Allan McGregor

Hi, I'm Allan, the baldy guy on the left of the photograph. The good looking one beside me is Deborah, my wife of 30 years.

We have two adult children, Robert and Catriona (Katie). Robert is a soldier in the Scots Guards, the oldest regiment in the British Army, and is although stationed in England may be posted to Afghanistan at any time, having previously served for two years on ceremonial duties as part of Her Majesty the Queen's Royal Guard, mostly at Buckingham Palace but also at her castles at Windsor and Balmoral. He is also married and the father of three of our grandchildren: Billy (6), Sean (4), Thomas (nearly 2) and another addition due later this year.

Katie is a full-time housewife and mother to our other three grandchildren: Matthew (9), Rachel (7) and Cameron (4).

Although too much of a gentleman to discuss my wife's age, I am will be 54, having been born in 1958 to a young mother, then living with my father while separated from her husband. My formative years were spent in Glasgow's notoriously violent and rundown Bridgeton area until, at the age of two, I was adopted by an older couple from the well-to-do Glasgow suburb of Bearsden where I was educated at Bearsden Academy which I left in 1975 to work in a laboratory, and study chemistry at college.

Just over three years later, I changed careers to become a constable of Strathclyde Police, in Glasgow's Maryhill Division, since made famous by the TV series Taggart. That lasted nearly eight-and-a-half years before I moved on to try a few alternative careers over the next decade or so, in sales, computer programming, the civil service and banking, before settling into nursing for thirteen years. All the while, however, I never lost two parallel passions; namely writing and my Christian faith and have been Assistant Pastor of New Hope Community Church, Wishaw for about a year-and-a-half.

I write prolifically and passionately about anything that interests me. A member of Mensa for over 25 years, my high IQ and retentive mind have served me well not only in writing but in studying the Bible, to further facilitate which I learned a good deal of biblical Greek and Hebrew along the way. A Christian for over 40 years, my faith is nevertheless grounded in much more than mere head-knowledge, but also on practical experience and spiritual application.

Suffice to say, my varied curriculum vitae has proven invaluable in informing my writing, which is seldom restricted to theory alone, but more often than not based on personal experience.

My background in science has given me a methodical and logical way of thinking, while my time on the police has resulted in a forensic eye for inconsistency in evidence or argument. Computer programming honed my appreciation of syntax because computers do not respond to chaotic instruction, whilst many of my carrer paths, like the police, sales, the civil service and nursing, have involved working with the public, enhancing my 'people skills' and application of practical psychology.

As a result, while I tend to write about what I know, I have never found this to be an undue restriction because I know a lot - not merely about a lot of things, but a lot about those things. I do not like shallow writing or superficial arguments because I believe my readers deserve better than being patronised or condescended to by offering half-baked, ill thought out, or poorly presented ideas.

Rather, I believe that 'Dumbing Down' should be left to the dummies. Most people who are capable of reading an article are capable of understanding more than the popular media and many commentators seem to imagine. I respect that and, in so doing, try to not only address their desire for knowlege but satisfy it.

I could go on and on, and on... But long ago realised that the best way to present who I am and what I believe is most simply achieved by expressing those things through my writing and allowing the reader to form their own opinion.