Guruji said: ‘Sing not the song that others have sung. Sing only what you yourself have realised in your own heart.’ What I’ve realised in my own heart is that its song is for many, that it sings for whom it meets on its way. It does not remain at home, but is a wandering minstrel heart. This book is the engaging and colourful memoir of celebrated Scottish storyteller David Campbell. It is an exploration of the nature of love in its many guises, and of David’s lifelong love of story. Join David as he tells his story from childhood in wartime Fraserburgh to a holiday job with a dramatic and life-changing conclusion, through a pivotal role as a bbc radio producer at the time of the Scottish renaissance of writing, drama and folk traditions, and finally to his international career as an acclaimed storyteller, mentored by celebrated tinker-traveller Duncan Williamson. The roots of things in my life have always been the love of words, stories, poetry and people, and the joy of bringing them together; it is there that I find the deepest meaning and the sweetest music.

Table of Contents:
A Man 8 Preface by Tom Pow 9 Prelude 11 1 A Charmed Life 13 2 Little by Little 14 3 Across the Border and Back Again 15 4 Granny Howling 19 5 A Windy Boy and a Bit 23 6 A Boyhood Fantasy 36 7 To Be Young Was Very Heaven 44 8 Varsity Meetings and Matings 50 9 The Tin Room 56 10 Highland Frolics 60 11 The Tug of Curiosity 63 12 Laying a Ghost to Rest 68 13 A Kindling Spirit 78 14 We Ran Our Heedless Ways 84 15 Into the Dark 97 16 Paradise Lost 103 17 Musical Chairs 118 18 The Course of True Love Never Did Run Smooth 125 19 The Heretics 139 20 Tinker and Saint: George Mackay Brown 150 21 In Chase of Beauty: Sorley MacLean 154 22 The Beginning of a New Song: Iain Crichton Smith 159 23 In Search of Simplicity: Norman MacCaig 167 24 Embro to the Ploy: Robert Garioch 177 25 A New Buzz 180 26 The Society 186 27 A Ceilidh Decade: Dundas Street in the 1980s 191 28 Passionfruit and Pangkor Island 197 29 Eurydice 206 30 Bert 210 31 Camphill 212 32 In the Listening Place 215 33 More New Worlds 220 34 A Torn Land 224 35 On a Quest 229 36 A Land in Transition 233 37 In the Footsteps of Robert Service 237 38 An Independent People 241 39 A Lucky Break 247 40 Elegies 250 41 A Fateful Day 254 42 Girl Friday and Robinson 256 43 West Coast Retreat 259 The Sweetest Music 261 Thank Yous: A Fairy Story 262 Copyrights and Permissions 263