(I couldn’t think of an existing thread where I could post this, so I’ve started a new one – which may or may not be of service.)
In her Celebrity Watch column in yesterday’s Times, Caitlin Moran focused on the issue of Claire Kellerman versus the remote Hebridean island of Great Bernera. (I’d never heard of la Kellerman, but Moran tells us that she’s the daughter of the actress who played “Hot Lips” Houlihan in the movie M*A*S*H.)
Kellerman moved to Great Bernera four years ago to practise “Celtic Viking mysticism”. As one does.
Moran continues as follows:
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Suffice to say her arrival has been what we may call “a mixed blessing” for the locals because Kellerman seems to be “a colourful character”. Her primary problem is her dog, Lady Tarkina Snow Fire, who has a lot of allegations against her: “harassing livestock, chasing wild animals”, and “defecating on a public bus which Kellerman then did not clean up”.
There are also unconfirmed reports that Lady Tarkina Snow Fire attacked a cat in Stornoway — where Kellerman lived previously, and sued thirteen businesses also for not allowing her dog in — but Kellerman is very firm on this issue. “That cat attacked me,” she said, before explaining that Lady Tarkina Snow Fire “barks incessantly because she is so upset about life”.
Dogs are not allowed in Great Bernera’s café/community centre but Kellerman claims the dog is an “assistance dog”, aiding her with “an undisclosed disability”. Eager to still access scones while accompanied by the rectally untrustworthy Lady Tarkina Snow Fire, Kellerman has set about suing the café for “exclusion, collective harassment, shaming, ostracisation, wrongful blaming, illegal discrimination and victimisation”.
“I live by the guidance that follows my prayers, asking always: how can I be of Sacred Service?” Kellerman explained, on LinkedIn. To date, this “Sacred Service” has entailed Kellerman accidentally suing the wrong organisation, using legal aid, and running up fees of £7,000, before realising her mistake and switching her case to the right café, which now faces legal fees of £10,000 and bankruptcy.
Of course, it’s easy to take the side of the beleaguered islanders who have seen their community come under costly legal attack from an American showbiz newcomer with a) a made-up brand of mysticism and b) a loose-arsed, barking dog. But as Kellerman explained, “I’m Scottish from at least 493AD — and most likely even further back. I have every single person on the way to me — including Robert the Bruce and Mary Queen of Scots. I couldn’t be anything further from an entitled American. What I am is a very creative, very courageous and very humble woman. I am a beautiful stranger who has been abused.”
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I love Kellerman’s description of herself as “very creative, very courageous and very humble”. Indeed I have decided to make this my own motto.
Needless to say I already “live by the guidance that follows my prayers, asking always, ‘How can I be of Sacred Service?’”
Also, as other members of this site may have noticed, I am like Lady Tarkina Snow Fire in that I “bark incessantly because I am so upset about life”.
