I remember going to see Billy Graham in a cinema in Glasgow, and he was down in London. I used to go and hear preachers, and then we always went to church and Sunday school. That mattered a lot to me.
We have a government that boasts about free education. Those of us who have scratched below the surface know it is costing us by denying opportunities for others to attend college or university.
As a youngster, I travelled every year across the sea to Tiree. On occasion, we ventured to Skye on the Kyleakin-Kyle of Lochalsh ferry, where there is now a bridge.
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.
I used to go to a Gaelic class on a Saturday morning, but I never felt myself that I could speak it properly.
The Labour Party in 2011 was in an exceptionally bad place. We'd been hammered in an election. We didn't see the scale of it coming.
That's a really healthy thing - family will always protect you from yourself.
We do students a great disservice by implying that one set of students is more important than another.
The idea that an independent Scotland - having separated assets and liabilities from the rest of the U.K. - would expect the rest of the U.K. to be a lender of last resort, and of course be kind to them, doesn't make any sense.
I love hard political debate and I love beating somebody on a political point but what I'm more frustrated by is the politics where you play the man not the politics.
Schools are not exam factories for the rat race.
Social injustice is what puts Scotland at its greatest disadvantage, and restoring the 50p tax rate will start to fight that.
