Jimmy Reid and Me, with Brian McGeachan
Wednesday 4 November 2026, 7.30pm. Tanners, 459 Lanark Road, Juniper Green, EH14 5BA
Brian McGeachan was born and brought up in Glasgow. He has written for Seven Days, the Big Issue, and the Glasgow Evening Times, and worked at the New York Daily News and the Boston Globe, as well as The Guardian, Scotland on Sunday, and The Herald. He is the author of Cardinal and They Rise Again and has written several stage plays.
As well as being a writer and journalist, he served as a policy advisor to the Scottish Constitutional Convention from 1990 to 1995.
He was a friend of the late Jimmy Reid, one of Scotland’s most influential political figures and orators, who asked him to collaborate on his now posthumous autobiography, Walking With History.
Rooted in Govan and the Clyde, the book revisits defining moments in Scottish and British history, most notably Reid’s leadership of the Upper Clyde Shipbuilders work-in and his iconic “rat-race” speech as Rector of the University of Glasgow, described by The New York Times as “the greatest speech since the Gettysburg Address”.
Blending memoir, political history and cultural commentary, the book speaks powerfully on themes of labour, democracy, national identity, and social justice, offering Scottish audiences a compelling reflection on voice, community, and collective action.
Pentlands Book Festival: Nov each year 