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SHARING SOME PHOTOS FROM IAN’S AUTOBIOGRAPHY, “FROM POVERTY TO POVERTY:

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(Gayle, Ian’s wife and editor here.) I decided to share some photos from Ian’s autobiography on this site. Though I wasn’t in the picture, so to speak, for any of these, it was my task to choose them from Ian’s pile of photos, scan and adjust them for the book. That was quite a feat for Ian’s photos from Egypt, of the Campbeltown Pipe Band and of his parents which were taken with the camera he purchased in Egypt. The existing photographs were just a little bigger than a large postage stamp, so it was a challenge to scan and save them to a size that could be printed in the book.  Since Canadian Remembrance Day and the USA’s Veterans’ Day has just passed, we’ve been inundated with photos of military men from the past. Ian’s are from the pre-Suez Canal crisis days in the UK and Egypt (1950-1954). He says he was in the Royal Air Force when they were “feeding them, not needing them.”

Today, November 15th,  we are giving a book reading and discussion at Vertigo Gallery in Vernon BC, as part of their weekly November series “Vertigo Voices.” Ian will be reading from his autobiography “From Poverty to Poverty: A Scotsman Encounters Canada” and we’ll be answering questions and discussing the book and the process of writing a memoir.

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Book Readings in Winnipeg, May 2012

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Gayle and I traveled to our old stomping ground in Winnipeg in May. First we celebrated my 80th Birthday with most of my family – daughters, sons-in-law, grandchildren and their spouses and great-grandchildren. I presented hardcover copies of my autobiography to my daughters, Shirley and Audrey, and had a bit of a book reading for the “elder” members of the family. Audrey and Shirley were ages 8 and 10 when they emigrated with their mother, Mary, and me from Scotland to Canada. Since they had “lived” part of the story of “From Poverty to Poverty: A Scotsman Encounters Canada,” it was only fitting to dedicate the book to them as well as to my present wife and editor, Gayle.

Then, before Gayle traveled to Norway for over a month to visit her daughter and family and I remained in Winnipeg, we held a book reading at my daughter’s house.  This was a great way to reconnect with old friends that we knew from former Winnipeg days. They seemed to enjoy the readings, especially the tales I’ve entitled “Jig-a-Jig in the Desert” about the ‘invasion’ by Arab prostitutes at the water filtration camp I was supervising during my RAF days in Egypt and “More Than Slightly Sloshed” in which I recount my first encounter with “poteen” or home brew whisky made by my Irish stepfather, Bill Moorhead. The tale concludes with this paragraph: “Somehow, it seemed, my Salvation Army days were really over. To quote my mother, ‘Since ye joined the Royal Air Force, ye’ve gone tae the Devil!'”