Beginnings are fresh, new and exciting. Allow us to share ours.
Introducing Gillian Lord.
Scots Ink was started by three writer friends with an interest in the world around them, near and far. We’ll show you what life is like in Scotland today, and tell of life beyond our borders. There’s food, fun and family, there’s culture and politics, there’s travel and tourism, and there’s more. All of life is here. Have fun reading us.
GILLIAN LORD
Who am I? I’m inevitably the girl from somewhere else. I’m a journalist and editor who has lived and worked on three continents, a South African-born Australian who married a Scot and found herself unexpectedly packing up and moving two people and two ageing labradors across the world when he wanted to come home.
I’ve been around a while. I’ve written acres of words in dozens of cities. I’ve edited many magazines and supplements, written everything from investigative features to opinion pieces, interview profiles and straight news. I’ve been a reviewer of theatre, dance, books, film and food. I’ve been a columnist, taught journalism, edited books, edited and written for websites – and it’s been interesting, challenging, hard work, huge pressure, all that. But mainly it’s been fun.
I’ve also watched mainstream media change profoundly in a very short time; there is good and bad in this.
I remember a screen saver in a newsroom far away that said ‘no-one knows the troubles I’ve seen…’ There is that. As a journalist, you see suffering, unfairness, violence, crime, lying governments. You see and learn of horrible things. Growing up in apartheid South Africa stamped a hatred of racism, prejudice, fascism, corruption and propaganda into my DNA. It lives there proudly.
Today I am lucky to being able to do pretty much what I like. I’ve worked for it, mind! I hope to bring you stories of this small, mighty land that is Scotland, with all its breath-taking beauty, proud people, and astonishing history. I hope to tell you about modern Scotland and its hopes for the future. I’ll tell you stories from other lands far away too, about different places and different times. So, who am I? Above all, I am a storyteller. I tell true stories.
So excited to see this much needed project launched on Substack. For far too long, the press in the U.K. has acted like the propaganda arm of whichever political party their respective tax avoidance owners support. It has then become bogged down in the ensuing political toxic waste it has helped to create, and there is very little joy to be found in reading their output. Scots Ink will change all this, and joy, enthusiasm, balance and informative, well written copy will be the rule, rather than the exception.
And she is also my incredible Big Sister of whom I am justifiably and fiercely proud, because she is also one of the most talented writers and tellers of stories that I have ever read.