Last week on a short island break we were fortunate to able to get last minute tickets for the Islay Book Festival. Andrew O’Hagan, author of Mayflies was being interviewed by Glen Campbell. This was held in the bonny round church of Bowmore. It was a wonderful conversation between two men. I asked a question about friendship and how important did O’Hagan think it was when we have rather dark and gloomy news piped into our digital receivers 24/7! O’Hagan’s reply was heartfelt, honest and beautiful.
I read all the time. When I first read Mayflies I took off the dust cover and wrote a message on it to John Flaxman, my rock star friend, who long ago adopted me as his wee brother. ‘Flaxman’, I said, ‘you must read this!’
I am an odd sort. When I read a book I add marginalia in coloured pen. Usually this is just a dot to indicate a sentence or phrase or passage that I found special, moving, revealing, beautiful …
From Mayflies, these words on friendship:
This short film is for Andrew O’Hagan:
To play this short film please click on the image above or here.
A short film that I made for my older brother, John Flaxman:
