Tam Craven Scottish author & poet

Tam Craven

On the 22nd of June 1987 at precisely 9.30am Tam was working in the graveyard at the Lennox Kincaid Mausoleum, Campsie Glen. The building was being renovated and he was up on the scaffolding pointing stone. Suddenly the scaffold collapsed and he fell twenty feet and was rushed to Stobhill Hospital. He cracked his skull along with broken ribs a punctured lung and a burst knee, apart fae that he was alright!
For a few years he went aboot like an eejit drinking too much and not getting anywhere and he knew he had to change..... his mother was the biggest influence in his life.

He has just finished his 12th book and stills find it hard to believe what he has achieved. Tam has had a wide and varied life and has met so many characters, most of them are in the 100 verse poem "Through and Through".
Many folk who read his work can relate to friends and family they have known..... (Feb.2007)

LOCAL POET DEDICATES BOOK TO MARIE CURIE'S BIG BUILD APPEAL Popular local poet, Tam Craven, has dedicated his hilarious new book, 'My Windaes Ur Steamin' 'N' So Am A', to Marie Curie's appeal for a new Glasgow hospice. He will read a selection of his funniest poems and sign copies of the book at Borders' Buchanan Street bookstore on Thursday 4^th October, 2007 at 7.30pm. Tam's 'tongue in cheek' poems are written in Glaswegian dialect and based on his life in Lennoxtown, Glasgow, and he will donate the proceeds from the first 400 books sold to the appeal. 'My Windaes Ur Steamin' 'N' So Am A' is Tam's seventh poetry book, and through his poems he wittily puts the world to rights and recollects memories from his childhood. The Big Build appeal, which aims to raise £16m by 2009 to build a modern hospice on grounds close to Stobhill hospital, is very close to Tam's heart. Several of Tam's friends and family members, including his dad, died from cancer, and some were nursed at the Glasgow hospice. The book signing event will take place just two days before World Hospice and Palliative Care day, which aims to raise awareness and understanding of the needs of people with cancer and their families. On 6^th October, hundreds of events will take place across the globe to raise funds to support and develop hospice and palliative care services around the world. Tam commented: "Having witnessing the work carried out at the hospice first hand, it's great to be able to give something back. It's vital that the people of Glasgow pull together and help raise these much needed funds, as it really will make a huge difference in people's lives. "My poetry reading and book signing event at Borders looks set to be a fantastic evening, and I hope that people will come along and show their support for this important cause."
Books written by Tam .....

Luath, Clarinda and the Redwood Tree ..... this book, the first in a trilogy was inspired by an actual event on the 25rh of January 1996 when two young boys named Grant Hendrie and Grant Forrest knocked on Tam's door at about nine o' clock at night. They had found a wee Border collie pup that had been running about in the snow and was obviously lost. What a strange coincidence Tam thought, as Robert Burns dog was a Border collie called Luath. Tam looked after the pup for two days and fell in love with him, but he knew the dog had to belong to someone. Lo and behold it turned out he belonged to a Mr Johnstone and he was delighted to get him back, these events inspired Tam to write ........The Luath Trilogy. Luath, Clarinda and the beautiful boy ... is the second book in the trilogy Luath, Clarinda and the bonny purple heather .... is the third book in the Trilogy is a love story and a ghost story and will keep you enthralled right to the last page. It will make you laugh and it will make you cry and make you laugh again. -------------------------------------------------------------------- One of the proudest moments of Tam's life was when his three "Luath" books were accepted in to the Robert Burns cottage at Alloway. And the first book "Luath,Clarinda and the Redwood Tree" is in the Van Morrison Archives. Not bad for an auld brickie fae Campsie !
	Take me Drunk I'm Hame .........this book is probably the funniest and best book Tam has done so far. It has been reprinted three times, and if you like a guid laugh this is the book for you. It is mainly all short true stories about the carry ons Tam and his mates got up to when they lived and worked in nightclubs and bars in Torquay and Blackpool away back in the seventies.


Totties n' mince........is a compilation of all the funny poems that Tam has written over the last 12 years. Some of the titles are... Some More Lies... A tale of a fisherman and a golfer who decide to try each others sports then they end up at the "nineteenth hole" and the lies start.... The Proverbial African...... the title poem is about where the human race came from and that we are all the same anyway it is more important that we know where we are going...... Through and Through .......is a poem with 100 verses! The poem is set in the Commercial bar in Lennoxtown where Tam falls asleep in the toilet and wakes up to discover that he had been locked in the pub. Then three auld friends of his fall through a hole in the sky. Big Sanny Wingate and Tam's father George Craven and Robert Dempsie and Tam starts to give them free beer and whisky A party starts as more and more people fall through the Hole in the Sky. Then Bidgy McLaughlin appears wi' "Wee Jinky" Jimmy Johnstone and Jim Baxter and Davie Cooper and all sorts of local characters and scoundrels, poachers and pigeon men and the "HOLE IN THE WALL GANG" led by the one and only Sir Angus Darroch.