Congratulations on being shortlisted for the Wolfson History Prize 2025 for The Gravity of Feathers. How does it feel to be shortlisted and what would winning mean to you?
I’m delighted as well as honoured to be shortlisted for the Wolfson History Prize, since I never really know whether what I have written is any good until other people tell me they like it! I would like The Gravity of Feathers to be read and appreciated by a wide circle of readers, so I hope and expect that being shortlisted for the Wolfson History Prize will help the book to become better known outside Scotland. Winning the prize itself would be amazing; if I do, I expect I will find myself sympathising with my fellow authors on the shortlist, whose books are doubtless equally deserving.
What does the research process look like for you? What were the key milestones along the way?
I decided to research and write what became The Gravity of Feathers because, although a good deal has been written about St Kilda in recent years, I felt dissatisfied with previous accounts of the history of this fascinating island community – including my own St Kilda and the Wider World (Windgather Press 2005). My research trundled on for several years without producing much that really enthused me. In 2020 the pace quickened dramatically; during the covid-19 restrictions, I turned to an electronic resource, the British Newspaper Archive, and discovered lots of information unknown to previous St Kilda writers. I was now able to shake a kaleidoscope which contained new ‘historical facts’ as well as old ones; various insights and themes emerged, new connections were made, earlier hunches were confirmed (or not). The challenge was then to bring together a host of disparate and seemingly trivial anecdotes, bits of information and snatches of opinion into a readable narrative which made sense as history. This was hard work, but the gathering momentum made me highly motivated.
Why do you feel it is important to celebrate history writing?
It’s impossible to understand the human condition without absorbing insights derived from understandings of history as researched and written by good (and honest) historians (and, I would add, prehistorians). Their integrity and eloquence is particularly needed in times such as the present, when history is often traduced, distorted and over-simplified for political purposes; the rush to judgement should always be confronted by the historian’s reasoned and nuanced narratives. Good stories are not always made up!
Was there a particular writer, book, experience or event that first made you interested in history?
When I was ten my father took me with him when he worked as a volunteer on an archaeological excavation. One morning, as we walked to the dig, he started to describe what it might have been like to live in the Bronze Age. Immediately fascinated by the concept of reconstructing the past, I resolved to become an archaeologist.
The Wolfson Foundation awards grants to a wide variety of museums, historic buildings and landscapes. Do you have a favourite historical place, or a place that inspired you?
As I’m a landscape archaeologist, there are practical reasons why much of my writing has been centred on particular landscapes and places, especially in upland areas where more archaeological features are visible. It’s not so much that a place or landscape inspires my interest in its past, but rather that once I have explored and researched the past of a particular locality the insight and knowledge I have gained intensifies its character and my identification with it. This is rather like getting to know a person better, or researching a Shakespeare play before you see it performed. I’ve thus come to love the landscapes where I have worked – Dartmoor, Swaledale, the Outer Hebrides, and the plateau de Calern in southern France.
Read an extract from The Gravity of Feathers: Fame, Fortune and the Story of St Kilda.
Top images: ‘The Gravity of Feathers: Fame, Fortune and the Story of St Kilda’ book cover; portrait of Andrew Fleming
