Rest In Peace….From ‘Unbound’….The Cairns…. And The Ness….
by Bernie Bell - 08:27 on 28 June 2024
Rest In Peace
I recently discovered that someone I used to know has passed from this life quite recently. I say ‘used to know’, because Mike and I have been out of circulation - not having much to do with people - for some years now. First - Covid restrictions - we were just thinking of easing up a bit on that, when Mike had a health crisis which meant we didn’t have much to do with people. Then - I had what I now recognize as being some kind of breakdown, which meant that we really didn’t have much to do with people. Just working our way out of that, when Mike caught Covid. Then….getting over that and he hurt this ankle. So – we’ve not had much to do with people, and whole chunks of time when we didn’t get a copy of the ‘Orcadian’ – which is where we usually read of matchings, hatchings and despatchings.
I happened on this news, because I saw on a friend’s FB that he was a ‘friend’ and thought… “I wonder what he’s up to these days?” I clicked on his page and – found that he’s gone. This shook me up. He wasn’t young, but he was a strong man, physically. I read his postings, and saw that he knew of his condition, and was learning to live with it – a quiet life, reading a lot, ‘thinking alone’. The last line of one of his comments hit home…
‘It is just another way of living.’
And I thought – just so – it is. Your life draws in – you can’t do things, your brain plays tricks with you. You have to accept and adapt. The accepting is hard to do – but has to be done. ‘It’s just another way of living.’
I thanked him - wherever he is. I lit a candle for him and hope that he’s found peace, or is finding peace. He had a good heart – a troubled mind and a good heart. They often go together.
I hope he’s found peace.
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From ‘Unbound’….
“One of the things I’m keen for us to do publish more of at Unbound is popular history. We’ve had some success already – Kate Lister’s A Curious History of Sex and Tales from the Colony Room by Darren Coffield spring to mind. Like many people I read history for the sense of immersion it can bring – the past very definitely is another country – but also for the lessons it can teach us. I’ve come to come to believe that there is no problem so complex, nor situation so challenging that it hasn’t been already faced by someone, somewhere before.
Which is why I’m so excited to introduce Dissenters, the first book by Elizabeth Briggs, who is in no particular order, a fellow publisher, an activist and a wise and passionate writer of Quaker heritage. Dissenters is bursting with stories of half-forgotten people – many of them women - who lives of mostly quiet (although sometimes noisy) bravery. Activism, dissent and protest are not new ideas, nor, as Dissenters shows, are they inevitably the by-product of being young.
Elizabeth’s book offers as an alternative history of Britain, filled not with aristocrats and military leaders, but by people who thought differently – Muggletonians, Ranters, Diggers and Levellers, Familists, Fifth Monarchists, Brownists and Quakers. Many of them appeared in the roiling cauldron of change that was the 17th century – an era where England was briefly a republic. Some, like the Quakers, are still with us.
By visiting a series of places connected to the people who founded these sects and communities she connects us to their ideas – ideas which still have plenty to teach us about how we should live, but also about what matters and why.
Enjoy!
John Mitchinson
Co-founder & Publisher”
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The Cairns…
…on-going…
https://archaeologyorkney.com/2024/06/26/cairns-day-thirteen/
https://archaeologyorkney.com/2024/06/27/cairns-day-fourteen/
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And The Ness….
https://www.nessofbrodgar.co.uk/2024-day-three/
…300 on the first tour! Holy- moly! I just hope they donated lots of dosh to the dig!
And then...first decorated stone of this season!....
https://www.nessofbrodgar.co.uk/2024-day-four/
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