Of Me and Others. Alasdair Gray

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      OF ME AND OTHERS

      Born in 1934, Alasdair Gray graduated in design and mural painting from the Glasgow School of Art. Since 1981, when Lanark was published by Canongate, he authored, designed and illustrated seven novels, several books of short stories, a collection of his stage, radio and TV plays and a book of his visual art, A Life in Pictures. In November 2019, he received a Lifetime Achievement award by the Saltire Society. He died in December 2019, aged eighty-five.

      OF ME

      AND OTHERS

      by Alasdair Gray

       for Morag, Mora, Andrew,Bert, Katriona, Tracy, Maff,Jim, Libby and Alexandrain ScotlandEngland and the U.S.A.

      CANONGATE BOOKS

      EDINBURGH 2019

      biblio notice

      This revised edition published in

      Great Britain, the USA and

      Canada in 2019 by Canongate

      Books Ltd, 14 High Street,

      Edinburgh EH1 1TE

      Distributed in the USA by Publishers Group West

      and in Canada by Publishers Group Canada

      canongate.co.uk

      This digital edition first published in 2018 by Canongate Books

      Copyright © Alasdair Gray 2014, 2019

      The moral right of the author has been asserted

      The author gratefully acknowledges the support of

      Creative Scotland towards the publication of this book

      British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available on request from the British Library

      ISBN 978 1 78689 520 2

      eISBN 978 1 78689 521 9

      an epigraph

      Everyone over middle age

      regrets some loss that ageing brings.

      My principal regret is this:

      I’ve never tackled handy things.

      Before King Louis lost his head

      his hobby was repairing locks.

      Byron, despite a crippled foot,

      wrote epics yet could swim and box.

      Sir Thomas Browne, Bill Carlos Bill,

      were medical practitioners.

      The Reverend Sydney Smith had skill

      to doctor his parishioners.

      One soldier wrote great words for tunes.¹

      One housewife writes tremendous books.²

      One postman publishes cartoons.³

      One mural painter welds and cooks.⁴

      One sweeper of streets can etch and paint.⁵

      One banker played the bagpipes well.⁶

      One fisherman became a saint who

      holds the keys of Heaven and Hell.⁷

      Ruskin swept stairs and weeded plots.

      D. H. Lawrence scrubbed the floors.

      Count Tolstoy emptied chamber pots.

      Why do I flinch from household chores?

      Frosts’s farming was not infamous.

      Melville and Conrad sailed the sea.

      James Kelman drove an omnibus.

      No honest toil excuses me.

       1. Hamish Henderson

       2. Agnes Owens

       3. Stuart Murray

       4. Nichol Wheatley

       5. Alan Richardson

       6. Former manager of the Glasgow Byres Road Clydesdale Bank

       7. Peter

      TABLE OF CONTENTS

       FOREWORD

       1987 Middle Age Self Portrait

       2012 ANOTHER NOT SCOTLAND

       1951–2013 CHILDHOOD READING

       1993 Childhood Writing and MR MEIKLE

       1952 Two Whitehill School Magazine Essays

       1957 EPIC PAINTING: Art School Thesis

       1959 A REPORT TO THE TRUSTEES

       1960 WORLD OF 4 TO 7: Teaching College Thesis

       1964 APOLOGY FOR MY RECENT DEATH

       1969 INSTEAD OF AN APOLOGY

       1973 Of Bill Skinner, Small Thistle

       1974 A Retrospective Catalogue – Introduction

       1975 Of Gable-End Murals – A Letter

       1975 NEW LANARK CRAFT COMMUNITY

       1977 WRITERS GROUPS and A Resident’s Report

       1978 Of Joan Ure: Playwright

       1981 LANARK: Epilogue

       1982 TWO WEE ARTICLES