The Taliban, a scared donkey, Outlander, a 500-year-old teacher.. and the rest is history
For a few weeks in 2001, Yvonne Ridley was very famous.
A foreign correspondent, she sneaked into Afghanistan in a burqa shortly after the US invasion. Trying to leave by the same method, on a donkey, it all went wrong. The donkey bolted, she fell off and a Taliban border guard spotted a camera under her robe. She was accused of spying and thrown in jail. It took 12 days for her paper’s owner to convince the Taliban she was a harmless journalist and secure her release.
Since then, Yvonne, 61, has been busy with journalism, activism – and looking af ter rare hens and abandoned peacocks. She’s been nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize for her work with Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh. Now living in the Borders with her husband and fowl, she’s written a book. All in an attempt to put that one incident behind her.
Yvonne said: “I want people to say, there’s that woman who’s written a book, rather than there’s that woman who fell off a donkey in Afghanistan. I know I’m going to have to do something quite spectacular for that to happen. I’ve had that for nearly 20 years and
I’d like to be known for something else.”
Her Afghan adventure is a hard act to follow but
Yvonne is doing her best.
After promising one of her captors she would read the Koran, she converted to Islam. She’s still a Muslim, but she does not bother with a hijab when she’s at home on a farm between Hawick and Jedburgh.
It’s a far cry from the fizz of sniper fire and crash of falling buildings.
In 2015, she collected eye-witness accounts in refugee camps in Bangladesh. In Turkey, she interviewed half a dozen Syrian women who had been raped, abused and tortured in Assad’s prisons.
After telling their stories on a speaking tour of South Africa, Yvonne was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder. She went to a therapist, who ordered her to stay out of warzones until further notice.
The farm was the perfect retreat and her birds offered an alternative source of income. She said: “I started breeding rare hens called Scots dumpies. They haven’t changed since Roman times. Soon I had one of the largest collections in the country.
“Then I got a phone call from an animal handler on a forthcoming production called Outlander. They wanted some authentic fowl.”
So Yvonne Ridley of Taliban/donkey fame ended up as an animal handler on one of the most successful Scottish TV shows this century. She added: “It was fascinating to watch how the series was made. I thought – I could do something like that.”
The idea for her novel, The Caledonians, was born. It’s set at a f ictitious boarding school at Sweetheart Abbey in the Borders, from where sends a 500-year- old history teacher, Mr Petrie, and his sidekick on a series of adventures.
There’s a lot of Scottish history, plus some strong environmental outrage and a smattering of class war.
The McGuffin – the plot device that drives the drama – is an alchemical energy chip straight out of Dr Who.
Yvonne said: “With the exception of Bannockburn and the massacre of the Campbells in Glen Coe, I didn’t know much about Scottish history. I’ve immersed myself in it since I moved here .
“Mr Petrie is from the 16th century. He’s lived through hundreds of years. He’s driven to teach people, especially the English kids at the school, about the history of Scotland.
“There’s a bit of fantasy in there; also some underlying themes about protecting the environment, wickedness of human nature and dark forces in the establishment.”
Yvonne enlisted a Scottish historian she met on Twitter as her fact checker and battle advisor. Daughter Daisy, 27, was her unofficial technology researcher, reading an early draft and helping the younger characters get down with the kids.
But even with help, Yvonne found the switch from facts to fiction tough. “It was really difficult. I’ve made a rod for my own back with Scottish history. If
I get it wrong people will be on me like a ton of bricks.”
The Caledonians is the first of a trilogy. Yvonne is already working on book two, which takes a dark dive into Scotland’s connection with the slave trade. “The dream is for it to become a Netf lix series. It will do Scotland and its tourism a power of good, like Outlander has.” Hopefully by the time she gets to the end of book three, Yvonne will have worked through her PTSD and be ready to head back out to areas of conflict. Until then, “I’m sending Mr Petrie on all these adv ent u r e s so I don’t have to go myself.”
The dream is for the book to become a Netflix series