TV broadcaster Kirsty Wark the 10 dinner guests I would invite

TV broadcaster Kirsty Wark tells us the 10 people she’d have as her ideal dinner guests and what she’d serve them.

“I’d have family at the heart of my table”

THE POET SEAMUS HEANEY

I know I do a lot of political interviews plenty recently, of course but I wouldn’t have anyone from the world of politics at my dinner table.

There are people I find very interesting in politics, but in terms of conversation, there’s no one I’d invite.

However, poetry really touches me and Irish poet Seamus was one of the people I’ve most enjoyed interviewing.

I interviewed him several times over the years, including when he got the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1995. His thoughtfulness came through and he was just a wonderful poet.

He talked about his rural farm upbringing but he had a lovely line from Digging where he says:

“Between my finger and my thumb

The squat pen rests

I’ll dig with it”

Particularly at this time, I think that’s an interesting idea.

MARY, QUEEN OF SCOTS

She’s just endlessly fascinating and such an accomplished woman in many ways.

She was so educated, her tapestries were wonderful and she wrote beautifully.

She had been Queen of France and Queen of Scotland and there she was, locked up by Elizabeth.

She was subjected to such appalling cruelty and I’d want to ask her how she got through that for all those years.

MY GREAT-GRANDPARENTS Mr & Mrs FORREST

I’d have family at the heart of my dinner table in the shape of my great-grandparents on both sides.

On my mother’s side are Mr and Mrs Forrest. They had fruit farms and tomato houses on the Clyde.

What I’d really like to find out about is how their fortunes changed in the mid-1800s.

The Clyde Valley is the perfect growing area and they turned a lot of their fruit farms to glass to grow tomatoes.

That was the new thing, producing tomatoes, and I’d want to find out how they got on.

MY GREAT-GRANDPARENTS Mr & Mrs McMILLAN

I didn’t know any of my great-grandparents they were dead by the time I was born but the real mystery lies with my other great-grandparents, Alexander and Janet McMillan.

They went out to New York in the late 1800s.

My great-grandfather was an ironworker, which I reckon meant he worked on the skyscrapers and bridges.

There was either a baby born during the crossing to America or taken on the boat, but that baby died.

There were several other children two were born when they came back to Glasgow, while three were born and lived in Brooklyn.

I think the eldest of them was my grandmother Annie, who later married John Wark.

She came back to Anniesland in Glasgow when she was eight and she taught here until she was 70.

The thing is that she obviously had a very interesting early life but I don’t know anything about it.

I was really close to my gran and I used to stay with her a lot at her house in Glasgow.

I remember that the bookcases were full of lovely books that she and John had given each other.

Her time in America was something she very rarely spoke of and I really can’t believe I didn’t ask her more.

What I really want to know is that having made such a massive break in leaving Scotland for a new life in America, what was wrong with it?

What was so bad about what they found out there that they came back?

The problem is there is no record of the family at all.

I hired a researcher to look into it and she managed to find a record of the crossing.

Bizarrely we can’t find where they lived or anything more about them.

I would dearly love to know more and if I had them for dinner I could finally satisfy my curiosity and find out just what happened.

ARTISTS ARCHIE FORREST, JD FERGUSSON and SAMUEL PEPLOE

Archie’s both a neighbour of mine and a friend.

So, I’d definitely want to have him as a guest along with two of the famous Scottish Colourists, Fergusson and Peploe.

I have some of Archie’s paintings and he gets such amazing depth into them.

It’s wonderful the way Archie speaks about art and I’d love to hear him talk to Fergusson and Peploe about paintings as he’s very much in that tradition.

AUTHOR LOUISA MAY ALCOTT

She wrote Little Women, one of my favourite books of my childhood.

When I was growing up I didn’t know she was a feminist. She must have had the most extraordinary education.

It was a tough life because of her independent spirit she didn’t really get on with her parents.

But she made her way as an author and wrote this novel which has become one of the most famous books in the world.

So, I’d love to have her at the table to talk about books and about her life on the east coast of America in the mid-1800s.