WHAT'S Raasay got to do with the Gambia? Absolutely nothing. Or that's what you'd think until you hear Max Murray talking about repairing a five-mile road that was partly washed away by floods in the tiny west African country this spring.
As the £
130,000 cost is beyond the means of anyone in that part of Upper Gambia, where the road links villages to the local school of Sambel Kunda, Murray was stumped for a solution – until he read Calum's Road, Roger Hutchinson's bestseller (Birlinn, £7.99).
In it, Hutchinson tells the story of how thrawn Raasay crofter Calum MacLeod, frustrated at bureaucrats' unwillingness to build a road to his hamlet at the northern tip of the island, decided to go ahead and build it himself.
Murray, a world expert on sleeping sickness and retired professor of veterinary medicine at Glasgow University, with nearly 40 years' experience of working on projects in the Gambia, found the book inspirational – so much so that he's persuaded the charity he works with to rebuild the road themselves. The plan is to call it Calum's Road in tribute to the Raasay crofter, and as a symbol of the links between Scotland and the Gambia.
Anyone wishing to donate money to the charity to help with the building of the road should make a cheque payable to the Gambia Horse and Donkey Trust (Calum's Road) c/o Heather Armstrong, Brewery Arms Cottage, Stane St, Ockley, Surrey, RH5 5TH. Further details of the charity – which also supports a local clinic, school and conservation area – can be found on
www. Gambiahorseanddonkey.org.uk
STRUGGLING FOR WORDSTHE school at the end of Calum's Road in the Gambia, though in the middle of the bush in one of the poorest parts of Africa, already has solar panel power, a library and access to the internet, thanks to the generosity of Scottish students.
But what of our generosity to our own schoolchildren? At last week's launch of Labour's commission on child literacy in Scotland, education spokeswoman Rhona Brankin outlined a vision to make Scotland the world's first country to be fully literate.
As one-quarter of our children leave primary school functionally illiterate, we've a long way to go. Ian Rankin, one of the members of the commission, says a fully literate society would produce even more Scottish writers. He's right – but it's more important even than that.
The full article contains 405 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
