The Ravenstones

I grew up in a rather insular family. No uncles or aunts. I never knew my grandfathers: my dad’s father died before I was born and my mother’s father played little part in her life growing up. As for my two grandmothers, I met them only once, as both lived far away, one in England and the other in Ottawa.

We lived out west and flying about the world (or even cross-country) was not as common in the 1950’s and 60’s as it is today. Visiting was rare, to say the least. Closest relatives were “distant” cousins, and none lived near us or played any role in our lives.

But I did have godparents, and as a reader/writer, they were all I could have wanted. Joan and Jimmy Lindsay were war-time friends of my parents. After World War II ended, they retreated to the north of Scotland and never left.

They lived in a small house (with its own name, ‘Seacraig’) in the village of Golspie, Sutherland, on the North Sea coast. The name Golspie combines both the Gaelic, from gobhal, the word for fork, or when applied to topography, a bay, and Norse languages, where the by or bie means a town or village. In sum, the name Golspie means ‘the village on the bay’. Today it has a population of a mere 1350, so I can imagine back in the late 1940’s it must have seemed pretty remote, even isolated from the rest of the world.

X marks the spot of Seacraig: the squat brown, stone house, next to the Stag’s Head Hotel. I note that back in the early 1980’s my godmother and the house were listed in the town’s official guidebook as one of only eleven bed and breakfast hosts (and only six with their own phone numbers):

In the early 1800’s, Golspie was a center for fishing (herring), one of several small ports created under the watchful eye of Elizabeth Sutherland, the Duchess of Sutherland, (part of an economic development scheme which, sad to say, also involved the controversial clearances of Highland tenant farmers). Today the place boasts a ‘lovely long sandy beach’,

a ‘number of great scenic walks’ and (nearby) Dunrobin Castle, seat of the Sutherland clan and one of the ‘grandest houses in the north of Scotland’.

Today, Golspie is largely a tourist destination, with an appropriate focus on bird-watching and the natural world. Suspecting it still retains a small-town vibe, I checked out the local website. Here’s an update (May 2021) from the Go Golspie News page:

“The fish and chip deliveries have continued throughout the winter months, we had hoped to cap this at 30 orders each week but owing to Richard and Peter being a pair of softies who cant say No, we are now at 42 deliveries and this number appears to increase every week. We have received funding and donations which helps make this service possible. Keegan and Donnie help with the deliveries every Friday as soon as they get out of school, their help in invaluable and the residents love meeting them on the doorstep for a chat. Keegan has also just received an award as “Young Volunteer of The Year” which is a fantastic achievement for him. Very well done. (BBC Scotland in November and the P&J in December).”

Now that’s my idea of local news!

In today’s secular society, godparents are a dying breed (as is organized religion itself, or so it seems). Back in the 1950’s and 60’s, however, they still played a meaningful role. A godparent, of course, is someone who “bears witness to a child’s christening and later is willing to help in their catechesis [religious instruction] as well as their lifelong spiritual formation.” (Wikipedia)

A good friend, the Reverend Herbert O’Driscoll talks about the godparents’ role in a 1995 booklet on baptism, as follows: “Long ago, Christian life developed a tradition called ‘Anam-cara’. In Gaelic, the word ‘anam’ means ‘soul’ and the word ‘cara’ means ‘friend’. Early Christians considered it very important to have a soul friend on the journey through life. That is what we become when we stand beside a friend or relative at their baptism, or when we stand as Godparents at a child’s baptism. We promise to become that person’s soul friend. When or if we offer ourselves for baptism in our adult years, we too need someone to be an ‘Anam-cara’ to us, a Christian friend to accompany us on our eternal journey through life and beyond”.

Unfortunately, mine were a long way away and played no such role. When young, given the distance between Canada and the north of Scotland, I never got to meet my godparents or benefit from any advice in this regard. I did get to speak with my godmother at length, later on in life (the autumn of 1981), when temporarily working out of the Government of Alberta’s London office. Joan had a wonderful, easy-going manner; I could easily see why she would have been my mother’s a good and trusted friend, worthy of taking on the god-parenting role. I always regret never having the chance to visit her in person.

So, while my godparents played no religious role in my young life, they did the next best thing – they sent me books!

And what I really treasured about them was: 1. they never ignored Christmas and rarely missed a birthday, 2. they invariably sent books, and 3. their choices were perfectly suited to my age and taste. It will come as no surprise to any regular readers of these posts that I still have these books in my collection. Here’s a selection, sent to me over the years from Scotland:

Three years of Rupert the Bear annuals (1954-56):

Rupert Christmas annual from 1955 (London: Beaverbrook Newspapers Ltd)

Then, as I get older, gifts became more serious and worldly. I worked my way through each of the following:

Great adventure stories; classic tales, and not just fiction but non-fiction as well.

And for the big finish, a tremendous gift to someone who’s always appreciated a great atlas:

In sum, while both my parents were inveterate readers and frequenters of local public libraries, I also owe some of my passion for reading, for history, for anthropomorphic animals, for tales of adventure and for atlases to my godparents. I will always be grateful to them for these gifts.