Alan lived in Westerton, a village within the Glasgow suburb of Bearsden from early childhood and was educated at Westerton Primary, Bearsden Academy and Napier University.

He moved to Edinburgh age 19 and has lived in in the  capital ever since, where he can found singing and playing guitar in various bars around the city (at least he did until the lockdown closed off that particular avenue of pleasure.)

For the past 35 years he has operated as a freelance journalist, specialising in sport but also contributing articles on music, finance, property, cinema and travel to various publications as diverse as The Sunday Times and the John O’Groats Journal. Alan is a lifelong  (and long suffering) Partick Thistle supporter and has wide and varied musical tastes including Deep Purple, Whitesnake, Mott The Hoople, Eric Clapton and The Old Crow Medicine show.He is widowed with two grown up children and two beautiful granddaughters.