John Cairney 1930-2023

John Cairney as Robert Burns   John Cairney was a charismatic Scottish actor, forever identified with his passionate and powerful portrayal of Robert Burns in his one man show, There Was a Man.  I met him once, back in 1997, when we were both waiting for our respective editors at Mainstream Publishing in Edinburgh....

Curses! On Swearing in Historical Novels

(This article was first published in the Summer 2022 edition of The Author, the journal of the Society of Authors.)     ‘Maggie Craig! Your language!’ Although I didn’t entirely buy my cousin’s wide-eyed look of shock, I told her it wasn’t my language, it was the characters’ language. If you’re an early 19th...

August in Edinburgh!

The Festival! The Fringe! Street theatre! The Edinburgh Military tattoo and the massed pipes and drums! Glorious sunshine one day, a Biblical downpour the next! It was much the same 200 years ago when King George IV paid an official visit to Edinburgh. In August 1822 the entertainment, the bagpipes and the street theatre...

Podcast on My Writing

I’ve had some good publicity around the publication of the new editions of Damn Rebel Bitches: The Women of the ’45 and Bare-Arsed Banditti: The Men of the ’45. The Sunday Post did an excellent full-page spread, written by Tracey Bryce and using one of my favourite paintings of Jacobite Times to illustrate it. Susan...