I was aged five swinging gently on a tree rope when I noticed a bus being driven slowly over the Tummel Bridge on the outskirts of Pitlochry, Scotland's gateway to the highlands. I recognised the driver - it was my Daddy.

Mammy was working hard at her laundry. She'd previously boiled a large metal bath on the campfire and refused to look. "Mammy," I called excitedly, "daddy has a bus - a big blue one!"

He drove on to our campsite braking next to our then home; a converted show wagon.

He pulled open a sliding door and called, "Jeannie my darling wife, see what a grand mansion I have for you."

Up until then, she'd lived a hard life my mother, horse and cart, tent dwelling, didn't want the old ways which were fast becoming unsustainable for her family of eight girls. The war was over, opportunities were everywhere - it was time for change.

"Tinkering is dead Charlie," she reminded him. "The road has only hardship. Take your bus back and start looking for a house."

Daddy gently steadied her onto her feet and said, "come on lass, another few years on the road before we turn our backs on the ancestors." He walked her into the bus and for the next ten years this was our home. My forever holiday; my freedom!

At eighteen I eventually left the old ways to marry but it would stay with me until it began like a gushing cauldron to rush through a waiting pen.

My Tinker blood was as pure as the driven snow; wild and wondrous tales of myth and legend awaited birth. Through my books I am once more - the Scotia Bairn.

Come friends and share nights around campfires, taste virgin water at its source, listen to the weasel pierce the eardrums of the hypnotised rabbit. Hear the monarch of the glen as he challenges his foes at rutting. Watch in wonderment the rainbow coloured spine of a Scottish Salmon battling through rapids, onwards to her favoured spawning water.

In these books awaits your invitation... Come friends; let me guide you through the ways of the misty wanderers...