Kay at 70

Kay Ullrich, the SNP Chief Whip in the first Parliament from 1999 to 2003 had her 70th birthday party tonight.

It was , as Kay's parties always are, great fun and full of friends. As an added bonus it was at her house in Dreghorn which is almost exactly where my great great grandfather is listed as living in the 1881 census , with the occupation of "iron stone miner".

On my father's side my roots go deeply into this part of Ayrshire and I am related to lots of Stevenstons, Montgomeries, Hunters and Wilsons as well as Russells.

But I knew virtually nothing of that until , when I was nearly fifty, a chance conversation found me a distinguished literary relative and a living cousin and then, weeks later, I was given my entire paternal family tree by a stranger - a story I told in my Herald column in December 2002.