If It's Tuesday, This Must Be Coatbridge
It's a chilly Tuesday in Coatbridge and I have two hours to kill before I give a talk and reading at the the town's library. A long way from home, I spent last night at a hotel in Hamilton. This morning – feeling an article coming on - I reacquainted myself with Hamilton Mausoleum, adding a digital picture of it to my personal photo library.
I fill one of my spare hours with a sentimental journey to where I used to visit my granny in Old Monkland and failing to find her grave in the vast nearby cemetery. Since the wind is now blowing in from Siberia, I abandon the search and head for warmth and sustenance.
Run by three charming Chinese ladies, Yvonne's Café in downtown Coatbridge supplies a warm welcome, a latte and a well-filled sandwich. Not only that, there's a complimentary Kunzle cake and a Coatbridge-style fortune cookie when I pay my bill.
In a small brown envelope I find a Penguin biscuit, a discount voucher for my next visit and a motto. An unexpected event will bring you riches. So far, so surreal. That's life on the road for you.
As far as I'm concerned, a book's not a book until the reader reads it, so it's wonderful to emerge from my garret, blinking like a mole, and meet those readers - and Scotland's stalwart army of librarians and organizers of literary festivals.
This year, having published two books simultaneously at the beginning of it, there have been lots of talks and lots of travelling. It can get lonely, with odd patches of time to fill - hence the melancholic mooching around Old Monkland Graveyard – but I regard it as an integral part of the job.
Back when I was just starting out in this crazy business, my friend and colleague Jessica Stirling – aka much-loved and respected Scottish writer Hugh C Rae - advised me never to turn down the chance of meeting the readers, even if the crowd consisted only of the proverbial two men and a dug.
I did once speak to four women, one man and a dog, a very intelligent collie by the name of Fly. Adopting that head cocked to one side, hanging-on-your-every-word pose, she remained attentive throughout, which is more than her gently-snoring mistress did.
Once, on a night of torrential rain in Kirkcaldy, I had no audience at all. At Port Glasgow on the banks of the Clyde, I only had one because three of my friends loyally turned out to support me. Balancing the books, this year I've spoken to sell-out audiences in Edinburgh, Aberdeen, Linlithgow and elsewhere.
Back in Coatbridge, I spend half-an-hour in my car, catching up on my reading of Dan Brown's The Lost Symbol, which only adds to the surreal feeling of the day. Brace yourselves. I found it highly entertaining.
Coatbridge's lovely – though soon to be vacated - old Carnegie Library and its staff are also warm and welcoming and there's an enthusiastic audience. I'm looking out at a sea of smiling faces and there are interesting questions afterwards. The library has provided books for them to sell and me to sign.
Speaking in Coatbridge is extra special. My dad grew up here during the Great Depression of the 1930s. With no other choice but to leave school early and try to find work, he never gave up his thirst for knowledge. It's very poignant to realize that I've walked up the same steps and come into the same building he and his sister, our beloved Aunt Elizabeth, must have visited so many times to borrow books.
A week or so later at the Open University debate at the Linlithgow Book Festival on how Scottish history is presented, there's also great organization, great warmth and lots of heat in the impassioned discussion which follows the debate: exactly what is required.
Several audience members come up and talk to me afterwards. One attractive young woman asks if I will sign her well-thumbed copy of my first book, Damn' Rebel Bitches: The Women of the '45. She tells me she's been profoundly inspired by the story of one of those women in particular. We exchange a smile, both completely understanding why. It's a magical moment, a meeting of minds between writer and reader.
She then proceeds to take my breath away. My book, she says, has changed her life. Honoured and humbled, I think back to the Coatbridge fortune cookie. Riches, indeed, out here to be discovered. Elgin, Dundee and Kinross, here I come.
