Stuart Paterson is one of Scotland’s best-known poets of the past 30 years. He lives by the Solway Coast and captures the beauty of the South of Scotland through his works. We are proud to introduce him as Raiders Gravel’s Festival Poet. Find out more about Stuart and what he calls the ‘Galloway Way’ below.
Why should people visit Dumfries and Galloway? Stuart knows it’s very much the “hidden gem” of Scotland. Its vast wild areas of forest, coast, hill and moor are written in a wide-open book of land, language and history that ought to be a bestseller. From sea to scree and waves to woods, the Galloway way is unique to travel through and into on foot and wheel. Here you’ll find lochs, castles, Bronze Age tombs, Pictish stones, wide valleys, mountains, waterfalls, islands, cliffs, sandy bays and beaches, friendly delis, fab cafes and so much more.
The home of the Festival Village, Gatehouse of Fleet, will feel very much like home when you arrive back after a day’s cycling between unique panoramas. It’s the welcoming centre of one of Scotland’s few National Scenic Areas. And where else would you be gripped by the Range of the Awful Hand or actually wheel underneath the Big Water? Once you’re here, Galloway time will draw you into a map of pasts, a festival of the present and a gravelled route of futures you’ll want to raid again and again.
Stuart, one of Scotland’s best-known poets of the past 30 years, lives by the beautiful Solway Coast in Galloway. BBC Scotland’s Poet in Residence 2017-18, he has written and broadcast many TV & radio programmes about the area, its stunning landscapes and its vital place in the country’s past and present. Stuart has published many well-known books about Galloway and writes both in English and his own Scots language. In 2020 he was publicly voted Scotland’s Scots Writer of the Year and this year has written acclaimed national advertising poems for Scottish Water and Lidl, as well as being a special guest on BBC Radio 4 Today. His favourite place in the whole of Dumfries and Galloway? He finds a different one wherever and whenever he finds a new road or path on his own Galloway Way.
Dumfries and Galloway – where Scotland begins and where you’ll find very much of the Highlands in the Lowlands. And where Scotland ends, at the Mull of Galloway: next stop the Isle of Man. It’s not only a beautiful and inspirational region, it’s a landscape which has produced many of Scotland’s most famous folk, art, stories and is the very birthplace of the bicycle itself from Kirkpatrick MacMillan in 1839.
Raiders Gravel is a fantastic new event bringing many people to Galloway who won’t have been here before. No matter whether cycling, walking, holidaying or passing through, people will discover an area which they’ll have known little to nothing about but will quickly fall in love with. It’s very much an area of history and hills, stravaigs and smeddum, cycling and sightseeing and lifelong memories.
About Stuart
Stuart, one of Scotland’s best-known poets of the past 30 years, lives by the beautiful Solway Coast in Galloway. BBC Scotland’s Poet in Residence 2017-18, he has written and broadcast many TV & radio programmes about the area, its stunning landscapes and its vital place in the country’s past and present. Stuart has published many well-known books about Galloway and writes both in English and his own Scots language. In 2020 he was publicly voted Scotland’s Scots Writer of the Year and this year has written acclaimed national advertising poems for Scottish Water and Lidl, as well as being a special guest on BBC Radio 4 Today. We are proud to say he will be Raiders Gravel’s Festival Poet.
