Robert Douglas

Robert Douglas retired aged fifty-five in 1994. He intended to paint, write short stories and lie about the house watching old films. A one-off article he wrote about six weeks spent with a condemned man in Bristol prison led to him being told 'You should write'. Three volumes of autobiography followed detailing his life as a miner, dock worker, doss-house resident, soldier, prison screw and survivor. For this debut novel he returns to the lost Glasgow of trams and tenements.

He hasn't painted for years.