Dear HeraldScotland readers, I give you my final blog on being the oldest student in town. It's been a rocky road but I finally made it.
Just over a year ago, I made a decision to leave the comfort of my wee cosy Highland but'n' ben (a lifestyle choice made over a decade ago) to head back to city life, where I would study for an MA in TV Fiction Writing at Glasgow Caledonian University (GCU).
It was not a challenge I took on lightly. Had I moved lock, stock and barrel to Glasgow from Boat of Garten, it might have been the easier option. With the benefit of hindsight, all the to-ing and fro-ing each week left me with a foot in both camps - and there were occasions along the way which meant I developed a bit of a limp.
Along with Jan, a fellow Highlands and Islands based student on this pioneering GCU course, I commuted regularly down the A9. Jan's elderly dog, Maddie, was our travelling companion on these long drives.
Apart from feeling tired, catching Big City bugs and trying to organise a home life, there was also socialising to fit in around the coursework studies. I think it took its toll on us all!
It's been an epic year, with the Referendum and all that could have meant for the creative industries. Katie Morag, the Bafta award-winning children's drama series, of which I am proud to say I was a part of the team for 18 months and had the privilege of co-writing one episode, won an award for best Children's programme. Lead actress Cherry Campbell won best and youngest ever actress at the Children's Bafta Awards.
Credit to Executive Producer Lindy Cameron for retaining the authenticity and magic of the stories and their settings created by Marie Hedderwick. A difficult enough task with adaptation, but also having to work within the constraints of modern day health and safety guidelines, like dealing with kids on tractors and of course the inevitable budget.
Talking of children and epic, I was left for five days and five nights holding (carrying, tickling, bathing, pulling along and feeding) 16-month-old baby Harry - as well as 15 chickens - while my son and his partner jetted off to New York to get engaged.
When Lewis asked me to help out with an extended period of Harry-minding, I agreed without giving it too much thought. After all, I'd had two lads of my own back in the day and, through my teaching career, have a lot of experience with kids.
Somehow none of this experience seemed to matter. By 7.30am on Day One, I'd already killed a chicken, broken two mugs, spilt his milk bottle over the inside of my new car, had five toilet rolls chucked down the loo and was talked to through my spectacle case by technology-mad Harry.
He could clearly see that the now-enlarged text on my iPhone was making it impossible for me to use, so he improvised with the TV remote, my spec case, a calculator, the baby alarm... anything, in fact, he could put to his ear to or swipe and shout 'hiya' into.
All that is behind us now. We enjoyed the awards dinner at Glasgow's Oran Mor celebrating the procurement of £500,000 worth of sponsorship for the MA in TV Fiction Writing course. It was attended by the university, our lecturers, sponsors and past, present and future students.
We hailed those who had made successes in their careers and hailed the future of the sponsors, while hoping this course will see more work by homegrown writers (young and old) hit our TV screens.
It was also a relief to me personally that it was all over and done with. As I confessed to my lecturer, during the course of the dinner, I felt I had lost my mojo half way through the year. I'm hoping fervently for its return and armed with all this writing-for-TV knowledge gleaned along the way, I'm still game for having a go!
I had only one issue about dinner: as we all know that the first bite of food is taken by the eye and under the glare of theatrical lighting in the room, we were served what appeared to be a coral pink coloured three-course meal which, to be honest, made for difficult eating.
Such is the powerfully aversive effect of food colour out of context, I felt sure that with each bite, my creamy white parsnip soup; my creamy chicken and my ice cream dessert were going to taste of pink lobster bisque!
At the dinner, it was announced that GCU was creating a scholarship in honour of the much-missed Scots writer, actor and honorary graduate, David MacLennan, who died earlier this year. Oran Mor is the home of his revolutionary theatre concept, A Play, A Pie and A Pint. His wife, actress Juliet Cadzow, was a guest of honour at the event.
Speakers included Eileen Gallagher of Shed Media; Catriona Miller, MA TV Fiction Writing Programme Leader; Chris Dolan author and playwright, who is also a lecturer on the course and producer Ross Murray, who is a graduate of the programme. Professor Ann Marie di Mambro presented the Student of the Year award to Ewan Muir and Script of the Year to Austin Low.
Nine industry-sponsored scholarships were also presented to students from the 2014 newbies, who began the programme in September.
The MA TV Fiction Writing programme is the only dedicated full-time postgraduate programme of its type in the UK. Success stories include graduate Mark Stevenson, who has gone on to write for EastEnders, Casualty and Holby City; and Hollyoaks as well as Casualty writer, Philip Wright.
Guests at the scholarship awards included: Scottish actors Blythe Duff and Libby McArthur, BBC Scotland executive producer Gaynor Holmes (also a member of the programme's advisory board); MG ALBA's Isabel MacTaggart, and ScreenHI's Amanda Millen.
This year's industry scholarship offers have come from BBC Scotland; FremantleMedia UK; Warner Bros; Shed Media; Shelagh Anne Venning Trust, Larkhall Films and MG ALBA.
After the big dinner, came another biggie; our graduation, which was a nerve-racking day of order and formality, second only to preparations for a wedding day!
I have to say it was a good day perhaps because I felt a huge burden lift from my shoulders. There was great camaraderie too and I thoroughly enjoyed the company of all the other students.
We were all in a buoyant mood. Apparently our year was one of the most successful ever, with the 10 students who started the course together all passing and four receiving distinctions.
After the formalities were over, we all hit Glasgow with friends and families. During this mass letting-down of our hair, we enjoyed great craic, shared fab food and basked in the rosy glow of togetherness, which means we will always appreciate each and every journey to get to this place. That feeling knows no age boundaries.
Thank you to GCU for an opportunity of a lifetime, or should I say an opportunity at this time of my life.
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