Chapters (43)
- Pronunciation
- Prologue
- One
- Two
- Three
- Four
- Five
- Six
- Seven
- Eight
- Nine
- Ten
- Eleven
- Twelve
- Thirteen
- Fourteen
- Fifteen
- Sixteen
- Seventeen
- Eighteen
- Nineteen
- Twenty
- Twenty-one
- Twenty-two
- Twenty-three
- Twenty-four
- Twenty-five
- Twenty-six
- Twenty-seven
- Twenty-eight
- Twenty-nine
- Thirty
- Thirty-one
- Thirty-two
- Thirty-three
- Thirty-four
- Thirty-five
- Thirty-six
- Thirty-seven
- Thirty-eight
- Thirty-nine
- Forty
- Acknowledgments
She smiles at me and squeezes my hand. “That’s right. It’s a care home now, Johnny. I’m going to ask Marsaili if she’ll let you stay there. And I’ll come and see you every day, and bring you back here to the house for lunch. And we can go for walks on Charlie’s beach, and talk about The Dean, and the people we knew here on the island.” She has such beautiful eyes, smiling at me like that. “Would you like that, Johnny? Would you?”
I squeeze her hands right back, returning her smile, and remember that night I saw her crying on the roof of The Dean.
“I would,” I say.
Acknowledgments
Acknowledgments
I would like to offer my grateful thanks to those who gave so generously of their time and expertise during my researches for The Lewis Man. In particular, I’d like to express my gratitude to pathologist Steven C. Campman, M.D, Medical Examiner, San Diego, California; Donald Campbell Veale, former “inmate” of The Dean; Mary-Alex Kirkpatrick, actress (Alyxis Daly), for her wonderful hospitality while I was in South Uist researching locations; Derek (Pluto) Murray, for his advice on the Gaelic language; Marion Morrison, Registrar at the Tarbert Registry Office; Bill Lawson, Seallam! Visitor Centre, Northton, Isle of Harris, who has been specialising in the family and social history of the Outer Hebrides of Scotland for over forty years.
Note: The actual Dean Orphanage closed its doors in the late 1940s, its children dispersed to other homes. For the purposes of my story I have extended its life by eight to ten years. Conditions at the home related in the book were, however, exactly as described by the last “inmate” to pass through its doors.
PETER MAY was an award-winning journalist at the age of just twenty-one. He left newspapers for television and screenwriting, creating three prime-time British drama series and accruing more than 1,000 television credits. Peter now lives in France where he focuses on writing novels.