Carolyn Lochhead

Desert Island Discs – Lockdown Edition

This is a terrible time, both nationally and globally. But it does offer time for those of us not on the front line to undertake some of activities we’ve always meant to tackle. So when the Scottish journalist Ruth Wishart suggested we all share our Desert Island Discs – a list I’ve…

A More Peaceful Type of Politics

I went to a hustings last week. It’s an outdated word. Derived from Old Norse, it smacks of dusty old halls and elderly audiences. Which is more or less what we had: a chilly church, a single microphone between all the candidates, a benevolent minister chairing proceedings. There was no fire…

School’s Back In

Here in Glasgow, school started again yesterday after the summer break. I know this is meant to make parents rejoice as we wave our children off and start reassembling our households after the holiday chaos. But actually, I’ve loved these last few weeks, and I feel sad to say goodbye to them.

Memories of a breastfeeding mum

It was 7am. I’d been a mum for a little over 24 hours, and I’d just spent my first sleepless night, trying and failing to feed my daughter. Exhausted, miserable and sore, I looked up as the cubicle curtain rattled back and a nurse looked down at my screaming child.

That Was My Night How Was Yours?

There’s a room in west Edinburgh where I spent a great many hours listening to the Manic Street Preachers. In fact, “listening” doesn’t do it justice, suggesting as it does that I was using only one of my senses. I studied their lyrics, I memorised their interviews, I gazed at their photos in…