, and a fish pond. And Elizabeth has since added a few more residents; Orville; Silky, another papillon; two firecrest salamanders and an anole (American chameleon). Smokey and Orville fly freely around the house much of the time but, while they look decorative, Elizabeth admits they are a handful. Both birds also talk -- so realistically that a guest in the house once thought he was being propositioned in the night when Smokey seductively murmured ''Hello darling!'' ''They can be destructive if they are not supervised,'' says Elizabeth. ''Pot plants get stripped or toppled and their beaks are very sharp, as much of my furniture can testify. But they're much prettier than paintings.'' GH950520-000021 GH950520-000021 950520 That's quite some game, boy JENNIFER CUNNINGHAM 3 31 FEATURE WEEKENDER ILLUS 978305121 If you have an instinct that drives you towards Lemmings, you have a big future in the computer games world. Jennifer Cunningham relates one Scottish success story. TALL, slim, pale, bespectacled and bejeaned (brown not blue), David Jones appears the archetypal boffin. He's the boy next door who used to spend hours inventing computer games in his bedroom and grew up to be a millionaire. Now when the Japanese techno-giant Nintendo wants someone to design a game which will give their next step into technology world success, they call David in Dundee. DMA Design is one of only two companies commissioned to create for Nintendo's new Ultra 64 system. The other is a similarly small company with a big reputation in Leicestershire. DMA -- direct memory access -- is a computing term synonymous with high speed and high technology, which makes it instantly memorable in this particular world. DMA has just joined forces with BMG. The Bertelsmann Music Group, although the world's second-largest entertainment company -- behind Time Warner --are less-known than their component companies such as the RCA record label. They have announced a strategic partnership with DMA to publish four new game titles for the IBM PC and the next generation of game platforms. ''They are a huge company of music publishers and video publishers and have now set up a division purely to handle games. What is good about them is that they have said they will treat computer companies in the same way that they treat their music companies. In other words, BMG take a back seat. In the past we have sold our games to publishers and unlike the book business it is the publisher's name which is pushed rather than the author's. That is because it really was a sort of bedroom-type activity -- a hobby market -- and we really could not do much. That is changing now: developers are getting more clout, because it is the quality of the games that determines if they sell. The market is becoming very professional now,'' said Jones. He is determined that his company will remain in Dundee where he was born 29 years ago, but for practical as well as sentimental reasons. The son of a Yorkshire father and Highland mother, he combines creativity with canniness. His wife, Pamela, is a Dundee girl from an Italian family. Their 18-month-old son has already been lined up by dad as one of the company's envied ''playtesters''. ''Most of our staff are Scots. It is a definite policy of ours that we recruit people who are Scottish and want to stay in Scotland and then it is a big upheaval to move down south. Because we work on a project for 12-15 months, staff become a key part of it and we don't want to lose them. ''None of the computer courses really produce the kind of people we need, so we have to train them up for a year, but we are talking to Abertay, the new university in Dundee who supply about 50% of our programmers, about setting up a postgrad course where we will supply the material. They are quite keen on us, but not so keen to mention that I dropped out of their course to set up the business. It's not the best advertisement for them,'' he admitted with a grin. He attributes part of his success to the luck of being in the right place at the right time. ''When I was at Linlathen High School, it was one of the first to run a pilot course for O-grade in computer studies, so I took that. Then I got an apprenticeship at Timex when they were building Sinclair Spectrums, so that once again was perfect. I was there for about three or four years which makes my background hardware not software, which is actually very useful in running a computer company. When Timex was having problems, I took voluntary redundancy and went to the Institute of Technology to do a degree in software, because by then I was interested in the software side. ''I found first year quite simple, because I had been through it all before and I started writing programmes at home. With my redundancy money, I invested in what was then a new system, a Commodore Amiga, and I had some friends who were interested and we all used to dabble in programming. ''It took me just over a year to write the first game, Menace, collaborating (by post) with a chap down south who did the graphics, who also had a Commodore Amiga at a time when not many people had them. We sold between 5000 and 10,000, which for a new machine in those days was very good. ''With my second game, Blood Money, I paid a few of my friends at colllege to transfer it to their machines and it started to snowball. When I dropped out then, I took on one person full-time, then when my friends had finished the course, they started to join me as well. Since then, we've built up the company from the profit we've made on the games and it's just grown and grown. We have just taken on the 5000 sq ft building next door, which used to belong to General Accident. Eventually, I hope we will build our own custom-built place. We do a lot of music work now and we need a sound-proof music studio. ''I admit, I would like to finish the course some time, now that I am taking on all these graduates without having a degree myself. I'll have to write a paper or something,'' he added. The breakthrough came with Lemmings, a puzzle game in which the players had to save the endearing, furry creatures from almost certain death. It appealed to all ages and topped the games charts around the world, selling more than three million copies. That degree of success is elusive. A unicycle racing game recently aimed more for the SuperNintendo teenage market has not been released in Japan yet because the unicycle was brought to life by turning the seat into a face -- and that concept apparently causes the Japanese some difficulty. Jones estimates that 15% of games account for 85% of the turnover and so concentrates his research on trying to come up with one of the big ones. ''There is a huge difference between bringing out an average game and bringing out a really original, good game and that's why we have been so successful in the past. We have the recipe now for a good game and so instead of jumping on the bandwagon and copying other good games, which is what other people did with Lemmings, we want to try to be there first. We normally have 12 people working on a game and we have to do that to really elevate ourselves from people who are just producing average games. ''We don't do particularly violent games, although kids like them and they drive the market, but I am not someone who believes that games can influence kids in any way. I think the argument that killing something on a screen is going to make you more likely to kill in real life is a silly argument. ''We start with the strategy and the environment and then try to come up with characters to suit. It is normally very simple. I tend to look for ideas from everyday life and one day one of the programmers was using a drawing package and it had these small characters walking up a hill and there was a big gun and it just blasted them when they got to the top and you had about 50 of them trying to cycle away to escape being blasted. Really it is something as simple as that and you start to see a game in it.'' Deceptively simple. GH950520-000022 GH950520-000022 950520 Oh dear, what a gummer JOE DONNELLY 3 30 FEATURE WEEKENDER ILLUS 978305122 Joe Donnelly finds the dreaded spellcheck putting a Hex on things HE GIVETH and then sometimes he taketh back, or even subtracteth. The creator has a sense of humour. He could have made this writer six-four and built like a Chippendale bookcase, or like Sean Connery in wealth, Mel Gibson in looks. On the other hand, he could have said: Be like Jeffrey Archer, Michael Winner, Jeremy Beadle. He didn't, but he could have been a little less lax when handing out the talents. When it comes to the final accounting, he will have to agree that the best was made of the talent while the going was good, and then came New Technology. The creator gave this writer a gift for spelling, almost a hundred per cent. Even at a tender age, if I saw a word written down, I could spell it thereafter. Money could be won with this. Teachers and parents, if not friends, could be impressed. I could make up the marks where atrocious handwriting failed me. I was hot. Not being gifted footwise like the others who wanted to be Pele or Law, a wordy career beckoned. Belatedly, a second talent was revealed at an early stage of said career. Typing was a dawdle. The big cast-iron Imperial machines with the heavy keys were just right. One could type through five sheets of paper and still make a carbon impression on the sixth. All went well enough until disaster struck. A little celestial joke was played which snuffed out those talents in their prime. New technology came, with those little plastic feathery keyboards, cissy little things that needed the lightest of strokes. To a keyboard pounder par excellence, this was a killer. In the old days, the key hit hardest was the key that wrote the letter on the paper. With new boards, the slightest touch on a neighbouring key saw it written on screen. Not spelling mistakes, but typing errors. Millions of them. Whole screeds of new words were invented daily. Instead of through, what would appear was trhroiujgh. For about, we got aszbouyrt. Spelling perfection was gone forever along with hard-earned typing finesse. Then came electronic spellcheckers and for a brief moment, rescue seemed on the horizon. One could run the words through the processor which would pick up all the typos and correct them. Logic? Computers? Tell me aszbouyrt it! Oh, it's fine for common-or-garden words like and, but, and from. It's when we get to writing names, proper nouns, places, towns and cities that spellchecker's logic blows a resistor, and us writing types tend to garble on about people, so names are aplenty. Tony Blair for instance. Run him through the checker and what do we get? We get TORY for a first name, and there are plenty of folk who see the similarity in these days of Clause Four rejection. We get Tory BLARE. Not as inappropriate as one might first consider. Look at that smile, those dimples, those eyes. He does sort of Blare, doesn't he? Hurd? Try Hurt, or Hurl or even Curd as alternatives, proffers the computer, and there's no argument there. There is no alternative in the machine's silicone brain for Heseltine (plenty in mine though), but try Hezza and it will correct it to Hex or maybe even Hess, whatever's worse. John Major's too plain to merit a change, but Bottomley, that converts instantly to Bottomless, which resembles the abyss facing some hospitals. Michael Portillo becomes Portaloo, or Portico. Theresa Gormley converts to Grossly. Tony is no longer Benn. He's Benign, Bent, or Bed, according to the mindless, unlibellous machine. Honest. Hey, it's not John Prescott, but Presto, and that's the magic of the former sailor man. Gillian Shephard sails on as Galleon, or drinks a Gallon, who knows which? Have you heard of Glasgow MP Marina Fief? Or Mania Fife? John Bummer should surely change his name by deed poll. Having a name like that's a Gummer, for certain. So should the former Gerry Malone who now comes up on screen after a spellcheck as Greedy Malign. Are we sure there is no intelligence here? Two top Tories come up smelling of flowers, but not roses, as Lily and Forsythia. Norman Lamont is naturally Lament, but occasionally Laminate, a word often used to describe flexible plastic, which got Norman into the headlines once. Donald is Dewier these days, and maybe Norman should be Lord Tibet. He'd probably do better there now. They're not too keen on Socialism there. Poor George Foulkes is Foulness incarnate, decrees the machine, though he always seemed a decent enough soul, convivial too. On the foreign front, in South Africa Nelson's name is Mangled to Manila, or Mandrill (a baboon with a colourful bottom), while his wife Winnie is both Wino and Whine and maybe makes him Wince. Does Jacques Chirac Shirk? According to new technology that's how he translates. Benazir Bhutto is a Brute. Walesa Wallops. Boutros Ghalli is masquerading as Boaters Phalli. Delors Doles and Arafat is simultaneously Abaft, Afar, Craft, and Graft. But we knew that already. You choose. The trouble with spellcheckers is that they don't seem to understand the Queen's English. What's the point in having an allegedly infallible inspector who just can't get it right? Oddly, it's when we move away from the language of our own dear queen that the checker does get it right at last. Put in some Glasgow vernacular and it can come up trumps. It's the berries. Say Polis and it will offer to change it to Police, though sometimes gives one Polyps and that's no surprise. Heid and Deid re-translate back to Head and Dead. Toon becomes town and Erse, rather than Irish, converts to Arse, which was what we meant in the first place, bumming around as we were with John Selwyn. Choochters though, are simply a class of chatterers. Teuchters, alternatively are Touchier. Glesca is full of Glee and we knew that anyway, on any night of the week. A Cuddy could be muddy, a buddy, ruddy and sometimes even cuddly. A Stoater, quite naturally, is a girl of Stature. A wee Bachle stays small, as Bacilli should, or, because of his vertical challenge, simply remains a Bachelor. If he gets moroculous, it's still miraculous. That's the real miracle of it all. Wherever we go, we can't get people to understand a word we say, yet a darn machine can pick up our sense without so much as a pause for a glottal stop. Technical wizards design systems that can't tell Tony from a Tory, Mayhew from Mayhem, and make an Anagram out of Ingram. It's only when we try to talk proper that we've got it dumfoonert, n'that, y'know? GH950520-000023 GH950520-000023 950520 Those city slickers CHRIS BOYCE 3 30 FEATURE WEEKENDER 978305123 IT'S WORSE than leaving a cola-bottle of paraquat in the fridge. Worse than mixing beta blockers in the sweetie jar or leaving a two-bar electric fire burning beside the wean's bath. It can only be one thing, right? The Internet! The problem is the whippersnappers. Did you see the reference last week to the nine-year-old who used the 'net to build a wee napalm bomb? Very enterprising. Then there's all that computer porn we hear about. Apparently you can't connect to the 'net without the naughty parts of wimmin's bodies arriving by electronic mail. And the tabloids claim the 'net is packed with perverts, nazis, hackers, computer fraudsters, terrorist manuals, computer viruses, and the Mafia. So what do you do when that dreaded computer connects with the 'net? Relax, here are the words of wisdom. You put the machine some place accessible by all, not in wee Jimmy's or wee Jenny's bedroom where they can lay exclusive claim to it. Now you are in a position to see how the kids actually use it and for what. You learn everything you possibly can about it yourself. That way you can find out exactly what is going on inside it. Have one of your youngsters actually teach you -- you know how they adore showing off. Look at the programs they use. Make up your mind if they're worth the house room. If not, scrub them off the disc -- by now they've shown you how to do that. Now for the Internet itself. First of all you have to spend on a modem, a box that allows your machine to use the phone system. Then you have to spend money to get connected to the 'net. Then you have to spend money on your monthly account with the company that provides you with this connection. And, after all that, you have to spend yet more money on the increased phone bill! Finding the kind of outrageous material the press forever whinges on about is not at all easy. Yes, it is there and the diligent, resourceful, and dedicated can find it the same way you can find blue videos and dubious literature in seedy little shops here and there in most big cities. Finding them is rarely easy. Treat the 'net like a big city and you won't go far wrong. You wouldn't let your children wander around a big city on their own and you don't let them wander the 'net alone either. If they strike up e-mail ''conversations'' with strangers just keep a parental eye on the correspondence. Finally do not use the 'net as an extension of that electronic baby-sitter, the video. You cannot just plunk the junior family members in front of it and go off and do your own thing. That buzzword ''interactive'' really makes all the difference. With the Internet you are not interacting with a machine, no matter how slick, how cool the graphics, how hi-tech it all seems. The 'net is made up of real live people. So if you decide it's just the thing to keep the scream team out of your hair while you sit watching Grandstand of a weekend afternoon don't be surprised, when you nip into the kitchen for that quick banana sandwich, to find them clustered round the napalm bomb they're cooking on the stove! GH950520-000024 GH950520-000024 950520 Horror that haunts the forgotten ones ANDY MURRAY 3 28 FEATURE WEEKENDER ILLUS 978305124 Memories of Britain's worst rail disaster, which claimed more than 200 lives, has tormented generations of grieving families, as Andy Murray reports. THE best part of 40 years is a long time for anyone to wear the coal-black attire of mourning. Johannah Malone, however, could be forgiven for radiating the funereal melancholy of an undertaker: her lips could never spell out how she felt from the second year of the First World War until her death in 1952 at the age of 92. Repression ruled. She had never been able to bury her beloved only son, John Malone. On May 22, 1915, that fresh-faced army bugler, straight out of George Heriot's School in Edinburgh, had been scorched into the stratosphere in Britain's worst rail disaster. A glance at a picture taken shortly before his untimely death leaves you with the impression that he was about 14, rather than 16. He had been in the front coach of a troop train whose length had been squashed like a concertina from 213 yards to 67 yards. During the war, village upon village grieved for the dead of the Western Front. Johannah's grief was greater: she had a massive nervous breakdown. Many years later, the relatives of the Lockerbie victims would have expert counselling, but the Great War effort meant folk just had to get on with things. In public Johannah wore black from head to foot, apart from a white collar, for the rest of her life. Every year on May 22 she would shut herself away, and the family would hide the newspapers in case she saw the ''in memoriam'' columns. She eventually died in a nursing-home in Edinburgh, still pining for the son who had been carbonised by the incompetence of railwaymen. No auto-da-fe ever began as unexpectedly as that at Quintinshill. A ''flanker'' meant that James Tinsley, the daytime signalman, got an extra half-hour in his bed, and a ride on the local train instead of walking the two miles to work from Gretna. Officially Signalman Meakin's shift ended at 6am, but the quid-pro-quo arrangement meant that he would work until 6.30am. On the day of death he was scribbling train movements on to a piece of paper well after Tinsley was supposed to arrive. When Tinsley did arrive, he would copy the jottings in his own handwriting into official rail ledgers. Meanwhile, two northbound express trains were running late, and amid idle chat in the signalman's box Meakin (more intent on getting the jottings transferred than on any thoughts of shunting trains into sidings) forgot to tell the worker who manned the Kirkpatrick box to the north that the local train was on the southbound track. He also forgot to place the indispensable fail-safe collars on the line's signal levers. A southbound troop train, sped towards the scene. It drilled into the local train at 70mph; its coaches -- wooden and lit by gas cylinders -- carried the 7th (Leith) Battalion of the Royal Scots. Ironically, and mercifully maybe, there was to be no Gallipoli for half the battalion. The death-trap had sprung. Quintinshill was an inferno. Most perished instantly. There was no pre-battle irritable bowel, or the bullshit from trench-bound superiors. One of the express trains had passed safely, but the second ploughed into the carnage. In all, the Quintinshill conflagration claimed the lives of 215 Royal Scots; 191 were injured. Twelve other people, passengers and rail workers on the express and on the local, also lost their lives. Fifty-five more were injured. One newspaper declared the following day (as the debris still blazed): ''It may be questioned whether in the long and bloodstained history of the Debatable Land, where the tragedy took place, there is set down anything more startlingly and poignantly tragic than the fate which, in the course of a few minutes of shock and flame, practically wiped out of existence a half-battalion of the 7th of Leith Royal Scots. Bob Robertson, of Gretna, who is now 93, remembers pedalling to the aftermath on his brother's bike. ''It was a very sad day. There were hundreds of people there. I got there about two hours after it happened. The engines were lying about the field like bairns' toys. Everything was heaps of scrap metal. You have no idea what it was like. Bob saw several soldiers lying in the field smoking cigarettes to calm the shock. Rachel Buchanan, probably the last survivor of Quintinshill, remembers just such a scene. She was three-years-old and on her way to a holiday with her grandparents in Lanarkshire when the express smashed. Her mother and her one-year-old brother, Dickson Nimmo, were two of the seven on board the express who died. Alexander Sutherland Neill, the man who was to establish the liberal Summerhill school, also walked on the canvas of Quintinshill. During the war he was stand-in dominie at Gretna public school. He cycled to the scene of the disaster after the postman rushed through the village telling everybody that a Zeppelin had bombed the troop train. Rumours of German saboteurs circulated freely, and there is an unconfirmed report that Meakin knocked a young boy down as he fled the scene in shock on a motorcycle. Neill's memoirs record: ''The scene resembled a silent film. The only sounds were the hissing of the engines and the pops of the cartridges as fire crept along the wreckage. Men were lying dead or dying; one soldier with both legs torn off asked me for a cigarette, and he grinned as I lit it up for him. 'May as well lose them here as in France,' he said lightly. He died before the cigarette was half-smoked.'' Officers shot men who were hopelessly pinned into the debris, and they used bayonets when the bullets ran out. The less hardy of them wore gas-masks so that their faces would not register when the soldiers knocked on the pearly gates. Audrey Logue's father, John, who witnessed the scene as a boy, left her with a vivid account of the Dante-like scene. Her father and his school pal became firefighters when they broke into the school kitchens to find anything they could carry water in. ''There were bodies all over the place; some dead, some dying, and some with parts torn off. Some screamed to be shot. Some of the poor lads were trapped and nobody could do a thing about it,'' said Mrs Logue, who now lives in London. There were many troops on the London express home on leave from the slaughter on the Western Front, and they said it was worse than the trenches. Some of those on the troop train who survived the impact staggered out only to be hit by the express. It took Carlisle fire brigade four hours to arrive, owing to a mix-up, but it probably would not have made any difference, given the extent of the damage. Gretna folk had to battle on alone using a small pump to take water out of a ditch. The fire had been exacerbated by live coals and by the gas cylinders invented by the same man who made poison-gas for the Germans. Johannah Malone, back home near Holyrood Park, was spared the appalling immediacy of the holocaust, but the trauma was long-lasting. ''She was a typical old Scots lady,'' says Johannah's grand-daughter, Joan Thomson of Dumfries. ''She did not know for such a long time whether John had been killed. The battalion records had been lost in the accident, and they did not know who was where. ''Nothing of him was ever found. He was incinerated. He had been in the front coach along with the band. The idea was that they could more easily get out of the train and head the procession of the troops down to Liverpool docks as they boarded for Gallipoli. ''The death certificate did not arrive for about three months. My grandmother kept hoping he had gone on the boat. On the rare occasions she spoke of Quintinshill, she would shake her head and her sad eyes would look at you and she would say, 'He jeest forgot' -- a reference to the signalman's comment during the trial at Edinburgh.'' The trauma extended to Joan Thomson's mother, Blanche, who had been studying at Portobello High School at the time of the tragedy. Affected by her brother's death, she failed her exams. And every November until she died a couple of years ago at 93 she would pin a Haig fund poppy on to the last photograph of the long-lost bugler. Joan Thomson says: ''My mother also refused to travel up the west coast line with LMS, choosing instead to take the eastern route with LNER. ''There are parallels between Quintinshill and Lockerbie. You read about the hospitality and friendliness of people helping support victims' relatives. Everybody rallied round. There was no counselling in those war days, of course. People had to support each other.'' Initially, not even the 63 surviving soldiers were shown much respect. They were sent out to the troopship to sort out the equipment, but the commanding officer successfully pleaded with the War Office to send them home. As they marched from the docks back to the train station, Liverpool kids, who mistook them for German prisoners, pelted stones at them. FRANK FERRIER's face must have been as white as the Alps as he stood in his Edinburgh home fingering the personal effects of his dead son, Thomas, yet another Scottish Tommy mown down by the war machine. Thomas's wallet contained a photograph of his fiancee with a bullet-hole drilled into her face; it was the last remnant of a short life terminated at Gallipoli. Anyone who watched Peter Weir's film about the bloody campaign in the Dardanelles can visualise the horror which that young ''lion led by donkeys'' must have seen. However, his nephew, Robert Cameron, sums it up: ''It is all very sad, but it must have been repeated so many times, and there must be millions of stories like it.'' Such is war. In one way Private Ferrier had been lucky. For three years he had travelled on the train which was last on the timetable before the one involved in Britain's worst rail disaster. That Royal Scot escaped, only to be killed in Turkey. Helen Price, who lives in Edinburgh, takes a sanguine view of the tragedy at Quintinshill, which claimed her uncle, Andrew Baillie, aged 17. ''They all joined up to be with their pals, to be in there at the beginning and to be a hero,'' she says. ''It was the thing to do. My father's family were dock-workers in Leith and they were poor. My father, the eldest of nine, had to go to Dalmeny drill hall in Leith to identify his brother's body. ''There was a bit of controversy. My mother eventually received #250 in compensation, but initially there was an argument that they should not get anything, since they had not been killed in action. WHATEVER they did, Tinsley and Meakin were also victims of Quintinshill. Both were found guilty of culpable homicide. Tinsley was sentenced to three years' penal servitude; Meakin was jailed for 18 months. Both suffered mental breakdowns and were released early. Meakin died young, away from the railways. Tinsley became a lamp-man at Carlisle and died a lonely and broken old man in 1967, having had much time to reflect on his mistakes. The Board of Trade report by Lieutenant-Colonel Druitt stated in September, 1915: ''Men engaged in routine work, where the conditions may easily become dangerous either to themselves or others, sometimes get into a loose way of working, and habitually neglect regulations which have been laid down for their own or others' protection.'' The railway authorities were quick to abandon gas-lighting and wooden carriages after Quintinshill, following Druitt's recommendations. But they bought up as many photographs of the disaster as possible, and destroyed the negatives. Moreover, they resisted the erection of a memorial to the Quintinshill victims. The first memorial was put up in Rosebank cemetery in Leith, where most of the dead were buried (four bodies were never claimed nor identified, and were interred in Glasgow at the expense of the corporation). Last December, during torrential weather, a second memorial was erected at Larbert station (the troops had boarded the train at Larbert). The Western Front Association has commissioned a third memorial, which will go up on Sunday, May 21, at the car-park at Gretna service station, half a mile from Quintinshill. The railways still did not offer land for a memorial. The charitable view is that locating it close to the site of the three-train crash would have interfered with electrification equipment. Rachel Buchanan, now 83, has been asked to unveil the memorial. In Larbert, the skies opened. Let us hope that the May birds are singing at Quintinshill, and that we all spare a thought for Johannah Malone. GH950520-000025 GH950520-000025 950520 A few truths on the lie of the land IAIN WHITE 3 21 FEATURE WEEKENDER ILLUS 978305125 AS YOU cross the majestic Kessock Bridge from Inverness, it is easy for visitors more intent on reaching the rugged outposts of Wester Ross and Caithness to miss a hidden tranquil corner of the Highlands. Surrounded on three sides by the Beauly Firth, the Moray Firth, and the Cromarty Firth, the Black Isle seems to exist as a contradiction. It is not an island at all, nor is it particularly black. These rich rolling pastures probably gained the name because of the unusually mild climate of the area which rarely brings snow, leaving the fields dark all winter. This is a land deep in history, folklore, and culture. On the road to Munlochy there is a remarkable sight which is evidence of the continuity of ancient ritual, even in this cynical modern age. The ice-cold water of the Cloutie Well spills into a trough by the roadside beneath a tree completely festooned with multicoloured rags. Dedicated to St Boniface, the tradition is believed to owe its origin to a much older deity or fairy. It decrees that anyone foolish enough to remove another person's rag will inherit their ills. Clearly the local inhabitants have lost none of their respect for the ancient traditions; but with twentieth-century green-awareness, they have requested that only biodegradable material be left. Beyond the panoramic views of Munlochy Bay the road leaves the coast and passes through the patchwork of arable fields and stands of dark deciduous woodland, until you return to the seaboard village of Avoch. Avoch is neat and tidy, with well-kept cottages, antique shop, ships' chandlers, and a delightful-looking harbour. Sadly, the piers of this quiet anchorage were strenuously signposted as off-limits to all but the harbour trustees; its sole visitor for the day was forced to move on. A mile along the foreshore sits the cathedral town of Fortrose whose harbour, built by Thomas Telford in 1817, holds no such restrictions. The yachts of the Chanonry Sailing Club shelter here; weekend regattas fill the bay with colourful craft. The peaceful streets of this ancient royal burgh are the setting for the annual St Boniface Fair (in August) when the townsfolk dress up in period costume to sell their wares on the original site in the Square. The cathedral was first built in 1250 but much was lost during the troubled period of the Reformation in 1560. Today only the pink-red sandstone ruins of the South Aisle and Chapter House remain among the lovely yew-studded Green. The town was once dominated by shoemakers and an astonishing 32 of them occupied premises in the main street and nearby closes. Nowadays visitors will find much else on offer with a superbly located golf course on the Ness, and an excellent new leisure centre complete with multi-purpose sports hall and fitness centre, and a picturesque camping and caravan site overlooking the Moray Firth. From Fortrose it is an easy walk out along the southern shore of the Ness to Chanonry Point, where there are stunning views of Fort George across the estuary. If you are lucky you may see the school of bottle-nosed dolphins which regularly visits these waters along with porpoises and grey seals. The whitewashed lighthouse on the Point stands next to a large rock which marks the spot where the seventeenth-century fortune-teller, Brahan Seer, was executed. His crime had been to foretell the doom of the powerful Seaforth-Mackenzie family for which he was burned in a barrel of tar in 1660. This ''punishment'', however, would not stop the eventual outcome of his prediction from being realised within the next generation. Walking back along the north shore of the Ness leads you quickly into the quiet one-street village of Rosemarkie. Well worth a visit is the award-winning Groam House Museum which has a wealth of intricately carved Pictish stones. Below the well-kept gardens of this sleepy little place stretches a long, empty rust-coloured sand beach which leads to Cairds Cave, once home to early man and reached only at low tide. Rosemarkie is also home to the Fairy Glen, a wooded valley steeped in mythology. A narrow path picks its way up a deep-sided gorge, through a carpet of primroses and bluebells, and finishes at a torrent of waterfalls, rapids, and pools. On the way you pass a millpond from which ice was once hacked out and lugged back down the steep ravine to supply the local ice houses of Fortrose for preserving salmon. The historic town of Cromarty is situated at the tip of the peninsula, sheltered by the enormous Sutor headlands. Its huge Georgian merchant houses and rows of immaculate cottages have rightly led it to be referred to as ''the jewel in the crown of Scottish vernacular architecture''. The town remains the best preserved example of an eighteenth-century Scottish port and is today enjoying a renaissance as fine historical buildings such as the old brewery and hemp works are put to new uses. With its innovative blend of old and new there is lots to see among the vennels and narrow streets. The original thatched cottage of Hugh Miller has an exhibition of the life of the town's most famous son as geologist, writer, theologian, and newspaper editor. Further down the street, the Cromarty Courthouse, built in 1773, is now an imaginative museum offering a vivid interpretation of the history of the town, with a reconstructed trial using computer-controlled animated figures. Cromarty is a town with its roots deeply buried in the past but without a hint of contradiction it clearly has its eyes focused firmly on the future. GH950520-000026 GH950520-000026 950520 The taking of Manchester JIM HEWITSON 3 28 FEATURE WEEKENDER,SCOTCHING MYTHS 978305126 Jim Hewitson describes a tale of Jacobite bravery about a man, a drummer, and a whore who captured Manchester in 1745. YOU CAN take my word for it. By this time next year you'll have overdosed on Jacobite jollifications. A sporranful of events is planned to mark the 250th anniversary of the 1745 Uprising, or Rebellion (depending which side of the plaid your sympathies lie), and eventually you'll want to lash out maniacally at every tartan shortie tin or plastic Charlie that hoves into view. Months ago, you'll recall, by way of innoculation against the coming onslaught, we started looking among the rank-and-file Jacobites in search of bit players in this great drama whose stories perhaps deserve a wider audience. Pursuing this theme, we come to the remarkable saga of Sergeant Dickson (no Christian name that I can discover) who successfully switched camps after the Battle of Prestonpans (September 21, 1745) and went on to take Manchester single-handedly -- well, with the help, intriguingly, of a drummer and a whore. After being taken prisoner in the rout of Johnny Cope's forces, Dickson is said to have become personal servant to the Chevalier de Johnstone, aide-de-camp to the Prince. By late November, 1745, the Jacobite army had reached Preston, and on the evening of November 27, Dickson, whether under special orders or more likely off his own, adventurous bat, set out with his mistress and a drummer boy for Manchester. According to recordings of the uprising, they rode through the night and were in the city the following afternoon where they dined in some style at the sign of the Bull's Head, openly and boldly declaring their intention to convert the entire city to the Jacobite cause and to enlist recruits on behalf of the ''yellow-haired laddie''. They must have made an interesting trio as they paraded around town, the drummer giving it laldie while Dickson and his wench touted for recruits. At first the Mancunians didn't know what to make of it all. They assumed that this show of bravado meant the Highland army was but a few miles distant. When news filtered through that it would be some hours, evening at the earliest, before they would arrive, people began to surround the Scots in a ''tumultuous manner''. Dickson was equal to this threat and as the circle closed around them he produced a blunderbuss and threatened to blow the brains out of anyone who laid a hand on them. By circling with his gun Dickson succeeded in pushing the throng back until a group of Jacobite sympathisers, several hundred strong, appeared on the scene. The sergeant's moment of glory had arrived and he led the Jacobite contingent around town, recruiting as he went. For the rest of the day he offered five guineas to each recruit and by the time the Jacobite army marched into town Dickson is said to have recruited 180 volunteers in this manner. Prince Charles was cheered all the way to his lodgings, the town was illuminated and bells rung. Important people came to kiss his hand and a vast crowd of all classes arrived to watch him sup. By this stage Charles was already debating the manner in which he would enter London, on foot or on horseback, and what clothes he would wear. The sad fact is that this was the watershed in the campaign. Support from the North of England failed to materialise. The Jacobite commanders had expected at least 1500 recruits in Manchester, and most of the few hundred who did join up insisted that they were purely mercenaries. Support from the wealthy families of Lancashire was not forthcoming. Dickson was taken prisoner at Culloden the following spring and, as a traitor and turncoat in the Government's eyes was, inevitably, executed in Edinburg