Silver Ness, where I was born and still lived, was a quaint little Scottish seaside town a good hour’s journey away from the centre of Glasgow. It was all pretty bed and breakfast cottages and family businesses along the seafront. The shops there sold everything from buckets and spades to dramatic artwork depicting the golden stretch of beach. We also had mysterious historical links to pirates and smuggling, which the day-trippers, tourists, and local children got rather excited about.

Before joining my local paper, I had worked in an uptight advertising agency on the south side of town for three years as a copy writer after graduating from my four-year journalism degree course. I struggled to find a job in journalism after university and remembering Mum’s advice of “It’s easier to go to a job from a job” (together with the fact that I needed to survive financially) I took the ad agency vacancy.

I hated every minute of it.

Cut-throat; synthetic; stressful; not to mention the grind of the daily commute, which had sapped well over two hours out of my life each day. Everyone at the agency looked every bit as downtrodden as I was.

The term “work–life balance” was treated with derision and even taking a proper lunch break away from your desk was frowned upon. I was twenty-five at the time, but felt like I was ninety-five. I don’t know how I managed to stick it for so long. I think the very competitive salary was a large part of why I stayed, until even that palled and I knew that for my mental wellbeing, I couldn’t carry on working there.

When my mum tipped me off that she’d bumped into Frances, senior reporter at our local paper, who told her their current junior was leaving to join his girlfriend in London, I knew I had to apply for the vacancy.

I was delighted to hear I had secured an interview and then spent the next few weeks preparing for it, swatting up on my home town. I’m embarrassed to say I had rather taken Silver Ness and its reputedly colourful past for granted.

I read up on everything about the birth of the local paper too, devouring information on its circulation, regular local correspondents, and previous reporters of note.

It was Doug and a stern-faced character from the Clarity Newspaper Group Human Resources team who interviewed me and I was thrilled to hear a couple of days later that I was being offered the job of junior reporter.

I threw myself into the role, bearing down on individuals with my Dictaphone, notebook, and a wide smile or sympathetic ear. I managed within a matter of months of dogged determination to establish a solid set of contacts in the local police force, the council, and the fire service.