SO THAT WAS 2020
We asked six of our favourite Scots for their highlights from the past 12 months and their hopes for 2021, and with lockdown having afforded them an unrivalled opportunity to read, watch and reflect, their answers make for fascinating reading
Val McDermid, Sanjeev Kohli, Jenny Colgan, Fred MacAulay, Alistair Moffat and Barbara Dickson tell us the highlights from their last 12 months
JENNY COLGAN Books...
The books I would really push on people from 2020 are Piranesi by Susanna Clarke – it’s nothing like her last book, Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell, it’s more like a lost book of Narnia. It’s strange and sad and will stay with you for a long time.
By total contrast, Craig Brown’s One, Two, Three, Four: The Beatles in Time is a really joyful look at the Beatles phenomenon with loads of gossipy stories I hadn’t heard before, it’s a treat.
Like everyone else I loved the new Robert Galbraith, Troubled Blood. Oh, and I used lockdown to read the whole of the Wolf Hall Trilogy, which blew me away. Have a couple of runs at the first one, then you’ll get as obsessed as everybody else, I promise. It helps if you remember it’s meant to be funny.
TV shows...
I watched tons of TV, I suppose we all did. I loved The Queen’s Gambit, the show about chess. I was the only girl in my chess club though and I never met as many hot boys as she does.
I also watched Tiger King, like everyone else, and Michaela Coel’s I
May Destroy You was staggeringly good. It was so astounding I immediately gave up any thoughts of writing for television, she’s a different class.
I didn’t really get Normal People but
I just loved Unorthodox, and the two funniest shows on television are still What We Do in the Shadows and Ghosts. Both had fantastic second series. I love that Ghosts is quite touching, but What We Do in the Shadows doesn’t care, it’s super silly and just wants to make you laugh.
Highlight of the Year...
My highlight of the year was managing to slip away to France in June for a week playing the piano at a piano retreat. They only ran one this year and those of us who made it had the most phenomenal week of piano, sun, swimming, amazing French food and just a break from everything. It was bliss.
New Year’s Resolution…
My New Year’s resolution is, if lockdown is lifted and the vaccine works, to throw huge parties, to attend everything I’m invited to, see everyone I love, and lots of people I only faintly like, to go everywhere, to eat everything, and enjoy every single bit of what I used to
call normal everyday life.
Jenny Colgan’s latest book Christmas at the Island Hotel was published in October 2020 by Sphere. jennycolgan.com
ALISTAIR MOFFAT Books…
I so enjoyed Alexander McCall Smith’s poetry In a Time of Distance: And Other Poems. Sandy works so simply and clearly. I’ve enjoyed his work tremendously.
With In a Time of Distance I love that he writes so much about Scotland, which he often does. He’s also a little older than me. The ‘distance’ he writes of is not just physical, it’s also in terms of time and experience. It spoke to me, as it will to many folks, about friendship and love. He’s prolific, and unpretentious. I enjoy that enormously.
The other thing I really liked this year, which I declare an interest in immediately, is Edinburgh Revisited by Gordon Hunter and Don Ledingham. They have written and compiled an anthology of black and white photographs of Edinburgh and they are absolutely stunning.
They got me to contribute something about the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. It’s all for charity, with proceeds going to National Respite Centre Leuchie House and Scottish charity 500 Miles, which supports the development and delivery of prosthetic and orthotic services in Malawi and Zambia.
There is a knockout shot of the Scottish Parliament with a great sky behind it. The black and white gives it a drama and a dignity at the same time.
I like historical novels and loved Bernard Cornwell’s new novel, War Lord. There are 13 books in the series The Last Kingdom and I’ve read them all. He has created this character called Uhtred. He’s a pragmatist, a left-wing Tory, but it’s set in the ninth century. The character has really developed over the series and now that he’s older he’s doing more talking than fighting. He’s got a sense of humour, and he surprises you.
TV shows…
I watched a series recently on Netflix called The Queen’s Gambit which is about a young woman called Beth Harman who’s American, and she learns to play chess in the orphanage she’s in. I really enjoyed that. I also liked The Crown.
The way that we watch TV has changed so radically. It’s now like a restaurant menu, it’s not a schedule. I find it kind of baffling.
I watched Roadkill with Hugh Laurie in which he’s really convincingly evil.
Hugh has made himself into a very accomplished actor. In his series House, which I watched a bit of too, he plays a character that’s a bit nasty, and yet he’s a charming man.
Highlight of the Year…
The birth of my first grandson in May. Duncan Fleming, his name is, and he’s a big lad. We were just champing at the bit to go and see him but we weren’t allowed during Covid.
A beautiful nine-year-old mare Maria that we bred has also done incredibly well at dressage. The highlight was in February, the last time we went to a competition, when she won what is essentially the Scottish Championships at medium. She is just beautiful and elegant.
New Year’s Resolutions…
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The way that we watch TV has changed so radically – it’s like a restaurant menu
My New Year’s resolution is to stand up straight. With all the messing about we do down at the stables, I watched myself pass our porch which has a glass window, and I thought, ‘Gee whizz, who’s that old guy?’ So, stand up straight. More physically than as a metaphor. If I can do that, I’ll be happy.
I used to have a horse that I rode as much as I could, and in every photograph I look like a sack of potatoes. Stand up straight in 2021.