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Pictures by Jackie Macadam
Pictures by Jackie Macadam

'Follow My Nose'

Tuesday October 25 2016

Jackie Macadam meets designer-turned-author, and church member, Ethyl Smith

“I don’t think I’ve ever really had a plan. I just get interested in things and then follow my nose…”

Ethyl Smith is sitting in her comfy Auchenheath living room and stroking her cross Jack Russell/pug, Rosie. She’s been many things in her life, and now, in her 70s, has found a publisher for a new series of fiction books about the Covenanters. Book one, Changed Times, was published in May this year.

Brought up by her teacher mother and seamstress grandmother (her father, who was in the RAF during the war, died when she was 18 months old), she studied at Glasgow School of Art and the School of Advanced Studies in Manchester, as well as a nine-month travelling scholarship in Germany and Italy in 1963.

She graduated as an illustrator for books and magazines, later combining that work with teaching and lecturing, and running her own craft workshop for eight years.

Then, in her 60s and lecturing at Cardonald College in Glasgow, she decided to try something else.

“Cardonald College was an ‘investor in people’ and laid on a few things for staff to relax. I chose a back massage each week. On one occasion the session was cancelled, but the college offered me Reiki instead. I’m generally game for anything new so I agreed and had my first Reiki session. The practitioner said he could feel the energy coming from me and suggested I might like to look into alternative therapies… so I did my usual and followed my nose by leaving college to sign up for a full time course in alternative therapies.

“I trained in a variety of therapies including Reiki, Reflexology and Indian Head Massage. I’m an accredited Reiki Master and motivational practitioner. I now teach therapies through my local authority.

“Reiki is where you channel energy to help relax or energise a client depending on the need; Indian Head massage releases stress that has accumulated in the joints of the head, neck, face and shoulders. Reflexology is used to relieve tension and treat illness based on the theory that there are reflex points on the hands and feet that link to the rest of the body.

“Some Christians suggest it is God’s power they are channelling when they use holistic therapies. Whatever it is, I just trust this very definite powerful force.”

Ethyl says she has had ‘an interesting journey’ with the Church of Scotland, which has brought her, after a period of exploration, back to a church she attended as a child: Kirkmuirhill Parish Church in South Lanarkshire.

“I had been going through a tough time, a time of change. It was one of the churches caught up in the splits and though the minister had left and taken some of the congregation with him, many had stayed and were rebuilding the church from the ground up again. This seemed to chime with my searching so I went there on a visit. Here was a renewed feeling of hope and activity, where people who’d just sat in the pews for many years were being active within the church again, welcoming you at the door, showing interest.

“More women are now involved and a great deal of very good work is being done quietly and thoughtfully by a Deacon called Ann Lyall. She is working to help the healing process in a very discreet and non-pushy way. I was happy to transfer my lines there, finally finding a home again.”

Her latest career move came after a writing group she was involved with at Lanark was asked by the Scottish Tourist Board to write a leaflet about the history and places of interest in the Clyde Valley.

“I was ‘given’ the section about Craignethan Castle but switched to the Covenanters as this area was deeply involved in the 17th century struggle. A local historian called Robert McLeish took me round places of interest including some of the old Covenanter memorials.

“He mentioned the famous martyr David Steel then added there was another one, David’s cousin, ‘whose story is one you could not make up.’

“Intrigued I began to search out more information on John Steel. The rest is history. He became my main character and holds the thread of my series about Covenanting times.

“He spent 10 years on the run after the battle of Bothwell Bridge in 1679, had 1000 merks on his head, suffered much but was never caught. He was also a man ahead of his time. When he eventually had a chance to take revenge on those who’d wronged him he chose not to. In fact the words he carved into the stone on the gable end of his house say it all: ‘1707, JS, Praise God’. This is his only epitaph as he asked to be buried under a ‘threuch stane’, a plain gravestone with no name or date carved on it.

“John’s life was full of adventure and I’m enjoying adding my own imagination to the mix, combining historical research with fiction.”

Her nose is still taking Ethyl in various directions.

At the grand old age of 74 years young she recently heard that she’s won a bursary to Moniack Mhor Creative Writing Centre for a course on Children’s Writing, with writers Mairi Hedderwick and Alisdair Gray. This book is still a work in progress about refugees – but they happen to be mice…

Changed Times is published by Thunderpoint and available as paperback and ebook.

This article first appeared in longer form in October's Life and Work. Subscribe here for the special price of £12 for six months - or buy a gift subscription for a friend.