Happiness

Is what we all seek in our different ways. BBC Radio Scotland gave me a call the other day asking for my thoughts, so I joined the former Bishop of Edinburgh, Richard Holloway. to discuss how we can live more balanced lives on the Sunday Morning programme that goes out at an hour you’re still deeply asleep. The … Continue Reading

Humanist Weddings in Scotland Are More Popular than Catholic Ones – it’s official!

We’ve been waiting a long time to see this story in Scotland on Sunday (and thanks are due to Marc Horne the journalist for breaking the story). Four years, in fact, ever since Gordon Ross, who was then the National Ceremonies Convenor, got his calculator out and ‘did the math’ as the Americans say.That was back … Continue Reading

I know where I’m going… Part 2

The day after the article on body donation appeared in Scotland on Sunday, I got a call from a producer at BBC Radio Scotland, who asked if I’d be prepared to visit the Anatomy Lab at the School of Medicine at the University of Edinburgh, where Dr Gordon Linklater would show me precisely what will … Continue Reading

I know where I’m going… Part 1

The School of Medicine at The University of Edinburgh. Not as a student, but as an object of study… Read this article by Peter Ross that first appeared in Scotland on Sunday The BBC obviously read it, because they asked me not just to go on the radio and talk about it, but to go … Continue Reading

Good Without God

When the Pope’s visit was announced some time ago, the HSS debated long and hard about how we should respond, and eventually decided that while we agree with all the arguments put forward by the Protest the Pope campaign, because of where we live and Scotland’s sectarian history, we’d have to do something different. So … Continue Reading

Say ‘I do’ to the Humanist touch when tying the knot

I got a call the other day from Catherine Salmond at the Edinburgh Evening News. She was writing a story because Elizabeth Bell, the wedding co-ordinator at Houston House Hotel, had got in touch with the paper to say that 1 in 10 of their weddings this year are going to be Humanist ceremonies. So we had a chat … Continue Reading

Bowdent wi’ Pride

I was rather surprised to get a call last week from my local paper, The Edinburgh Evening News, asking me to tell them something about my work as a Humanist Celebrant. I discovered this afternoon that the article has made its way, via the printed page on Friday and the discarded fish supper wrapper on … Continue Reading