A Spider's Thread Across the Tay

During a fierce storm, a train carrying seventy-five people is hurled into the Firth of Tay when the bridge it is crossing collapses. Everyone on board is killed. It is the night of 28th December 1879.Long before the incident, Andrew Mason, a jute mill owner and a reluctant shareholder in the venture had been sceptical and worried. Constructing the proposed, single track railway bridge over the yawning gap of the Tay Estuary seemed an almost impossible task. The story is told showing a catalogue of mismanagement, poor workmanship and use of inferior materials, leading to dramatic incidents and fatal accidents plaguing the workforce. As dreaded by Andrew, after only 18 months, the disaster occurs. He has been a voice in the wilderness and now his worst fears have been realised. His life is full of conflicts and traumas. He has a love affair, a wife addicted to laudanum and Spiritualism and he faces the hostility of his many notable contemporaries in the rapidly growing town of Dundee.Spider's Thread is a work of fiction, but the story of the Tay bridge disaster is real. The tragedy and the lives of the people it touches are vividly brought to life through the eyes of Andrew Mason.
About the Author: Words - reading, writing (and talking) are Mary Edward's greatest loves. To this end she spent many years at Glasgow University, gaining two degrees and a diploma before she finally left, to enter a profession which was also all about words - teaching, developing teaching packages and talking to others involved in education. Now she writes mostly fiction, and before becoming president of the Scottish Association of Writers she won several of their trophies - The Pitlochry, The TC Farries and the Helensburgh Shield, in addition to many short fiction prizes there and elsewhere. She is the author of Who Belongs to Glasgow? a well-received history of immigration to her native city and she publishes short stories and articles, does a great deal of adjudication of other people's work and speaks about the craft to writing groups. She is an editor for New Voices Press, the publishing arm of the Federation of Writers, Scotland. The Spider's Thread is one of several long pieces Mary has written, and one which ticked all the boxes of her enthusiasms - the fascinating research into the events surrounding this unforgettable tragedy and the creation of the fictional context in which to tell the story.