My TV Debut

It was with considerable excitement and anticipation that I walked through a wintry Edinburgh to the STV studios (formerly the Gateway Theatre) in Elm Row. I was going to be on the telly. Reading my poems. The year was 1988, the month December, and I was on my way to the top. Surely.

I was met by Michael Grieve (son of Hugh MacDiarmid) and introduced to my three fellow poets. Four poets were recorded each day. The project was entitled IN VERSE and the list of contributors featured almost every living Scottish poet (MacLean, MacCaig, Mackay Brown, Crichton Smith, etc.)

I can't recall which eight poems I read but one vivid memory remains. My contribution was to feature my made-to-measure black wool jacket, worn over a Levi shirt.

"Off with the jacket!" the producer called. Why? Well, the backcloth was black and apparently he didn't want me dissolving into it. No problem therefore for the poets in Harris Tweed. I rather resented this. Perhaps sensing this, the producer told me my poems were great! He'd obviously never read or heard any of them. This was my first experience of media sincerity.

Eventually, the following year, the programmes went 'on air'. To my vast disappointment they were broadcast during the night! My contribution went out at 2.40 a.m. Even my mother didn't sit up.

I didn't own a video recorder so don't have a copy of the programme. But I do remember realising, as I sat there staring at the screen in the early hours, that my ears were bigger than I'd thought.

 

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