Author Tim Newark plays his Trump card... the support of property tycoon
Historian attacks actress who likened golf course plan to Highland clearances
Published: 16 April 2010
by RÓISÍN GADELRAB
A RESEARCH visit to an Aberdeen museum landed an Islington author with a surprise endorsement from billionaire businessman Donald Trump.
Mr Trump took a shine to Tim Newark, who lives in Highbury, after the author defended the tycoon’s controversial plans for a golf course in a Scottish newspaper.
Mr Newark was working on his 15th book, Highlander – about the rise of the Highland soldier – when he got talking to the former director of the Gordon Highlanders Museum, who had gone on to work for Mr Trump on his Balmedie golf course project in Aberdeenshire.
“She told me protesters were comparing the process to the Highland clearances,” Mr Newark said, referring to the policy of forced displacement of people in the 18th and 19th centuries.
He accused Oscar-winning actress Tilda Swinton, who has made the Clearances comparison, of “trivialising a tragic experience”. The author told a local newspaper the claims were “nonsense”, adding: “This has nothing to do with it. It’s a lack of historical perspective.” Mr Trump released a press statement publicly thanking Mr Newark for his support.
Mr Newark, who specialises in military history, said: “The Trump organisation thanked me and I told them my book was being launched in New York in April. I asked would Mr Trump like to be involved.”
He got a positive response and Mr Newark visited Trump Towers in New York earlier this month, when Mr Trump greeted him personally and posed for photos.
Mr Newark said: “He said it was a great book and the Highlands were where he got his fighting spirit from.
“We chatted about family roots and the Highlands. He was very interested in the Highland soldier.”
Mr Trump’s mother, Mary Anne MacLeod, was born in Stornoway in the Outer Hebrides. As an 18-year-old in 1930 she left her village of Tong on the Isle of Lewis for a holiday in New York, where she met a local builder, and thus began the Trump dynasty.
Mr Newark’s family come from Perthshire and a cousin served in the 1st Battalion Seaforth Highlanders in World War I.
Mr Newark said: “I started writing Highlander a couple of years ago. It comes out of my family background. My father has roots in the Highlands. I heard lots of stories about Highland soldiers in my family.”
He added: “The book tells how the Highland soldier rose from humble roots in the mountains of Scotland to become a dynamic figure of universal appeal.
“It tells the tale through the words of the soldiers themselves, from their diaries, letters and journals – uncovered from the archives of Highland regiments in Scotland and around the world.”