conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Provide the first five paragraphs for a book with the title 'And the Land Lay Still'.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: And the Land Lay Still
  Her wage was small but Mary saved what she could from what she didn't hand over to her mother every week. She didn't know what she was saving for except the future, and then she started going with Jock Imlach and she knew, and she realised too how important it was to keep her job: because Jock's life and Jock's earnings were erratic, and if they should stay together and get married her own wage would give her some stability. He was bold and different, Jock, which was why she fell for him in the first place, even though she was warned by her mother and all her aunts and sisters that he wasn't steady and she'd pay for that in the long run. What she liked about him was that he'd made up his own mind what he did and didn't want to do. He'd worked three years down the pit, aged fifteen to eighteen, during the war: it was a reserved occupation, he'd had no option, but once the war was done he chucked it in and refused to go back. It was the winter of '45–'46: you went down in the dark, you laboured all day in the dark, you came up in the dark and you went home in the dark. 'I'm no a bloody mole,' Jock said. He and Mary were sitting having their Sunday tea with his parents before stepping out for a walk and a cuddle, and Jock said he'd had enough. He didn't want to die young, crushed or drowned or gassed underground, or still alive but coughing his guts up, ancient at fifty. 'What makes ye think ye're special?' his father had demanded. 'Ye're just feart o hard work.' 'I'm no,' Jock had said, and it was the truth, because he wasn't afraid of it, he just didn't like it. 'I'm no special. I'm just sane.' He looked at his father, and Mary could see he was thinking, I don't want to turn into you. And after that he took whatever job came along, he'd work for farmers or builders or the council roads department, short-term labouring work with no security, rain, snow or sun it didn't matter so long as he was up on the surface, better to be there even if he didn't earn what he could below ground. What was the point of good money if the getting of it killed you? 'The miner that walked in darkness has seen a great light,' he said. 'Dinna blaspheme,' his mother said. 'I'm no blaspheming,' he said. 'The blasphemy's in the life the rest o them lead.' And he quoted Joe Corrie, the Bowhill poet, who'd written some fierce stuff back in 1926, the year of the Great Strike –
  And Jock gave a bitter, ironic laugh himself, and threw in a look that made Mary like him all the more although she saw trouble in it too.
  They wooed and they wed, and ordinarily that would have meant the end of her job as a tracer, but she had a nagging mistrust that Jock wouldn't always provide, so she went to see Mr Cochrane. Now Cochrane knew she was a good worker, one of his best, competent and reliable, and he liked having her around of course, and he said, 'Aye, Mary, we must move wi the times, I'll no pit ye oot o a job just on account o ye being a mairrit woman.' So she stayed on, right through till January 1947 when the coal industry was nationalised and she became an employee of the National Coal Board, and on Vesting Day there was a bonus for all the workers in the industry. Which was fine, except that Jock, who was well out of it by then, but cynical as ever, said, 'Aye, but look how much they're giein the Logie Coal Company in compensation. Your wee bonus would slip through a hole in their breeks and they'd never ken it was awa.'
  Well, he'd given her a Christmas bonus himself by then, and all through January, February and March of that cold, cold winter, when the best thing you could do to keep warm was go to your bed from dusk till dawn, she grew the new life in her beneath the blankets, and all through the spring she kept going to her work, saying nothing about it until it was too obvious to be denied. Then Cochrane called her in and said, 'Aye, Mary, we'll be letting ye go soon, I see.' She said, 'Aye, but I'll want tae come back. Will ye keep a place for me?' Cochrane gaped at her. 'But ye'll hae a bairn tae look efter.' 'The bairn'll be looked efter,' she said, though she'd no idea how, 'but I'd like tae come back tae my job.' Cochrane huffed and puffed, and said it was unthinkable, but he'd think about it, the main thing was she was to go away and have the bairn and they'd talk about it after.
  So she went away and Ellen was born, a hard birth it was but it didn't change Mary's mind, it made her more determined than ever to go back, because she knew by then she'd have to fend for herself and the lassie, she couldn't depend on Jock, he was good for a joke and a story but not for providing life's essentials. Jock seemed to measure freedom by the number of miles he could put between himself and the pits; he went further and further afield for work, anything that promised good pay and plenty of overtime, although more often than not the reality didn't live up to his expectations. He had no staying power, and was always on the lookout for something better. It was the age of the hydro schemes in the Highlands, and Jock worked on one after another of them. Postal orders came home with reasonable regularity, and sometimes they were big, but more often they looked like they represented the scrapings from his wallet on a Monday morning. He spent plenty on drink and gambling, Mary knew it. He'd always been one for the horses. It was one of the reasons he kept taking work at a distance – so she couldn't take his wage packet off him unopened as happened in most other households. If she challenged him about it on one of his brief returns home he got angry and defensive: wasn't a man away from his family and friends to have a few wee pleasures from time to time, and what business was it of hers how much he was earning? 'I'm your wife,' she said, 'and this is your daughter.' 'Aye,' he said, 'I ken who ye are. I'll no see either of ye starve.' 'No, because ye'll be away in Inverness or somewhere,' she said. Then he slammed out of the house on his way to the pub. He was back later with a wee drink in him, daft for her then, and he charmed her in spite of herself, but she knew very well to put no faith in his charm.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Provide another paragraph.. Start with the sentence 'Terrified was what she expected'.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: Terrified was what she expected. She was older than he'd assumed from her voice, but that was okay; in fact it was reassuring. Somehow he persuaded himself he could trust her because she was older. He felt the years falling away even as she invited him to sit down and tell her again what he wanted. Then she instructed him to undress. He was a little boy again. 'You're here and you don't even know why,' she said, 'but I do. I know what you want before you ask for it.' He thought he was going to swoon. 'Relax,' she said. 'Deep breaths. This can take as long as you like. You and I are going on a journey together.'
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Provide the last five paragraphs.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: My sincerest thanks for their support and encouragement go to my agent, Natasha Fairweather at A. P. Watt Ltd, to Simon Prosser, Juliette Mitchell, Anna Ridley and all at Hamish Hamilton, and to Sarah Coward.
  Thanks also, for technical, cultural and anecdotal information and discussions of various kinds, to Joseph Bonnar, Geoffrey Elborn, Robin Gillanders, Ian Hamilton, Jimmy Hutchison, Brian Lambie, Alan Lawson, Annie Matheson, James Miller, Judy Moir, Dudley Treffry, Rory Watson and many others.
  The details of the pit disaster at Borlanslogie (an imaginary place) bear a close resemblance to real events that took place at Knockshinnoch Colliery in Ayrshire in September 1950, and some of the words of the survivors are adapted from testimony given by miners at Knockshinnoch.
  My deep appreciation goes to my parents, John and Betty, for all their love and wisdom over the years.
  Finally, I cannot adequately express my thanks to Marianne, for the unflinching support and astonishing patience she has shown during the four years of toil that have been spent in the writing of this novel. The last and biggest thank-you is to her.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Delete the first sentence.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: P. Watt Ltd, to Simon Prosser, Juliette Mitchell, Anna Ridley and all at Hamish Hamilton, and to Sarah Coward.
  Thanks also, for technical, cultural and anecdotal information and discussions of various kinds, to Joseph Bonnar, Geoffrey Elborn, Robin Gillanders, Ian Hamilton, Jimmy Hutchison, Brian Lambie, Alan Lawson, Annie Matheson, James Miller, Judy Moir, Dudley Treffry, Rory Watson and many others.
  The details of the pit disaster at Borlanslogie (an imaginary place) bear a close resemblance to real events that took place at Knockshinnoch Colliery in Ayrshire in September 1950, and some of the words of the survivors are adapted from testimony given by miners at Knockshinnoch.
  My deep appreciation goes to my parents, John and Betty, for all their love and wisdom over the years.
  Finally, I cannot adequately express my thanks to Marianne, for the unflinching support and astonishing patience she has shown during the four years of toil that have been spent in the writing of this novel. The last and biggest thank-you is to her.