From sporting success to ‘starchitect’
TWO Doors Down star Doon Mackichan will reveal insights into her career at the UK’s only festival dedicated to memoir and biography. One of the last survivors of a Japanese prisoner of war camp, 92-yearold Olga Henderson, along with 100-year old Patricia Owtram, who worked as a code-breaker at Bletchley Park including planning for D-Day, will also appear at the Boswell Book Festival in Ayrshire next weekend.
The event kicks off on Friday with Ayrshire-born Rose Reilly who, almost 40 years before the Lionesses shot to international sporting stardom, became the only Scottish person to have won a football world cup earning her the title of world’s best female footballer while playing for Italy in 1983.
Also appearing on the opening evening at Dumfries House will be former Scots Makar Jackie Kay and Mackichan who is recognised as of the UK’s finest comedic actors.
On Saturday, Scottish international “starchitect” John McAslan will talk about his game-changing creativity, bridging the old and the new. Also appearing will be Catherine Coldstream who will talk about her 12 years as a nun, Xinran, the British-Chinese author and activist who will give insight into a family torn apart by the Tiananmen Square massacre and political scientist Sir John Curtice.
Saturday will also see Edinburghborn Savile Row tailor and Sewing Bee judge Patrick Grant talking about his love of clothes and the need for sustainable fashion.
Sunday’s programme features radio presenter Aasmah Mir, who will speak about the highs and lows of growing up between two cultures in Glasgow, and Scots historian William Dalrymple, who will talk about his concluding volume on the 200-year history of the rapacious East India Company.
Wrapping up the festival will be veteran broadcaster James Naughtie, who will discuss his latest thriller, The Spy Across The Water, hailed by Lee Child as “the best kind – intelligent, resonant, suspenseful”.
Festival director Caroline Knox said: “Apart from creating a distinguished roster of established writers, it’s equally important for the future of biographical writing to promote and recognise emerging writers who have chosen non-fiction as their genre.
“I’m delighted that three of the brightest are appearing at the festival – Kirsty Logan with her memoir of motherhood and queer identity, Len Pennie, already in the best-seller list for her Scots Poyums and Shetlander Jen Stout on her war journal from Ukraine.
“They will be in conversation about how each of their lives’ experiences have shaped their writing – in each case to brilliant effect.”