To celebrate LGBT History Month, I want to look back at an important moment from Scotland’s recent history. Eight years ago this month, on the 4th of February 2014, the Scottish Parliament passed a momentous piece of legislation that campaigners had been working towards for decades.

Watching a community protect their neighbours from deportation in Glasgow made me want to write about how Scotland has been shaped by migration. It’s influenced everything about our country as we know it, from people moving across continents thousands of years ago right up to our most recent new Scots.

This Sunday, 21st of February, is International Tourist Guides Day, and since the theme this year is rural tourism and storytelling it seems like the perfect time to write about Scottish folklore! Although folkloric tales exist all over the country, to me they feel particularly bound up with the landscapes and atmosphere of the Scottish Highlands.

Burns Night is celebrated on the 25th of January both in Scotland and by members of the Scottish diaspora around the world, and traditionally it involves eating some haggis, reciting some Burns poetry and general Scottish merriment (read: drinking). But Robert Burns himself died in 1796, so what made him such an enduring figure in Scottish culture that we still celebrate his birthday over 200 years later?