Gail Anthea Brown

Essays

  • What Dogs Teach Us About Living – And Dying

    What Dogs Teach Us About Living – And Dying

    ‘I’m so sorry, it’s bad news.’ It was the outcome every dog owner dreads, a call from the vet informing us our beloved Hungarian Vizsla Brody had cancer. The scan Brody had undergone that morning had revealed a large tumour, and quite suddenly, there was nothing left for our eleven-year-old boy but time. As I…

  • Lost Solace: Tourism, Social Media and Our Shifting Sense of Place in the North Highlands

    Lost Solace: Tourism, Social Media and Our Shifting Sense of Place in the North Highlands

    Earlier this summer, my husband and I made an evening visit to the harbour at Dunbeath on our way back to Caithness after a day of appointments. In the preceding days, I had been reading Neil M. Gunn’s Highland River and wanted to reacquaint myself with the information boards on Gunn – who was born…

  • Stories and Solastalgia – The Aftermath of Writing About The North Coast 500, Park-Ups, Potholes and Poo

    Stories and Solastalgia – The Aftermath of Writing About The North Coast 500, Park-Ups, Potholes and Poo

    This summer, I wrote a piece about living on the popular ‘North Coast 500’ route through the lens of my own experience as a resident of Caithness. Entitled ‘Poo, Potholes and Park-Ups – Why Highlanders are Tired of Scotland’s North Coast 500 Route,’ the article was probably more even-handed than the alliterated headline might suggest.…

  • Poo, Potholes and Park-Ups – Why Highlanders Are Tired of Scotland’s North Coast 500 Route

    Poo, Potholes and Park-Ups – Why Highlanders Are Tired of Scotland’s North Coast 500 Route

    Last year, I wrote an article on the ‘summer of discontent’ on Scotland’s ‘North Coast 500’ road trip. As a resident on the route here in Caithness, I spent a lot of time writing about responsible travel and repeating the phrase ‘let’s hope things improve.’ A summer of littering, outdoor toileting and inconsiderate ‘wild camping’…