Hector Campbell

Hector Campbell  Character Post 28

Hector Campbell was born in Scotland in the late 1700s. He was a difficult child who grew into an unruly young man. Not wanting to take up the apprenticeship his father had arranged with a tailor, he sailed to the colonies, arriving in 1810. 
Here, Hector prospered. He had plenty of skills and a great sense of purpose. If anyone told him something was impossible, he'd do it anyway. By the time he reached his forties, he'd become an influential person though not a popular one. His favourite dog having died, he realised he was lonely and decided it was time to find a wife.
Unfortunately, he'd offended or bested just about every man of substance in the colony, and most of the young women were scared of him. Uncharacteristically at a standstill, Hector went off to the docks to buy pigs. Instead, he spotted a young woman wrapped in a Scottish plaid. She looked lost, so he hailed her, interrogated her, discovered she was alone, and announced they were going to be married.
Young Ness McLeod accepted, and the two embarked on a new venture in Van Diemen's Land, Having acquired a wife, and hopeful of a fine family to follow, Hector set about building a gracious stone house, clearing land and preparing to become in essence, if not in fact, lord of his manor. Accustomed to success, he was displeased to discover that marrying a wife didn't necessarily result in harmony and children. It took quite a few setbacks before he discovered how to be an acceptable husband to a stubborn Scotswoman. Eventually, Hector and Ness had four sons. The three youngest were carbon copies of their father; big, black haired, stone-faced and grey-eyed. The eldest, John, was slender, red-haired and quiet like his mother. Hector and John never did get along although John held him in a grudging respect. 
Hector was the kind of man who might be expected to live forever, but he died suddenly in his sixties leaving nineteen-year-old John to take up ownership of the property they called Glen Heather. And of course Hector had one more shot to his bow...recalling his own late wedding his will decreed John must marry, and even named the bride. Not only that, but he entailed the property for his heirs male, which was later to cause his granddaughter Alice much grief. 
Hector Campbell appears in Heather & Heath.

ABOUT THE BLOG

Sally is Sally Odgers; author,anthologist and reader. She runs  Prints Charming Books. (Sally is me, by the way, and I am lots of other things too, but these are the relevant ones for now.)

The goal for 2017 was to write a post a day profiling the background behind one of my books; how it came to be written, what it's about, and any things of note that happened along the way. If you're an author, an aspiring author, a reader or just someone who enjoys windows into worlds, you might find this fun. The books are not in any special order, but will be assigned approximate dates, and pictures, where they exist. 2017 is now behind us, but I ran out of year before running out of books. As of February 18th 2018 I STILL haven't run out of books, but many of those still to come are MIA by which I mean I don't have copies and remember little about them. There are more new books to come, and I'll certainly showcase those, but in between times, I'm profiling some of my characters, just for a change. Thank you so much to everyone who's come along on this journey so far!