I was seriously wrong about Iain Duncan Smith when I described him in an article as ‘ a breath of fresh air’. About eight years ago, in the interests of the Credit Union Movement, I agreed to one of those hackneyed, template interviews where
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In a letter to our local paper, an Alloa man writes that he will be voting ‘NO’ in the Referendum because that’s the view of Sir Alex Ferguson. I am not one of the 650 000 who have bought the former United manager’s ‘Autobiography’. I suspect
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Several journalists and social network sites have drawn attention to David Cameron’s membership of the Federation of Conservative Students and their notorious 80’s poster, calling for Mandela, the Terrorist, to be hanged. He had plenty of fellow travellers, including Nigel Farage, the UKIP Leader and Boris
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Much of the reporting of the Celtic Football Club AGM concentrated on the supposed mirth caused by references from the top table to the current plight of their erstwhile rivals across the City. For a few days afterwards, the ritual insults were exchanged in online
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In my post about the late Seamus Heaney, I alluded to some difficulties that I had experienced as a student, arising from a piece which I had written on the quality of local government in Derry during the sixties. Among other things , I was critical
Read more →The plain, white boards stood against the wall of the library. Mr Shawa, school technician, examined each one, cleaned and carefully sanded it before finally cutting them all into six feet lengths. We watched while he patiently and with dignity constructed a coffin which would be
Read more →Four months ago, I welcomed our third grandchild, Lilly Ann, into our world and paid tribute to mothers everywhere. http://phototilly.scot/lily-ann-babies-2/ Yesterday saw the welcome arrival of Senan James, Jen and Neill’s second child, a wee brother for the always delightful, Leo. What I said then, I revisit on this
Read more →Today is International Credit Union Day, celebrated by millions of members in over a hundred countries across the Globe. Three years ago, Derry Credit Union invited me to contribute a piece about the Sixties for their 50th Anniversary commemorative brochure . It was never published
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I have lived in Scotland since 1971 when I married a Scot and set up home in Edinburgh. Our three children were educated in Scotland and continue to live here now with their own families. For three decades, I taught in Scottish schools, was elected President
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Seamus Heaney was three years older than me and a senior boarder when I was a dayboy at St Columb’s College in the 1950s. There was a well established precept that you ignored all those in the years below, even siblings, if at all possible. The
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