Scotland's Last Witch
by Joseph Ridgwell
 
 
Set predominately in Scotland, Ridgwell's latest work chronicles the life of Helen Duncan, a professional medium who performed spiritual readings and seances across the UK, from the 1930’s to the 1950’s.
 
The novel tells a vivid tale of a girl born into poverty, becoming a single mother in an era when that was considered a scandal, but who would go on to become one of the country’s leading Spiritualists and practicing mediums. Famous for her materialisations of spirits and ectoplasm, Helen had thousands of supporters, but also plenty of enemies. Harassed by the police and put on trial for vagrancy, Helen nevertheless continued to ply her trade up and down the country to ever larger audiences and an ever growing fame.
 
However, when Helen began disclosing wartime secrets at her sittings , the paranoid authorities decided to charge the famous medium with witchcraft. Helen was the last person to be charged under an almost obsolete and centuries-old law - The Witchcraft Act of 1735. Found guilty, Helen was imprisoned for nine months, serving her sentence at London’s Holloway Prison, a horrific experience from which she would never really recover. Scotland's Last Witch covers this fascinating story from Helen’s humble beginnings in Callander, Perthshire, to seances and ectoplasm, police raids and body violations, her cause célèbre trial at London’s Old Bailey, and to her eventual death in Edinburgh in 1956.
 
And all because Helen was a woman of major importance who could possibly provide the answer to one of the most intriguing questions ever asked - is there life after death!