The Bog, the Bahamas, and Beyond

This is a memoir of a person who by his own admission is not particularly noticeable, or known. From the beginnings of the country we now know as Scotland, and the traces of family history in Victorian Britain, the author writes of his journey from working class life in post war Scotland to the world of offshore banking in the seventies, and the maturing years of the baby boomers in America. He captures the innocence of a boyhood that equipped him with a basic education that somehow got him into the banking business, and was a way out of the Bog Road Housing Scheme in Falkirk. Banking in the Caribbean meant sun, sea, and sand, and doing business with tax dodgers and drug dealers. Moving to America meant life in the mainstream, family life in the suburbs, and travel to the main financial centers of the world as an international banker. At age 50 he became a property developer, a business consultant, and part owner of a medieval castle in Scotland.

I left Scotland as a young man, with empty pockets and my wife of six weeks. We were headed to the Bahamas, and the world of offshore banking. This memoir of personal history and experiences was written in the quiet and comfort of the suburbs of Richmond, Virginia, and began in a post war public housing project in Falkirk. It is a story of a nobody, who could be anybody. It just happens to be mine.