Prof Ian Robertson: ‘My father was more like a brother, and my brother was more like a father'
How agreeable are you?
I'm probably excessively agreeable, but I'm also capable of being grumpy and bad tempered. If I'm involved in some project or some thinking, I find it hard to disengage from it. If I have to disengage from it, then my mind can be elsewhere, and it's when my mind is elsewhere that I could be grumpy.
What is your middle name and what do you think of it?
My middle name is Hamilton, and that's my mother's maiden name. I was brought up in Scotland, and it's a common tradition, a nice tradition, to take your mother's maiden name as your middle name. I like it. It reminds me of my mother, of course – Annie Hamilton, someone who was very, very intelligent, but who had to leave school at 14. All her life, she longed to be a nurse but never had formal training. To her great satisfaction, much later in her life, she ended up working as an auxiliary nurse and a care assistant. She adored that.
Where is your favourite place in Ireland?
My favourite place in Ireland has to be where I live, which is Dalkey. We've been here for 26 years, and I have to pinch myself every single day that I live somewhere so amazing, so beautiful, a proper community. And it is a mixed community as well. It's not all rich people.
Describe yourself in three words.
Driven. Dalkey. Likes-to-be-liked.
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When did you last get angry?
The thing that makes me most angry these days is what's happening in Gaza and Ukraine. I get angry with brutal men doing brutal things in the world. And that's real anger, not irritation, a profound anger at the ruthlessness of powerful men who lose track of all humanity.
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What have you lost that you would like to have back?
It sounds so pathetic in a way, and it's not smug, but the older I've got, I've been fortunate enough to remember only the gains and not the losses. There are things I don't do now that I could before. In my 60s, I ran a few half marathons, but then I had to get a new hip. I can still run, but not fast. That's not a loss, though – maybe it's relief.
What is your strongest childhood memory?
I may have been as young as three or four, and I'm on a bus with my parents to visit my brother and his friend, who were camping on the outskirts of Glasgow. I have this vivid feeling of a glorious summery evening, building a dam on a little stream with my brother. It was just sheer joy.
Where do you come in your family's birth order, and has this defined you?
I'm the second of two boys, but my brother is 10 years older than me. As we got older we became brothers, but during my childhood he was more like a dad, a kind of father figure. My father wasn't a hugely confident man but he was very affectionate, and I was very close to him as well, yet paradoxically he was more like a brother. It's funny, but right until this moment, it never occurred to me that my father was more like a brother and my brother was more like a father.
What do you expect to happen when you die?
The atoms in my body will spread across the cosmos from whence they came. I expect to have no consciousness or specific immortality, but I do have confidence in a continuation in chemical and informational form, beautifully scattered across the universe.
When were you happiest?
Now. I've never been more blessed and happier than I am at this time in my life.
Which actor would play you in a biopic about your life?
Oh, God, I'm terrible at actors. I'm trying to think … What about Brian Cox, who played Logan Roy in Succession?
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What is your biggest career/personal regret?
I didn't do my PhD until my late-30s, and that had positives as well as negatives, but career-wise, I wish I'd done it earlier in my life. Regret, however, is a useless emotion, and it becomes more useless the older you get. I'm just so lucky to have been married for over 40 years. If I hadn't met Fiona, I'm sure I'd have a lot more regrets to tell you about. I'm a lucky, lucky man.
Have you any psychological quirks?
The psychological quirk I would admit to having is that before arriving in Ireland, I had a strange affinity for it in my mind. I don't know where that came from. Normally, people come to Ireland, get to love the place and want to stay, but I had this strange attachment to the place before I ever came here, before I ever met anyone Irish.
In conversation with Tony Clayton-Lea
Ian Robertson will be at
Dalkey Book Festival
with Mark Little on Sunday
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