I'm posting some photos that I hope will enrich your enjoyment of the last chapter of STAR GAZING. They are of the Piper Alpha Memorial Garden in Aberdeen where Marianne goes every July to pay her respects to the dead. These are photos I took when I went to Aberdeen in early spring to do some research.

The memorial was designed by Sue Jane Taylor. The men's odd postures are symbolic of work activities that take place on an oil platform. (The model for one of the figures was actually one of the survivors.) I found the memorial rather strange to begin with, then as I grew used to its scale and symbolism, deeply moving.

Note Marianne's bench! I sat there with my eyes shut, listening very hard to all the sounds that could be heard in the park.

Thanks for the pictures. I couldn't picture the memorial statues and their positions do look a little odd to someone who knows nothing of the work they do, but I'm sure they make sense to other oil workers.

So, Marianne's bench is the one directly behind the memorial in the second picture? Or one of the two in the last picture? (Or is one of those the same bench but from a different angle?)

Linda - so much for sharing your photos with us - it helps to be able to focus on what Marianne experienced....

Her bench is the one in the foreground in the last picture. If you sit there you're facing the memorial (if you can see.)

I got it now.

Thanks for posting the photos. They add so much dimension to that part of the story.

The photos don't really convey the scale of the statues because there's no one in the picture for you to compare with. The figures are above female head height and all Marianne would have been able to touch was the toe of a boot. (I know because I tried.) For me there was something very poignant in this - a scuplture raised up so all could see it as soon as they walked in to the garden, but out of reach to touch. All Marianne can access is the plinth and the names of the dead.

I've posted a close-up of part of the plinth so you can see some of the names and the beautiful smooth granite (for which Aberdeen is famous, Aberdeen often being referred to as "the granite city"). For me the names and their ages really bring home the tragedy and I refer in the book to Marianne "reading" these with her fingers.

Some more photos...

These are of some of the "locations" on Skye. I chose a real place, Ord, for Keir's home although I never name it. I've uploaded a view from the beach which Keir tries and almost fails to describe to Marianne. (Eventually he describes it as the slow movement of the Hammerklavier piano sonata by Beethoven.)



Next is a snowy view of the Cuillin mountains, taken from my garden where I used to live on Skye.



Next a stream (or burn as it would be called in Scotland) near Ord, the kind Marianne would have followed when she gets lost in the snow.

The photos are stunning Linda - for sharing them with us. Scotland is a country of such amazing contrasts - I love it.

Sometimes I wonder how I ever managed to leave Skye! It broke my heart to leave, but it was also breaking my heart to stay - I was a day's travel away from my daughter in Glasgow and the big house we owned was a delapidated money pit. But I had NO IDEA how much I would miss the island. I'd prepared myself mentally for a wrench, but it was soooo much worse than I expected! I just used to cry with homesickness. (The thing I missed most was the birds, not the mountains.)

I lasted 2 years in Glasgow, moving from flat to flat, trying to find somewhere I could hear birds, see the sky. Glasgow's a brilliant place but it wasn't for me. I think I'm an island person now. So we gave up on city life and moved to Arran, a beautiful island (with mountains!) off the Ayrshire coast. As we live near the ferry terminal, it's only 2 hourse to Glasgow. The best of both worlds!

Arran is an island of great contrasts and is often described as "Scotland in miniature". If you could only visit one place in Scotland, Arran would be a good choice. You would see most of the types of scenery Scotland has to offer.

for more pictures. Skye is lovely.

I have never been to Scotland, but I hope to go some day.

These images are beautiful! Thank you for posting them, Linda. I had imagined the memorial to be larger, so it is interesting to see the scale of the monument. The setting and the placement of the bench are quite as I had pictured them. The pictures of Skye are also incredible. You don't have any of the tree house by any chance? No matter if not, I have a perfect picture of it in my mind.
Thanks again for images and for making SG come to life.

The book is now open for discussion in our discussion thread Here

Remember Spoilers apply

Thank you, Linda, for sharing the pictures of places that inspired you as you wrote Star Gazing...it will be wonderful to have these images in my mind as I read it - just got word that my copy is on it's way.

I made up the tree house, but I used this website http://www.wildwood.ukwebz.com/gallery/ to study photos of how they're made.

I wrote all the tree house stuff before I ever stepped inside one. It's all imagined, then re-imagined from a blind person's point of view. Then when I'd finshed the book I happened to go to Alnwick Garden in N E England, where there's a sort of tree house village. As I moved around the tree houses I asked myself if there was anything I'd missed, anything I'd failed to imagine properly. I couldn't think of anything. Everything was exactly as I had imagined it.

It's so often like this, I find. I'm a great believer in writing first, researching afterwards. I think research can disable the imagination and kill a story. You write what you remember, not what the reader needs to know. If you have to imagine it all from scratch, you'll probably only imagine what you need to know in order to tell the story. It's more economical and more intense that way, I think. And you can always check up afterwards to see if you got anything wrong.