Harkness – MacGillivray Stories

In this post, I talk about the pictures and characters in the book No Woman, No Cry to give the readers a bit of an overview.

Pictures and photos in these books

I will be the first to admit that I might not have the highest digital literacy. I kind of learn as I go along, using old company computers and my own phones and hardware, which I always seem to be in a continual argument with. 

I’ve been divorced for more than fifteen years. But I can manage to satisfy my conjugal needs by ‘continual’ arguing with hardware and software. Thus, my old Dell computer has managed to replace my ex-wife and ex-girlfriends. Perhaps the most core element of a sexual relationship is some kind of opposition (‘argument’). This is perhaps a sign of the times. Of course, this is no revolutionary idea – as it was already proposed in the movie,  Ex Machina (2014). In other words, ending up in a ‘sexual conflict’ with a machine.

Thus, I apologise to the reader who may have come across the complete copy of my book for any images that have ‘jumped’ to the wrong chapter. I use WORD 2010 which seems to hate images. There is also another digital ‘conspiracy’ in which various email providers refuse to send files of more than 20 MB. Of course, this means that some of the images will be underexposed. In other words, WORD and email providers make considerable efforts to reduce quality and usability.

Characters in the Book

Who are the characters in this book? In Volumes I and II, I will include photo galleries of my close family – my parents and my brothers, as well as members of my wider family, such as aunties and uncles, cousins, grandparents, and so on. Our dog Laddie and our cat Poppy were also ‘family’, but they will have their own story in Volume II. Some men also insist that machines can be part of the family! Thus, I will include photos of our magnificent Wolseley 12, and other cars. Ironically, this ‘love’ of machines will perhaps presage a future scenario where families have valued ‘mechanical’ family members, such as Artoo-Detoo and C-3PO (in the movie “Star Wars”).   

But first and foremost, this story is ultimately about my mother and her family, but also about me, and all the people I have known, because in the words of John Donne – “No Man is an Island”:

No Man is an Island

No man is an island entire of itself; every man 
is a piece of the continent, a part of the main; 
if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe 
is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as 
well as any manner of thy friends or of thine 
own were; any man’s death diminishes me, 
because I am involved in mankind. 
And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls;
it tolls for thee. 

Many of the people in my life have been “washed away” already, especially in my family: my father, mother, two of my brothers. There are also those who were members of my wider family, as well as friends. None of us stands alone in the world, so each human death affects all of us. Every funeral bell, therefore, “tolls for thee.” The bell has tolled for them, and thus for me, many times already; each time, each death diminishes me. 

In other words, the story is not only about me. In the first instance, I will briefly introduce my close family, my brothers, and mother and father. But hopefully their characters will emerge as the story is told. So here I will just present some factual details, and a photo gallery.