Description
Book SynopsisGuruji said: ‘Sing not the song that others have sung. Sing only what you yourself have realised in your own heart.’
What I’ve realised in my own heart is that its song is for many, that it sings for whom it meets on its way. It does not remain at home, but is a wandering minstrel heart.
This book is the engaging and colourful memoir of celebrated Scottish storyteller David Campbell. It is an exploration of the nature of love in its many guises, and of David’s lifelong love of story.
Join David as he tells his story from childhood in wartime Fraserburgh to a holiday job with a dramatic and life-changing conclusion, through a pivotal role as a bbc radio producer at the time of the Scottish renaissance of writing, drama and folk traditions, and finally to his international career as an acclaimed storyteller, mentored by celebrated tinker-traveller Duncan Williamson.
The roots of things in my life have always been the love of words, stories, poetry and people, and the joy of bringing them together; it is there that I find the deepest meaning and the sweetest music.
Trade ReviewA glorious chronicle. Campbell fills the pages with pure delight. - CATHERINE LOCKERBIE
David’s journey takes us through the story of Scotland’s re-birth in all its subversive energy. This book is the poetry of memory combined with the art of storytelling. - DONALD SMITH, Director of the Scottish International Storytelling Festival
Brendan Bracken, a friend of Chruchill, posed as 16-year-old schoolboy. A new memoir claims the former wartime minister set up a bogus school to satisfy his caning fetish - THE SUNDAY TIMES 06/06/2921
One of Scotland’s most celebrated storytellers reflects on his love of words throughout the last eight decades of his life in a brand new memoir. - THE NATIONAL 07/06/2021
‘Candid, absorbing … Campbell evokes the captivating vision of a time of adventure and opportunity, when people owned less but perhaps dared more. He also drops a bombshell concerning a member of Churchill’s cabinet, kept to himself until now, that even the most imaginative storyteller couldn’t make up.’ - Alastair Mabbott, THE HERALD
Table of ContentsA Man 8
Preface by Tom Pow 9
Prelude 11
1 A Charmed Life 13
2 Little by Little 14
3 Across the Border and Back Again 15
4 Granny Howling 19
5 A Windy Boy and a Bit 23
6 A Boyhood Fantasy 36
7 To Be Young Was Very Heaven 44
8 Varsity Meetings and Matings 50
9 The Tin Room 56
10 Highland Frolics 60
11 The Tug of Curiosity 63
12 Laying a Ghost to Rest 68
13 A Kindling Spirit 78
14 We Ran Our Heedless Ways 84
15 Into the Dark 97
16 Paradise Lost 103
17 Musical Chairs 118
18 The Course of True Love Never Did Run Smooth 125
19 The Heretics 139
20 Tinker and Saint: George Mackay Brown 150
21 In Chase of Beauty: Sorley MacLean 154
22 The Beginning of a New Song: Iain Crichton Smith 159
23 In Search of Simplicity: Norman MacCaig 167
24 Embro to the Ploy: Robert Garioch 177
25 A New Buzz 180
26 The Society 186
27 A Ceilidh Decade: Dundas Street in the 1980s 191
28 Passionfruit and Pangkor Island 197
29 Eurydice 206 30 Bert 210
31 Camphill 212
32 In the Listening Place 215
33 More New Worlds 220
34 A Torn Land 224
35 On a Quest 229
36 A Land in Transition 233
37 In the Footsteps of Robert Service 237
38 An Independent People 241
39 A Lucky Break 247
40 Elegies 250
41 A Fateful Day 254
42 Girl Friday and Robinson 256
43 West Coast Retreat 259
The Sweetest Music 261
Thank Yous: A Fairy Story 262
Copyrights and Permissions 263
