0:00:06 > 0:00:08I've always had a compulsion to write,
0:00:08 > 0:00:11even if it was never going to be published.
0:00:17 > 0:00:21And a lot of what I have written wasn't meant for publication,
0:00:21 > 0:00:24it was meant for self clarification,
0:00:24 > 0:00:28and I'm afraid, in my advanced old age, I'm still doing the same.
0:00:28 > 0:00:31I'm still writing these things down.
0:00:31 > 0:00:32To what point, I know not.
0:00:41 > 0:00:45"Experiences always seem to come at me like flak.
0:00:45 > 0:00:49"I can see no coherent or meaningfully chronological
0:00:49 > 0:00:52"shape to it, beyond physical erosion.
0:00:59 > 0:01:03"I believe that the final form of my experience has been flux,
0:01:03 > 0:01:06"and will be till I die.
0:01:12 > 0:01:17"This is, I suppose, a kind of chaotic inner autobiography,
0:01:17 > 0:01:21"the only kind of autobiography I can imagine honestly creating.
0:01:21 > 0:01:25"It is also, as a lot of writing is,
0:01:25 > 0:01:30"testament to the fact that I was here, before I'm not.
0:01:31 > 0:01:35"A bit like carving your initials on a classroom desk."
0:01:42 > 0:01:46# I love you in the morning
0:01:46 > 0:01:49# Our kisses deep and warm... #
0:01:49 > 0:01:52'Because Scottish familiarity breeds the most terrible contempt,
0:01:52 > 0:01:56'Kilmarnock, like the rest of the country, has been
0:01:56 > 0:01:59'slow to recognise that McIlvanney, in his young 40s,
0:01:59 > 0:02:03'is now a significant novelist by any standards, and in Scotland,
0:02:03 > 0:02:05'the best hope we've had for at least a decade
0:02:05 > 0:02:08'that a major talent will continue to flourish
0:02:08 > 0:02:10'in its own grudging environment.
0:02:14 > 0:02:17'There are, of course, blandishments from sunnier shores.
0:02:17 > 0:02:21'His thriller Laidlaw may be made into a major feature film,
0:02:21 > 0:02:25'but his most mature and important achievement so far
0:02:25 > 0:02:28'is his novel Docherty, in which he invests the lives of the
0:02:28 > 0:02:33'working people of lowland Scotland with a rare and moving eloquence.'
0:02:40 > 0:02:44I am 77 years of age,
0:02:44 > 0:02:47and showing every manifestation thereof.
0:02:51 > 0:02:54When the books were out of print, first of all,
0:02:54 > 0:02:57I didn't realise it for a while.
0:02:57 > 0:03:00I just vaguely thought that they were just not selling a lot,
0:03:00 > 0:03:03but there was a good reason for not selling.
0:03:03 > 0:03:05Quite a lot of them were out of print!
0:03:05 > 0:03:09It kind of reached the point where I thought, "Well, maybe that is it."
0:03:09 > 0:03:15I did feel that, in a kind of wider sense, maybe I'd had my shot at it.
0:03:26 > 0:03:31I suppose I always had a desire to write about areas of life
0:03:31 > 0:03:34it seemed to me which were underrepresented in literature,
0:03:34 > 0:03:36obviously working-class life.
0:03:36 > 0:03:40I remember an old ex-miner shaking my hand and crying and saying,
0:03:40 > 0:03:44"You've written my story, son." I thought,
0:03:44 > 0:03:47"Well, that'll do me." If I did, I'm happy.
0:03:47 > 0:03:50Because I wanted to commemorate that kind of...
0:03:51 > 0:03:53..that kind of way of life and...
0:03:55 > 0:03:58..the kind of solid values it generated among a lot of people.
0:04:02 > 0:04:05"I'll tell you the sense, Tam said.
0:04:05 > 0:04:07"We walk a narrow line.
0:04:07 > 0:04:10"I ken who narrow is.
0:04:10 > 0:04:12"I've walked it a' my days.
0:04:12 > 0:04:14"Us and folk like us
0:04:14 > 0:04:17"have got the nearest thing to nothing in this world.
0:04:17 > 0:04:19"A' that filters doon tae us is shite.
0:04:21 > 0:04:24"We live in the sewers of other bastards' comfort.
0:04:24 > 0:04:28"The only thing we've got is one another.
0:04:28 > 0:04:30"That's why you never sell your mates,
0:04:30 > 0:04:34"because there is nothing left to buy with what you get.
0:04:34 > 0:04:37"That's why you respect your womankind.
0:04:37 > 0:04:40"Because what we make ourselves is what we are,
0:04:40 > 0:04:43"because if you don't you're proving their case,
0:04:43 > 0:04:46"because the bastards don't believe we're folk.
0:04:46 > 0:04:50"They think we're something less than that."
0:04:58 > 0:05:03This is, I suppose, where it all began for me,
0:05:03 > 0:05:05where I emigrated to the world of books.
0:05:11 > 0:05:14There appears to be none.
0:05:14 > 0:05:17Of course, what that means is they're all taken out, isn't it?
0:05:19 > 0:05:22One other good theory is somebody stole them.
0:05:24 > 0:05:27Can't see any.
0:05:27 > 0:05:29Oh, there's some. Remedy Is None.
0:05:30 > 0:05:33There's the book of that. See, what you do with that is...
0:05:33 > 0:05:35go like that.
0:05:35 > 0:05:36HE LAUGHS
0:05:39 > 0:05:43- One of the best books I have ever read, Docherty.- Is that right?
0:05:43 > 0:05:45- Aye!- Thanks for that.
0:05:45 > 0:05:47I've got it up in my cupboard, where I keep all the books
0:05:47 > 0:05:50- that I read every now and again. - You're a good man.
0:05:50 > 0:05:52I knew you were intelligent as soon as I saw you there.
0:05:52 > 0:05:55No' very many folk have told me that!
0:05:57 > 0:06:00I was the youngest of four kids,
0:06:00 > 0:06:04and my father, by the time I came along, was an ex-miner.
0:06:04 > 0:06:07He had come out the pits.
0:06:07 > 0:06:10My mother was a terrific reader,
0:06:10 > 0:06:14and there was endless conversation, and I loved that.
0:06:14 > 0:06:17It was a very verbal household,
0:06:17 > 0:06:19and everybody talked.
0:06:19 > 0:06:22Even when the facts were unable to attend,
0:06:22 > 0:06:25they still had plenty of opinion! And I loved that.
0:06:25 > 0:06:29I used to sit among it and take it in.
0:06:29 > 0:06:34So those two things were always combined, the desire to write
0:06:34 > 0:06:37and the kind of celebration of where I came from.
0:06:42 > 0:06:46"High Street was the capital of Conn's childhood and boyhood.
0:06:46 > 0:06:48"The rest of Graithnock
0:06:48 > 0:06:51"was just the provinces.
0:06:52 > 0:06:56"Everyone whom circumstances had herded into its 100 or so yards,
0:06:56 > 0:06:59"had failed in the same way.
0:06:59 > 0:07:01"It was a penal colony for those
0:07:01 > 0:07:03"who had committed poverty,
0:07:03 > 0:07:07"a vice which was usually hereditary."
0:07:08 > 0:07:12You took some time to open the door, you. How are you doing, kid?
0:07:12 > 0:07:13Good to see you.
0:07:13 > 0:07:16Is it the climate, perhaps,
0:07:16 > 0:07:19or the water in Ayrshire that produces such men of letters?
0:07:19 > 0:07:23I don't know. People have asked, often, why especially Hughie and I
0:07:23 > 0:07:25should have both had a go at writing,
0:07:25 > 0:07:29because the background we come from is not too kind to such activities.
0:07:29 > 0:07:33This is one of the things I've always felt about your writing
0:07:33 > 0:07:37is that I feel that you've represented
0:07:37 > 0:07:40not only voices and experiences
0:07:40 > 0:07:47- but the intelligence that swirled around us.- Oh, it was...
0:07:47 > 0:07:51- And that great capacity for vivid expression.- ..omnipresent.
0:07:51 > 0:07:55If you were in a pub in Kilmarnock, or something like that,
0:07:55 > 0:08:00evidence of intelligence or of a capacity to use words properly,
0:08:00 > 0:08:03and so on, it actually meant more than being hard.
0:08:03 > 0:08:06Being hard meant quite a lot, they had a lot of respect for hard men,
0:08:06 > 0:08:09- but they had even more respect... - Absolutely.- ..for the word.
0:08:09 > 0:08:12I remember coming in from the dancing at 17
0:08:12 > 0:08:15and seeing another unfortunate lassie home, and my mother was
0:08:15 > 0:08:18sitting, with the housework done, reading The Rubaiyat,
0:08:18 > 0:08:21and I thought, "Well, maybe that's not happening in every house."
0:08:21 > 0:08:25Oh, the other one that she used to like reciting occasionally
0:08:25 > 0:08:29was that one from Walter Scott, from The Lay Of The Last Minstrel -
0:08:29 > 0:08:32"Breathes there a man with soul so dead...
0:08:32 > 0:08:35- BOTH: - "..who never to himself had said
0:08:35 > 0:08:37"this is mine own my native land."
0:08:37 > 0:08:38You know.
0:08:40 > 0:08:41You got off with nearly everything.
0:08:41 > 0:08:44Listen, when I was smoking at three,
0:08:44 > 0:08:47with my wee velvet trousers, smoking a gaily, and I looked up
0:08:47 > 0:08:50and saw my mother's face at the window,
0:08:50 > 0:08:52it was like your worst nightmare.
0:08:52 > 0:08:54I ran over to make my apologies
0:08:54 > 0:08:56and she beat my bum up the stairs
0:08:56 > 0:08:58and then put me to bed.
0:08:58 > 0:09:01Neilly looked in and said, "It looks bad, Willie,
0:09:01 > 0:09:04"They are sending for the polis."
0:09:04 > 0:09:05I was panic-stricken.
0:09:05 > 0:09:08And I wisnae inhaling.
0:09:10 > 0:09:13- When you were three years old. - 20-packet.
0:09:13 > 0:09:16- You gave it up till you were about six, though?- Aye, that's right.
0:09:19 > 0:09:24We met about 18 years ago, but I felt as if I knew him
0:09:24 > 0:09:27because I had read all of his stuff,
0:09:27 > 0:09:31and through his books, I had always
0:09:31 > 0:09:34assumed he was a particular kind of person,
0:09:34 > 0:09:35and he turned out to be like that,
0:09:35 > 0:09:39but in a way I was nervous about meeting him
0:09:39 > 0:09:42because I thought he'll never be the hero that you think
0:09:42 > 0:09:44the person is going to be,
0:09:44 > 0:09:46but he turned out to be more.
0:09:50 > 0:09:52- Very dashing looking in that one. - Of course.
0:09:52 > 0:09:55- I really like that. - It's quite a good photo, that.
0:09:55 > 0:09:58I would be, what, 22?
0:09:58 > 0:10:0022 when you graduated?
0:10:00 > 0:10:021959.
0:10:09 > 0:10:12I went to university in 1955.
0:10:12 > 0:10:17It was, I think, a time when the Visigoths arrived in university.
0:10:17 > 0:10:19A lot of us came from working-class backgrounds.
0:10:19 > 0:10:24We used to converge in the union and talk the world into oblivion.
0:10:24 > 0:10:25It was great.
0:10:27 > 0:10:30I mean, I could come out there not sure who I was.
0:10:30 > 0:10:32It was life-transforming.
0:10:32 > 0:10:35I'd been trying to write before I went to uni
0:10:35 > 0:10:40but that made it more of a desire for me, to try and be a writer.
0:10:42 > 0:10:44And that haunted me throughout.
0:10:49 > 0:10:53"There was often a sense of being a surrogate of himself,
0:10:53 > 0:10:56"an impostor in his own life,
0:10:56 > 0:11:00"the servant of his circumstances and not their master.
0:11:00 > 0:11:05"He supposed the feeling might be related to his attempts to write,
0:11:05 > 0:11:10"that compulsion that precluded him from merely accepting who he was
0:11:10 > 0:11:12"and sharing it with others.
0:11:12 > 0:11:16"Such talent to create as he had, he thought once,
0:11:16 > 0:11:18"was like having an elephant on a leash.
0:11:18 > 0:11:21"It complicated your entire life."
0:11:25 > 0:11:28'Until recently, he made his living as a teacher,
0:11:28 > 0:11:31'an assistant headmaster in an Ayrshire school,
0:11:31 > 0:11:35'but now he is that rare Scottish thing - a full-time writer.'
0:11:35 > 0:11:39Having written Docherty, I wanted to write about modern times
0:11:39 > 0:11:43and I wanted to write about Glasgow.
0:11:48 > 0:11:52# I belong to Glasgow
0:11:52 > 0:11:57# Dear old Glasgow town... #
0:11:57 > 0:12:01Folk love talking about Glasgow and seeing what is happening to them.
0:12:01 > 0:12:04It is a great city to write about because it is a great city,
0:12:04 > 0:12:06but it is terrific to write about
0:12:06 > 0:12:08because it will tell you what it feels.
0:12:08 > 0:12:11Glaswegians don't hide, they tell you. Sometimes,
0:12:11 > 0:12:14even when you don't want to hear, they'll tell you what they think!
0:12:14 > 0:12:20And that is where a sense of Laidlaw's city came from.
0:12:20 > 0:12:24# ..Couple of drinks on a Saturday
0:12:24 > 0:12:29# Glasgow belongs to me... #
0:12:29 > 0:12:35It was also a way of expressing my affection for Glasgow, because
0:12:35 > 0:12:39the light and the dark coexist in Glasgow very dramatically.
0:12:39 > 0:12:47# ..Glasgow belongs to me... #
0:12:50 > 0:12:53"The strangest thing was no warning. You wore the same suit.
0:12:53 > 0:12:55"You chose your tie carefully.
0:12:55 > 0:12:58"There was a mistake about your change on the bus.
0:12:58 > 0:13:01"Half an hour before it,
0:13:01 > 0:13:04"you'd laughed. Then your hands were an ambush. They betrayed you.
0:13:04 > 0:13:06"It happened so quickly. Your hands, that lifted cups
0:13:06 > 0:13:08"and held coins and waved...
0:13:08 > 0:13:12"..Were suddenly a riot, a brief raging.
0:13:12 > 0:13:15"The consequence was forever."
0:13:21 > 0:13:25'What I want to catch is the feeling of the city,
0:13:25 > 0:13:27'but I knew I would need to know more,
0:13:27 > 0:13:31'and Robbie and Jack, these two detectives,
0:13:31 > 0:13:35'helped me about what it was like being a policeman in Glasgow.'
0:13:35 > 0:13:41I tried to introduce him to a few people in Glasgow, shall we say?
0:13:41 > 0:13:43Some very interesting people.
0:13:43 > 0:13:45Some very interesting people,
0:13:45 > 0:13:49who took him to places where I couldn't possibly go,
0:13:49 > 0:13:51because I was known
0:13:51 > 0:13:52as a detective in the city.
0:13:52 > 0:13:56So, I think Willie got a lot of information
0:13:56 > 0:13:58- from some good people who I cannot name now, obviously.- No.
0:13:58 > 0:14:01- Would you agree with that? - Oh, absolutely.
0:14:01 > 0:14:04What I liked about Laidlaw was that he was a guy...
0:14:04 > 0:14:08He was a guy who wasn't just the polis, inverted commas.
0:14:11 > 0:14:14"Think about it this way, Laidlaw said.
0:14:14 > 0:14:17"There are tourists and travellers.
0:14:17 > 0:14:21"Tourists spend their lives doing a Cook's tour of their own reality,
0:14:21 > 0:14:23"ignoring the slums.
0:14:23 > 0:14:27"Travellers make the journey more slowly, in greater detail,
0:14:27 > 0:14:30"mix with the natives.
0:14:30 > 0:14:33"A lot of murderers are, amongst other things, travellers.
0:14:33 > 0:14:36"They become terrifyingly real for themselves,
0:14:36 > 0:14:40"their lies are no longer a hobby. Poor bastards."
0:14:42 > 0:14:46There is a book written by JP Hartley, the first sentence says,
0:14:46 > 0:14:49"The past is a foreign country. They do things differently there."
0:14:49 > 0:14:53When you get to my age, the present is a bloody foreign country.
0:14:53 > 0:14:55They do things differently here,
0:14:55 > 0:14:58because it is so different from when we were growing up
0:14:58 > 0:15:01and in the small ways, and in the big ways... Like, the internet
0:15:01 > 0:15:05- must have changed detective work really dramatically.- DNA.- Aye.
0:15:05 > 0:15:08Imagine if I had DNA?! Oh, my God!
0:15:08 > 0:15:12- The number of people you could have caught, Robbie.- Oh, you dancer!
0:15:18 > 0:15:22"His is the Glasgow of smoke-filled bars, newspapers stands,
0:15:22 > 0:15:25"public buses, cheap hotel lobbies, dark street corners,
0:15:25 > 0:15:28"empty parkland and dimly lit nightclubs.
0:15:28 > 0:15:33"It's a warren as complex as any labyrinth imagined by Dedalus,
0:15:33 > 0:15:35"and as evasive as any castle
0:15:35 > 0:15:37"encountered by a confused Kafka."
0:15:37 > 0:15:39Oh, I love that.
0:15:39 > 0:15:41- That's your Glasgow.- I love that.
0:15:41 > 0:15:45"Think of this as a wee ritual exercise
0:15:45 > 0:15:48"for opting out of tourism.
0:15:48 > 0:15:51"A car is psychologically sterile,
0:15:51 > 0:15:53"a mobile oxygen tent.
0:15:53 > 0:15:56"A bus is septic."
0:15:57 > 0:16:01I found these this morning on my bookshelves.
0:16:01 > 0:16:03What have we got?
0:16:03 > 0:16:06Laidlaw paperback.
0:16:06 > 0:16:09That's the original. It's a terrible cover, isn't it?
0:16:09 > 0:16:11This is what crime novels used to look like.
0:16:11 > 0:16:12- Dire cover.- Yeah.
0:16:12 > 0:16:15They always used to have guns or blood or knives.
0:16:15 > 0:16:18- 40 years out of date.- I don't know when you signed that for me.
0:16:18 > 0:16:20"All the best, Willie McIlvanney."
0:16:20 > 0:16:23But this is one I really want to show you, which is Docherty.
0:16:23 > 0:16:25Winner of the 1975 Whitbread Award for Fiction, young man.
0:16:25 > 0:16:29- Oh, I like that.- But look at that, 1985, at the Edinburgh Book Festival.
0:16:29 > 0:16:31I told you I was writing a book that was a bit like Laidlaw
0:16:31 > 0:16:33but set in Edinburgh.
0:16:33 > 0:16:35"For Ian, good luck with the Edinburgh Laidlaw."
0:16:35 > 0:16:38You must have thought, "This guy's got nae chance."
0:16:38 > 0:16:39- You had good luck. - I did have good luck.
0:16:39 > 0:16:41A lot more than I had with the Glasgow Laidlaw.
0:16:41 > 0:16:45The harder you work, the better luck you get, it seems to me.
0:16:45 > 0:16:48- I think that is a reprimand to me, that.- Aye.
0:16:48 > 0:16:50- I should've worked harder. - You should've worked harder.
0:16:50 > 0:16:52Should try harder.
0:16:52 > 0:16:56When I wrote Laidlaw, you fortunately followed this advice...
0:16:56 > 0:16:57IAN LAUGHS
0:16:57 > 0:17:00..and are one of these people.
0:17:00 > 0:17:03The editor said, "If you write one a year, you'll be a millionaire."
0:17:05 > 0:17:11- It's not what I do, I don't write one a year.- It takes a few years.
0:17:11 > 0:17:14- It takes a few years. You've got to stick around.- Absolutely.
0:17:14 > 0:17:18That's what he meant, if you keep doing this,
0:17:18 > 0:17:22it will pay off for you, and I just knew I couldn't.
0:17:22 > 0:17:25- First of all, it's not the way I work.- Yeah.
0:17:25 > 0:17:27Occasionally, two in the morning, you think,
0:17:27 > 0:17:29"Hmm, maybe I should have done that,
0:17:29 > 0:17:33because I could be really well off now," but no, it's a kind of...
0:17:33 > 0:17:35It's a phoney temptation.
0:17:35 > 0:17:39No, I am quite happy to be trying to write what I am writing,
0:17:39 > 0:17:41and that's it.
0:17:46 > 0:17:50# Well, I woke up Sunday morning
0:17:50 > 0:17:54# With no way to hold my head that didn't hurt... #
0:17:54 > 0:17:59Obviously, all writing is a fairly lonely activity.
0:17:59 > 0:18:01You're never sure the effect it's going to have on you
0:18:01 > 0:18:03and the effect it has had.
0:18:03 > 0:18:06# ..So I had one more... #
0:18:06 > 0:18:11I suppose what kept a sense of remaining somewhat valid
0:18:11 > 0:18:15and alive was what I would call street reviews,
0:18:15 > 0:18:20and it gives you the self-belief to think you're not wasting
0:18:20 > 0:18:24people's time doing this, especially your own.
0:18:24 > 0:18:27# ..And I shave my face and comb my hair
0:18:27 > 0:18:31# And stumble down the stairs to meet the day... #
0:18:31 > 0:18:34Most writers don't get a lot of appreciation in life.
0:18:34 > 0:18:38Most writers will vanish into the ether, as I will, I'm sure.
0:18:38 > 0:18:41The truth is, you think of writers of the past,
0:18:41 > 0:18:44who you might find them in the occasional anthology,
0:18:44 > 0:18:48but who were really, intensely committed to what
0:18:48 > 0:18:53they were doing and yet most of us,
0:18:53 > 0:18:56as I say, fade into the ether.
0:18:56 > 0:19:01# ..Sunday morning coming down... #
0:19:03 > 0:19:06SCHOOL BELL RINGS
0:19:10 > 0:19:13My uncle Willie, I asked him if he could come along,
0:19:13 > 0:19:17and these are some of your questions that we were thinking about
0:19:17 > 0:19:20because we read the short story At The Bar, OK?
0:19:20 > 0:19:24Did you ever feel that any characters that you had created
0:19:24 > 0:19:28or written about were reflective of yourself or anyone that you know?
0:19:28 > 0:19:31It's never you. At the same time,
0:19:31 > 0:19:34I don't think you ever write about another person fully.
0:19:34 > 0:19:36You may take aspects of them.
0:19:36 > 0:19:39Because I think all of us, everybody in this room,
0:19:39 > 0:19:42is uncatchable in prose. We are too various.
0:19:42 > 0:19:44We have too many different thoughts every day.
0:19:44 > 0:19:48But I suppose you put aspects of your nature, inevitably, into it.
0:19:48 > 0:19:50What is your best accomplishment?
0:19:50 > 0:19:54I'm the father of two children, maybe that,
0:19:54 > 0:19:57and the books are a kind of variant of that,
0:19:57 > 0:19:59but the main thing is the people.
0:19:59 > 0:20:01I would say that is my greatest accomplishment.
0:20:01 > 0:20:04Although they might not say that!
0:20:05 > 0:20:10I think that he's someone who requires feedback and approval.
0:20:10 > 0:20:14You'd think that if he's done what he's done,
0:20:14 > 0:20:17then he wouldn't necessarily need that,
0:20:17 > 0:20:20but I think he really does need that. I suppose we all do.
0:20:20 > 0:20:22SCHOOL BELL RINGS I think that the fact that he
0:20:22 > 0:20:26goes through 11 times rather than just...
0:20:26 > 0:20:28putting in stuff for the sake of it,
0:20:28 > 0:20:31there's a sort of integrity about that.
0:20:33 > 0:20:35'I love teaching.
0:20:35 > 0:20:38'And I was kind of ambushed by the job.
0:20:38 > 0:20:41'I realised without expecting
0:20:41 > 0:20:45'that would happen, that I loved it.
0:20:45 > 0:20:46'Even when I left,
0:20:46 > 0:20:49'Laidlaw had been published, I'd made not a lot, but a few quid,'
0:20:49 > 0:20:55and Scotland qualified for Argentina and I knew I wanted to go there.
0:20:55 > 0:21:00And when I came back, that was me, a full-time writer.
0:21:00 > 0:21:03# We are on the march With Ally's Army
0:21:03 > 0:21:07# We are going to the Argentine... #
0:21:07 > 0:21:10I've tried to erase it from my memory, obviously,
0:21:10 > 0:21:12the pain is too much.
0:21:12 > 0:21:16There's a huge guy from Aberdeen and the first half he's shouting,
0:21:16 > 0:21:19"Come on, Scotland!" He's shouting, to us, "Lift them, lift them!"
0:21:19 > 0:21:23And I said, "If you've got a jib crane you could nae lift them."
0:21:23 > 0:21:25And I went out at half-time.
0:21:25 > 0:21:28I think by that time we were down one-nothing.
0:21:28 > 0:21:31And he was seriously weeping, he's no kidding...
0:21:31 > 0:21:36There's all these terrific-looking women all clustered round him
0:21:36 > 0:21:39and one of them turned to me and says, "What is problem?"
0:21:39 > 0:21:42- WILLIAM LAUGHS - I thought, what a lovely question.
0:21:42 > 0:21:43I thought, if you've got 50 years,
0:21:43 > 0:21:46we'll try and explain the problem to you, missy.
0:21:46 > 0:21:48DISTANT CHEERING
0:21:48 > 0:21:50The problem is not going to go away.
0:21:50 > 0:21:55I realised, it's like folk looking for something that,
0:21:55 > 0:21:59you know, is probably better found in politics than in football.
0:21:59 > 0:22:01But they invested so much.
0:22:01 > 0:22:05CHEERING AND CHANTING
0:22:22 > 0:22:24Well, well, well.
0:22:26 > 0:22:28'I don't care if people call me a socialist.
0:22:28 > 0:22:32'I mean...I mean, I am. I was called recently an old socialist.
0:22:32 > 0:22:36'Well, I'm old and I'm a socialist, but if they mean, you know,
0:22:36 > 0:22:38'trapped in the past, I don't think so at all.
0:22:38 > 0:22:43'What I believe in is, I suppose, social idealism.
0:22:43 > 0:22:46'But what's the point of trying to create a society
0:22:46 > 0:22:48'unless you make it as fair as you can
0:22:48 > 0:22:50'and that's a hugely difficult thing to do.'
0:22:50 > 0:22:53- What do we want?- Independence! - When do we want it?- Now!
0:22:53 > 0:22:56Oh, I think this is amazing.
0:22:56 > 0:22:58I mean, when have you ever seen so many young people
0:22:58 > 0:23:03energised by not a rock concert, but politics?
0:23:03 > 0:23:06It's terrific. This is not going to recede, there's a...
0:23:06 > 0:23:09It's a tide of political passion.
0:23:09 > 0:23:11This is a kind of victory.
0:23:11 > 0:23:12CHEERING AND CHANTING
0:23:21 > 0:23:25These are rather copious notes,
0:23:25 > 0:23:28which I hope will lead...
0:23:28 > 0:23:31to another Laidlaw. That's the theory, anyway.
0:23:35 > 0:23:37'When you get to my age,
0:23:37 > 0:23:40'I don't think I've got all that much time to play about with.
0:23:42 > 0:23:45'Because I've got another Laidlaw that I'd like to write
0:23:45 > 0:23:49'and I've got a bizarre novel
0:23:49 > 0:23:52'that probably nobody will ever want to read, but I want to write it.'
0:24:06 > 0:24:08'I will die in a certain state of mystification
0:24:08 > 0:24:11'but I won't gain on it.'
0:24:11 > 0:24:14If you don't die mystified, you're kidding yourself on, you know.
0:24:14 > 0:24:17You've made up the solution, it's not the real one.
0:24:17 > 0:24:19DISTANT VOICES
0:24:28 > 0:24:31Willy's events here at the Edinburgh International Book Festival
0:24:31 > 0:24:35have become something of landmark occasions.
0:24:38 > 0:24:42Just three years ago, Willy was on this very stage
0:24:42 > 0:24:46when he was talking about his seminal novel being out of print.
0:24:49 > 0:24:55And in fact, 2013 turned out to be rather an annus mirabilis
0:24:55 > 0:24:58all-round for Willy.
0:24:58 > 0:25:02Film and television rights have been optioned for the Laidlaw books,
0:25:02 > 0:25:06his 1975 novel, Docherty,
0:25:06 > 0:25:10was voted in the top ten of best-ever Scottish novels,
0:25:10 > 0:25:14despite having been out of print for a number of years.
0:25:14 > 0:25:18And now Canongate has brought back into print
0:25:18 > 0:25:22ALL of Willy's novels and his short stories.
0:25:22 > 0:25:25So, Willy, that's just a long way of saying...
0:25:25 > 0:25:28welcome back. GENTLE LAUGHTER
0:25:28 > 0:25:30- APPLAUSE - Thank you.
0:25:36 > 0:25:39'It was a resurrection and I suppose...
0:25:39 > 0:25:42'any kind of interest in me took me somewhat by surprise.
0:25:44 > 0:25:46'But a happy surprise.'
0:25:46 > 0:25:49- Lazarus lives.- Yes...
0:25:52 > 0:25:55Without meaning to do it and without knowing you did it,
0:25:55 > 0:25:57while we were out of print, you were
0:25:57 > 0:26:00influencing a whole generation of Scottish crime writers.
0:26:00 > 0:26:03It's everybody you talk to, whether it's Ron McDermott,
0:26:03 > 0:26:05or whether it's Denise Mina, whether it's Chris Brookmyre,
0:26:05 > 0:26:08everybody remembers reading these books and thinking, well,
0:26:08 > 0:26:11if it's OK for Willy to do it, maybe I'll give it a go as well.
0:26:11 > 0:26:14- Such a pleasure to meet you, I'm so delighted.- Oh, thank you.
0:26:14 > 0:26:17I've been reading your works since I was very little.
0:26:17 > 0:26:20I think one of the things I learned,
0:26:20 > 0:26:23from coming through the threshold of knowing you, was that
0:26:23 > 0:26:25no box holds this.
0:26:25 > 0:26:27- Mm.- And that everything,
0:26:27 > 0:26:29even though you're in that tiny corner,
0:26:29 > 0:26:34- is still possible with the words you can say in the corner.- Yes.- Yes.
0:26:34 > 0:26:36You must be knackered now.
0:26:36 > 0:26:39I'm just amazed that so many folk want it signed.
0:26:39 > 0:26:42- SHE LAUGHS - I'll sit here all night if it's required.
0:26:46 > 0:26:50'I love that one from Anthony And Cleopatra,'
0:26:50 > 0:26:54"And we are for the dark." I always think that if you're not...
0:26:54 > 0:26:59- "Unarm Eros, the long day's task is done..."- Oh, yeah. It's that.
0:27:03 > 0:27:05'When you've got to our stage of the game,
0:27:05 > 0:27:07'it would be a bit churlish to moan too much.'
0:27:07 > 0:27:10We haven't exactly lived a careful life.
0:27:10 > 0:27:13We invited more trouble than we've got.
0:27:15 > 0:27:18Certainly got plenty of regrets, there are plenty of things...
0:27:18 > 0:27:19Oh, a shed load.
0:27:22 > 0:27:26As my mother used to say, we're better aff than better folk.
0:27:26 > 0:27:29- Aye, that's right.- And I think...
0:27:29 > 0:27:31I think we'd have to claim that.
0:27:31 > 0:27:33We've had a better run than we deserved!
0:27:33 > 0:27:36Whatever happens, it's been good.
0:27:40 > 0:27:45'My readers are anonymous people in anonymous rooms
0:27:45 > 0:27:51'and if I pass the time interestingly for those people,
0:27:51 > 0:27:55'and maybe if I clarified something about their own lives
0:27:55 > 0:27:58'and what they think about things,
0:27:58 > 0:28:00'that's the best gift a writer gets.'
0:28:02 > 0:28:06And maybe it's good for writers if that's unquantifiable,
0:28:06 > 0:28:08because you could imagine it,
0:28:08 > 0:28:12even if it's not happening too much, well, maybe it happened.
0:28:12 > 0:28:13Maybe it happened.
0:28:17 > 0:28:21# Suddenly the night Has grown colder
0:28:22 > 0:28:25# The God of love Preparing to depart
0:28:27 > 0:28:31# Alexandra hoisted on his shoulder
0:28:31 > 0:28:36# They slip between The sentries of the heart
0:28:36 > 0:28:40# 'Say goodbye to Alexandra leaving'
0:28:41 > 0:28:47# 'Then say goodbye To Alexandra lost.' #
0:28:47 > 0:28:48Leonard's the best.
0:28:48 > 0:28:51- GENTLE APPLAUSE Whoo!- You're the best.