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From a small Scottish seaside town a man looks back on his life, from a boyhood in Algiers, through provincial France and Paris to Brighton, London and Oxford. He acknowledges that he had to come to terms with being born and raised on the wrong side of history during the bloody tail-end of French colonialism. In so doing, he writes candidly about what it meant to be a pied-noir, exiled from Algeria, unwelcome in France, and about the indelible imprint a childhood in a time of war has left on him. As a student in Paris, he was eye-witness to, and participant in, the May 1968 protests that almost toppled President de Gaulle's government. He then moved to England, making it his home for almost half a century. This not-Algerian man from Algeria and not-quite-French man from France fell in love with Britain and its culture. He soon chose to take up British nationality.This puts him in a privileged position to make perspicacious observations about the much commented on, but in his view often misread, relationship between the British and the French. We follow his experiences as a teacher, to a long career in book publishing, from editor to director, ending up in the digital world as a Microsoft content provider, with life-affirming experiences as a volunteer psychotherapist along the way.Following Brexit, there is a final move to Scotland as a more congenial environment. He finds himself attracted to the positive aspect of the bid for independence, and a potential reconnection with Europe. The journey between what was then and what is now incorporates bitter-sweet coming-of-age stories, not a little hilarious humour, as well as tales of adventurous travel in Western Africa. The author touches on themes that will resonate with many: the sensual pleasures of cooking, the romance of wine, the place of music in our lives, the need for friendship and conviviality, the importance of human resilience, especially in the face of ageing. It is a story about embracing life fully and also reflecting on it, told with verve and lucidity, in clear and often elegiac language that will entertain, move and inspire.

Scotland's wildlife can be found in all sorts of places - from mountain top to under the sea; from cliff top to seashore; from forest floor to hedgerow; from kirkyard to riverbank; from fields to tree tops; from lochside to moor; and from city wasteland to town garden.This book has 52 different named species to colour in. Animals, fish, birds, a few insects and plants and trees.And all the characterful drawings go together with their names in two languages: in Scots and in English.Colour in the Scottish scenery and all the creatures in it and get to know their names.

The Author is a trained nurse andher medical knowledge and caring disposition helped form the bedrock of therelationship. It was a relationship that began in the early 1980s when MayHooper and Alasdair Gray met at a party in the West End of Glasgow and whenAlasdair Gray, clearly attracted by May Hooper's striking good looks, asked ifhe could draw or paint her. At a following portrait session the two realisedthat they enjoyed each other's company, that this was more than just anartist/model relationship and the friendship took off and was to last for 39years until Alasdair Gray's death in 2019.Beneath the lust, the book tells stories of long walkstogether, of a visit to the Edinburgh Book Festival, of trips to the cinema, ofoutings to the Scottish countryside, of Alasdair Gray's work on murals inGlasgow and in Dunfermline (when he was working with May Hooper's partner,Robert, as his assistant). Conversations and events taking place in the courseof their times together are described, sometimes showing connections with booksto be written by Alasdair Gray. What is described is sometimes in the generalnature of personal friendships, sometimes out of the ordinary, sometimesbizarre and eccentric, always entertaining and always throwing light on thecharacter of this Scottish artist. Although when they first met theyeach lived in different parts of the city of Glasgow, quite distant from eachother, they were later to become near-neighbours in the West End of the city.The memoir describes the events which led to Alasdair Gray's hospitalisationand how May Hooper, of her own volition and acting out of deep-seated love andadmiration, became the person who organised his home care when he was confinedto a wheelchair. The memoir alludes to Alasdair Gray's relationships with hisown next-of-kin and describes how May Hooper was to take on what was in effectan unofficial power of attorney to ensure that his final years were spent inthe way that he himself wanted.

In the centuries which are thefocus of this book, Scotland was going though a period of profound and oftenviolent change.With the Americas having been recentlydiscovered in 1492, awareness of other continents’ cultures and natural wonderswas fast increasing– though both cultures and wonders were often mistreated bycolonialists and traders.  At the same time, the recently invented printing pressallowed ideas and information to spread more quickly over long distances,thereby adding to the atmosphere of national upheaval and disorder.In the sphere of politics, influential andseditious texts challenged the most powerful institutions which had ruledEurope during the preceding centuries – not least among them, the CatholicChurch – and the feudal form of social control, under which a small class ofhereditary aristocrats had ruled over the poor and powerless masses, was beingcalled into question. Politics and religion,especially forms of worship, were closely intertwined in a way that is hard tofully grasp today and in each was to be found the cause for civil strife andappalling violence. As in other countries, Scotland becamegripped by the Protestant Reformation and saw new social groups with newworldviews rise into the ranks of the powerful. This involved not just a clashof ideas and of values, but also frequent episodes of prolonged war and oftenirreconcilable division.