Darkness & Light……
by Bernie Bell - 07:27 on 19 July 2025
Darkness & Light……
Last year, on Evie sands, Orkney, we met and talked with Fiona Robertson and her children. Fiona told us she was writing a book about Standing Stones. That book has now been published.....
We received our copy in the post, and I began a journey with Fiona who, rather than focusing on why and how the stones were raised, considers how people respond to and feel about them now, telling of her own responses and those of folk that she met on her travels to and among the Stones.
Chapter one is about Avebury and, immediately, Fiona takes a very human approach – wandering among the stones bare-foot, sipping a pint.
Reading this gave me the idea of referencing how Fiona’s memories of where she visits, chime with my own. So, here’s a very individual memory of a visit to Avebury…
https://theorkneynews.scot/2021/12/21/memories-of-an-avebury-pie/
I’m not sure how successful this approach would be if I followed it through the whole book, but it made me realise how much reading of Fiona’s experiences are likely to resonate with people’s own experiences of stones and stony places…and Life.
It occurred to me that a list of Chapter headings gives a good idea of the ‘feel‘ of the book….
- Everything Changes
- The Stories We Tell Shape Our World
- The Thing Is To Keep Going
- Hope Is The Most Human Quality
- Anything Is Possible
- We Cannot Hold Back The Turning Wheel
- The Stones Endure And So Can We
- The Land Is Still Enchanted
- The Stones Bring Us Together
- The Light Will Come Back
- This Is A World Of Wonder
- The Past Is Always With Us
And I can’t finish this review of ‘Stone Lands’ without mentioning the illustrations by Philip Harris which work perfectly with the text.
They have something of antiquity about them. Not Pre-history, but echoing the kind of illustrations which might accompany 17th or 18th Century antiquarian’s descriptions of their exploration of stony places, such as Avebury.
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