"A luminous love letter to an embattled nation" "wonderfully written... vivid, lyrical passages"
Blown away by this review of Night Train to Odesa in today's Observer. Particularly as it's by
@lukeharding1968
who is in Ukraine right now, writing brilliant frontline dispatches.
Digging around in my bag for treats as I wait out the air raid sirens and what should I find but a Tunnocks wafer, squirrelled and away on a Loganair flight a month ago. Little bit of Scotland in Kyiv!
I used to LOVE the sleeper. Scotrail ran advanced tickets - 'bargain berths' for weekdays, £25.
Now run by Serco. £345. Even that sold out one - 'Classic' (just a bunk, but now with tasteful tartan) is £190 when avail. £190?!
Honest to god, who can pay this? Why is this allowed?
The postie braved the 70mph Shetland winds to deliver my mail this morning - and look what she brought. Publication is 3 months away but the advance review copies are real! Can't describe how this feels. Hope everyone reading is enjoying...
@PolygonBooks
I know the word 'community' makes you all fall asleep. But I grew up with the real thing, and then spent 10 years trying to find it again, and lockdown briefly provided it. I wrote a wee bit about this. Would like to know your thoughts.
I spent the day in east Yell, recording a programme, and was given two bags of peat, another of firewood, a dozen eggs, and a cup of tea and a jaffa cake, by people I've never met before.
Think this sums up Yell.
Photos fae today - I've never seen Shetland like this. Very low temps. Drove out to Sandness in the westside - a favourite anyway, but today it was beyond beautiful.
I'll do a peerie thread.
Because I sleep with the window open, I wake up early to the sound of curlews, starling, oyster catchers, crows, snipe, sparrows, and the trickle of the burn. There is no better noise.
Very tired - I think haggard might be the word - but now after a long border crossing and 3 days driving am in Ukraine and eating borscht. Very happy to be here again.
.
@PolygonBooks
has signed Night Train to Odesa, a 'deeply reported, deeply human book of stories' gathered in Ukraine by reporter
@jm_stout
following the Russian invasion
(£)
I'm leaving my (brilliant) job at BBC Radio Shetland next Friday. I'll miss it more than I can say.
Going to Russia, at long last, on a fellowship programme, which is long-delayed but should start before the end of the year.
Apply for my job! Closes 7 Sep
In the 1930s there were propagandists in the UK and US purporting to be ‘independent journalists’, arguing that hitler was just misunderstood. This is nothing new. But it’s revolting. And it wins over a lot of people. Stand against it.
He says he’s interviewing Putin because freedom of speech is Americans’ birthright
I guess he knows that Putin made it a crime to tell the truth about Russia’s war on Ukraine?
That independent Russian journalists have fled to avoid prison?
And
@evangershkovich
is behind bars
The Sunday Post rightly got a lot of awards last night, and I was very chuffed that included runner-up Reporter of the Year for my coverage of Ukraine over the past year. It's been a huge stroke of luck working with this great paper, and in particular with this stellar editor.
Things I want to tell you about Victoria Amelina. Her sincerity and empathy, her brilliant mind. Her commitment to documenting, proving, speaking out, MAKING justice happen. I've tried to write this all down. You can read it here:
@sarahrainsford
I've friends in Romania, mountain region, happy to take refugees - beautiful, idyllic place, plenty of free guest houses, work if they want it. Lovely place for kids. Pit stop or longer-term. I can get them there (I'm in Romania) from the border. x
Night Train to Odesa, my book about covering the war in Ukraine, is available to pre-order. It comes out 2nd May 2024 with
@PolygonBooks
.
Hugely excited to share this story with everyone...
Soaring fuel poverty in the energy capital - the irony of Shetlanders facing a cold winter when we're surrounded by oil, gas and now industrial-scale wind farms.
Opinion piece for openDemocracy, up today:
Overhearing people in white linen walking round Leith like they’ve discovered the forbidden land: “Yes it used to be a VERY bad area!”
“And of course there’s still remnants of that”, another adds, and they all gaze around in trepidation. 😐
Here's an amazing story about a Shetland dental nurse in the 1950s - and how it's come to light years later.
Margaret Isbister would go to all the wee isles across Shetland, with dentist Henry Levison. They'd set up in the local school with a foot-operated drill (oh horror)...
This is awful. I never could have written Night Train to Odesa without a grant from this fund, which allowed me to spend 7 weeks focused on the book alone. Do we want to be a country where people actually write books? Or just well-off people?
This is shocking news and will have severe ramifications for authors and the whole sector:
“Creative Scotland has taken the difficult decision to close the Open Fund for Individuals”
@Soc_of_Authors
Watching my childhood pal get married in Shetland, via livestream, from a Donbas hotel room, is rather more emotional than I can handle. The world is peerie!
Also gutted I’m missing the almighty spree (two folk musicians getting married - I expect a 3-day do at least)
Recommend this Politico story on Belarus plane hijacking. Details are incredible - the KGB man just standing there in the control room giving orders - 'tell them it was in an email'.
The Arctic / Shetland
OK, it's not *that* cold, but the frozen sea voe and howling noise of the easterly wind really reminding us this is 60* North. Brief glimmer of sun over Olna Firth yesterday.
Strom, Shetland.
The most magical thing about all this snow is the way it seems to prolong and intensify the light, which by February at this latitude is much-needed. See this rose gold glow and the dark sky. It's all beyond words.
Few folk have told me they couldn't get Night Train to Odesa in Waterstones and some other shops as they sold out- well, if you're in Edinburgh, Toppings has TONS of copies - and now they're all signed!
The holes of Scraada. The cliffs are 20ft behind me. The sea runs through an UNDERGROUND TUNNEL to this big hole. See the shapes it makes on the black sand. And the thundery grumble below.
There is ONE native hazel left in Shetland. Can't pollinate itself. But the Woodland Squad think there's hope. Hear how, on Radio Shetland in five mins!
Five years ago at St Ninian's Isle, Shetland. Long exposure to catch the way the light and the water move together.
(And some dust in the sensor marring the lovely sky 🙄)
@reganpeggs
Sure, for people who spend that much on a hotel. For the many who never do, it's an insane amount.
There used to be an affordable option. Now there is none. There's only one sleeper train, it's not like you can choose a different company. Monopoly. Who benefits?
Please read this thread. We knew it would be bad, every time Russians are driven out, more horrifying stories of torture rape and degradation. This is Izyum. There will be so many more.
1/ After 6 months of Russian occupation, residents of Izium, Kharkiv have finally been able to speak to
@hrw
about the unlawful detentions and torture they were subjected to
Just about fell off my chair hearing the continuity announcer describe Night Train to Odesa there ... It's happening! BBC Radio 4, in 40 mins, in my own dulcet tones, the first of five part serialisation. Tune in!
"He wasn’t just a person or the father of my children – we thought the same way.”
This is one of the most heart-breaking stories I've read in the past year. By
@IKoshiw
and Anastasia Vlasova, about one family from Luhansk oblast.
Can't believe this - Night Train to Odesa was chosen as a Pick of the Week by
@Tessadunlop
on Radio 4 this eve - and with
@SoldierHxtorian
saying "she's very Martha Gellhorn" - there's no higher praise, at all. My great hero.
Listen back:
I'm currently freelance in Isaccea, a ferry crossing between Romania and Ukraine, where 1000s are crossing every day, mostly from Odessa.
Open to commissions (radio, photo, written & TV). Portfolio in bio.
Enjoying a day off in Kyiv - cherry blossom, nice weather, no sirens. Lovely. Sent my granny this reassuring picture - her reply was ‘You do not look in the best of health’. 😂
This is how civilised countries do night trains, with the mighty
@Ukrzaliznytsia
. My bed for the night, 14 hours across Ukraine to Kharkiv in the east. £20.
(You don't need a blanket because it is, as always, a million degrees).
Couldn't stop smiling this morning stepping off the train into sunny Kharkiv. Air is much fresher than Lviv! One year almost to the day since I was here. Air raid alert went off immediately, and explosions heard late morning then around lunchtime. It's every day for people here.
And the postscript is, of course, that she's my granny, and without her dental nursing taking her to Fair Isle in the 1950s, she'd never have met Alec, and I wouldn't be here today.
Blown away by this review of Night Train to Odesa - the abridged Radio 4 version which starts on Monday - "tremendous eloquence, vividness and humanity". Found in the current
@RadioTimes
.
Just standing up on the hill in the shifting golden light and hail and biting Arctic wind and dark mad clouds of snow moving round the horizon. What a place to be.
Something pretty exciting came in the post yesterday...
Not long now till it's out in the world too. Night Train to Odesa is published by
@PolygonBooks
on 2nd May.
You can have the same wee parcel arriving then, by pre-ordering here:
We welcome you to a highly relevant event on the Russia-Ukraine war with Scottish journalist and radio producer
@jm_stout
, who joins us to present her latest book, Night Train to Odesa.
📅Mon 10th June
🕐7:30pm
📍Ukrainian Community Centre
🎟️⬇️
Nine years today since my mum died. She was bright and bubbly, occasionally quite mad, very clever, always striving for things to be better. Cathy Falkner.
BBC Radio is brilliant. This evening, pottering about cooking, I learnt about Sicilian fisherman jailed in Benghazi, and how the mafia reach worsens covid in Calabria. Heard the voices of those affected, theor accents, their emotions. It's irreplaceable. R4 & World Service.
Completely out of the blue, I was one of the winners of the Travelling Scholarships this year. Enormously grateful. Couldn't quite believe the kind words from
@annemcelvoy
in the programme. Gellhorn!? AND I met
@valmcdermid
. I'll just retire now I reckon.
My Kharkiv piece in yesterday's
@Sunday_Post
. Hopefully an online version you can read up soon. Really glad we could go back to find Yulia and Misha two years on - I don't think we do this often enough in reporting.
The other day I went to Mykolaiv, the shipbuilding port city 70 miles from Odesa. It's been under attack since the start of the invasion, and about half the population has left (thread, photos)
(1)
Olya and Vadim in Mikolaiv. Asked them how they felt when Russian defence minister said aim is to take southern Ukraine.
Vadim just grinned and made a rude gesture. 'We're not scared'.
A 28-year-old rising star of a Kharkiv university, with big ambitions in medicine and huge determination. I met Vlada Chernykh in November reporting on her unit. She was killed last week in Donbas. Please read about her:
Fair Isle on the last day of the year.
It's strange, as I'm half-here and half-elsewhere, scrolling through news of bombed hotels and houses in Kyiv, and people killed at the front. Worrying about friends. My fervent wish for 2023 is an end to the Russian aggression in Ukraine.