Scotland, Rod Fleming's World, Page 2

18/12/2024

Arbroath January 1972

Originally posted 2016-08-16 17:43:12.

Arbroath January 1972 . I was living in the house at 9 East Grimsby. My Dad had died the previous year and I was still struggling with it. But I had a few things going for me: music, a camera and my books. It wasn’t a lot but it helped.

Russ Black, the art teacher at school encouraged me to use its darkroom. I had lost my own a couple of years before when we moved house. This is one of the earliest rolls I still have from then.

The camera was a Leica Model III fitted with a Ross Xtralux 50mm f2, an excellent lens. I used the name ‘Xtralux’ for a band some years later, in Exeter. Film was Ilford FP3.

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18/12/2024

Archaic Humans Discovered in Scotland

Originally posted 2014-02-26 19:41:18.

Scientists all over the world are turning their attention to Scotland in the wake of a shock discovery that ‘archaic’ humans may be alive and well and living there.

The discovery came when one of them was filmed saying that they ‘were not evolved to make political decisions’.

Professor of Anthropology Farquhar Mc Farquharson of the University of Aberdeen explained: ‘All modern humans – Homo sapiens – have evolved highly sophisticated social behaviour including the ability to arrive at complex decisions within a formal political framework. The discovery of a population that lacks this ability, apparently living alongside more developed hominids, is very exciting.’

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18/12/2024

Wot? No Rabbits? – The Brither

Originally posted 2014-01-17 22:11:42.

Wot no Rabbits?

Now my brother was a bit of a character. I’m not talking about my wee brother, here, or the big one I suddenly discovered I had in 2004 that no bugger ever told me about before (aye, we’ll get to that.) I mean my other big brother Sandy, AKA Sye.

Now Sandy did things his own way. He ran a car breaking yard—and trust me, there is no more joyous place to spend your school hols than in a place like that—and he lived in a wee cottage in Arbroath, one of those sandstone ones. Sandy’s wife was called Toos and she was Dutch.

Sandy was always coming up with schemes and one of these was inspired by Toos, who told him that people in Holland raised rabbits for the pot.

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18/12/2024

Poaching the River in English!

Originally posted 2013-06-22 15:02:15.

Poaching the River cover — Poaching the River

Poaching the River is back on the shelves, both physical and virtual, so I have been addressing the next issue.

Poaching the River was written only partly in English, or at least the Scottish version of it, and all the dialogue is in authentic Mearns Doric. That is my native tongue of course, although I didn’t really know it until I was at school.

The book was written as a homage to that culture, but it is a sad fact that there are few of us left who understand Doric, or can speak it. Ever since Poaching was first published I have had requests to translate it into English, something I have always resisted, for a number of reasons.

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11/12/2024

Ma verra first deider

Originally posted 2019-09-26 09:59:36.

I canna hink A wis muckle mair nor fower or five year auld the verra first time A clappit ma een on a deider. Noo ye maun hink yon’s a gey queer-like wey tae open a bookie siccan this een, an hink tae yersel, by, whit’s this lad hinkin aboot? But A says to youse, that gin a bookie’s tae be an honest bookie, an no jist a pile o havers, then we maun set aff on the recht fit, an be honest wi wirsels fae the aff. An sae it is; fan A hink on ma childheid, death aye seems affy close. But this parteecular deider, A’ll hae tae explain mair aboot.

If you like this writing in genuine Scots from Angus, you’ll just love Poaching the River, available in paperback and as an e-book!

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11/12/2024

The Spring Run

Originally posted 2021-03-16 23:07:09.

A hilarious romantic comedy, by Rod Fleming, set in a tiny village in Scotland. Follow the adventures of the protagonists as the they fuddle their way through to a climactic finale.

Spring is coming to the village of Auchpinkie on the east coast of Scotland. With it, women’s minds turn to romance and men’s to something else — poaching. But it turns out these are actually very closely related. A charming romantic comedy set in a world full of larger-than life characters.

Publisher: PlashMill Press

ISBN: 978-0-9572612-5-9

Buy the eBook HERE: