The forgotten art of setting a fire

Respect, it’s all down to respect. That was the message drummed into me by my parents, grandparents and neighbours - and that covered all aspects of life. 

But there’s one area where this childhood ‘respect’ has surprised many through my life, especially those closest to me … fire.

Certainly in this day and age you’d have social services banging on your door with much hand-wringing at case conferences amid deliberation over your family’s capabilities to provide responsible care.

Now, let me set my stall out here right at the start. I was never allowed to play with fire, not once, not ever, but that doesn’t mean I was herded to the other side of the room, and constantly kept a safe distance from the fireguard and behind the clothes-horse.

I reckon it has a lot to do with Fife being a coal-mining community, and with my father, grandfather and great-grandfather all making their living down the pits, coal was a key part of our lives. And that meant so was the fire. You had to understand it, control it and always respect it.

The fire was central to our daily existence. It didn’t just warm us and the house, it was, certainly in my grandparents’ house, a cooking facility, it dried the clothes on dreich, drizzly days, and it provided our hot water.

I remember the arrival of our first immersion heater and my father keeping his eye on the electric meter and his watch and almost working out the cost of a bath on a summer’s day.

“Should be warm enough now,” he’d say as you traipsed off for a barely lukewarm scrub.

It was a different matter entirely with a blazing fire and the damper out, then you could have the water tank rumbling and not only a hot bath but near enough a sauna as well – a wee skoosh of Sqezy washing-up liquid and a drop of your dad’s Old Spice and you were in suds of luxury.

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My relationship with the fire began on the street. That was where my dad’s ton of coal from the pit was dumped. That meant the wheelbarrow being dug out of the communal shed in the square, buckets utilised, shovels distributed from the big long-handled one dad used to the wee one for the children, and that black mound was slowly but surely transferred into the coalbox. None of this sack-to-box delivery back then. What would be left was some irretrievable dross and a big black circle that would tell the world for a week or so that there had been a coal delivery.

We also kept a sledgehammer in the coal bunker that was used to break the huge lumps but, as I got older and was given more responsibility for loading, I had my own system of organisation. In one area there was the easy-to-shovel, easy-to-burn pieces, around the size of golf balls or smaller. Next, and still accessible from the wee sliding door at the side of the coalbox were the bigger pieces that provided the more solid construction of the fire. Then, I stacked the muckle lumps that could only be reached by opening the front of the box. They were our reserves, able to be further broken down, or used for the long burn. These were the sort of pieces that would almost fill the fireplace and burn slowly, allowing you to go out and when you got back, you whacked them with the poker, allowing the glow to turn to flames. Add some smaller pieces, and you had a rare blaze going. These big chunks had another use too, but more of that later.

But what about the fire itself? Well this is where those who didn’t grow up with a coal fire really don’t get it, and certainly not child involvement. I reckon everyone had their own ‘style’ and, like a good broth or mince recipe, we all had our own secrets.

The respect started in the morning when the fire needed cleaned. This was, I suppose, the safest introduction for a youngster. Raking though the grate, shovelling up the ash from beneath it, taking it out to the bin – watching out for a ‘blaw’ from the wind as you dumped it. But helping with the clear, didn’t mean the fire was dead. There were often embers, still hot that could easily roll on to the back of your hand. I reckon these were my earliest burns, and you soon learnt to hover your palm over the charred remains to get an idea of where the heat still lay. Carefully, with the tongs and wee hearth shovel, these pieces could be put to one side of the hearth for a quick light and heat.

This donkey work being done, the hearth would be cleaned, ash wiped from between the tiles, and the new fire set. By the time I was at primary I knew how to set a good fire. You’d make the paper twists out of the East Fife Mail, just the right tightness and density. Too tight and they wouldn’t take, too loose and you risked them burning out without catching anything else and having to start all over again. Then, if you had it, kindling. If you had some dry wood, a fire was easy-peasy (sorry, no skill set required at all for those using firelighters). I had my own way of laying the kindling, allowing just enough air in, with the right size of coal pieces perched at the point of maximum combustion. You left two or three edges of paper sticking through the front of the grate, light them, and off you went.

Then it was down to your preference. To really get the day’s blaze going, if you were pushed for time or it was a cold winter’s day, you had to draw it. I’ve often thought if the nation had only ever known tabloid newspapers, the art of drawing with a broadsheet over the front of the fire would have been lost. You could do that with the damper on a slight pull to get a full-on sook. You had to learn that as the flames licked up they would drop drastically when you pulled away the paper. But, leave the newspaper in place too long and it would ignite. That brought its own emergency procedures with you often having to let the blazing paper scoot up the lum, hoping it wouldn't catch the soot. So you’d watch carefully, monitor how brown the paper was turning and you’d recognise the smell coming off the paper – your senses told you when it was time to pull away. Once caught, the damper could be fully extended; you’d hear the roar and that was you.

After that it was all down to feeding that family friend though the day.

From very early childhood I was instructed in this magical art, and the ways to deal with burning coal that fell into the hearth, sparks, balancing the different sizes of coal for the fire you wanted. How to use dross, how to manage the damper and all its secret powers. The one thing I remember is we were definitely a ‘coal family’. On occasions when we had logs, or sticks off the beach when money was tight, a coal-wood fire was a different proposition, burning faster with explosions of sparks that had you diving ahent the couch for cover then scouring the carpet for the smouldering shrapnel. Wood is definitely a primitive alternative!

But there is one fire I remember vividly, and with pride. My parents had gone out to a dance and I decided I would have a bath, with the hottest water mankind had ever known. And that meant the best fire ever set, ever.

Having evened up the existing fire, given it a good going-over with the poker, I then laid my magical combination of small coal, larger pieces round the side, then, opening the front of the box I chose a perfect slab, maybe three inches deep, foot long, eight inches wide. I laid that on top of the tried and tested foundation, whacked it with the poker so it cracked then filled in around it with coal pieces around a two-bob bit size … then, once it had a good glow all round, I pulled out the damper, full.

What a heat! I had to push my chair further and further away from the fire. Then I heard a banging. Looking into the scullery, the water tank was vibrating. Now science isn’t my strong point but even I knew the hottest water you can get is steam! And sure enough when I turned on the taps that’s what I got, along with shards of rust. Terrified, I was going to blow the side of the house off, I rammed the damper in and, using the washing-up basin, started to douse the fire.

Much to my relief nothing did blow up but I was left with a filthy hearth and mantelpiece, and the living room stinking of coal steam … and a pathetic fire. By the time I cleaned up I was filthy, the fire was a sodden mess, and almost impossible to get going again.

It was a pretty cold bath I had to clean myself up, brown water, which left quite a tidemark, and a silt of rusty metal, but what a fire that was!

The coal fire – it’s a lost art form these day.

Picture: Alicja_ from Pixabay

The destruction of David Mach's bike

The tank blocks at the edge of Leven Links.

A human cannonball, that was me. Soaring fast and high. I had time to say, “Look at me Wendy, I’m flying”, or “I can almost see my house from here”, but I didn’t. Physically, I was fine, unscathed, uninjured, at least for a few seconds. Staying that way was going to be the tricky part. 

So, how did I become airborne? Well, that was down to David Mach’s bike. Now an acclaimed and celebrated sculptor, the future artist's machine was the envy of all his pals. My memory may be failing me now but I’m pretty sure it was a 10-gear racer, though it might have been five. It was his pride and joy; he didn’t lend it out easily and now this sleek, dropped-handlebar racer had propelled me into the unknown. 

The take-off was unplanned so, obviously, the need for a landing strategy was unforeseen. 

The countdown had begun a short while earlier. David lived on Kinnarchie Crescent in Aberhill and he, his neighbour Norrie ‘Bicycle Repair Man’ Walker and myself hung out for a while together, united by various escapades on our bikes. 

The fact David and Norrie lived in Aberhill meant the launchpad for most of our adventures began on Kinnarchie Brae, the steep, but wide, approach to the Bawbee Bridge. Then, that was the main road with junctions feeding down into Lower Methil and on to Methilhaven Road. Coming off the brae you had right of way and a clear view right down to Bridge Street in Leven and through the Shorehead to the pier. 

Given the visibility and our youthful recklessness, we, as young teenagers, had become ‘test cyclists’ on a variety of experiments, including a memorable but highly dangerous descent down the side footpath at the top of the brae on a fixed wheel bike. This was undertaken on a Sunday with minimal traffic as, with a fixed wheel, stopping was well nigh impossible until you hit the Leven Prom stretch between Seagate and Forth Street. 

Kinnarchie Brae, however, was the main road and a much safer route. 

We had relatives staying with us at Rosebery Terrace in Leven and I’d spent the afternoon in Aberhill at David’s house, and probably kicking a ball around in the park. For some reason I had to report home and I asked David for a loan of his bike for the quick trip to Leven. I imagine he reluctantly agreed, so I had the rare treat of unleashing his prized racer on the brae. 

All of this is vague; the next few minutes, 50 years on, remain crystal clear. 

Pedalling out on to the brae, the brickworks facing me, I crossed the road and turned towards Leven, then started pushing through the gears. By the time I rounded the curve, the bike was in full flow, the gradiant accelerating the bike faster than my legs could. Was I within the speed limit? I doubt it but I had a clear run into Leven; I would be home within a couple of minutes. 

The car was dark blue, and I reckoned it was a Ford Anglia. That registered because I had never seen one that colour. It approached the junction to Methilhaven Road from the Bawbee Bridge. I was closing the gap, quickly, and I was about to squeeze the brakes, but the car halted. With it safely stopped, I let the bike pick up more speed. 

Then when I was within just a few feet of it, he suddenly cut across me. I didn’t have time to react, not even to get the lightest squeeze on the brake, then I felt the thud and the take-off. 

At the same time there was a crunch of metal and I was in full flight, probably at more than 40mph. I didn’t realise it but the bike was following me, having somersaulted over the roof of the car but without my trajectory it would crash and tumble into the road, while I sailed on. 

My most vivid memory of this seconds-long silent flight was my speed. I was going fast, very fast. 

Now here I need to mention my father. Dad wasn’t a lot of fun. He was strict, but fair, disciplined and pragmatic. He never kicked a ball with me or flew a kite or built a sandcastle. 

But he taught me to respect people, animals and plants, to make my bed properly, polish my shoes and change spark plugs. 

Often we’d walk along Leven beach, up to Silverburn to pat the horse in the field adjoining the links, up and across the old bing, then back home. 

These walks usually took place in total silence. I’d run ahead, run off, lag behind – I knew his route and would re-join him at intervals for another silent leg of our walk until I got bored and went off exploring again. One of the shared features on these outings were the tank blocks embedded along the edge of the golf course. These wartime relics were perfect for clambering on and, as I got older, I was able to jump from one to the next. 

This antic irked my father, but not in the way you’d expect. One day I leapt off a block, all arms and legs, enough to stop him in his tracks, and he looked at me with a mixture of concern and exasperation. 

Dad had served with the 1st Polish Independent Parachute Brigade and while he never shared his experiences of the war years, he must have reckoned teaching his son how to land and fall was a useful lesson, that coming from jumping out of planes and his martial arts training. 

And so began the impromptu lessons until I had mastered the art: feet together, knees slightly bent, chin and elbows tucked in. When falling, distribute the weight, protect the head … 

And so it was as I whizzed in the air at the foot of Kinnarchie Brae that those childish games of leaping off the tank blocks or hurling myself off the beach grass on to the sands helped me find some sort of a landing position. 

“Tuck your chin in,” was my last thought before everything went black. 

I was out for only seconds. People were still running towards me as I focused. Although I was told not to move, I needed to try to get up and although I fell back at the first attempt I knew then nothing was broken ... and my head was intact. 

I remember some folk expressing their surprise at my lack of injury and how lucky I’d been. Undoubtedly, I was, but I definitely had a bit of help. 

With no fatality on his hands, the driver of the car, who had joined the gathering crowd, jumped back in his car and sped off – and that’s another story. 

Personally, most distressing was the mangled remains of David Mach’s bike, beyond repair. Perhaps it might still provide inspiration for a future work of art? 

Picture: © Copyright Euan Nelson and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence

Fife’s continuing war with influenza

As the Covid-19 epidemic forces Fife into a near shutdown with panic buying, self-isolation and social distancing now becoming a way of life, it is to be hoped the government-recommended messages work in curtailing the virus.

As of yesterday (Thursday, March 19) confirmed cases in the Kingdom had reached nine, according to the Fife Today website, with 266 having contracted coronavirus across Scotland, resulting in six deaths.

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At the time of writing it is expected these numbers will rise, though the full human impact of the epidemic is impossible to determine.

It is to be hoped that the measures proposed and the common sense of Fifers will stem a tide of tragedy which has swept across the region so many times in the past through influenza.

Local figures are not readily available for Fife but the flu epidemic which raged across the UK in the 21-week season of 2014/2015 resulted in more than 28,000 deaths.

The Office of National Statistics stated: "The first part of 2015 (5 to 11 January) also saw weekly deaths at 15,000, the highest number in any given week since the last two weeks of December 1999 and first two weeks of January 2000, when flu levels were very high."

However, it is likely earlier epidemics, before the introduction of vaccines, modern methods of germ control, improved hygiene, and better medical care and medicines, produced a much greater national toll.

Fife was particularly badly hit in the winter of 1891/92 with the parish of Dunfermline suffering especially badly. In November 1891, respiratory complications from the flu had claimed 84 lives in a single month. One miner in Kingseat lost his wife and two children, a couple in Crossford died within hours of each other, and a 96-year-old woman buried two of her daughters before succumbing herself. In the first two weeks of December, 46 more deaths had been recorded in Dunfermline with the epidemic showing no signs of abating.

The 1920s appear to have been a particularly bad decade. On average, nationally, the death rate was approximately 14.8 per thousand, running at 350 per week during an outbreak.

In 1922, influenza gripped Levenmouth with an estimated quarter of the population of Methil and Buckhaven diagnosed. In 1927 another epidemic swept across the British Isles, causing thousands of deaths. At the height of the outbreak deaths in Scotland were averaging 60 per week.

Then, in 1937, the first three months of the year saw 170 people across Fife die from influenza-related conditions – the second highest cause of deaths in Fife, behind heart disease. Again, this time, the epidemic seemed particularly virulent in West Fife. In January, Lochore and Glencraig pits were on the point of closure with over 250 miners struck down by the virus.

In the winter of 1954, Fife braced itself again after a particularly virulent outbreak in the north east of England, that seemed to be affecting children the most. In November the bug blast reached Kirkcaldy and within one single week a third of all the Lang Toun’s children had caught it. The Wemyss area was next with 50 per cent of all children going down with the virus. This epidemic was viewed by the medical authorities as “mild” and lasted little more than three weeks.

Times have changed and though the 2014/15 figures are disturbing, the 2018/19 statistics show a rapid decline in flu fatalities with 1692 victims – the lowest for five years.

Firemen's frantic efforts to save child

A cutting from the Fifeshire Advertiser showing the crowds
 that gathered to watch the blaze.

Firemen unable to reach a poor wee girl caught in an inferno – now there’s a Fife tale worth rediscovering and re-telling. 

Moreso because it happened in an area and I knew well, but it was a story I had never heard of before, happening on the edge of Innerleven and Lower Methil.

Although I grew up in Leven by the time I was in my teens I had pals in Innerleven, Methil and Aberhill, and we used to regularly play football or cricket in Kinnarchie Park by the ICI filling station, opposite Central Farmers. 

Often I’d take the ‘low road’ to Aberhill, crossing the railway line and bridge by the power station, then head along past the Innerleven Hotel and up the Waverley Steps to Aberhill.

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My ‘Auntie’ Bunty, bestowed with that title because she was a friend of my mum’s, worked in the dry cleaner’s in a wee shop on the oppiosite side of the road from the steps and I’d pop in just to say hello.

But now I’m wondering if the shop where she worked had risen from the site of that blaze 20 years previously.

That happened at 124 High Street at the premises of Wizard Dry Cleaners. On Sunday, September 25, 1949, proprietor Gordon Hartley was working in the shop with his sister-in-law Jean Porteous while his seven-year-old daughter Kay played. Suddenly, the building was rocked by an explosion.

Mr Hartley tried to tackle the ensuing blaze but, injured and unable to quell the flames, he raced to summon the fire brigade.

Within three minutes firemen, under the supervision of Company Officer Thomson, were on the scene, and a large crowd had gathered in the street and packed the Waverley Steps.

According to the newspaper coverage from the time, the Fifeshire Advertiser and Leven Mail reported that it was believed little Kay was still trapped in the blazing shop.

“On entering the premises the firemen noticed a scorched child-like figure lying on the floor,” said the Advertiser. “The word went round that Kay had been playing in the shop prior to the explosion.

“Sheets of flame drove the firefighters from the shop.”

One can only imagine the desperation of the firemen and the horror that rippled through the crowd of hundreds at this apparent tragedy.

One person unperturbed by it all though would have been wee Kay who was watching the fire from the other side of the road, and no doubt wondering what had happened to her doll that she’d left in the shop when she went out to play seconds before the explosion.

“It was a relief to hear the child was safe,” said Coy Officer Thomson later.

With the dry cleaning chemicals reacting with the fire, the shop turned into a blazing inferno with telephone lines destroyed amid rising pillars of smoke, and neighbouring houses’ windows cracked.

The firemen, using foam, eventually managed to bring the flames under control leaving Mr Hartley with damage estimated at £2000 for the business he’d started just two months before – and a lot of Methil folk with cremated clothing that had been put in for cleaning.

The Waverley Steps: https://tour-scotland-photographs.blogspot.com/2019/09/old-photograph-waverly-steps-methil.html

Fangless Fifers had NHS gnashing its teeth

While we all love our National Health Service and are rightly proud of it, the present strain on its resources is not a new phenomenon.

In 1949 Fifers had local health chiefs gnashing their teeth over the spiralling cost of replacement dentures.

It was the Fife Executive Council of the NHS, at its September meeting in Kirkcaldy, that stepped up to the plate and gave the community something to chew over.

The issue was the rising number of claims for replacement dentures, and it prompted one doctor to proclaim, “If we don’t do something to deter people from losing their teeth then there is going to be no end to the claims, and no end to the cost of the service.”

And how Fifers were losing their wallies made interesting reading.

According to the Fifeshire Advertiser one man who swallowed a mouthful of salt water while swimming was duly sick and lost his top and bottom set in the briny.

Another managed to smash his false teeth when he tripped on some rocks, and then there was another claim from one man who simply lost his dentures on the “extremities of Leven pier”, with no explanation as to how he managed that.

In some cases the executive council was expected to pick up the full cost of replacement sets; in other instances the gormless gummies were asked to come up with half the cost.

Given the sums involved it was agreed to look at the financial options but ex-Provost Blamey (Cowdenbeath) cut to the chase, giving the committee something to chew over.

“The people don’t appreciate the service,” he said. “If everyone who lost their teeth had to pay at least 50 per cent of the cost then there would be less cases.”

Heavy cost of a rich haul

'Protect Me' - A cutting from the Dundee Evening Telegraph

It seems we like our history to be like our newspaper headlines – dramatic, sudden and exciting. Maybe that has its roots in the fact that all of creation has been condensed to just six days in the opening verses of Genesis?

There’s probably a popular misconception that the age of dinosaurs ended with a big bang overnight. While on the grand scale of time the extinction period was certainly swift, it created a necessary evolution so, while dramatic, it was still gradual. That concept is so much duller when it comes to storytelling.

Likewise, on a local level, Fife’s thriving fishing industry didn’t just stop as one day everyone hoisted empty nets. The decline featured times of “glut and famine” over decades, with the squeeze tightening as the lows became more dominant than the highs.

According to Peter Smith’s The Lammas Drave and the Winter Herrin’ the spring of 1934 delivered the best landings since 1902 and that unexpected boom would continue up until the start of the war.

But March 1935 would produce a harvest that proved troublesome in its abundance, possibly best illustrated by the St Monans yawl ‘Protect Me’ which made the columns of the Dundee Evening Telegraph with its mixed fortunes.

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By mid-March, the winter fishing was again producing poor catches but fresh shoals were arriving with the ‘Hakes’ fishing ground providing a particularly rich reward for the nets.

“Many boats returned to the Fife ports heavy with herring,” reported the Telegraph.

“The crews had a hard struggle to get the nets, which in some cases were absolutely full of fish, on board. The spots in some areas were extraordinary and nets were swept away or torn to ribbons by the weight of the fish.”

The ‘Protect Me’ was forced to lie ashore on Friday, March 22, because of damage to its gear caused by hauling in its laden nets.

According to the newspaper the boat had to take on extra crew and it still took nearly six hours to get the bulging nets on board.

“The gear recovered, which was badly torn, yielded about 50 crans, while a number of nets were carried away. Other crews encountered dense shoals and found that they had also netted too big a catch and their nets were destroyed.”

It was also reported that feelings were running high between the Fife crews and the ring-net vessels which were believed to have caused a lot of damage to the anchored nets.

‘Protect Me’, according to Smith’s listings of landings, continued to fare well through 1936 and 1937 but would appear to have been fortunate to do so, having made the news in January 1934. It had been caught in a gale off the May Isle when she lost her mast and rigging.

The newspapers then reported that she was being carried towards the island when, in response to flares, she was taken in tow by another St Monans vessel, ‘The Endeavour’.

The little Santa in the window

Lower Methil

'Forgotten Fife Tales’ is all about rediscovering those stories that have been lost or buried beneath the louder headlines through the years.

These little gems can pop up anywhere and when you come across personal recollections you invariably strike a rich seam of memories and anecdotes.

The brief autobiography of Thomas (‘T.T.') Fordyce, provost of St Andrews from 1961-70, does, as you would expect, contain a wealth of stories of his time as the civic head of the Auld Grey Toun. But in his ‘Memoirs of a Provost’ (Alvie Publications, 1981) it was his early days starting out in the drapery trade in Fife that really caught my attention.

T.T. made what must have been a massive leap from life in Banffshire to Methil High Street during the boom time for the pits and, of course, the docks.

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He offers a fascinating insight into what life was like in the months before the 1921 strike when the mining community was prospering, describing how the wives and mothers would hold out their lap to receive the cash that hadn’t been kept for personal pocket money by the menfolk.

But while his recollections capture the bustle of a busy town, the story that made a particular impression on me was an advertising stunt T.T. pulled to boost his festive sales.

“There were many children in the area around Methil, especially in Buckhaven and Leven, which gave confidence to stock toys for Christmas.," he wrote. "Having bought a considerable stock and range of toys it was essential to advertise well and make a good display.

“The greatest attraction in the toy window which brought children and their parents from miles around was a mechanical Santa Claus.”

So far, so good, but the stunt wasn’t from buying a mechanical Father Christmas, but from pretending to have one!

“A boy was employed to enter the shop by the back entrance every evening,” recollected T.T. “He was robed in crimson and white fur with mask, beard and gloves. He was then carried into the window and set on a chair, remaining for a while perfectly still. Then his arms began to move and point to the various toys in the window just as if he was a mechanical toy. After about an hour he was carried from the window and ultimately left by the back door.

“He proved one of the best advertising stunts I have known. The street was packed with people, and children had their noses squeezed flat on the window glass.”

Not sure that gimmick would be tolerated nowadays, but it is a wonderful image.

The 'accidental' book, born from repeated failures

'Forgotten Fife Tales'
The original magazine concept
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Also available as a Kindle Edition.

All my life I imagined the process of writing a book was about channelling the urge to tell a story that you felt needed told. I still believe that and so I am somewhat bewildered that I’ve put my name to an accidental one.

How can you write a book by accident? Well, actually, it is very easy; you just need to fail repeatedly and emphatically at a number of endeavours and the outcome can well be seeking out an ISBN number to salvage hours and hours of work, and just moving on.

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Not only that, I have self-published but it is not a vanity project. I’ve had my name attached to articles for nearly 50 years so there is no great personal thrill, well, not anymore. I suppose when I wrote for the school newsletter there was a wee buzz at the byline and certainly the first time I made the front page of my local paper as a reporter, but that was a long, long time ago.

What I am passionate about, and always have been, are stories, particularly local ones. For some reason my community’s history has always fascinated me but, probably because of a limited attention span, I tend to like that in bite size chunks. That’s most likely why I devoted most of my working life to local newspapers – I simply love tales of ordinary folk and that snapshot of social history, and being part of recording it. There is just one thing better ... and that’s discovering it.

At the end of my employment I was offered the chance to write features for a Scottish nostalgia publication. In some respects it was my dream assignment, given carte blanche on a publication where I was trusted to come up with the stories, write them, illustrate them, design the pages and take it right up to the point of print. There was just one downside to that, it wasn’t ‘my’ community or ‘my’ history. Nevertheless, I grew to love that part of Scotland, its people, and its stories, and I still do. And that project allowed me to make the case for a similar publication for Fife and, for a while, that looked like a possibility.

I started to take notes of Fife stories but my focus was on the 'paying job'. But all good things come to an end and I found myself somewhat tarred with the label of “protracting” the work required for this publication so when someone appeared who could do it cheaper and a lot faster I suddenly found myself as a writer with nothing to write for. So here was ‘Failure #1’, and the trigger to all that followed.

It really was, in hindsight, a daft  endeavour, especially since my track record in commercial ventures lies between disastrous and comical.

I decided to launch a Fife publication, similar to the one I'd been working on for a couple of years,  and that very idea was definitely ‘Failure #2’. The physical production of a tabloid wasn’t an issue; I’d had decades of experience, but there were problems, and one major issue on the editorial side that I couldn't solve -  the use of photographs. Copyright, which is normally clear-cut and I understand and don’t have an issue with, proved to be a great deal more complicated when it came to historical images. Many are held in archives and collections, some of which, contentiously and arguably, may actually be in the public domain, and there were some that were still the property of the photographer, though I actually owned the print, but, of course, not the rights for commercial gain.

It hindsight there was a lot of naivete on my part in thinking these fees could be allayed and then calculated on sales, or as a percentage of the profit, if any, the publication might make. Without exception though everyone wanted the money up front, with no contra-deal acceptable. I'd been there before. One of my last commissioned articles saw me file nearly 2000 words on a story I came up with, researched, wrote, designed … and provided images for. When the sums were done, my fee was £40 for around 20 hours’ work, roughly £2 an hour. The pictures I needed for a single use were 70 years old and came from an archived collection ... and carried a reproduction price tag of £225. You can see that the maths of  copyright is an uncomfortable flaw. These image costs, together with those of design, prints etc, forced a major re-think.

Meanwhile, I was still chipping away at the writing.

The next idea (‘Failure #3’) was to abandon the format of an illustrated tabloid journal, and simply go for words and spaces. I decided to do something different here and, looking at 17th century journals,  came up with an A5 format I liked and one I thought might be eye-catching on the shelves, sticking out as 'something different'. The problem here was the pagination. There was a limit on what could be ‘stitiched’ (stapled) with any other form of binding doubling the production costs. Given approaches to potential advertisers I’d struck a blank on the tabloid and A5 proposals, so without having to give up space that would have offset some of the costs, the olde worlde ‘Colourful Cornucopia...’ concept was finalised.

That only left distribution (‘Failure #4’). This was one aspect where the only cost-effective approach was for my wife and I to do it ourselves. However, this is where I came unstuck again. The cover price would obviously need to include a share for the retailer. What I discovered very quickly was that the cover price would actually only include a small share for me, and then there was the 'sale or return' issue. Going back to the sums there was a simple conundrum. You either had to charge a ridiculous price or sell a ridiculous number of copies. If they didn’t shift, then the entire production costs, with no advertising support, would be mine to bear … and I had no income.

By this time I had called a halt to the writing; it seemed pointless to continue. My wife suggested that it might be worthwhile seeing if a publisher might be interested with what I had penned so far, and so began another fruitless exercise (‘Failure #5’ ). To be fair, there was some interest though I was warned by a publisher that if I hadn’t heard anything from them in a year I could take it they weren’t interested. A year is a long time to wait for a rejection slip.

And so someone mentioned self-publishing. The financial outlay only involved some help with formatting and I was advised to abandon my A5 ‘Colourful Cornucopia...’ concept, which, I suppose, didn’t really match the style of writing, and opt for a cover. A graphic designer took on my idea, so there’s a bill for that (‘Failure #6’) .

So there you have it,  that's how the tabloid morphed into the magazine that morphed into the 'accidental' book. Given the royalty set-up on self-publishing I’m already resigned to the fact that I won’t make a penny profit (‘Failure #7’) but if I sell around 1000 copies, which is highly unlikely, that will generate enough to pay for the cover and formatting.

At this point, my pay-off comment should be that this has been a hard-learned lesson and I won’t venture down this path again but … to be honest, I still like the A5 ‘Colourful Cornucopia...’ idea, so much so I reproduced it on page 3 of the book and it is shown above.

So, if there are any contributors, retailers or advertisers who are as daft as I am, drop me an email – fifetales@scotlandmail.com, I’m just about ready for ‘Failure #8’.