Sep 25
Yesterday, at the annual Scottish Learning Festival in Glasgow, attended by 4,000 delegates, the Scottish Education Secretary, Mike Russell, announced a Children and Young People’s summit in Scotland. Although neither the format nor the timing of the event is clear as yet, the announcement was broadly welcomed – and with reason. The engagement of young …
Sep 08
Courtesy of the lovely people at Google, I recently attended a super evening event at The Secret Herb Garden, on the outskirts of Edinburgh, at the foot of the Pentland Hills. This herb nursery – which, in addition to growing and selling all varieties of herbs, also runs courses in painting, flower arranging and other …
Aug 26
It is almost universally accepted now that the decline in the numbers of bees is of great concern to humanity as a whole. Loss of habitat, use of pesticides, climate change … there are many reasons for the decline in bees, and we should most certainly be worried – not just for the bees, but …
Aug 18
This being August, it is Festival month in Edinburgh, and the city is bursting with events and performances under the auspices of a number of different major festivals. Amongst these is the International Book Festival, which brings together a host of authors, illustrators and publishers in a rich programme of talks and workshops, and yesterday …
Aug 10
Great stories, told simply, are powerful – and the story of Eric Lomax (the Railway Man) is exactly this. I have not seen the film, starring Colin Firth and Nicole Kidman; rather (and possibly better) I recently read Eric Lomax’s book, and I found it both moving and inspiring. The story is now well-known: as …
Jul 21
Our newspapers and television news are bombarding us at the moment – almost literally – with images of war and its dreadful effects. Whether the images are from the streets of Gaza or from the fields in Ukraine where Flight MH17 came down, we are confronted hourly with the horror and destruction that results when …
Jul 02
I spent a gloriously uplifting evening last week as the guest speaker at the annual Speech Night at St George’s School in Edinburgh. The young women whose achievements we were applauding were poised, grounded and ready to go out into the world, so in addition to the thoughts I gave them about how to make …
Jun 16
The Queen’s Baton passed into Scotland early on Saturday morning, headed for the Commonwealth Games which begin in just over a month’s time in Glasgow. A symbolic handover took place at the border, when the Baton was handed from the great former decathlete, Daley Thompson, to one of Scotland’s current main hopes for the Games, …
Jun 04
Taken out of context, this catchy line from South Pacific could well be applied to Dame Daphne Sheldrick, who celebrates her 80th birthday today. Dame Daphne was born of British ancestry in Kenya in 1934, and has spent her life caring for orphans of wild animal species from black rhinos to zebras, and warthogs to …
May 22
As reported in yesterday’s Guardian, a WHO study (to be published in full later this year) reports that the number of teenagers in England who self-harm has trebled in the last ten years, and is now around one in five. Self-harm – cutting, burning or otherwise harming oneself – is a sign of intense mental …