If you’re interested in the one-hour illustrated talk about Don Roberto’s life, travels and vision that I gave to the Keir Hardie Society in May 2024, you can watch it here.
Category Archives: Cunninghame Graham
Don Roberto and Scotland: International Perspectives
Join us on May 11/12 for the biggest and best celebration of Don Roberto’s life yet – two days of talks and visits at the Stirling Smith Art Gallery & Museum and Gartmore House, all for just £33!
Saturday features talks from novelist James Robertson, playwright Chris Dolan, professors Alan Riach and Carla Sassi, Conrad expert Laurence Davies and others. On Sunday Robin Cunninghame Graham, Don Roberto’s great-great-nephew, will lead a tour of Gartmore House and grounds and talk with Dr Lachlan Munro about A Careless Enchantment, the new collection of Don Roberto’s Scottish stories and sketches which they have jointly edited.
It promises to be a magnificent weekend of all things Don Roberto – please join us if you can! You can find full details of the programme and booking information from Eventbrite. https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/don-roberto-scotland-international-perspectives-tickets-856190838847

The weekend is organised by the Cunninghame Graham Society and hosted by the Stirling Smith Art Gallery & Museum. It is generously supported by Foundation Scotland, the Andrew Tannahill Fund, Gartmore House and Gartmore Heritage Society.
Don Roberto: the Adventure of Being Cunninghame Graham
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Now available direct from the publishers Scotland Street Press and all good bookshops, price £24.99 (December 2023).
“A wonderful biography’ Melanie Reid,’ The Sunday Times
‘Don Roberto is there before us in all his glory.’ Alexander McCall Smith
‘Casts fascinating new light on a man driven by almost implausible energy, purpose and passion.’ Magnus Linklater, The Times
‘I know him better and admire him more after reading this biography.’ Alan Massie, The Scotsman

Talking Scotland
Here’s a chatty interview I took part in yesterday with Norrie Hunter of the excellent Caledon Radio – talking about Don Roberto and his life, along with land issues, my own journey to Yes, and where we are now on the path to independence.
A better future
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Continuing a series of posts originally written through 2013/14 in the run-up to the first Independence Referendum. (First published as 96 Days, 13 June 2014) Sometimes an idea grips you in the guts and won’t let go. No amount of … Continue reading
Second time around
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Between March 2013 and September 2014 I wrote a number of blog posts in support of independence. It was an eighteen-month examination of my own very personal thoughts and feelings on the subject, culminating in the first referendum. Eight years … Continue reading
Declaration
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All last week, working in my garden under clear blue skies, I watched the geese streaming north, high overhead, making for their summer grounds in Greenland. I wondered if they had registered any new strangeness in the place they were … Continue reading
They shall not pass
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With General Franco’s remains freshly exhumed from the mausoleum in the Valley of the Fallen, Spain’s public disavowal of his legacy must be ringing hollow in Catalan ears. The very thought of political prisoners in a European country in the … Continue reading
A mere appendage
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“Wherever I look, north, south, east or west, there is something that appeals to me as a Scotsman, there is something to stir one’s heart, something to make one feel that we are representatives of a distinct nationality—a nationality severed … Continue reading
A gleam of rubies
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On 23 June 1928, a large crowd gathered in King’s Park, Stirling to support the inauguration of the National Party of Scotland, one of the predecessors of the Scottish National Party. The date, by no coincidence, marked the anniversary of … Continue reading