Desert Places
Written: 1983
BBC Radio Scotland
This was the very first commission I ever received.
I owe a great deal to Stewart Conn, who commissioned it, and Patrick Rayner, who produced it.
When I was visiting Iona, I learnt that by the time of the Reformation, when bands of zealous reformers travelled round Scotland destroying the religious houses, the monastery and nunnery of Iona were in such a bad state they only had one monk and one nun each.
I imagined what might have happened when the monk and the nun met the reformers.