South Col

South Col cover

South Col is a short story crossing the worlds of Mary Renault’s North Face with the stories of John Buchan, especially his Dickson McCunn series.

At the first meeting of the Runagates club after the Second World War, the President of the feast calls upon Jaikie Gant, former Gorbals Die-Hard, Scottish wing three-quarter and hero of the Evallonian Revolution to start the ball rolling with an after-dinner yarn. Jaikie obliges with an account of his recent stay at Weir View guest house, Barlock, Somerset, which he claims let him in for “one of the queerest things I ever experienced.

For Kathleen Jowitt.

Warnings: The author chooses not to warn.

Acknowledgements:
As ever, thanks to caulkhead for betaing.

The original central cover image is based upon a scan of a photograph of the In Pinn (The Inaccessible Pinnacle), the second highest summit in the Skye Cuillin and notorious as the most difficult of the Munros on Skye. The fonts used in this book are from the Source Serif Pro font family by Frank Grießhammer.

The images and fonts were used under license detailed on their respective website pages at the date of this book publication.

As usual, Russ from shoes for industry designed the book cover, produced the books and compiled the on-line work.

The opinions, prejudices, faults and spelling herein are all my own work, and I apologise in advance for them.


This short story is rated PG. You might also like to consider other books set in the Mary Renault or John Buchan fandoms.

- First Edition: 19th Sep 2016
- 2nd Edition: 5th May 2021

This work is created as a transformative work on a not-for-profit basis. All rights in the underlying properties are those of their respective holders.


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