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Life With a composer: ‘Queen Margaret of Scotland was an extraordinary woman, I wanted to celebrate her’
Scottish composer Helen MacKinnon on leaving her job to peruse her music career and taking inspiration from Queen Margaret of Scotland for her latest work. I get up around 7.30am. We live beside a rail track in Perth so are usually woken by the first train of the day rattling past the window. My…
Read MoreLife With Scottish Opera: ‘I have been working in costume design for 37 years, no two days are the same’
Scottish Opera’s Head of Costume, Lorna Price, on falling in love with her Grandmother’s Victorian sewing machine, using swimming to help her switch off and getting ready for a production of La Traviata. I start work around 9.30am, reading morning emails. I am not very good at eating lunch so it is straight through…
Read MoreLife with Edinburgh Zoo: ‘I grew up watching Animal Planet. Sometimes I wish I was Doctor Dolittle’
Zookeeper at The Royal Zoological Society of Scotland’s (RZSS) Edinburgh Zoo, Natalie Booth, on growing up watching Animal Planet and her love of training animals. I always knew I wanted to work with animals. I watched a lot of Animal Planet with my grandad when I was young. I think I settled on wanting…
Read MoreLife with The National Trust for Scotland: ‘I travel all over Scotland as a plant detective’
Inventory Officer on the PLANTS (Plant Listing at the National Trust for Scotland) project, Charlotte Bottone talks about surveying thousands of Scotland’s plants and what you can do in your own garden to help often forgotten about species. I normally get to work between 8 and 8.30am. I start the day by planning which area…
Read MoreCrufts: Scottish Labrador Tweed takes home top spot
A Labrador retriever from the Scottish highlands was crowned overall winner of BASC’s gamekeeper classes on Gundog Day at Crufts 2024. Four year old Tweed (Nithvalley Tweed at Foxhope), owned by Emma Bamford and her gamekeeper husband, took home the Northesk Memorial Trophy on his first ever visit to Crufts. Following a day of hot…
Read MoreLife with Forestry and Land Scotland: ‘People would be amazed at the nature that lives in their gardens’
Environment manager for Forestry and Land Scotland, Colin Edwards, spends more time in nature than most. He talks to us about his passion for macrophotography and shining a light on the ‘ugly’ creatures. I took up photography at school, but in those days the cameras used films and were built like tanks. At one…
Read MoreLife with the Wallace Monument: ‘Braveheart is still a huge draw, even after 30 years it has an impact everyday’
Visitor Experience Assistant Sally Jeffrey on climbing the 246 steps of the Wallace Monument everyday and her devastation after climate change protesters attacked the Wallace Sword. I get to work just before 9am. I shuttle all the staff up on the bus and we get ready to start the day. I am an odd…
Read MoreLife with the RNLI: ‘It’s always been part of my family, now I am on the crew with my dad’
For the Burgon family saving lives at sea is in their DNA. For more than 140 years, generations of their family have volunteered for the RNLI. It began with fisherman Peter Burgon who served on the crew of the Berwick lifeboat, and for a time at Eyemouth lifeboat, from 1876. His son William followed in…
Read MoreMonkey that went on the run moved to Edinburgh zoo for a ‘fresh start’
A monkey that went on the run from a wildlife park for more than five days has been moved to Edinburgh Zoo after not settling back into park life with his fellow primates. Honshu, a seven-year-old Japanese macaque, escaped from the Highland Wildlife Park, near Kincraig, last month. He was captured after a local living…
Read MoreFormer Scotland rugby captain leads epic ride to Rome to raise money in memory of Doddie Weir
Former Scotland rugby captain and motor neuron disease (MND) campaigner Rob Wainwright OBE will lead more than 240 cyclists and crew on an gruelling journey to Rome to raise money for the foundation set up by the late, great Doddie Weir. Wainwright, who played 37 times for Scotland and once for the British and Irish…
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