Allan McGregor on HubPages

Hi, I'm Allan, the baldy guy on the left of the photograph. The good looking one beside me is Deborah, my wife of 27 years.

We have two adult children, Robert and Catriona (Katie). Robert's a soldier in the Scots Guards, the oldest regiment in the British Army, and will soon be heading for Afghanistan, having finished a two year stint on ceremonial duties, guarding Her Majesty the Queen and the Royal Family; mostly at Buckingham Palace, but also at her castles at Windsor and Balmoral. Married, he is father to two of our grandchildren: Billy (4) and Sean (2).

Katie is a full-time wife and mother of our other three grandchildren: Matthew (6), Rachel (4) and Cameron (2).

I am 51-years-old, but, being a gentleman, my wife's age is not up for discussion.

Born in 1958, to a young mother, at that time separated from her husband and living with my father, my initial years were spent in Glasgow's notoriously violent and rundown Bridgeton area.

However, at the age of two I was adopted by an older couple from the well-to-do Glasgow suburb of Bearsden where I was educated at Bearsden Academy which I left in 1975 to work in a laboratory, and study chemistry at college.

Just over three years later, I changed careers to become a constable of Strathclyde Police, in Glasgow's Maryhill Division, since made famous by the TV series Taggart. That lasted nearly eight-and-a-half years before I moved on to try a few alternative careers over the next decade or so, in sales, computer programming, the civil service and banking, before settling into nursing for thirteen years, although I am now looking to move again. All the while, however, I never lost two parallel passions; namely writing and my Christian faith.

I write prolifically and passionately about anything that interests me. A member of Mensa for some 25 years, my high IQ and retentive mind have served me well not only in writing but in studying the Bible, to further facilitate which I learned a good deal of biblical Greek and Hebrew along the way. A Christian since 1971, my faith is nevertheless based on much more than mere head-knowledge, but also on practical experience and spiritual application.

Suffice to say, my varied curriculum vitae has proven invaluable in informing my writing, which is seldom restricted to theory alone, but more often than not founded on personal experience.

My background in science has given me a methodical and logical way of thinking, while my time on the police has resulted in a forensic eye for inconsistency in evidence or argument. Computer programming honed my appreciation of syntax because computers do not respond to chaotic instruction, whilst many of my carrer paths, like the police, sales, the civil service and nursing, have involved working with the public, enhancing my 'people skills' and application of practical psychology.

As a result, while I tend to write about what I know, I have never found this to be an undue restriction because I know a lot - not merely about a lot of things, but a lot about those things. I do not like shallow writing or superficial arguments, nor do I patronise or condescend to my readers by offering half-baked or ill thought out or poorly presented idea. Rather, I believe that 'Dumbing Down' should be left to the dummies. Most people who are capable of reading an article are capable of understanding more than the popular media seems to think. I respect that, and I try to address that desire and satisfy it.

I could go on and on, and on... But I long ago realised that the best way to present who I am and what I believe is simply to express these through my writing and allow the reader to form ther own opinion.