David Bowie

Questioning my spiritual life has always been germane to what I was writing. Always. It's because I'm not quite an atheist and it worries me. There's that little bit that holds on: 'Well, I'm almost an atheist. Give me a couple of months.'

In my mind, the CalMac ferry is linked with the joy of arrival, the sadness of departure, the loss of loved ones brought home by ferry to rest in island soil. It is friendships made and a working life begun.