1#7 Malachy Tallack: the Shetland wordsmith
“Every culture, every place is shaped by the landscape in which they live.”
Episode #7…
… welcomes a guest who’s not just a travel writer, an author of fiction, a chronicler of histories, an editor, and a passionate student of people and landscape… but an accomplished singer-songwriter too. So perhaps “wordsmith” doesn’t quite encompass everything that makes Malachy Tallack tick (any more concise single-word summaries gratefully received). That aside, Malachy tells the podcast about his travels along the 60th parallel, time spent researching the much-celebrated 60 Degrees North (2015), the wonder and fascination of islands that have been un-discovered (as opposed to “undiscovered”), and even finds time for fresh fiction, a music career, fly-fishing and some inspiring words about Assynt, Shetland and the Lofoten Islands. Enjoy!
Visit malachytallack.com for all your Malachy Tallack needs, unless it’s his music you’re looking for in which case it’s malachymusic.com.
[episode recorded on 13/04/21]
00:00 - Introduction
01:43 - Welcome
03:35 - 60 Degrees North: “… quite a traditional travel book”
08:55 - Shetland: “No place, on its own terms, is remote. Every place is its own centre.”
13:15 - “If you took a map of Canada and tried to find the absolute centre you probably wouldn’t be far off Fort Smith… and the forest is its own kind of ocean.”
19:20 - The Undiscovered Islands: “It’s much harder to prove that somewhere doesn’t exist than to say that it does”
28:26 - “An island is a bounded space, and so it’s much easier for an island to become a story… and a mountain can serve the same purpose”
29:00 - The Valley at the Centre of the World: is fiction liberating?
32:00 - Finding escape in the outdoor world: walking, fly-fishing for trout (there’s a book in that)
33:38 - … and other “secret” book
33:56 - … but back to fishing, “What is it about this slightly weird, pointless hobby that can be so exciting and consoling and endlessly fascinating?”
35:50 - “It’s an immersive experience. Being immersed in a measurement of time that’s different to the one you’re used to. Hours pass quickly when you’re sitting by water. It’s different from other outdoor activities as it’s not movement-based or goal-orientated… the place almost forgets that you’re there.”
37:26 - Pressing the mountain issue
38:56 - “One of my favourite places in the world is Assynt. And Assynt is a place where you feel surrounded by and enclosed by mountains.”
40:20 - “I’m sure you’ve encountered people who climb mountains in a way that is the opposite of humble.” (yep)
41:20 - Music chat and writing “terrible poems”
42:50 - “… the ability to condense things in a way that songs require”
47:20 - All the time, money, freedom… where do you go and what do you do? The Lofoten Islands.
