Duncan Harley

  I think it was Robert Graves who once said that if you live by the pen, you can live almost anywhere. Graves of course came from a privileged background. He ended up in Majorca and famously said that if you take up that pen, you’d better have something to say.  Well, Graves had probably never visited Cruden Bay. And why would he. It’s a tiny settlement in Aberdeenshire formerly known as Port Errol. Dracula author Bram Stoker spent his holidays in the village and, if we are to believe the modern-day histories, a golf hotel on the dunes hosted the likes of Winston Churchill and mustard tycoon Jeremiah Colman. Even William Burrell put in an appearance at Cruden Bay and if you look up the history on the likes of Wikipedia, you’ll likely find that the place can boast a few dozen more celebrities to its name. Enter Mike Shepherd. He lives in Cruden Bay and he writes books. I have to confess an interest here. Mike and I have a history. We both pen books about Scotland. Mike h...