In concert

On Easter Monday I took part in a concert in Dunkeld Cathedral to raise money for Syrian refugees. If that sounds grand, it wasn’t. It was very much a community event, conceived by the cathedral organist, Michael Anderson, and local … Continue reading

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Poetry path

In the hills a few miles outside our village of Birnam is a Camphill community. Here, on the Corbenic estate, 27 adults with learning difficulties live with their carers and a number of volunteers in 50 acres of agricultural land, … Continue reading

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Feet of clay

Last night I finished reading H is for Hawk, Helen MacDonald’s extraordinary and much-fêted memoir about how she worked through her grief at her father’s death by training a goshawk. I loved the book for the luminosity of the writing, … Continue reading

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Untold stories

If one is asked the same question often enough, no matter how difficult, one sooner or later comes up with an answer that can be given without too much further thought. It may not be precisely the right one, but … Continue reading

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Established

Two years ago, against all the odds, 15 Dark Angels wrote and published a collective novel. Keeping Mum was a project that could very easily have come unstuck, but it didn’t and we were rightly proud of what might even … Continue reading

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In memoriam

It has become a cliché of the information age that we remember where we were when we learned of certain events, the death of JFK or John Lennon for example. On each occasion there was something so shocking in the … Continue reading

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Second wind

I’ve mentioned here my friend and neighbour, Fiona Ritchie, before. Fiona is an authority on the traditional music of Scotland and Ireland. From her tiny studio in Dunkeld she presents the most-listened-to Celtic music programme on US radio, the weekly … Continue reading

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True stories

Last weekend we ran a The Stories We Tell workshop for a group of people who were returning to us for the third time. Of the many striking things about the weekend, the one that most remains with me now … Continue reading

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Persian nights

I’ve known for a long time that the real reason I write this blog is to make meaning for myself. I tend to look for subjects in which I suspect there may be some unexplored sub-text – unexplored by me, … Continue reading

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Dem bones

A couple of weeks ago I mentioned a book by Julia Cameron called The Right To Write. Since then I have been reading what I think of as its older sister, Writing Down The Bones, by Natalie Goldberg. I’ve been … Continue reading

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