On Thursday 17th May 2018 we had a talk by Eileen Dunlop. She was introduced by our Chairman, Prof. Peter Garside.
I’m especially delighted to welcome today’s speaker, Eileen Dunlop.
Eileen was a primary school teacher for thirty years, and became Headmistress of the Preparatory School at Dollar Academy. Between 1975 and 2000 she wrote a long succession of books for 10 to 14 year-olds, initially with Oxford University Press and later with various publishers including Blackie and Viking. Two notable titles here are Robinsheugh (1975) and The House on the Hill (1987). Subsequently she has turned to biography, authoring three concise biographies, intended for a general readership, for National Museums Scotland, Margaret of Scotland (2005); Robert Louis Stevenson; The Travelling Mind (2008), and Sir Walter Scott: A Life in Story (2016)—the last a splendidly succinct and insightful account which I’ve already recommended to several people wanting to come to grips with Scott.
The main substance of the talk (she tells me) will concern fifteen years spent teaching Primary 7 at Sunnyside School in Alloa, in the late 1960s and 1970s, and the incorporation there of an elementary experience of Scott’s writing into the work undertaken with pupils. It will then outline changes that have overtaken primary schools in more recent years, and suggest tentatively ways that Scott might once again be introduced to younger pupils.
Read Eileen's talk here
Above Image Copyright "Lee Live: Photographer" (Used with Permission)