Two books written by ian - the third a partnership affair

About ten years ago I was nearly seventy years of age, on the verge of retiring, but not quite. A telephone call interrupted my musings that fateful day. The caller said he was a book publisher and he invited me to meet him in a local coffee shop.

We duly met a few days later and he, without much ado, asked if I would write three books for him.

‘Taken aback’ hardly describes my feelings at that moment.

I responded by informing him that I had never written one book, let alone three. I than enquired if he had mistaken me for someone else? “No, he assured me, I am not mistaken”.

Then, still puzzled, I tentatively speared of him, ‘what makes you think I can write a book’?

His reply surprised me even more.

“Ian, you have been writing two blogs for some years. I have read them all. I know you can write books”.

I was now curious and asked, ‘what kind of books’?

“About you”, he replied.

“Your life in the Police, your life in mountains and the third will be about the interesting things you have come across during your stravaiging up and down Scotland. Things that many people have never come across, or if they have have never thought to wonder what it was they were seeing”.

I asked for one month to consider his request. He agreed.

My first action was to find thinking space and sort out my thoughts. The main question swirling through my brain was; how does one write a book, where do I start?

My first decision was to head north to the solitude of Assynt.

I spent two nights in a bunkhouse, one night in a bothy, a single night in my tent on the shore of Loch Assynt, beside Ardvreck Castle, then a couple of nights in a guest house in Dingwall.

I sat beside rivers, halfway up mountains and I scribbled note after note after note in my battered notebook. I even went to the Library in Dingwall and searched through old newspapers to find stories about things I had been involved years before. I filled that notebook.

my battered notebook that I blame for leading me astray

Back in Stirling I spent some time in the local Archive doing more research. A plan was forming.

I contacted the Publisher and agreed to start the process of writing three books. He, the Publisher, asked me to start with the Police book, then the mountaineering book and round up with the book about interesting, out of the way, places.

I then signed a contract and I was off.

In terms of the police book, I made a decision not to write about Friday night Frolics and funny stories. I wanted to examine policing as I understood it, as I had operated when involved.

I wrote down some questions:

‘Should police officers be allowed to use discretion and if so, how would one tell if an act of discretion my be perceived as corruption? Should front line beat police officers, in Scotland, routinely carry firearms? Was it a service or a force? When modern policing was developing in the 1880’s, who was it designed to police? Was it intended that we policed looking up or policed looking down’?

In terms of the mountaineering book, that was a different challenge. I was aware my hill adventures could never be described as, ‘high end’. I had never hung from a frayed rope on the North Face of the Eiger, so, to be blunt, who would be interested in my adventures? I therefore decided to write a book that I hoped would be accessible to readers who had not set foot on a mountain as well as, I hoped, people who had.

I would simply tell tales, stories that would not be out of place sitting round a roaring fire in a bothy with single malt malt whisky to hand. It was also my dream that such a style might be the trigger to tempt someone to venture out of their car, wander up some valley, sit by a stream, take the ‘buds’ from their ears and just enjoy the sound of nature. ‘A la’ Bob Dylan through his invitation to, “Lay down your weary tune”.

I was working on the third agreed book when the Publisher asked me to belay it for a while and get involved with the Stirling Council Archeologist and co author a book about The Bannockburn. Which I did.

That is why the third book in the image above is, The Bannock Burn, a book written in a partnership between Dr Murray Cook and myself.

the Bannock emerges as a trickle to become a burn

It did not matter, the whole writing opportunity, even if a tad overwhelming at first, particularly at my age, opened up something exciting; a new road in my life.

My mind went to Robert Frost and his wonderful poem; The Road not Taken;

The last verse I take the liberty of including:

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I,

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

I have continued on that road and in addition to three books, many scribbles, short stories and fewer attempts at poetry have emerged.

I work with a group of retired military persons, some with anxiety issues, and support their creative efforts by writing the odd story and article for them to perform. Oh, including an hour on stage at the Edinburgh Festival FRINGE in 2025.

The publishing company who took a risk on asking me to write for them, is:

Extremis Publishing Ltd, Stirling.

One huge lesson for me: you are only here once, do not lie down, push boundaries, you will always have something to contribute.

How I got into Scribbling at the Grand Old Age of Seventy Years

The Sentinel