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#HistFicThursdays - Time, time, time...

This week, we finally managed to install our new (not new ) item of furniture - a mid-18th Century grandfather clock. It's not bright and shiny like more modern ones, but a dark oak with a warm patina which the beeswax polish is drawing out. In order to set it up, we had to do a certain amount of research - how to hang the pendulum, where the weight went on the endless chain - and it got me thinking... where and when did certain divisions of time come from? The time periods which I have written either had household clocks or didn't, I have not written novels from the time of their invention. Clocks have been around for a long time, and the obsession with measuring time in an ordered fashion dates back to at least  the ancient Sumerians. It was they who established a circular reading of time and, I imagine, the sixty seconds/minutes came about as much because it was an easy way to divide a circle as anything else. But it wasn't until much later that the precision of seconds ...
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World Book Day - Lend a Hand

So, the New Year Resolutions went out the window. But don't they all?

I was in a staff meeting after school today, and it was mentioned that Park Primary had reopened, and needed some interim supplies before they could get their stock up again.

For those of you who didn't see it on the news, Park Primary in Invergordon was burned down after an old laptop caught fire. Amazingly, all the staff and children got out and were not harmed. They reopened last week, but have lost all of their supplies.

My headteacher, a practical-minded individual, was hoping to put together some textbooks that we don't use. My first thought was that it was World Book Day this week, and the school had no library. Surely, if they had lost all their textbooks, they would have lost all their library books too!

Imagine that! No books for the kids to sail away on. No chance for the children to fight or fly with dragons, or meet superheroes and wizards.

With that in mind, I determined to package up my book, Taking Wing, and the two other Crowvus books that were written for children (Rosie Jane and the Swodgerump by Susan Crow, and The Backwater by Judith Crow), and send them to Park Primary to help in some small way.

I would encourage other children's authors to do the same. We all know how important books are to kids - I'm sure we all loved to read when we were little. I know that authors need the income from sales but...

Please consider sending just one of your fantastic books to help Park Primary regain its class libraries. Thursday is World Book Day. Make this year's event memorable for those children and their teachers.

It seems that Park Primary have temporarily relocated to Invergordon Academy, so I would send the book to:

Park Primary
c/o Invergordon Academy
Academy Road
Invergordon
HIGHLAND
IV18 0LD

Their postcode is old!!

Thanks, tremendous people!

More details about the fire are here:

https://www.inverness-courier.co.uk/news/pupils-of-fire-hit-primary-school-to-be-taught-at-academy-site-192214/

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-highlands-islands-51614060
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