Friday, October 05, 2007

Stranraer-Wigtown-Newton Stewart

Stayed at a place called the Kirroughtree House Hotel, just outside Newton Stewart, last night, which is dead posh - many thanks to the Wigtown bookfest folk for sorting that out! Wigtown this morning to seek out Fin McCreath, festival supremo, and check out the faxing and email situations before heading off to Stranraer, which possesses one of the BBC's tiny 'remote studios'.

Like the one in Oban, this is one smells funny, is redolent of Cold War bunker technology and is little more than a room with a microphone (though this has an old tape machine, a fax machine (disconnected)and a filing cabinet which has in it...(can't help it, I'm hopelessly nosy) good grief! A pile of magazines dated 1990 advertising what was once BBC Radio Solway...with pictures of the staff, including a truly ASTONISHING shot of BBC Radio Scotland's own Gary Robertson, wearing Timmy Mallett glasses and a very 1970s haircut.

In the public interest, this will definitely appear on a future blog.

Off now to explore Stranraer's cafe society. Today's show will feature (I hope) an interview with Michael Gray, author of a new book about the bluesman Blind Willie McTell. Both of us are appearing at the Wigtown book festival tonight, at the Bladnoch Distillery.

2 comments:

Dead Bob said...

Ha Ha Aberfeldy played one of the strangest gigs at the bladnoch distilery. We were booked by Sean who owns the cool bookshop in wigtown but the old folkie's didn't like our modern sound and electronic pianogram's (Witchery!!) So after 15min's an old bearded gentleman took the mic and announced "That's the last you'll be hearing from aberfeldy tonight" so we packed up and went back to the bookshop where we drank beer,ate lobster and played music until 5am. The 'young' folks(mid 30's) in wigtown are great!!!

MurrayxXX

Tom Morton said...

I love Wigtown, but it does have its oddities....I had a great time at Bladnoch...Sean's booksop is fab.