I spent an enjoyable day today at the first day of the Economic and Social History Society of Scotland conference at Inverness. Sadly due to my neurological illness I was only ever able to contemplate attending the one day, but am very glad I managed what I did.
The conference theme is a two parter: on the one hand economy and society in rural Scotland, and on the other a tribute to the late historian Malcolm Gray. I regret to say that I wasn’t as familiar with Gray’s work as I should have been. But now, largely thanks to the keynote opening talk by Eric Richards, I know more, and plan to read more of his work. I also discovered that I need to reference him in a journal paper I am working on at the moment, even if it concerns a very non Highland location.
There were eight other talks today. Another that I particularly enjoyed was Alistair Mutch’s talk, very much a work in progress project, about architecture of north east Scottish home farms in the 18th century. He used as some of his reference material the architectural guides written by my former supervisor Charles McKean, which was nice.
Another talk that related more closely to my work was Elizabeth Ritchie’s paper about Gaelic and English literacy and teaching, and the consequences for reading and wider life. My history PhD looked at reading habits in Scotland at the same period, but regrettably with rather a blind spot when it came to Highland, let alone, Gaelic reading. So it was eye opening to hear Elizabeth’s research into this, and I look forward to reading the resulting published article.
Yesterday in Leakey’s secondhand bookshop in Inverness I bought Haldane’s classic history of drove roads in Scotland. So it was timely to hear David Taylor’s paper about the cattle trade, on a gigantic scale, in 18th century Badenoch. Trying to visualise now remote hills covered with thousands of cattle was a challenge!
My own talk was to be last, but we rejigged the order a bit, so I was the penultimate speaker. I was also the only person on the day speaking about southern Scotland, talking as I was about my postgraduate Masters dissertation research into 17th century local court records in the Melrose area of Roxburghshire. I was really worried whether I would be strong enough to speak by the time my time came. Last time I spoke at a conference I was very weak, due to my illness, and struggled to talk, even with a microphone to help. This time I had no microphone, so had to project my voice. But adrenaline or something got me through, my talk came in on time, and the audience laughed at the appropriate moments and seemed to enjoy the topic. I also, not to plan, dropped in terms like “CSI Melrose” and “Murrrdddeerr” as in Taggart! My conference talks are always rather improvised and unpredictable, and that was certainly the case here. I had some good questions at the end, and also got a good reference to a relevant work which will help me improve the paper I am working on based on the research, which I am targeting – with a revise and resubmit offer already in place – at an eminent British-wide history journal. So all good.
It was also an enormous help that the conference organisers allowed my husband to attend free as my helper. I was using my wheelchair for most of the time there, to keep me going for as long as possible, and would have struggled with the doors and things without him to help. So thank you very much.
My only regret is that I can’t be there tomorrow. But I had a wonderful time today, and am having a lovely visit to Inverness.
vivdunstan
Viv's Academic Blog 