Dugald Bruce Lockhart: 10 things that changed my life

The National

20-07-2025

One: Strontian (Western Highlands)
DESPITE spending the first four years of my life in Fiji, my earliest memory is sitting in the hull of a rowing boat, fitted with an outboard motor, as we set off from the village of Strontian across the wind-whipped waters of Loch Sunart, terrified the boat would sink.
Having made it to an island, picnicked, and not sunk, I was charged with newfound confidence for our return journey.
Peering over the gunwale, staring into the low-lying sun, I repeatedly sang the chorus of Kumbaya, My Lord, marvelling at how the tune fitted the scenic backdrop.
Thus was born my desire to impose narratives on the world about me; which, in turn, led to playing guitar, acting, and eventually, writing my first novel.
It was also where I first tasted a lime-flavoured popsicle; which to a four-year-old, fresh from the Pacific Islands, was almost as weighty a game changer!
(Image: PA/Alamy)
Two: My first fishing rod
A FOUR-FOOT-LONG, fibreglass fishing rod, that had been given to me by 'Dear'', my formidable great-grandmother, (real name, Mona), wife of J H Bruce Lockhart, former Scottish international cricket and rugby player.
In a Highland burn, I caught my first trout, a whopper, at least five inches!
This triggered a passion for fishing that continues to afflict me; casting my line over rivers far and wide, as well as providing the subject for my first short story – Salar The Salmon – which I wrote at the age of nine; about a salmon who struggles to find her way back to the stream where she was born.
Even now, I'm unable to cross a bridge without stopping to check if I can spot that elusive, wavering shadow lying in the current below.
And wondering how much it weighs.
Three: February 22nd 1991
THE day I received a phone call at our home in London, to say I'd got in to the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art – despite the fact I'd been drunk at my recall (thanks to a four-pint liquid lunch, to quell the nerves); that I'd given my Shakespeare monologue as Sean Connery (they stopped me after my first line), and had lied about all the other drama schools to which I'd applied.
With no one else around to celebrate the news, I drank a glass of orange juice and explained to our pet African Grey parrot, Coco, how I was going to be a famous actor.
Coco remained predictably implacable, looked me in the eye, then shat on the newspaper bedding at the bottom of his cage.
My first of many critics.
Four: My Yamaha acoustic guitar
I BOUGHT it in Tokyo, while touring with the Royal Shakespeare Company. After an all-nighter in the district of Roppongi, a combination of hangover and jetlag caused a five-day bout of insomnia, resulting in a breakdown – along with the realisation I had to call off my engagement to my fiancée back home.
Unable to think straight, let alone utter a sentence of Shakespearean verse, I was taken off the show to recover, only venturing from my 17th-floor hotel room to stumble across the square to the music store opposite, where I parted with the equivalent of £200 to buy the instrument.
I continued to write songs for the remainder of that 12-month tour, and on, for the next 20 years; including one titled Wedding Train – which I now realise was an ode to my guitar – about the comfort of strumming her dependable six strings, and how she had carried me through my hour of need.
Five: My pet lizard
I HAD caught it in the wastelands outside our house in Cyprus in 1978. Hoping the creature might join the family, I gave him first a name, then set up home in our open-roofed inner courtyard, where there was a hole in the tiles.
Using a rock to provide cover, I brought him flies and worms, and he soon became accustomed to his new dwelling.
Then one day, I introduced him to some school friends. After much oohing and ahh-ing, we left him to his own devices – me quickly dropping the rock back into place, as we hurried out. When I returned to the courtyard that evening, I found him to be unusually still. He was lying at an angle that didn't make sense – his jaw, squashed and out of line. But still alive.
In a panic, I took him outside and dropped him over the garden fence into the scrub below – lying to myself that he'd be better off fending for himself.
My first encounter with true guilt; which, 50 years on, continues to haunt me.
I hope one day to be able recall the poor creature's name.
(Image: PA/Alamy)
Six: The Diorama building in London
THE soulless building in central London was where, as an out-of-work actor, I had to trek from my flat in Harlesden in order to take part in a group selection process for a corporate roleplay company based in Bristol.
My spirits lightened when an extremely attractive brunette in a slim-fit suit passed me in the doorway, asking if she was in the right place. The building took on a greater shine, when it transpired she and I were both familiar with Southwold and that we both knew a certain actor – with whom she had read to stroke patients, and with whom I had toured the world for 10 years.
A month later, I emailed him to ask about the status of a certain Penny, whom I'd met at Diorama. He replied that she was 'unattached', and would I like her number?
Staring at a family photograph of myself, Penny, Mackenzie and Cassidy, posing in the grounds of a hotel in Gran Canaria, this spring, I recall that it had been raining the day of the interview, and that I'd hesitated in the hallway of my flat, wondering if I could really be bothered to schlepp across town in the pissing rain, for a job I was unlikely to get, and which I didn't really want in the first place.
Seven: My children
TO splash with them, one on each arm, in a tiny paddling pool in the garden, lost in their joy and wonder, and gap-toothed grins.
Watching them grow, hearing them laugh.
Sharing their daily tragedies.
To know you are not only perpetuating the circle of life, but that your navel-gazing days are over.
And that you are finally at one with unconditional love.
Eight: Propeller Theatre Company
WHEN in the autumn of 1998, I joined Edward Hall's all-male Shakespeare company, I had no idea that this would begin 15 years of international touring with a group of actors that would become tantamount to a second family.
True, each 10-to-12-month tour was as akin to a 12-month stag do, as it was to spreading the joy of Shakespeare's plays; and yet, it was with Propeller that I truly learnt the craft of storytelling, and how performing is really more of a sport than any kind of mysterious art form.
From climbing the pyramids in Mexico City at dawn, to performing The Comedy Of Errors in Sri Lanka, watched by a group of wild monkeys that had climbed in through the windows, it was also my own Homeric journey of self-discovery, and the birth of lifelong friendships. Halcyon days, I shall never forget.
Nine: Across The Universe
WHENEVER I hear John Lennon's masterpiece, I am transported back to my parent's house in Greenwich, where I sat on the drawing room floor, in diffused sunlight, listening to the song unfold for the first time.
I smell chocolates, pipe smoke, old books, coffee and toast; the musty aroma of our dog, Poggy, curled up in his basket, tucked away in the corner by the piano; the muffled chatter of the BBC's World Service from the kitchen, and the cloying scent of linseed oil from my newly acquired Gray-Nicolls cricket bat leaning against the wall behind the front door.
Everlasting peace, frozen in three minutes and 47 seconds.
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10: Passing my driving test
MY first attempt (in Dundee, while a student at St Andrews University) went rather well, I thought. Having pulled up by the side of the road, the examiner asked me how many lessons I'd taken. Understanding him to be thoroughly impressed, I proudly confessed I'd only had five. He smiled and informed me I'd be taking a few more.
My second attempt ended up with the same result. (What you don't do, if a suitcase comes off your roof rack, is wait for a pause in the traffic then run out and grab it).
The day I finally passed, I'd wrenched my back and had sat stiffly in the driver's seat with a brace on my neck, stinking of Deep Heat, barely able to look left or right, let alone turn to face my nonplussed examiner.
How she let me sit next to her, let alone pass me, I have no idea. But I'm eternally grateful.
How my life would have unfolded without the freedom of wheels, I can't imagine.
Second Skin, a thriller set in the Greek Islands by Dugald Bruce Lockhart is published by Muswell Press