One man, Twa Dugs, and a cigarette lighter

Bit late to this but I am hugely enjoying Bob Shields’ memoir, How Far Is The Nearest Pint?, published in 2006.

Bob was chief features writer for the Daily Record when he joined a Forest expeditionary force that travelled to Paris to meet our French counterparts on No Smoking Day 1999. The following year we invited him to a Forest event in London where we presented him with a Smoker-Friendly Journalist of the Year award.

I’ve written about both episodes before but what I didn’t know until last week was that, in his memoir, Bob had devoted an entire chapter to the award and what happened when he attempted to take his prize (a cigarette lighter that looked liked a real hand grenade) through security at Gatwick. (‘That’s No Hand Grenade, It’s My Smoker of the Year Award!’). It’s very funny.

Threatened with arrest under the Terrorism Act, he finally made it back to his office in Glasgow (without the lighter which had been confiscated) just before lunch time.

The first call I made was to Simon at Forest who laughed his head off and promised another ‘hand grenade’ would be in the post.

I don’t think I’ve ever been mentioned in someone’s memoir before so it’s rather gratifying. Since retiring from the Record in 2008 Bob has run a pub, The Twa Dugs, in Ayr. Ayr is the home town of Sophie Sandor who I first met almost ten years ago when she was working for the Institute of Economic Affairs, and it was Sophie who brought Bob’s book to my attention.

She is now a writer and performer and is staying in Ayr prior to performing Giro Baby, her new one-woman play, at the Edinburgh Fringe in August. The Twa Dugs has become her go to pub, which is how she met Bob and ended up reading his book. Small world.