ABOUT ABAGAYLE
Some places are visited.
Others recognize you.
“The land has a way of speaking to those who are willing to listen.”
“The land has a way of speaking to those who are willing to listen.”
How I Came Home
I did not begin with Caerlochland.
I began with a name.
My brother Tom uncovered the thread that led our family back into Galloway — into the McDowell line and, far behind us, to Fergus MacDowall.
I came to the land. And then I came back. During two extended stays, something
slowly shifted. I walked its roads and shores, stood among old stones, watched
weather move across the hills and water, and spent long stretches simply listening.
There came a point when Galloway no longer felt like somewhere I had traveled to. It felt as though the land knew I had returned.
Caerlochland grew there. Not on top of Galloway, but from my experience of it.
Wisdom
Wisdom became a presence in this story long before I understood what she meant to me.
I do not think of Wisdom as a belief system, and I have no wish to make Her one for anyone else.
I experience Wisdom more simply than that. In a tree reaching toward light. In water finding its way around stone. In a person choosing kindness when another choice would be easier. In the land repairing itself when it is allowed to.
In those moments when something within us seems to know the next right thing, before our thinking catches up, we can explain why.
In Caerlochland, Wisdom has a name and a presence. Outside the story, I leave Her unnamed for anyone who wishes to.
Look with your own eyes, and listen with your own heart. That is enough.
A Perfect Day in Galloway
It would not be a grand day.
It would wake without hurry.
There would be wind—there nearly always ought to be—there nearly always ought to be little wind in Galloway—and somewhere during the morning I would walk beside water.
I would stop too often. Look at something growing through an old wall. Watch the light change across a hill. Pick up a piece of quartz from a shore and put it in my pocket for no sensible reason.
There would be tea.
There would be people—not crowds, just the unexpected conversation that becomes more important than whatever you thought you were doing.
There would be a few quiet hours to write. And before the day ended, I would stand somewhere near the sea and, I hope, say to myself that this was enough. I am how and where I am, and the land is real, and extraordinary, and it is to belong anywhere at all.
That would be enough for me.
What I Wish for Galloway
I am bringing a story home to the place that gave me its imaginative language. That carries a responsibility.
I do not want Galloway to receive Caerlochland as though I have come to explain it away. I want to be part of a story that respects who live there. The real land is theirs. Its history, communities, memories, humour, difficulties, beauty and future belong to the people who call it home.
Caerlochland is only a story. My hope is that it may sometimes be a useful one. Perhaps it will lead someone down a road they have driven a hundred times and cause them to notice something they have never noticed before. Perhaps a visitor will come because of the book and they will meet the real place. Perhaps someone in Galloway will recognise a little of home inside it.
Come in. Rest awhile. Imagine.
The door is open.