When Archie Hind was twenty he enrolled in a literature evening class at Glasgow University. A grant then enabled him to study for a year at Newbattle College. Although regarded as one of the finest writers to emerge from Glasgow in the twentieth century, Hind’s literary reputation rests on his one completed book, ‘The Dear Green Place’ (1966). Its story of a poor man from Glasgow’s east end who is determined to become a writer won The Guardian First Book Award and, more importantly perhaps, was a great influence on the work of James Kelman, William McIlvanney and other Scottish novelists whose books are concerned with working-class life. Moffat was involved in the Scottish literary scene from the 1960s onwards and painted many of Scotland’s poets and writers.