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@islaybookfest said I’d tell you about growing up as an Edinburgh Gael. It’s a tricky subject for me, because it’s a very personal thing and I get tied up in knots trying to explain. But deep breath, here goes (thread):
Till I was 5 I was fully bilingual, but my dad was the only Gaelic-speaker in my life. There were bodaich who came round for a dram and a song, but we were always packed straight off to bed. There was nothing in my east Edinburgh neighbourhood to make sense of me.
When I went to primary school I stopped speaking Gaelic, but Dad didn’t. So I became a fluent listener. And when we moved to Peebles for my high school years, any chance of being part of a Gaelic community was blown. I had this sense of not being in any way a *real* Gael.
