STORY OF MY LIFE
Memoir on his career, Army days and US trip visiting towns called Inverness
HE IS one of the best-known faces in Scotland and appears in millions of homes every day.
In his TV news career, Mike Edwards has come face to face with evil murderers, including Ian Brady and Peter Tobin, as well as global celebrities such as boxing champ Mike Tyson.
Now the STV reporter, who is also an Army Reserves officer and completed tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan, has written his autobiography.
The memoir also documents his trip across the US looking for places named after his home city of Inverness.
He said: “After my novel Friendly Fire, I wanted to write something different.
“The Road Home was a solo journey of self-discovery, from Pacific to Atlantic.
“I studied American history and it was fitting to visit places, especially in the South, to see for myself where so many momentous things happened.
“Each of the five Invernesses had something different – some were special, some I couldn’t wait to leave.
“I visited the holiday village of Inverness, California, shortly after seeing the bright lights of LA so it was a huge contrast. Inverness, Illinois, was a plush
suburb of Chicago where I spent two days and never saw a single person. It was wealthy and exclusive but unimaginably sterile.
“Inverness, Mississippi, was like a scene out of a movie about the civil rights movement. I expected to see Gene Hackman or Sidney Poitier any moment.
“After 25 years at STV and a similar period in the TA, the journey gave me time to reflect on great memories and look forward to new challenges.”
Mike still serves as a major in the Army Reserves. In Kabul, he served in a multi-national HQ and in Iraq, he came under repeated enemy fire.
In his news career, Mike has reported on some of Scotland’s biggest stories – including the Piper Alpha, Dunblane and Lockerbie tragedies – and met some unforgettable characters.
The book also tells how he flew upside down in a supersonic Tornado jet, went to sea in a nuclear submarine and ended up with a cameo in Taggart.
The Road Home: My American Journey in Search of Inverness by Mike Edwards is out now.