The Singing Sands

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The curriculum for "physical training" included much more than athletics. Tey used her school experience in Miss Pym Disposes when describing the subjects taught at the school, and the types of bruises and other injuries sustained by the pupils. When she graduated, Tey worked in a physiotherapy clinic in Leeds, then taught in schools, first in Nottinghamshire, then in Oban, where she was injured when a boom in the gymnasium fell on her face. Tey repurposed this incident as a method of murder in Miss Pym Disposes. A rejuvenated Grant finds that recuperation is better served by having a mystery to solve than fishing. Despite musing on whether to retire, he is a policeman through and through, and from a casual puzzle to occupy his time he realises that he owes a debt to the dead man for helping him to overcome his own crisis. His recovery is incremental; from dreading travelling in a car or being shut in a room, he is eventually able to fly without a moment’s thought. The minor characters too are well drawn, with the exception of Tad the stereotyped American and Wee Archie the caricatured Scottish nationalist. Grant’s relatives in Scotland are nicely sketched in, his cousin Laura with whom he is still a little in love but who is married to his old school friend, and their young son Pat who idolises Grant, his affection taking the form of presents of hideous fishing lures. Of course he too realises the unfairness of this thought, but it serves to highlight those occasional moments when you feel so annoyed that those around you aren’t suffering like you and therefore can’t comprehend what you are going through. Earlier this month I came up with my favourite mystery novels which involve holidays, trips or modes of transport. And one of my favourite UK holiday based mysteries was Josephine Tey’s The Singing Sands (1952), so this week I decided to give it a re-read. Jeffrey, Evie (2019). "Capital Punishment and Women in the British Police Procedural: Josephine Tey's A Shilling for Candles and To Love and Be Wise". Clues: A Journal of Detection. 37 (2): 40–50.

The pay to park kiosk was causing issues for several ppl . The millennial girls at the kiosk at the entrance weren’t willingly helpful or friendly. They literally sit there all day, and should really not get paid to chat about personal topics, & therefore act like pertinent relevant questions from the public are an interruption and intrusion , and begrudgingly answer with the Incorrect information, delivered with a patronizing attitude. Sheesh Author Dana Stabenow's homage to Josephine Tey's The Daughter of Time — How My Mother and Josephine Tey Led Me into a Life of Crime I like this one too, with some reservations. I can remember a lot of scenes and moments and characters, but can’t really remember much about the causes of the crime! I don’t think I’d thought much about what was wrong with Grant, so I found your analysis interesting and helpful. Ideal subject for the meme – I always saw trips-to-Scotland through the veil of this book in fact, from the sleeper train and early morning hotels onwards. I don’t suppose it’s really like that anymore. Why should I mind Tommy knowing? There was nothing shameful about it. If he were a paralysed syphilitic he would accept Tommy’s help and sympathy. Why should he want to keep from Tommy’s knowledge the fact that he was sweating with terror because of something that didn’t exist?’ In five of the mystery novels, all of which except the first she wrote under the name of Tey, the hero is Scotland Yard Inspector Alan Grant. (Grant appears in a sixth, The Franchise Affair, as a minor character.) The best known of these is The Daughter of Time, in which Grant, laid up in hospital, has friends research reference books and contemporary documents so that he can puzzle out the mystery of whether King Richard III of England murdered his nephews, the Princes in the Tower. Grant comes to the firm conclusion that King Richard was totally innocent of the death of the princes.

He may not play a big role in the story, but Gallacher is someone you can easily visualise and imagine, due to Tey’s abilities to create characters. Ironically a rival expedition finds Wabar, rendering Bill’s death irrelevant. Lloyd, having he feels committed the perfect murder, wrongly as it happens as he had overlooked some incriminating fingerprints, writes a lengthy confession setting out how he did it and why (a clunky weakness in the structure to wrap everything up) and flies his plane into Mont Blanc. Grant likens him to Wee Archie in his vanity, a significant character flaw in Grant’s estimation. Lloyd’s contempt for Bill, finding him ordinary and of no account, reveals more about Lloyd than it does Bill; in his composition of the poem Bill not only provides the stimulus for the solving of the mystery but indicates that someone considered bland can have unseen depths. The Singing Sands (1952) (turns on the discovery of the lost city of Wabar, based on the legend of Iram of the Pillars)

There are unpleasant aspects to some of Tey’s assertions in all of her books that for me can get in the way. I never re-read Miss Pym Disposes because I didn’t like it but it’s so long ago I can’t recall in detail why. I didn’t like Daughter of Time either because it was more of a dogmatic thesis than a mystery book. I think she writes beautifully, but conversely I probably wouldn’t describe her as a great mystery writer. In the 1940s, one of Bing Crosby's musical hits was "The Singing Sands of Alamosa" - a love song based on the sounds of Great Sand Dunes. This humming sound continues to inspire people today! Singing Sands has just reopened with major upgrades. I am sure that you are supposed to have the parking pass that is good at all locations including singing sands. How to get there: From Port Ellen drive west to the Oa Peninsula. There is a car park located 50 yards before the Carraig Fhada Lighthouse, and from there it’s a five-minute walk to the beach. Where to find the Singing Sands Please consider setting up a direct debit donation to help support the continued maintenance and updates to Walkhighlands. DonateFrom such an unpromising beginning Grant is gradually drawn into the mystery of who the man in compartment B Seven was and why he was on the train. The novel’s slow first half builds up a portrait of Grant’s psyche as he grapples with his demons and puzzles over the death while fishing and having his cousin try to set him up with a widowed but impoverished (those wretched death duties) aristocrat. Asking his sergeant in London about Martin does not help because it seems that the man’s family in Marseilles has positively identified the body from a photograph and the death has been ruled an accident by the coroner. Meanwhile as he ponders he fishes, during the course of which he meets a kilted Scotsman called Wee Archie. Henderson, Jennifer Morag (2015). A Life: Josephine Tey. Dingwall: Sandstone. pp.91–93. ISBN 978-1-910985-37-3. He had a moment of stinging impatience with her. She was too complacent. She was far too happy… It would do her good to have some demons to fight…’ and The Man in the Queue (1929), though she also touched on some of the others such as The Singing Sands (1952), which is Henderson’s favourite (and as in my own review of the novel she noted the […] Mann, Jessica (1981). "Josephine Tey". Deadlier than the male: why are respectable English women so good at murder?. New York: Macmillan. ISBN 9780025794603.

I first read this book MANY MANY years ago, while on a loosely-planned visit to the UK. I remember being sufficiently taken by the notion of “singing sands” to get myself onto a MacBrayne Steamer ferry to the island of Eigg in the Hebrides, where there were said to be such sands – I seem to remember a distinct humming, despite a nasty rainstorm. Later re-reads of the book have been less enchanting, mostly because, as you say, the puzzle element really wasn’t very satisfactory, and the ending appeared rushed at best. I do like Tey, however, and think of her as a very elegant writer indeed. I also think Tey uses Inspector Grant’s character as a vehicle for discussing the English class system and on the issue of Scotland’s union with England, with Inspector Grant being in favour of it. To begin with the English class system, Inspector Grant dismantles a number of stereotypes an American character has about the upper class. For example Inspector Grant refutes the idea that all upper class people have ‘beaky noses… specifically provided for looking down,’ suggesting that this is more likely to be found in ‘the suburbs.’ Inspector Grant also asserts that ‘there never has been separate and distinct classes – or an aristocratic class,’ with people mixing from all levels. I’m not sure this argument is entirely convincing but it did make me wonder what Tey’s views were on class. Scottish Referendum How long does it take to get there by foot from the pier? I've got an hour and a half on the island, what's in range by foot and by bike? Would I have time to get there by kayak, assuming they can be hired four near the pier? Although his claustrophobia is his main problem, I think another issue with Inspector Grant also surfaces in the novel and that is with his relationships, which suffer due to his addiction to work. On the one hand solving this case does benefit Inspector Grant: ‘the dead young man, who could not save himself, had saved him.’ But on the other hand his dedication to his work leaves no room for love or romantic relationships. I think Laura is very telling when she says to Inspector Grant: Just as our own voices are made by air moving through vibrating vocal chords, a humming sound is made at Great Sand Dunes as air is pushed through millions of tumbling sand grains during an avalanche. Avalanches occur naturally during storms, but can also be created by people pushing sand down a dune face.It appears on the face of it to have been an accident, the drunk man having fallen over and bashed his head on the basin. While accepting that it probably was an accident, Grant cannot help feeling that not all is as it seems – supposedly a French mechanic called Charles Martin, he wrote in fluent English with a script that seems English rather than French.