‘You only get one dad.’ I don’t know Ricky Ross. But those were his words to me in a Twitter exchange the week after my adoptive dad died last year. The conversation arose because I had thanked Ricky for his solo concert at Edinburgh’s Queen’s Hall a few days earlier. In particular, I mentioned his […]
Category: memoir
The road less traveled by
“I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference.” The final two lines of Robert Frost’s poem, The Road Not Taken, take me back to a turning point in my life that I had cause to reflect on at the recent Stonewall Scotland Equal at Work conference. I had been […]
A place called home
There’s a neon sign on the Scottish Gallery of Modern Art not far from where I stay. It’s an installation by the artist Martin Creed which reads ‘Everything is going to be alright’. I’m not normally a lover of installation art. But this piece just works. Its sublime message wraps me with reassurance. And over […]
On the death of a friend in shot gun alley
On Monday I lost a good friend in shot gun alley. I’m told that’s a term for our 50s. The idea is that if you make it through the random fire of premature death you’ll probably live to a ripe old age. I’ve no idea of the veracity of the claim. But on hearing of […]