NEWS AND REVIEWS...
If anything exciting happens, I will be sure to let you know below.
(I exclude from this, though, anything like the re-election of Trump, the sizzling of the oceans, and most matters associated with the present Covid-19 rollercoaster. Life is too short.)
A selection of (mostly kind) reviews is set out at the foot of this page.
NEWS
The Napier Commission? Radical and big, it seems. (13 April 2022)
The good people at the History Workshop have kindly put online a piece I wrote on the Napier Commission of 1883. Lord Napier and his fellow Victorian gentlemen were relevant to this book of mine about the railway schemes of the 1890s. Rather surprisingly, given the composition of the Commission and the times they operated in, the true - and often radical - voices of the crofters and cottars were heard and published. Click here to read my article, and the many other good essays on history which are hosted there...
And on the very same day ... another of my essays on the Napier Report appeared in the Scottish Local History Forum journal (issue 112). This one is a statistical analysis of the Commission's sessions and reports, aiming to provide an insight into who said what, and why. It is only available in hard-copy - but, since you are keen, go and buy it!
A Railway to Aultbea, via Gairloch? Also impossible! (10 November 2020)
The award-winning Gairloch Museum suggested to me, many months ago, that I should give a talk on the abridged history of the railway-line from Achnasheen to Aultbea. And, at last, some troubled months later, here we are. Visit the Gairloch Museum YouTube channel for the recording of the talk
Ullapool Book Festival (29 October 2020)
The Ullapool Book Festival kindly offered me the chance of delivering one of those virtual talks. I thought about it long and hard, and then decided to embrace the 21st Century in all its virtuality. It was a tough decision, though. However, the results are to be made available to the waiting nation, as of 8pm on Thursday 29th October. It goes out on Youtube here - and can be viewed in the coming days, at your leisure.
Trending, as they say (or do they?), on YouTube (September 2020)
My publisher persuaded me to do a short promotional video for the Quite Impossible book. My wife Annette directed it, I played with the train and screamed a lot between multiple takes. To view this oddity,click here.
Tunnel Controversy Divides Scotland? (20 September 2020)
In the pages of that provocative newspaper Scotland on Sunday, there appeared a debate about whether the 'tunnel' constructed within the grounds of Sir John Fowler's Braemore House, was really a mock-up railway tunnel. Or merely a stable. Or possibly both. Bitter debate rages, entirely without any documentary evidence to hand. As a champion of one side of the controversy conceded: 'Who knows?' And as a champion of the other side admitted quietly - and entirely to himself: 'I don't'.
Click here to read all about it...
REVIEWS
Scottish Local History (April 2021)
"A well-researched and carefully referenced volume... This 300-page work, with its extensive notes and references, its bibliography, appendices, maps, charts and black and white illustrations is much more than an examination of un-built railways - it is also a social, economic and political history of North-West Scotland... This is a book to be perused at leisure."
Highland Railway Journal (Autumn 2020)
"The text comprises useful and interesting background to the conditions existing in the areas at the time ... This book is highly recommended to all with an interest in the north west Highlands and Islands and to those with a fascination for unbuilt lines..."
(For more details, consult issue 135 of the Highland Railway Journal)
The Scotsman (26 September 2020)
"Andrew Drummond has pulled off a rare feat – telling a fictional tale and then writing about it again as fact.... A Quite Impossible Proposal is a detailed examination of an overlooked chapter in Scotland’s transport history that is as welcome as the fictional foray that preceded it."
Click here to read the full review...
Ullapool News (25 September 2020)
"Drummond has an uncanny ability to shine a light on local individuals and whole families ... His research is thorough and comprehensive ... sympathetically evoking past generations of the area."
Railscot website (September 2020)
"Most railway histories tend to treat their subject in a vacuum, with little discussion of the economic, political and social forces which spurred – or blocked, as in this case – railway development. Drummond makes no such mistake. ... This is a serious subject, but Drummond has a light touch, with amusing anecdotes, colourful asides and wry commentaries..."
Click here to read the full review...
Far North Express (September 2020)
"This is a book with a very wide appeal. Railway aficionados will find it fascinating, those interested in politics and social and economic history equally so... Andy Drummond tells the story in an easy and friendly style, with plenty of humour"
For more details, consult the journal itself (Issue 81), or click here...
Press and Journal (15 September 2020)
"It’s a classic tale of what might have been, of squandered opportunities, and an abundance of red tape transcending white-heat technology."
Click here to read the full review...