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 ...
I once answered a call for submissions based on ghost stories of my local area. Now, the funny thing with Caithness is: most people seem to believe in - and many people will share stories about how they've witnessed - supernatural happenings around the county. However, there aren't many well-known stories.
Of course, there's the standard young-maiden-falling-out-of-castle-window story for at least two of the castles up here, and there's the eerie story of the man whose brother locked him up in Castle Sinclair Girnigoe with no food. Both characters feature in Caithness ghost stories.
But it's high time someone actually explored the individual's ghost stories. In fact, that's something I might do, if I ever actually get sufficient time on my hands! Where are the stories which are connected to the "ordinary" buildings? We've been sharing our Stempster Spectres in our monthly newsletters and, believe me, there are plenty of those!
A little further research of the scant amount which is already out there, and I discovered that there is an urban legend attached to the building of homes for those brought to the area in 1955 to work at the new nuclear site: Dounreay. Now, this tale has gaps and very little proof that it is true, but it still struck a chord with me. I won't tell you it in detail as that would ruin the story, but it has a very M.R. James-esque concept of taking something which doesn't belong to you and subsequently paying the price.
I didn't realise when I chose to include Ay Atomics in this book that it would be released during Dounreay's anniversary year, but that feels like an exciting coincidence.
And, finally, for anyone wondering - "ay Atomics" was what the native Caithnessians called those who came up to the far north of Scotland to work at the nuclear site. Many of them settled and never moved back south: their grandchildren and great-grandchildren are classed as Caithnessians in their own right now.
[You can read Judith's earlier Gothic Horror blog posts here]
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