Watch: Luxury £80m British-made superyacht goes up in flames in St Tropez marina
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Evening Standard
11-07-2025
- Evening Standard
Watch: Luxury £80m British-made superyacht goes up in flames in St Tropez marina
The Sea Lady II was originally named D'Angleterre II and was built at the Souter yard in Cowes, on the Isle of Wight. She was launched in 1986 and underwent a full refit in 2023. She now sails under the Maltese flag.
Scotsman
14-06-2025
- Scotsman
A tribute to my mother: Fiercely independent and as well-read as any Edinburgh professor. I will miss her
Susan's mother Mary as a 13-year-old | contributed My mother gave me some of the greatest gifts any parent can give their child – a love of reading and a disdain for hypocrisy and injustice Sign up to our daily newsletter – Regular news stories and round-ups from around Scotland direct to your inbox Sign up Thank you for signing up! Did you know with a Digital Subscription to The Scotsman, you can get unlimited access to the website including our premium content, as well as benefiting from fewer ads, loyalty rewards and much more. Learn More Sorry, there seem to be some issues. Please try again later. Submitting... My mother died last Saturday morning, or more likely Friday evening. We will never know the exact time. She went to bed with Rosie, her much loved if slightly yappy Morkie (a Yorkshire Terrier and Maltese cross), a cup of tea and her iPad. On the chest of drawers next to her bed was a copy of The Scots Quair by Lewis Grassic Gribbon and Alan Bennett's Killing Time. The perfect pairing for a woman who grew up in extreme rural poverty in a forgotten corner of Scotland and who, at 86, feared spending the last years of her life trapped in a council care home. Mary Jane McShane (nee O'Hare) was spared what she dreaded the most. Becoming a burden, or perhaps more accurately, losing control of her life. She died in the comfort of her own bed, where her youngest child and only son, my brother John, found her at 8.20 am on Saturday morning. She died a good death. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Despite the chaos of her childhood, where she and her three sisters moved from tied cottage to tied cottage with their farm labourer mother in search of work while her Irish labourer father travelled the country in the same relentless pursuit, she lived a good life. She met and married my father Jock when she was only sixteen and together they built a loving, stable life for each other and their four children – Mary, Wendy and John and me. Crucially, she got a library card which opened her up to a world previously unimaginable to a young woman who had grown up in poverty. Not the kind of hardship where you can't afford to buy the latest trainers for your child or a new sofa, but grinding, relentless poverty that destroys body and soul. Susan's mother Mary as a 13-year-old | contributed Sitting with her recently, she remembered as a child harvesting kale with her aunt Maggie, also a farm worker. She and her sister had to walk behind her aunt gathering up the plants as Maggie tore them from the ground. Their job was to load them into a wooden cart pulled by an old horse. Kale was not the superfood beloved of Millennials. In the 1940s, it was fed to cattle or eaten by the rural poor to supplement their daily diet of potatoes, oats and the cheapest cuts of meat. 'It was our life,' she said. Early in her reading career – and books were my mother's higher education – she discovered Catherine Cookson, whose novels about life in North East England sparked off my mother's lifetime love affair with the written word. She quickly progressed to DH Lawrence, then on to the angry young men and women of the 1960s. Only a few months ago, she gave me a copy of Caste by Isabel Wilkerson, the recent best-seller that documents the divide between those at the bottom of any society and the uncomfortable middle class who look down on them. My mother could be a challenging woman. She had what Catherine Cookson would have described as a 'sharp tongue' which she was not afraid to use, sometimes inappropriately. She was a strict mother, likely as a compensation for the chaos that characterised her own childhood, and she could be unsentimental to the point of apparent coldness. But at her core, she was an exuberant, colourful personality, a clever, courageous woman, an instinctive feminist long before she read Germaine Greer. She gave me some of the greatest gifts any parent can give their child – a love of reading and a disdain for hypocrisy and injustice. And she taught me the power of resilience and hard work. Watching your mother on her hands and knees hoeing a field of turnips by hand to earn enough money to buy her children Clarks' school shoes, as I did as a child, is a lesson you never forget. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Books were perhaps her greatest gift. I quickly learned to read, and from the age of five devoured every book I borrowed on our regular visits to the village library. I still remember the thrill of my first 'real' book – one without pictures – and my mother's pride as I powered my way through Enid Blyton's Secret Seven and Famous Five series. Some of our happiest moments together were in the mobile library that stopped at the end of our road once a fortnight. My mother filled her wicker basket with the latest novels, while the librarian turned a blind eye to the precocious nine-year-old scouring the 'adult' section for the latest Jean Plaidy. Prim and proper Miss Birchman, in charge of the village library, did not allow children near adult books until they were 12, so I relished the subversive freedom of the mobile library. My mother also encouraged my writing, buying me an ancient but serviceable Royal typewriter for my Christmas when I was 11. And she embraced new technology, delighted and relieved that, as she grew more frail in recent months, she could buy any book she wanted on the Kindle app on her iPad. Always careful with money, she was particularly thrilled by 99p book deals. If my mother had any regrets, it would be that she had to leave school at 15 for a job as a housemaid in an Ayrshire farmhouse. Seventy years ago, secretarial college, let alone university, was simply not an option for a dirt-poor girl in rural Wigtownshire. She was supposed to know her place.
The Independent
27-03-2025
- The Independent
Father's ‘honour' to serve with son on peacekeeping mission
An Irish Defences Forces veteran of 35 years service has described as an 'honour' to serve alongside his son on peacekeeping duties in south Lebanon. Battalion Sergeant Major Paddy Enfield from Co Donegal has completed tours in Lebanon over the last three decades and described witnessing serious changes across his visits. However, this time, after a life of watching his dad pack up for stints overseas, Private Adam Enfield, said he was enjoying having been able to join him. They are part of the 125th Infantry Battalion which deployed last November as part of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (Unifil). The force includes nine Maltese soldiers and 330 Irish, working alongside 218 Polish troops and 15 Hungarian based at Camp Shamrock close to the town of At Tiri, around eight km from the Blue Line. Speaking to media at Camp Shamrock, Sergeant Major Enfield said he felt it was an honour that his son had chosen the same career and was with him on his first overseas deployment. He has served 35 years with the Irish Defence Forces and completed 11 tours in Lebanon as well as tours in Kosovo and Chad. 'I first came over here (Lebanon) in 1992, it was a different time and space. Lebanon over the last 30 years has changed dramatically and scenery, serious changes again over the last year or so,' he said. 'Living up to the challenges, doing the best you can for your unit and your country, and you feel like you are helping people.' He said described serving in Lebanon with his son this time as 'brilliant', adding he is treated no different to the others. 'There are 380 soldiers here, they're always someone's daughter or son so there can be no difference,' he added. Pte Enfield said seeing his dad serve was definitely part of the draw to a military career for him. 'I have found it so far great, it's a different experience, and certainly takes you out of your comfort zone and puts into perspective the different things going on in the world,' he said. Meanwhile platoon commander Captain Tadhg Moore described some of the ways in which the soldiers kept up morale while having to spend time in bunkers. He previously served for eight weeks previously from November to January, and described a 'very intense time', and having to spend a lot of time in bunkers. 'It was definitely a very kinetic and volatile environment we found ourselves in,' he said. 'But we had trained diligently and were well prepared for what we found, at the end of the day we're soldiers and we have a long and proud tradition of peace keeping.' He described having to be in bunkers on the outposts as particularly challenging for morale. 'We play chess or we get together and talk, we find different ways to keep morale high and the camaraderie high. 'It definitely was a challenge but it was something we overcame.'
