I write on political and social change: history and culture and the arts. And in particular the arts and history of Scotland: the stories of old Scotia and Edina.. I am a former teacher, grew up in Edinburgh, lived ten years in America (Chicago and Cincinnati) and I now live north of Scotland’s other major city, Glasgow.
I write essays, short stories, letters, poems, children’s stories and articles. Music, poetry and art have had a profound effect on my life. I have always been scribbling in notebooks, since I was seven, but I only began to take my writing seriously over the past decade.
*Letters on - Our Culture of Violence (2005), Youth Facilities (1996), Killing Our Eco System, Readiness to Learn (2018), Why our Stories Matter, Breastfeeding (2017), The Oldest UK Universities and many major arts reviews.
Writers I admire - Ian Bell, Bob Dylan, Robert Burns, WB Yeats, Bryan Appleyard, TS Eliot, Sylvia Plath, Somerset Maugham, Jane Austen.
I have a lifetime of experience, both in education and raising my family. Life presents many challenges, that can make us stronger or defeat us – or a bit of both. I write about my travels and my time in America and Italy. While I have broad outlooks, I also value history, sense of place and heritage. I travelled abroad several road trips United States :the Smokies, Wisconsin, Massachusetts in the fall.
To Italy’s majestic mountains and art or to the pink early skies near Nice, south of France.
*Photography. I am also a photographer and shoot mainly portraiture including many famous names: my main passion when I studied art at school. I have taken portraits of famous authors, musicians and artists. I try to capture time and moods in those intimate venues were something magic happens between performers and audience. Lost in time and space. I hope writing and photography can change minds and lives.
Searching for Scotia: Burns named Edina ‘Scotia’s darling seat’
I would walk the ancient hills of Scotia’s capital Edina and gaze over to the Forth estuary: and over to her imposing castle, her historic Royal Mile, her elegant Georgian new town, her art galleries - and the energy of her International Arts festival. I used to walk down her cobbled high street to college amid all her long forgotten stories, and near to the imposing Arthur’s Seat.
On those misty mornings. From the quiet pathways of Arthur Seat there are long views over the city skyline, to the castle and over to the Forth. I read poetry and got engrossed in my visits to Thins bookshop up the Bridges. I visited the art galleries, where the old portraits of the Stewart kings hung. And we sang songs of Robert Burns at our school choir.
"This is a city of shifting light, of changing skies, of sudden vistas.” Alexander McColl Smith.
