The Courier & Advertiser (Angus and Dundee)
Student gears up for epic charity feat
ADundee student is planning to get back in the saddle to raise money for a Tayside children’s charity by cycling from Land’s End to John o’ Groats.
David James, 40, will take on the ambitious trek in August and plans to livestream the entire journey, which is expected to last 12 days.
He has set up a Justgiving page, where he hopes to raise cash for the Archie Foundation, which supports sick children in hospital.
David, originally from the west coast of Scotland, is returning to cycling after breaking his right shin when he fell off his bike two years ago.
After largely steering clear of bikes since then, David will adopt a tough training regime to get ready. He plans on cycling from Whitfield to St Andrews and back again every second day.
The Abertay University student, who studies an access course and hopes to one day partake in the ethical hacking course, got the idea studies.
He said: “Part of the course had us arrange a charitable challenge so I was looking at things for that. In the end we couldn’t do them because of coronavirus, but the idea of cycling from one end of the country to the other took hold in my mind.
“Stuff about the Archie Foundation just popped up while I was online one day and I saw the work they do and thought that would be a great place to donate to.”
For about two months prior to the accident he was cycling intensely, about 65 through his miles a day, to help with his mental health.
He added: “It did help a little bit. I would just start pedalling and pedalling, but then one day I fell over and shattered the bones in my right shin. It was really sore and I was screaming.
“I’ve not really been on a bike since then, but I am starting again to take this journey on.
“I would encourage anyone who could spare it to donate some cash for the Archie Foundation.”
David shelled out more than £1,000 for a new bike to take on the challenge so is hoping to raise at least £1,500 for the charity.
He said: “It’s going to be a tough challenge, that’s for sure. The distance isn’t going to be a challenge though. I think the worst thing will be the elevation and altitude.
“The hardest parts are going to be Cornwall and Devon, where there are really steep hills.
“I’ll be eating about four or five times more than I normally do and drinking a lot of water to get through.”
AFife horse owner has urged lockdown walkers to stop feeding her animals “crazy” food. Kelsey Atkinson fears her ponies will die following an increase in the public trying to feed them items including frozen peas, sweetcorn and even bread.
The 21-year-old from Anstruther said people were even throwing dog poo bags into the horses’ field.
This puts them in even greater danger, she said.
Kelsey keeps her pets at a stable near Largo Law and has noticed a huge rise in the number of walkers passing by since the first lockdown last March.
In all, she helps look after four animals, including horses owned by her 11-year-old sister Abi and niece Lacie-mae, five.
While she has fenced off a section of field and put up warning signs, people are now throwing food for the horses to reach.
“People think they know best and it’s crazy what they’re throwing over the fence,” said Kelsey.
“It can cause death. “They can get colic if there is something stuck inside their gut.
“Horses live on grass, hay and any food they get as part of a special diet from their owners.”
Kelsey backs a national campaign calling for a change in the law.
More than 7,000 people have signed a petition urging the introduction of a £2,000 fine for anyone caught feeding a horse without permission.
Meanwhile, a Facebook group called Stop Feeding
Our Horses has more than 6,600 members.
“There have been a few cases where I have caught people feeding mine,” said Kelsey.
“I put up signs saying don’t feed the horses but they were just ignored.
“One day a friend from the yard saw a family feeding our horse and when she questioned them the woman said, ‘I’ve done this all my days and I’ll continue to do it’.
“That’s what we’re up against.”
She added: “There are so many stories about ponies who have died. Even if they survive it can be a long recovery.
“One lady said her horse had pooed out a plastic bag.”
The issue has also raised fears over the transmission of Covid-19.
“If people are patting the horses they can transfer the bacteria and pass it on to us,” said Kelsey.
“Please just don’t touch them and don’t feed them.”
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It’s crazy what they’re throwing over the fence
Crime writer Ian Rankin has told how he succeeded in completing William Mcilvanney’s final unfinished novel by adopting his late hero’s own literary voice.
The Fife-born Rebus writer, 60, also revealed he plans to buy a round of drinks for everyone in his favourite pub as soon as pubs are allowed to reopen.
Rankin was approached by publisher Canongate to complete Mcilvanney’s novel The Dark Remains, which the Godfather of Tartan Noir was working on when he died in 2015.
Speaking in an online event at the Granite Noir Crime Writing Festival, Rankin said Mcilvanney’s gritty novels featuring DI Laidlaw had been an inspiration to him when he created his own detective John Rebus.
He said he knew he had done the work justice when Mcilvanney’s partner Siobhan Lynch wrote to him to say it was as if he was in the room with her.
He said: “It was a huge responsibility but I was a complete fanboy when it came to Willie Mcilvanney. He was a vast influence on Rebus and on me, so I thought well, I’ll give it a go and see how I get on.
“It was very important to me that it be Willie’s voice and Willie’s characters and Willie’s Glasgow that people were reading – they weren’t reading Ian Rankin’s take on it.
“I read and reread Willie’s books and I did my background reading because the book is set in 1972 Glasgow. I was 12 years old then and growing up in Cardenden in Fife so Glasgow was an unknown quantity to me – and it was a prequel so it was like one of Laidlaw’s first cases.
“But I did it to the best of my abilities and Canongate showed it to Siobhan and she wrote me the loveliest handwritten letter saying she could hear his voice throughout and it was as if he were in the room with her.
“I just thought ‘job done’. That was as much as I wanted. Hopefully it will introduce a new generation of readers to the delights and the power of William Mcilvanney.”
Rankin said Rebus could follow in the footsteps of some of the literary world’s greatest detectives by going on to feature in new stories after Rankin dies.
He said that even if he chooses to kill off the hardbitten Edinburgh detective, other authors could simply resurrect him in the future.
He said: “In my mind,
Rebus is mortal but whether I am able to write about his death I don’t know.
“As we know, no detective worth their salt in fiction is actually as mortal as the author who created them. We’re still getting Sherlock Holmes stories, we’re still getting Miss Marple stories, Poirot stories, you name it. Detective stories are still being written about these people even though their originators are long dead.
“We’re still getting James Bond movies long after the creator died, so it might not be up to me whether Rebus keeps going.
“I could write a novel in which Rebus dies and someone could blythely bring him back to life.”
Rankin said the first thing he will do when lockdown restrictions allow will be to buy a round of drinks in his local, the
Oxford Bar in Edinburgh. He said: “I’m going to walk into the Oxford Bar and buy everybody a pint – everybody.
“On my sixtieth birthday last April, during lockdown, I put a glass and a can of beer in my pocket, walked to the Oxford Bar and stood outside the locked bar and poured myself a pint and drank it.
“I miss that place like the devil, so that’s the first thing I’m looking forward to.”
He added: “Writers need material and material tends to come from mixing with other people, going out into the world, seeing what people are doing, listening to them talk and stealing their souls.
“We’re not able to steal their souls if we are stuck in our own little worlds, so we need the world to reopen.”