Charity shop fears
A lack of volunteers may force the Cumnock cancer support shop to close its doors.
The charity is desperate for the community to step up to insure cancer patients continue to get the vital support they need. The shop is currently only able to open two days a week.
All the cash raised goes towards providing free transport and mental health support to those living with or affected by cancer.
Ma n a g e r O d e t t e Landsburgh, said: “We would be delighted to hear from anyone who can spare a few hours a week to help us. It’s a great way to get involved in helping your community.” The anniversary of his death is on November 5 and his final explosive book is out at last.
It has taken almost a year to appear, a dozen times longer than it took to write.
He didn’t know it then, but the journalist Kenneth Roy had under a month to pen his last work.
A literal deadline like no other in his long career.
Kenneth wrote his diary of living and dying “In Case of Any News” from his death bed in Ayr Hospital.
The result is a courageous telling of his last days, opening with the dramatic line: “It’s official: I am dying of cancer.”
He managed 49,000 words before the inevitable in his bed at Station 9.
The 190- page book is both brave and insightful into the nature of dying, his memories, and his interactions with doctors and nurses at Ayr Hospital.
Dad- of- two Kenneth, 73, lived in Troon, Prestwick and Monkton at various times.
Once he lived in Maybole Castle from where he masterminded getting West Sound on air in 1981.
Over the years he wrote multiple books and founded and edited the Scottish Review.
When he hit 43,000 words of his last book he noted: “Written and roughly subbed in just over three weeks. It is emotionally honest, I hope it’s even funny in places, and it is publishable as it stands.
“It only lacks a conclusion, and I don’t have one, I’m still working on it in my head.”
His old BBC Scotland colleague Sally Magnusson writes the foreward and the introduction is by newspaperman Magnus Linklater.
Sally says: “Late one night he muses sadly on the utter incomprehensibility of his plight:
‘ This bed, is it really my death bed?
“That ticking clock with the
It is emotionally honest, I hope it’s even funny in places. It was written and subbed in three weeks
It only lacks a conclusion, and I don’t have one, I ‘ m still working on it in my head