Distorted by Time

In a bombed out signal box a group of adventurous children discover a medal and dog tag belonging to an escaped WWI German PoW, who had absconded from the nearby Stobs Camp in the wilds of the Scottish Borders. So begins an absorbing tale of relationships involving four families from Germany, Italy, England and Scotland.

Fate and serendipity link these families in a tangled paradox where people are put in concentration camps by their enemies and internment camps by their friends. It all ends happily . . . until the third generation are shocked by the consequences of their actions.

Seamlessly weaving fact with fiction the author captures the essence and atmosphere of the times his characters inhabit. In his well-researched historical novel Murray Watson taps into the hundreds of oral history testimonies he recorded in Scotland and Canada. Particularly revealing are the real-life memories he brings out through his characters, especially the way they cope with self doubt and prejudice as they wrestle with their sense of identity.

Distorted by Time is a fast moving, humorous and satirical saga set in the wilds of the Scottish Borders, the dark forests of Canada and the open veld of South Africa. The setting of Stobs Camp in its three guises as place of incarceration for PoWs, then wartime enemy aliens and finally illegal immigrants makes Stobs the perfect setting to explore the nature of human relationships.

Murray Watson lives with his wife of 53 years in the Scottish Borders just over the hill from Stobs Camp, the main setting for Distorted by Time. He founded a marketing consultancy company from a shed in his garden in Hampshire in 1987. That company now operates internationally in Europe, the USA, Australasia, the Far and Middle East. Murray took early retirement gaining a PhD as an oral historian specialising in immigration. He is an honorary research fellow at the University of Dundee and has held temporary lectureships at Carleton University in Ottawa. He has written three other books: Being English in Scotland, Invisible Immigrants: The English in Canada since 1945 and Voices of Hawick Rugby. He contributes regularly to various journals and has spoken at the Edinburgh International and Borders Book Festivals.