Photo – Military wedding photographer – alexbucklandphotography.co.uk Buccleuch Place, Edinburgh, 1967, I’m 21. I live in a row of imposingly tall houses dating from the 1700s, way past their former glory. A dark stone staircase winds up from the wide street to our front door, and through that another, this time carpeted, rises up into a large, square hall with…
1965, Atholl Crescent College of Domestic Science, Edinburgh. I’m nineteen and studying Institutional Management for three years which will qualify me to run large organisations on the domestic front. I’m not bright enough for University, according to my school, but I’m practical, so this will do. Because I’m never going to tell anyone that my dream is to be an…
It was the early 1980s, I was thirty four and out of work. A few years earlier I’d left the family business to find out what life was like on the outside, and I ran a start up retail company that was initially successful. But by year three sales were less impressive, and I was out pretty much overnight. Not…
In my early twenties I met Sami, who became my closest friend for over twenty years. It wasn’t her given name, but one she had chosen in place of Jane, which she felt was far too dull. Being a lot more conventional myself I thought this a little exotic, and I shortened it to Sam, which was as far as…
Between 2008 and 2013 I lived in the hills of Northern Tuscany and wrote about my experiences. This was a post written towards the end of my first year, about how I began to gather a family of animals around me. Sadly three of those I talk about are now no longer with me, but Josie, who is in the…
It started with the uniform. A very long list arrived from the boarding school I was to join in a couple of months time, to be bought at a certain department store. It was 1960, I had just turned thirteen, and the world was about to wake up to a fashion revolution centred on the young. And I was to…
Between 2008 and 2013 I lived in the hills of Northern Tuscany and wrote about my experiences. If you love Italy, and the Italian way of life, this may be entertaining. Receiving mail in the early days of being here was a real pleasure, someone, somewhere, knew where I was, even if it was only the bank. I was outside…
It isn’t difficult to see some aspects of my father in a heroic light. He was a risk taker and a natural entrepreneur who went right out on a limb to follow his instincts, creating a business and a life entirely his own way. He was the son of a monumental stone mason, and my grandfather’s yard was immediately across…
Between 2008 and 2013 I lived in the hills of Northern Tuscany and wrote about my experiences. If you love Italy, or would like to experience it , this may be entertaining. From my house to town takes about twenty minutes in the car, winding down the hairpins of the mountain road and into the valley. Although its origins are…
Looking back, there were many times when lack of belief in myself made a lasting impact on my life, and not least when I was coming towards the end of my five years at boarding school. I’d arrived at thirteen, from a country life of considerable freedom, and the culture shock was huge. Discipline was rigid, and hierarchy was enforced,…