Relax. Enjoy. Fly…

It wasn't my idea. A very creative friend, Iain McAleese, proposed Star Cloud in the first place and, for various reasons, asked if we could produce it. It sounded interesting so I put the word out, inviting people to write something on the subject of starlings' murmurations.

If I’m honest, I was uncertain about making Boswell’s Galloping Farmers. It is, after all, more of a dramatised audio book than a full audio drama. Plus, it felt important to honour the man who wrote the original memoir and to do his story full justice. Quite a responsibility – and quite a task. But working with Martin Gallagher and John Boyd, it seems we pulled it off for listeners in different parts of the world. You can read some of their reactions here.

A confession: when I was first offered the chance to “do something” with this book by my friend, Rob Close, I wasn’t particularly interested. Rob and his co-editor, Willie Watson, had put together a collection of documents found in Ayrshire farm houses which all related to the infamous Gallipoli campaign of 1915. What changed my mind?

One of the remarkable things about putting together ‘The Glad Giver’ was the way in which creative people came forward to offer their work in support of it. Even before I had auditioned the actors, a writer friend had introduced me to her recorder group, called (and I love the Scots wordplay) Thistle Doo. The leader of the group, Jacqueline Fitzgibbon, read the script I sent and the next day offered to compose a piece of music especially for it. 

This is a story of friendship and loyalty, part of the fascinating history of the Craufurds of Ayrshire, who date their title back two thousand years. Very little of this is in the public domain, and so I pored through boxes of letter and manuscripts to find the nuggets of information that could be translated into a dramatic piece.

Robert Burns and Mrs Frances Dunlop were friends; their friendship, based on mutual respect, lasted a decade. This play is based on extracts from the many letters that passed between them.

The Isle of Donan is a fictional place, closely based on a real island off the west coast of Scotland. When it suits me, though, I ascribe customs and attributes to Donan from other real islands — such cavalier borrowings are the privilege of the fiction writer…

I’m envious and a little in awe of fellow audio dramatists that I meet online in various social media groups. Most of them do their own recording and production and I know that such technical skills may well be beyond me forever. Luckily for me, I’ve learnt long ago the value of other people’s skills and expertise.

I started to write my play. A great deal has been written about Edith Piaf, and my aim was to bring forward some of the lesser known aspects of her life. She is known for her many affairs with men, but …

Andrée Bigard (Dédée) became Edith’s secretary during World War 2 and used her work for the singer as a cover for her work with the French Resistance…

The folder was very thin. I sat at one of the long tables, the researcher’s lamp switched on to make reading and photography easy, and worked my way through the documents…