Why Tranter never looks back

ALLAN MASSIE was not exaggerating when he said that fellow-writer

Nigel Tranter had taught many Scots the only Scottish history they know.

At least the task of filling those shameful gaps in our knowledge could

not have fallen to better hands than the doyen of historical novelists

himself, for Tranter lives with the story of Scotland's past as if he

were a witness to events of only yesterday.

''Those happenings in our history are much more real to me than what I

read today about things like Gatt,'' says the 84-year-old novelist who

writes his books while walking upwards of 12 miles a day along the

southern shores of the Forth by Aberlady, eastward of Edinburgh.

This ritual of fresh air and freedom, sustained through all seasons

with the help of an apple, a cake of chocolate and a protective pair of

gloves, has produced well over 100 books, jotted down during pauses on

the daily marathon (Tranter means ''walker'').

When I visited him at his splendid old house by the bridge at

Aberlady, he had just returned with the daily dose of 1200 words,

written more neatly than most of us could achieve at a table.

But Nigel Tranter has not only heightened our history by turning it

into plausible and highly-readable fiction. He has also played his own

powerful part in seeking to shape our nation's destiny -- as well as

becoming involved in the dramatic events of 1950, following the removal

of the Stone of Destiny from Westminster Abbey.

Whereas the strident voice of revolution alienates the majority, the

sheer moderation of a man like Tranter is the argument for Scottish

self-government most likely to succeed.

Nationalism didn't enter his thoughts until he was censoring soldiers'

letters during the war and realised that he could tell the Scots by the

quality of their vocabulary. They may not have been better people than

the English (their letters certainly were!) but they were distinctly

different.

''I am a nationalist with a small 'n' and I have nothing against the

English,'' he explains. ''But I do believe that, if you are a

self-respecting nation, you should be managing your own affairs and not

leaving it to a neighbour.''

Ironically, he blames himself very largely for the fact that we didn't

get our own government more than 40 years ago. That was when he became

closely associated with John MacCormick in the Scottish Covenant

movement which gathered an astonishing 2,000,000 signatures in support

of a Scottish parliament.

Even that figure didn't reach the necessary level but such a massive

demonstration of a nation's feelings wouldn't have been ignored if that

Covenant had included one vital phrase.

''We failed to say that we would not vote for anyone who opposed this

idea,'' says Tranter, ''and the Government lawyers picked this up. I

blame myself for not seeing it. John MacCormick was a lawyer and he

should have seen it too.''

He believes that one additional sentence would have brought results.

But, though he is not himself a socialist, he now expects a Labour

victory at the next election and, with it, the implementation of the

promise to give Scotland what it might have had in 1950.

''I was never a republican,'' he emphasises. ''The Scots had governed

themselved until 1707 and all we were asking was self-government within

the United Kingdom. I was always in favour of the Crown and we would

have left that, along with defence and foreign policy, to the UK.''

Around that same period, Nigel Tranter wrote a novel called The

Freebooters, about someone removing the Stone of Destiny from

Westminster Abbey. Within months it had happened, not only creating one

of the most sensational newspaper stories of the century but raising the

question of whether Glasgow law student Ian Hamilton had copied the

idea.

''It turned out that Ian had not even read the book,'' says Nigel

Tranter, ''and I knew nothing about what he was doing until a 2am

phone-call from the Chief Constable of Edinburgh, Willie Merrilees.

''If Ian Hamilton had asked me I would have told him not to waste his

time because the stone in Westminster Abbey was not the real one. It was

a 700-year-old fake which Edward took away with him.

''I think you would find that the real stone lies somewhere about Loch

Finlaggan on Islay. But you would have to be a Macdonald to know that.''

Whatever the stone, its disappearance from the abbey over the

Christmas of 1950 caused a worldwide sensation. George VI, who would

soon die of cancer, was very upset by the symbolism of it all. Labour's

Home Secretary, Chuter Ede, swung into action, Scotland Yard men were

everywhere and Scottish Secretary Hector McNeill, who happened to be a

friend of John MacCormick, said that if the Stone could come to light in

a dignified manner, it would remain in Scotland for a month till

feelings cooled. (In the event, that didn't happen.)

''I didn't know where the stone was,'' says Tranter, ''but Hugh

MacDiarmid and his republican friends had a boat ready to take it out

and dump it in the Firth of Clyde. In fact it was lying in a cellar

belonging to businessman John Rollo at Bonnybridge, Stirlingshire.

Nigel Tranter was on a committee seeking to arrange that dignified

re-appearance of the historic stone. The minister of St Giles refused to

have it there, as did the minister of Dunfermline Abbey. It was the

legal luminary John Cameron who struck on the idea of the ruined

Arbroath Abbey, where no minister would object.

NIGEL TRANTER hot-footed it to MacCormick's Glasgow home at 2am, only

to find he was in session with the Secretary of State for Scotland. Once

the coast was clear, however, the plan was implemented immediately --

and the Stone of Destiny was taken to Arbroath by Ian Hamilton and

Bertie Gray, the Glasgow monumental sculptor.

There it was discovered at dawn, covered with the Saltire, before

being taken into the custody of a cell at Forfar Police Station.

Such dramas could hardly have been anticipated by the young Nigel

Tranter, who was born in Glasgow in 1909 but moved to Edinburgh as a

small boy and attended George Heriot's. Though he showed no particular

interest in history, a passion for architecture took him on cycling

expeditions to the Borders, sketching historic mansions with details of

their background.

After school he went to work for Aldjo Jamieson Arnott, the restoring

architects in Edinburgh, but with the early death of his father he

joined the Scottish National Insurance Company, which had been founded

by his uncle.

But books were already stirring. At 25 he produced the unlikely title

of The Fortalicles and Early Mansions of Southern Scotland.

''I was very pleased with myself, now that I was an author,'' he says,

''but my wife May pulled me down a peg by saying I wasn't a real author,

by which she meant a novelist. So I wrote a novel, which turned out to

be unreadable.''

By 1937, however, while living at Macdonald Place, Edinburgh, he did

produce his first novel, Trespass, a romantic story set in the

Highlands. But his publisher, Moray Press, went bankrupt and he didn't

receive a penny for it.

By the time war broke out in 1939 he was making #500 a year from his

books, while still retaining his post in insurance. By then, the

Tranters had moved with their two children, Frances May and Philip, to

live at Aberlady, where the author had already been spending much time

on duck-shooting.

His war was mostly in East Anglia, as a Royal Artillery officer

shooting down German planes, but there was still enough time to write

five novels.

Returning to Aberlady, Nigel Tranter had not yet become the historical

novelist and was writing whatever would support a wife and two children.

There would be school fees and university days ahead.

So he wrote some splendid children's books and as he cottoned on to

the potential of the Western, he simply read one and wrote 14, under the

pen-name of Nye Tredgold.

But Tranter realised he needed another dimension to his writing and

that, in his researches for five non-fiction volumes of the The

Fortified House in Scotland, he had amassed a great deal of material,

even dating back to those days as a schoolboy on his bike.

That was when he became, unwittingly, a significant ''teacher'' of

Scottish history, a role he accepts with utmost responsibility.

Since it is the only account of history many people will read, they

will take the story as factual. That is why he believes you mustn't

tamper with character.

''If you are dealing with real people,'' he insists, ''you must be as

honest as possible. Not everyone believes that. Sir Walter Scott made

Rob Roy come late to the Battle of Sheriffmuir, as if it was his fault,

which was not true. I don't know why he did that -- except to suit his

story.

''In the present day, Dorothy Dunnett turned Macbeth and his

half-brother into the same person for the sake of her story. She feels

differently from me about this.''

Tranter is meticulous about his source material, where possible

seeking out the loser's version of events as well as the winner's.

Though his trilogy on Bruce has been a massive seller, it is Wallace who

quite understandably remains his hero, as the man who fought for the

ideal of Scottish freedom, as opposed to the former who fought for a

crown.

THOUGH Tranter's books sell in large numbers, it is an insight into

the financial position of successful authors to learn that his royalties

bring no more than around #25,000 per year -- ''Not as much as my bank

manager earns,'' he tells you.

His public is worldwide, creating a fan mail which receives his

personal attention. It can also bring problems.

''People fall in love with authors and I have had propositions,'' he

says. ''A woman came all the way from Spain and hid in my summer-house.

She even threatened suicide. An American lady sent me a photograph of

the bed we would occupy if I came to her!''

Age doesn't bother Nigel Tranter. Apart from his latest novel,

Tapestry of the Boar,* which came out this month, he has five more

awaiting the publisher -- and those notes he showed me the other day

were the beginnings of yet another.

A strong religious faith saw him through the worst experience of his

life. Son Philip, a civil engineer with Babtie Shaw and Morton and a

distinguished climber, was on his way home from a mountaineering

expedition when he was killed in a car crash in France. He was only 27.

A Highland road which Philip had built near Dornie was named after him

and his father had the sad task of declaring it open.

Philip is buried at Aberlady, beside with his mother, May. Nigel

Tranter has no fear of death and anticipates the day when he will join

them. But there is much living to be done in his charming old house,

where he almost apologises for a modern wing which was built as recently

as 1746, the year of Culloden.

How would he like to be remembered? He has no doubt: ''As a

storyteller who tried to get people to appreciate Scotland's story and

to realise how exciting, colourful and dramatic it really is.''

Now it was time to type up his day's work, not on any new-fangled

word-processor but on the battered old typewriter which has served him

well for a lifetime.

* Tapestry of the Boar, from Hodder and Stoughton at #15.99.