Castles, Poetry and the Evolution of a Writer

Quick-Fire Q&A with Robin Laing

Join us as Robin Laing, author of The Queen's Bahookie, takes part in our series of quick-fire Q&As!

What is a quick-fire Q&A?

We have our interviewee pick a number at random and we ask them the general question listed next to it.

Shortly after we switch to asking book-specific questions, to give you a brief insight into our wonderful writers and their books.

In what ways have you changed as a writer since writing your first book?

All of my books, until recently, were about whisky. Writing books started because of my interest in whisky. It was a passion for the subject first, rather than need to write.

However, the latest book is a lot of poems about castles. Nothing to do with whisky at all. So that's a big change for me.

What are you currently reading?

I'm reading a book called, Less is More by Jason Hickel

What was your favourite subject in school?

English lit.

I had a good teacher, especially in the world of poetry.

I think she opened the door and got my interest in poetry going.

Who is your favourite author?

I'm going to stick with poetry and say, Norman MacCaig.

Where is your favourite place to write?

Well, I work from home and there's nobody else in the house normally. So, my best place to write is in the kitchen with a cup of coffee and using pen and paper.

What advice would you give your younger self?

Don't put things off.

I've always been a late developer and the list of things that I could have done and should have done is getting bigger and bigger all the time.

How did the narrative of this book come about?

I visit our local castle quite often because it's a peaceful place. I was sitting there in the sun one day and admiring the colours on the wall. This is the wall around the castle, not the castle itself. I sat there and scribbled a sonnet. The next time I was up there I gave it to the custodian. They got in touch with Historic Environment Scotland, who asked if they could put it on their Facebook page for World Poetry Day. That just planted a seed, you know that, because I have a life membership of Historic Environment Scotland, so I can visit any of their castles any time for free.

I'm a person who likes to have a project and that seemed like a reasonable project. However, I began writing the collection during COVID-19, from memories of visiting most of the castles.

Is the finished book what you expected when you first started writing it?

I didn't know where it was going when I first started writing it. By the time I had a reasonable number of poems arising from this project, then I had an idea in my head that it would be a book published by Luath in a similar style to my previous books, but on a different subject.

I think it's fairly close to what I envisaged.

All my books have been illustrated by Bob Dewar, and I really wanted that to be the case for this one. Fortunately, I was able to persuade him.

If you were to summarise this book in five words, what would it be?

Poems inspired by Scottish castles.

What is your favourite poem from the book, and why?

The song of the woodcutter.

It was inspired by a visit to Elcho Castle. I'd never been to Elcho Castle before.

It's more like a very impressive country house or a small palace. Going around it, I was amazed at the number of fireplaces and chimneys. I thought, how the hell did they keep these fires burning? That made me think about whoever it was that was responsible for gathering all the fuel and making sure that it was available.

I thought about how nobody ever talks about that. But to me, it ranks with all the other jobs of the castle, you know, including the baker, the brewer, the purser and all these other jobs in the castle.

What do you wish you'd known when starting the writing process for this book?

I wish I'd known a bit more about the rules of writing different forms of poetry.

I've noticed since that I've got a Villanelle in the book that does not conform to the strict rules of writing Villanelle. For some strange reason, I've stuck another verse in that doesn't belong. It doesn't spoil the poem, and you can mess with the rules. However, I think I should have paid more attention.

What was your favourite thing about writing this book?

Visiting the castles.  I was visiting castles with a lot of questions and a willingness also to talk, because quite often you visit a castle and you just have a look, you wander around, but I was actually on a mission.