The Metagama Inheritance - Tapa blanda

The story of the author's father's emigration from the Isle of |Lewis to Canada on the SS Metagama in 1923 inspired this novel, as did the finding of a piece of intergalactic matter by an uncle in a peat bog. The novel itself is a modern story - a good yarn, which tells what happens when a descendant of one of the emigrants returns and makes a remarkable discovery which is going to change life on the Island, i.e. if it can be kept from the greedy hands of national government. There is plotting, intrigue, humour and even a touch of romance.

Catherine McLachlan was born and brought up on the Isle of Lewis in the Outer Hebrides of Scotland, one of a family of four. Her first language is Gaelic. She met her husband, Alex, when she worked as a Civil Servant in the Royal Observatory, Edinburgh. Alex's work as an astronomer, took them to Hawaii for three years.They are both retired now and have two daughters and a grandson living nearby. Catherine writes a monthly column in a community magazine, also short plays and short stories. She is an active member of the Edinburgh Writers' Club. The Metagama Inheritance is her first novel and was inspired by the fact that her father, Kenneth (Red) McLeod, emigrated from Lewis on the SS Metagama and met and married her mother, a Lewis-woman, in Detroit. She has strong links with the U.S. having close relatives in Michigan, New Jersey, Florida,Texas and California, and loves to vacation there and in Canada.As a child she was used to hearing about her father's journey on the SS Metagama and wondered what she would have been like if she had been reared as an American - would she even have turned out tall and beautiful like Cousin Peggy who became a famous New York model? Alas .... She has long thought about the many Scottish islanders who settled in the U.S. and would love to hear from the descendants of those who left the Hebrides in the 1920's. Their lives must now be woven into the strands and layers of their adoptive land. There are lots of Caledonian Societies how about a Metagama Society?