Bannock burn and brig
As I’m working through the life of John McLaren, and trying to understand him, little intriguing alleyways open up. I do my best not to wander down them because they lead away from the main...
Category: Uncle John
John McLaren built Golden Gate Park in San Francisco and much else besides. He’s a fascinating character
Digging into insults
You know you are really digging in to a topic when you buy a specialist dictionary for the task. And so I am now the proud owner of the second edition of the Concise Scots...
Uncle John website
I’ve started building a massive research database about John McLaren for my book – including typing up verbatim a bunch of newspaper articles from the 1890s and early 1900s that can only be found on...
A remarkable send-off
I’ve decided – at least in the first draft – to start my book on John McLaren with his death. That may seem a little odd but the thing I find most remarkable about him...
The view that started it all
I met up with the general manager of Golden Gate Park last week – a lovely man called Dave Iribarne – to get a sense of what it was like to run a 1,000-acre public...
A haul of documents
I love tracking down a good story. So I was excited to receive in the post this weekend a package of roughly 60 pages of old, yellowing paper: notes for a book that was never...
Site is back. Book on way
Well, it took over a week of repeat efforts, including shifting hosting company, updating WordPress, deleting old plugins and old themes, installing new plugins and themes, upgrading my PHP, and manually scouring for malware –...