Goldmine Memories

Today, I went to do the first interview of many for the book I'm co-writing about the renowned Scottish artist, George Wyllie, who died in 2012 at the age of 90.

This picture shows Doreen Duncan, whose husband Bill played in a band called Pauline and the Clubmen with George from the early 1960s on and off until the 1980s. George played the double bass and Bill, played the drums.

Doreen first met George in 1952 when she was 17 and her then boyfriend, Bill, was 22.

In this photo, Doreen is holding a gold brick which George gave to them in the 1980s when his two-hander play, A Day Down a Goldmine, was touring around the UK.

This surreal swipe at the iniquities of the worldwide banking system won several awards and George starred in it alongside a few famous actors, including Bill Paterson and Russell Hunter.

Over the course of the next six months, Louise Wyllie and I will be travelling around the country interviewing and gathering information about her father's long and enormously creative life.

We have received some money from arts funding body, Creative Scotland, to do this and it makes an enormous difference to know that the research is not just something we are trying to fit in between other work.

I'm really excited about writing a book. It's been a long-term ambition and hopefully this will be the first of many.

It's a massive challenge, as George touched many many lives, but hopefully between us, Louise and I will do him proud - and also get to the root of what made this playfully serious artist such a one-off.