He sat there at the kitchen worktop, staring at nothing, whipping himself with every humiliation he’d endured since stepping out the morning before – the tape recorder, the writer’s disdain, Clio’s silence and sadness, her leaving him. Gradually the warm, shitty coffee began to do its job, and he began to feel himself awake, getting angry. Had she done this just to get somewhere to crash? Where the hell had she been intending to stay, as she clearly didn’t have money for a hotel?

Right. He’d go into the office, type up his transcription, make a start on the puff piece, maybe get a pie or something on the way in. At least he’d had a shag. At least he’d shagged her.

It was only once he’d dressed and showered and was ready to leave that he realized that the bloody fucking tape recorder had fallen out of his bag.

BBC Radio Scotland, 24 January 2018

It’s two thirty-five, and you’re listening to the Afternoon Show on BBC Radio Scotland with me, Janice Forsyth. Now, in the wake of the tragic and too-soon death of the musician Clio Campbell, aged only fifty-one, this week, I dug into the archives and found a session and interview our very own Jim Arbuthnott did with her on his folk show back in 2007, when her superlative album, The Northern Lass, a reimagining of the songs of Robert Burns, came out. Here’s Clio Campbell in her own, very distinctive, style.

JA: So, Clio, welcome to the show.

CC: Thanks for having me.

JA: Now, it’s been a while since we’ve heard from you round these parts.

CC: Well, yes. I’ve been living in London for a while now.

JA: And very nice it is to have you back up here! But I meant it’s been a while since the single most of our listeners will know you from – ‘Rise Up’ – which charted in, what was it, 1991?

CC: Well, I’ve been doing a lot since then.

JA: Of course, of course. But sixteen years between releases – there are some people who’d call that a bit of a block.

CC: I don’t feel as though it’s been a block, Jim. People do different things with their lives. Music isn’t the only part of me.

JA: Of course not. But it’s something you’ve come back to recently, would that be fair to say?