The Mysteries of Galloway

An Interview with Hugh McMillan

Join us as Hugh McMillan, author of McMillan’s Galloway, 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 (between 1-42) and we ask them the general question listed next to it.

Shortly after we switch to asking book-specific questions (1-22), to give you a brief insight into our wonderful writers and their books.

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 What were you like in school?

I didn't particularly like school very much. I liked sport more than that. But I got some decent marks in the end.

Where is your favourite place to write?

I tend to write on my phone most of the time. But I do like to write on trains. I find being on the move helps me sort of write and think about stuff, and watch different things.

What would you tell your younger self?

Don't spend so much money. Work harder at university, and become an academic. That’s what I dearly would have loved to have been. Just to sit about in an office with pot plants.

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

I think I've got fussier. I think my problem has always been rushing into publication. 

I look at the first few books and I think that they could have been a bit better. You are seduced by publication. Someone offers you a book, and you’re not going to say no. You just jump at it.

I think my standards are higher than they were.

What inspired you to start writing books?

I started writing poetry in the Dumfries Library. I was trying to win this trip on the Orient Express that I saw on the back of a cheesecake packet. I was looking for answers for the competition when I saw a poster for the Scottish National Open poetry competition, I don’t think it exists anymore. So, I thought I should have a go at it. I had written at school but given up and that poster – and the cheesecake – changed my life.

What's your favourite word?

Flapdoodle – an archaic word meaning complete nonsense.

For Scottish words, I quite like forfochten, meaning generally tired, knackered, or sick of everything.

What was the main message you would like people to take away from the book?

I would like people to realise the wealth of stories that are kicking about. Everybody's got a tale. Everybody's got some sort of piece of bewildering and amazing information that they impart, just as if it means nothing.

The world is full of storytellers. Great.

What is something people would not know about the book just by reading it?

I don’t think anybody has read it properly because there are instructions to get to a German Zeppelin base which doesn't exist, but nobody's ever picked me up on this. There are map coordinates at the back of the book so people can go places, and one of these simply doesn’t exist.

Who is your favourite character or person from the book and why?

Probably that drystane dyker called Willy McMeekin. He seems to sum up the whole spirit of Galloway – a complete scallywag in so many ways but providing a link back to generations of dykers and a great storyteller.

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

The commission first came to me at Wigtown Book Festival, the reason the book was written in the first place, I didn't have a lot of time to write it. I've improved it as time has gone on.

The latest issue is much better than the first one.

Generally speaking, it is the way I wanted it to be which is not only a journey through Galloway but a journey through people I have met, my imagination and my own experience of travelling.

 What do you wish you had known when you started writing it?