This page should be called SIMON, as the image top left shows Simon Petherick at the offices of Beautiful Books in Soho at the moment he realised that ebooks were the way forward.

The company's website (www.beautiful-books.co.uk) provides an insight into what a publishing house should be doing at the beginning of the Twenty-first Century.

Update, October 2011:
Actually, this page should be called DUNCAN, as the image top left shows Duncan McLaren in his library in Blairgowrie at the moment he heard that Beautiful Books had gone into administration and that the company would not be publishing Evelyn! after all. A study in dismay.

Never mind, onwards and upwards, for Duncan and for the people who were behind Beautiful Books.

For professional enquiries about the current status of Evelyn!, please contact Isobel Dixon at the Blake Friedmann Literary Agency.

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In order to forget the Beautiful Books debacle, Kate and I take a trip to Aberfeldy in the footsteps of Robert Burns. Burns visited this part of Perthshire in August 1787, just a few months after William Creech had published the first Edinburgh edition of Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect.

‘The Birks of Aberfeldy’ is not a poem that means much to me. Perhaps Rabbie’s heart wasn’t in it, because that summer he was having trouble getting money from his new publisher, and he wrote a much more impassioned poem called ‘Lament for the Absence of William Creech, Publisher.’ It’s a ferociously facetious work and I love it. Kate wants to know how it goes. And so I tell her, going easy on the Scots dialect:

"Auld mother-hen Reekie's sore distressed,
Down droops her once well burnished crest,
No joy her bonny basket nest
Can yield at a’,
Her darling bird that she loves best -
Willie's awa!"

Oh good, I got the rhythm right first time. The last line has to be delivered with glee, echoing the short and sweet fourth line.
Kate draws my attention to a figure in the distance, surrounded by fallen beech leaves. She wonders if it’s Simon, formerly managing director of Beautiful Books, Well, I’ve been told that Simon has gone to ground in Cornwall rather than Perthshire, but you never know. Meanwhile, Kate has asked to hear the second verse of Burns’s Lament:

"O Willie was a witty wight,
And had of things an unco' sight;
Auld Reekie always he kept tight,
And trim an' braw:
But now they'll dress her like a fright, -
Willie's awa!"

“That is Simon,” says Kate
“It’s not Simon!”
“It’s Simon to a T! He loves beech leaves. He told me he used to collect piles of them from Hyde Park as a tribute to the author of Peter Pan.”
When I’ve considered this vision for a while, I go on with the poem:

"The stiffest o' them all he bowed,
The boldest o' them all he cowed;
They dared no more than he allowed,
That was a law:
We've lost a birkie well worth gowd;
Willie's awa!"

OK, so now we know. The guy sitting on the bench that we spotted from the other side of the steep-sided stream is Robert Burns, or at least a statue thereof. Rab’s finger is resting on the page of a book which I can only assume is the Edinburgh edition of his Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect. Amused, Kate asks me to carry on from where I’d left off on the other bank:

"Now awkward simpletons and fools,
From colleges and boarding schools,
May sprout like summer puddock-stools
In glen or shaw;
He who could reduce them down to mools -
Willie's awa!"

I’m really getting into this. The statue looks convincing from most angles. And while I’m crouching I give the poet’s boots the once-over. Now I’m aware that I’m not fit to lick Burns’s boots – who is? The furrow that he ploughed single-handedly was amazing - but I give them a good polish anyway.

"The brethren o' the Commerce-chamber
May mourn their loss with doleful clamour;
He was a dictionary and grammar
Among them a';
I fear they'll now make many a stammer;
Willie's awa!"

Kate accepts that the figure is a statue. But she thinks it is a statue of Simon. She wants to know who would want to commission a statue of Simon Petherick out here in the middle of nowhere.
“Probably not the creditors of Beautiful Books,” I suggest, though without rancour. The way that William Creech funded the publication of Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect was to set up a subscription list. Then once there were enough individuals committed to buying a copy of the book he went to press. Perhaps that's a system we could go back to. Indeed, I might set up a 'Subscription' page on this website. Watch this space! But in the meantime let's return to Edinburgh at the end of the Eighteenth Century:

"No more we see from his levee door
Philosophers and poets pour,
And toothy critics by the score,
In bloody raw!
The adjutant of all the core -
Willie's awa!"

Kate wants to know how old Burns was in 1787, his Edinburgh and Aberfeldy year.
“He was 28.”
“Just a kid.”
“He was only 37 when he died in poverty.”
“Just a kid,” says Kate, sadly.

But there’s nothing to be sad about. The achievement of Burns needs celebrating to the hilt. So let’s get on with the next verse, which heaps praises on the scene that William Creech was part of during the Scottish Enlightenment.
“Is that pre-ebooks?”
"It’s even pre-email.”

"Now worthy Gregory's Latin face,
Tytler's and Greenfield's modest grace;
Mackenzie, Stewart, such a brace
As Rome ne'er saw;
They all must meet some other place,
Willie's awa!"

When Kate disappears out of sight, I take out a hip flask and offer Rab a nip. Discreetly the old poet takes the flask from my hand and tosses it back without moving a muscle. I must say this statue is a wonderful piece of work. I'd like to know the name of the artist who had the vision to place it here, so that I could credit him or her. Meanwhile, Rabbie has unobtrusively taken another nip. Which sets me up nicely to continue:

"Poor Burns even Scotch Drink cannot quicken,
He cheeps like some bewildered chicken
Scared from it's mother and the cleckin’,
By hooded-craw;
Grief's given his heart an unco' kicking,
Willie's awa!"

"Now every sour-mouthed complaining blellum,
And Calvin's folk, are fit to fell him;
Each self-conceited critic-skellum
His quill may draw;
He who could well ward off their venom
Willie's awa!"

Kate is wearing a tartanesque shawl. She hands it to me and suggests that I get up close with my brother writer.
"If you love oor Rabbie, then let it show,” she tells me in her best Scottish accent.
“I love oor Rabbie all right. And I’d follow him from Ayr to Aberfeldy.”
"From where to where?”

"Up wimpling stately Tweed I've sped,
And Eden scenes on crystal Jed,
And Ettrick banks, now roaring red,
While tempests blaw;
But every joy and pleasure's fled,
Willie's awa!"

“If ye love Rabbie, kiss his mooth! If ye luv Rabbie kiss his heid!” shouts Kate.
I don’t mind Kate talking like this when we’re in the middle of the country. It’s when she does it in public that it sometimes intimidates me. But, as I say, no problem here. On the birks of Aberfeldy I can give as good as I get:

"May I be Slander's common speech;
A text for Infamy to preach;
And, lastly, stretched out to bleach
In winter snaw;
When I forget thee, Willie Creech,
Tho' far awa!"

“I love Willie Creech,” says Kate taking my place. “I love wee Willie Creech so much that it hurts.”
“Even though he’s pissed off and left you?”
“It’s you Willie’s left. Willie would never leave me. Not in a month of Sundays.”
“Shall I go on with the poem?”
“Yes, but not until I’ve put my shawl around Rabbie's precious neck. Rabbie means almost as much to me as Willie does. There!”

"May never wicked Fortune tousle him!
May never wicked men bamboozle him!
Until a head as old as Methusalem
He cheerfully claw!
Then to the blessed new Jerusalem,
Fleet wing awa!"

“Don’t go Willie. Don’t go Rab. Stay with your bonnie Jean Armour… That was her name wasn’t it?” asks Kate.
“Yes, that was her name. He did leave his Jeannie. But then he came back to her.”
“Of course he did. Rab came back to me. Willie came back to Rab. And we all lived happily in a threesome.”
“What about me?”
“We all lived happily in a foursome.”
“What about Simon?”
“We all lived happily in a 5-star flatshare."

"OK Rab," says Kate, calming down. "Let's find another publisher. Willie's awa'."