Category Archives: Travel

Little guitar

On Saturday, I am taking one of my most treasured possessions to hospital. It’s a two-thirds size guitar which I bought while travelling in Latin America in 1973. It is now so cracked and battered that I daren’t play it … Continue reading

Posted in Latin America, Love, Memory, Music, Stories, Travel | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 4 Comments

Two writers

This gallery contains 2 photos.

This weekend I’m chairing two events at the Winter Words book festival in Pitlochry. The authors have a couple of things in common. They both come from the Northern Isles, one from Orkney, one from Shetland. And they are both, … Continue reading

More Galleries | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Long walk

This gallery contains 1 photo.

‘Hi Jamie,’ said the message from a friend, ‘a bit out of the blue but if you’re at home there are two Sudanese refugees walking to Birnam today – coming from Land’s End. They’re raising awareness and money for Sudan … Continue reading

More Galleries | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | 7 Comments

Elegy for Iran

This gallery contains 1 photo.

I have a tenuous connection with Iran, but it’s enough to sharpen the horror of what has unfolded there over the last few days. In the summer of 1969, my first year at university, I drove with three friends to … Continue reading

More Galleries | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 5 Comments

In praise of failure

This gallery contains 1 photo.

When you write a book about someone you enter into a relationship with them, even if they are dead and the relationship is imaginary. It continues to exist after the book is published, the promotional work is done, and you … Continue reading

More Galleries | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Writ in Sand

This gallery contains 1 photo.

Two years ago I published a biography of my great-great uncle. He and I were born almost a century apart: he in 1852, I in 1949. We also arrived in South America almost a century apart, in 1870 and 1972 … Continue reading

More Galleries | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

Southern bells

Before the pandemic I used to go into Edinburgh quite regularly. We have a railway station within walking distance of our house and it was a pleasant hour-and-a-half journey, down to Perth, through Fife and along the coast of the … Continue reading

More Galleries | 4 Comments

Mellow fruitfulness

First frost this morning. The trees on Birnam Hill are starting to turn—though not, curiously, as dramatically as they were in the Lot-et-Garonne where we were last week. There the oaks that mantle the vast Quercy forest had taken on … Continue reading

More Galleries | Tagged , | 6 Comments

Moon journeys

Fifty years ago last Saturday, in the crowded and sweltering public room of a cheap hotel, with an ancient fan creaking and whirring overhead, I watched the televised moon landing. I was in downtown Tehran. The commentary was in Farsi. … Continue reading

More Galleries | Tagged , , | 3 Comments

In Africa

Last year my work took me around the world, from Auckland in February, to Rhode Island and Boston in October, with several European countries in between. I vowed to try and slow down in 2019, my seventieth year. It hasn’t … Continue reading

More Galleries | Tagged , , , | 5 Comments