Selected works of ‘Countrywoman’ Bessie Skea
The 20th century has made its mark on the Orkney landscape and way of life, but there is another Orkney, deeper and more elusive, and Bessie Skea had the rare ability to sense it and the even rarer ability to point the way there for others. – Howie Firth
Edited by Sarah Jane Gibbon, with an introduction by Howie Firth
This collection of writing by Bessie Skea, spanning fifty years and, in the words of her granddaughter Sarah Jane Gibbon, ‘a lifetime of living’, has been published to celebrate the centenary of her birth in 1923. It includes three of her publications from the 1960s, volumes that are out of print and difficult to find second hand – A Countrywoman’s Calendar, Melons and Icicles and Waves and Tangles – along with a selection of her newspaper columns from 1983 to 1996. The latter now form a new ‘calendar’ of her writing that follows on from A Countrywoman’s Diary (1983) and includes material previously unpublished in book form. It ends in May 1996 with the last column Bessie wrote. Also included is a previously unpublished poem, ‘The Deserted Island’.
Recurring themes and memories flow through the writing, changing with the retellings and the time that passes; but constant, through the years, are Bessie’s keen observation skills, her ability to interweave the present with the past and her enduring appreciation and understanding of, and concern for, nature, whether it be east-windy summers, earthy-rain, golden blazing daffodils or her tree-planting hope. – Sarah Jane Gibbon
A book of dancing light and delicate beauty.
Skea’s writing captures all there is to love of Orkney rural life and the passage of the seasons. Beautiful, lyrical, exacting.
Cal Flyn
Credits
First published in 2023 by The George Mackay Brown Fellowship
Design and Layout: Iain Ashman
Cover portrait of Bessie Skea: Emma Grieve
Printed by: The Orcadian Ltd, Hell’s Half Acre, Hatston, Kirkwall, Orkney, KW15 1DY
Product Details
Limp bound book: 150 pages
ISBN: 978-0-9566616-8-5
Price: £15.00 plus postage and packing
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