When Patrick Gillies graduated from the University of Edinburgh's distinguished school of medicine with honours in 1890, a high profile career as a surgeon lay ahead of him. Any city across the world would have welcomed him, and his university mentors, including the famous Joseph Lister, urged him to take up one of these opportunities. Gillies defied them all and returned to his home town of Easdale, determined to continue the work his father had begun as a physician to the parishioners of the Slate Islands. Over the next 40 years Patrick Gillies worked tirelessly to sustain and improve the community services available in Argyll. Although he worked as a General Practitioner, Patrick involved himself in every aspect of the community, joining the Cullipool School Board, where he was determined to protest against its closure - a fight he eventually won. This early battle is indicative of the rest of Gillies' life which he spent investigating everything, from the drainage systems to preventative medicine, and fighting for improvements, such as an isolation hospital for the Slate Islands and better medical provisions for school children. In later years he was able to apply his determination and sense in Army service in two wars.
When Dr. Hugh Beaton dies of pneumonia, his son Ian decides to leave his new position in Edinburgh to take over his father's medical practice on Eisdalsa. As July 1948 approaches, the remote self-sufficient community of Eisdalsa in Argyll anticipates great changes in the provision of its health services. While it is generally agreed the proposals will be for the common good, the Beaton doctors are faced with significant career changes which threaten the unity of this close knit family.
Argyll's historical importance goes back well over 1,500 years. As the centre of the kingdom of Dalriada the area was of seminal importance in terms of Gaelic culture, and was also of extreme significance in the spread of Celtic Christianity. Geographically it is a region of wild coastline, open moorland and rugged mountains separated by deep lochs and fast flowing rivers, with little cultivable ground. There are considerable mineral resources and the forests have always been coveted by Lowlanders, but lines of communication are difficult and were, until recently, often dangerous. Even so, for 2,000 years and more people have struggled to make a living here and one of the questions this book address is how, and why.
The year is 1843 and after the Disruption in the Church of Scotland James Bantrie finds himself dismissed from his comfortable life, like many dissident clergy members, and obliged to seek employment elsewhere. James and his family move to a small parish on the island of Orchy off the Argyll coast where the inhabitants are engaged in quarrying slate rock. Alexander Beaton, a young doctor, has returned home to Eisdalsa expecting to inherit his father’s medical practice only to find his elder brother has already secured not only the practice but also the hand of Alexander’s childhood sweetheart. With his aspirations for both marriage and career thwarted, Alexander responds to an advertisement for settlers in the newly established colony of Otago in the South Island of New Zealand. Appointed ship’s surgeon for the voyage he is surprised to find James Bantrie and family, together with the recently widowed Jessie Dundas and her son Tommy, amongst the passengers. The voyage is not without incident and the Otago settlement in the new town of Dunedin is far from ready to receive further settlers. Many trials await the newcomers before they can truly call themselves citizens of their new homeland.
The Slate Islands lie off the west coast of Argyll. Slate has been taken from these shores from their earliest recorded history and the richness and quality of the deposits meant that in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries slate quarrying was one of the most important industries in Scotland. The Breadalbane family owned the land of Easdale and its surrounds for over 400 years and of course roofed their own buildings in slate as well as many important buildings, including Cawdor Castle in Inverness-Shire and Glasgow Cathedral. The geology, the industry, the people and their way of lie: this is the story of the Slate Islands past, present and future.
Just before World War II begins, Stephen Beaton gains his pilot's wings whilst studying medicine in Glasgow. To his dismay the RAF send him to Manston Air Base in Kent as a doctor and not a pilot, but he soon finds more than enough to keep him busy, as well as the delectable nurse Grace Dobie.
The word has the power to become incarnate without Mary. Why then did God incorporate Mary into the economy of our salvation to become the Mother of the Incarnate Word? If God out of love cannot but incarnate himself through Mary for our salvation, what does this suggest for all the graces that come to us through Jesus Christ, our sole Mediator? Is the incarnation of the Word and the Divine Motherhood of Mary and their unfathomable humility not a challenge to the pomposity of any social, political and religious status? Pride being fed by hatred has blinded many humans not to see the incomprehensible love of God and the dignity of human person made manifest in the incarnation of the Word and in particular the dignity of womanhood restored and revealed in Mary. What has love to do with all these?' Reconstructing the story of the Virgin Mary's life through passages in Scripture, poetry, prayers and inspirational narrative, Anthony Mary Mofunanya addresses her often undervalued importance in God's incarnation and redemption of Man. As the woman chosen by God to be the mother of his son, Mary not only raised Jesus for thirty years before he began his ministry, but was also his comfort and refuge during the turbulent three years before his death and resurrection. Most importantly, Mary was the new Eve, immaculately conceived to atone for Adam and Eve's fall from grace in the Garden of Eden, and predestined to be 'the masterpiece of God's creation' and the vessel for Man's salvation.
The Argyll villages of Seileachan are threatened with a takeover by developers. Initially the proposals create division between friends, neighbours and families but when the full extent of the plan is revealed, old adversaries band together to undermine the plans of a scheming landlord.
Richness of family love . . . . Influence of a guiding mother . . . . With all the comforts of a Southern home . . . . A strong-willed father who was the foreman of a plantation . . . . . Racial prejudice ran rampant during the Jim Crow Era . . . . Heartbreaking loss . . . . and Jubilation. A young African-American girl growing up in the State of Mississippi in the `40s & `50s with all the racial prejudice of the Jim Crow Era, a strong, confident, beautiful spirit developed in the midst of an abusive father. She was raised by a lady who became her Godmother, where she lived until she moved to Michigan. Michigan to Indiana. Raising her three daughters. Her church affiliation. This woman's strong work ethic and political influence probing her into a life-long goal of both her mother and herself to earn her college degree. Here is her story.
Continues the saga of Eisdalsa begun in Beacon on the shore and The gorse in bloom. The inhabitants of the small island community of Eisdalsa in Argyll find their lives changing forever with the outbreak of the First World War.
Set in the 1840s, 'Echoes From a Distant Shore' follows minister James Bantrie, who makes a stand against the unfair practices of the Church of Scotland, forcing his family to abandon all they know. In moving to the Inner Hebrides, James and his family begin to accept the lessons that can be learnt from the islands.
The third book in the five-volume Community Oral History Toolkit leads project managers through the management of people, money, technology, publicity, and administrative tasks from the beginning to the end of the project.
We call attention to the harsh reality that we are living in troubled times. We are especially conscious of climate change and COVID-19. We underline that these challenges impact all people. In light of this reality, we use ten primary questions that all human beings ask, consciously or unconsciously, and then amplify each of the ten primary questions with nine additional sub-questions. We then draw upon one of the great teachers of spiritual wisdom (Buddha, Moses, Jesus, Muhammad, etc.) with a brief quote and then write a short "wisdom" response to the question. By "wisdom" we mean a body of accumulated reflection about the character and meaning of life. Spiritual wisdom suggests an outlook or attitude that enables us to cope, a deeper way of knowing and learning the art of living in rhythm with the soul. We use the life experience of three authors, coming from different religious and cultural outlooks.
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