THIS YEAR marks the fifth running of the Cove and Kilkreggan Book Festival on the Rosneath peninsula.

The festival features the Scottish Makar, Jackie Kay and crime writer Val McDermid, and will take place on 24 and 25 November.

Another crime writer, Alex Gray, is joining the line up and it will also feature Sally Magnusson, who will be talking about her award-nominated debut novel.

Angus Roxburgh, formerly the BBC’s reporter in Moscow is launching the proceedings whilst the following day will see the foreign correspondent Allan Little in conversation with Gavin Francis, the Edinburgh GP who has become one of the country’s most successful writers on the human condition.

The author, essayist and playwright Andrew O’Hagan is also taking part, and making his third visit is acclaimed Scottish writer James Robertson who has written an off beat biography with conversation and songs of the late Michael Marra.

Cove Village Hall hosts a main stage hall, a cafe bar, and a community library which hosts book sales and signing.

www.coveburghhall.org.uk

THE house band of the Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo, the Piper's Trail, is opening up applications today for 2019 recruits.

Pipers Trail was established by the Tattoo in 2014 to have a network of Scottish piping and drumming performers with abilities to play traditional and contemporary music.

It plays a key role in the Tattoo's Massed Pipes and Drums.

The band, led by former director of Army Bagpipe Music, Major Stevie Small, began a tour in September of last year at the Dusseldorf Tattoo before performances in Norway, the Czech Republic China, and a return to Dusseldorf in September this year.

New recruits are being called on "from all points of the compass" with the opportunity to perform at the annual Tattoo and the chance to travel the globe to international ceremonies and piping events.

Next year, the band will increase in size from 50 members to 75 members.

Potential applicants should be over 18, have proficient musical skills including an RSPBA Grade 3 as a minimum standard, and be able to commit to performing at the Tattoo for four weeks in August 2019.

www.edintattoo.co.uk/piperstrail.

A SERIES of drawings by a Scottish artist showing images death and dying will have their first public exhibition in Scotland.

Glasgow-based Norman Gilbert drew a series of 15 intimate end of life portraits of his wife Pat as he kept vigil for a week at her bedside.

Now the 92-year-old artist is exhibiting the drawings of his wife of 65-years for the first time to "help promote honest and open reflections on the issue of death and bereavement."

Pat, a retired art teacher died of a stroke in 2016 having lived with Alzheimer’s for a number of years.

She had featured in many of Gilbert’s paintings since they first met in the 1940s at the Glasgow School of Art, some of which will also feature in the exhibition at The Yellow Door Gallery, Dumfries.

The exhibition is a collaboration between the University of Glasgow’s End of Life Studies Group, The Yellow Door Gallery, the artist and his family, as part of the national Being Human - festival of humanities.

Dr Mark Gilbert, youngest of four sons born to Norman and Pat and also an artist and Research Associate with Medical Humanities program at the School of Medicine, Dalhousie University, Canada, said: “The drawings are a testament to the fluid roles that we are all asked to play at some point in our lives when we care for those we love and fall ill ourselves.

“The drawings turn what was a private experience into something shared. They encourage us to reflect on our own stories and experiences of loss and bereavement.

"Like my father Norman, we can engage with these drawings and turn what many find challenging and harrowing into an opportunity for reflection and growth.”

Drawing to a Close: An Exhibition of Drawings at the End of Life can be viewed between 21 November and 24 November between 10am and 4pm.

www.yellowdoordumfries.wordpress.com