Actually this is kind of funny. My next novel is set partly in 1886 Boston! And yes, I've visited a couple of times, and have a MASSIVE amount of research materials about Boston at the time ...and it's not easy to come by, either, because so much was changing so quickly in Boston during that period. Info about rail stations, etc, is no good if it's a year or two before or a year or two afterwards. Challenging. But fun.
As fully as any other part of the UK. Geographically, it wasn't as relevant as, say the major dockyards in the South - which were more central to the fighting, and within easier reach of German bombers. However, that meant that it was perhaps more strategically valuable. Rosyth dockyard, for instance, was where HMS Prince of Wales returned to for repairs after engaging the Bismark. HMS Vanguard was built on Clydebank. Lots of training went on (especially Royal Marines Commando units) in the highlands. Some of the arctic convoys either left from or arrived in Scottish ports - Oban, Kirkwall, Loch Ewe, Clyde. ETA: And, for instance, the RNAS training depot at Arbroath was attacked by He-111s flying from Norway, so Scotland wasn't immune. And, of course, the young men would have gone away to war.
This is all first-rate advice. Scotland is a place that has many negative connotations associated with it, and even for half-Scots like me it can be a bit ... annoying to face people who go on about kilts and haggis and bag-pipes as if that defined Scotland. ¬.¬ Also, yeah, England and Scotland are not the same place, but both are part of Great Britain, which is a union of nations. Sort of like the EU, only more annoying.
Parts of Scotland were bombed to smithereens as well. Clydebank, for example. http://www.educationscotland.gov.uk/scotlandshistory/20thand21stcenturies/worldwarii/clydebankblitz/index.asp
I wouldn't want to strait-jacket the guy with too much historical accuracy, or sincerity. I found the facilities completely adequate, understanding as I did, the complex socio-ethnic position of Scottish folk, their centuries-old struggle to overthrow the oppression of effete English lairds, the interference of the Westminster political system. 'Please tell me about your fascinating lifestyle, sir.' 'Weeeel laddie, back in '23 Magog the Giant came 'ere to Glentoffee, eatin all the wee peeeple. I'm the anly one left.' 'Such reasonable rates here at your motel. The towels in the room, they are kind of fluffy and white. You must wash often.' 'Waat time ye want yer parrage?'
But poverty doesn't keep the inkeeper from being able to clean his or her own inn. He/she can probably still afford soap and water and a broom. I suspect that you're thinking of a bad American motel where there is too much work for the owner to possibly do themselves, or an absentee owner, so they pay subminimum wage for a wildly insufficient number of staff hours, and the place slowly crumbles. When a business is so small that most of the work is done by the owner, the owner can do a thorough job even if the profit is low.
That is through... although he is given room six for no particular reason. Perhaps it's out of spite.
But why would the owner go to extra trouble to ensure that one of the rooms is utterly filthy? What happens if they have too many guests that they want to treat well--do they clean the room and then go in later to string cobwebs and sprinkle dirt to be prepared for the next disliked guest?
Dunno. Still working on it. The first chapter hints at town-wide depression. Perhaps that could be something.
Yes, I agree. Dirt in a small privately-owned hotel or B&B doesn't equal poverty, it equals slovenliness. Which is certainly not a characteristic I've noticed in Scotland very often. People are quite 'house-proud' here, and housekeeping is often done to a very high standard, even if the surroundings are not posh at all. The carpet may be threadbare, but it's likely to be clean. I just spoke to a friend of mine who worked in the hotel trade back in the 1960s. She's busy this weekend, but she'll see if she can scare up the data about hotel prices back then. She said she clearly remembers her wages back in 1965, though. She was paid £11 every two weeks, working full time (split shift). So that's less than a pound a day. Now a similar worker would make at least £5 per hour.
I'VE GOT YOUR ANSWER! WHOOPEEE! Nice to have so many 'old' friends. My friend Dave clearly remembers his parents returning from their annual trip to Inveraray (look on the map) in 1964. They stayed at a 'farmhouse B&B,' meaning it would not have been quite as cheap as a cottage but somewhat less expensive than a hotel in the area. (This was a relatively popular tourist area, so there would have been cheaper accomodation outwith the popular destinations—and more expensive in cities like Edinburgh.) Dave said his parents were angry because the price had gone up from 15/6 the year before to 23/6 in 1964. That's 15 shillings and sixpence, 23 shillings and sixpence. My husband says that was 20 shillings to a pound, and 240 pence to the pound. So roughly equivalent to a day's wages per night's stay, if you were a hotel worker in the cheaper instance, and around 2 day's wages at the higher price. My husband said a living wage was around £15 per week at the time. Dave also added that he was a trainee surveyor in 1963, and his wage amounted to a take-home pay of £6 per week. Qualified surveyors made about 4x that.
I'm not quite as old as Dave, but my pay (pre-tax) when I started work in 1964 was £290 p.a., went up to £540 by 1965. That was back in the day when the pound was a lot stronger than it is now. I remember a friend (a little earlier than this) being cool, and referring to a half-crown (that's 2 shillings and 6 pence) as "half-a-dollar", referring to an exchange rate of 4 dollars to the pound. From memory, the rate would have been around 3 to 3.5 dollars to the pound in the 60s.
Good to point out the difference in the exchange rate. I seem to recall what you do, that the exchange rate was just over $3 to the pound back in the 60s - I was aware of it because of my Beatles fandom. I was extremely lucky when I actually traveled to Scotland in 1985, because the exchange rate was darned near equal. I made out like a bandit. I think I paid around $1.20 to the pound, and earlier that year, the dollar had actually been worth more than the pound (briefly.) By the time I moved here in 1986, the exchange rate had gone up to roughly what it is now.
How dare you and new, @jannert, I was born in the middle of England. My farther was a Yorkshireman, but did not want to work down't pit. So he studied, although only became a teacher, then a computer wizard in later years. Mother is from the South West, Exeter at least, thank goodness. Well, the hotel can be dirty because the owner is a derelict. It's about character and fun surely? I can't see why everybody's banging on about the dignity of the poor and such. I want Aaron's world populated by gargoyles, not efficient management teams going forward... Although it would be almost entertaining to produce a short story via committee where characters had reason, integrity, common sense, yawwwwwwwwww [unable to close mouth].
Well, I was half right. That's about par for the course. I agree about the gargoyles ...as long as they're not written as if they are a national characteristic. Which so often happens to Scotland. The world is awash with Scottish stereotypes, of the backward, dirty, stupid, hidebound ...and ungenerous ...variety. You can go back as far as Samuel Johnson. Nothing changes. And nothing could be further from the truth as a stereotype—although some individuals do fill all of these shoes. (Not to mention the appalling way foreigners try to render a Scottish accent ...which doesn't actually exist, any more than an English accent does. They're all regional.) I'm just worried that folks pick up the stereotypes and then write them as if they're true. Some of them are very hurtful, because they're NOT true. Hunky men in kilts, and all that... Tsk.
I decided to change the story to 3rd person. The 1st person point of view made the tense strange, so the tone is going to be relatively unbiased and more descriptive. Seems to be working better already.
