I honestly thought I'd started a thread about this here, I seem to have been mistaken.
After announcing in April of this year that he was "officially very poorly" scottish author Iain M Banks passed away from cancer on June 9th.
I was lucky enough to meet and interview the man in 2007 a truly lovely, funny engaging guy and very approachable by mad bearded irishmen.
He's since had an asteroid named after him but my friend dave h over on the forum was invited to his memorial ceremony. I repost his report here
Iain Banks Memorial Ceremony
This took place in Stirling on Saturday July 6th. A Humanist celebrant led the remembrance which started with two high school friends (Les McFarlane & Ken MacLeod) and a cousin (Alastair Wreford) talking about personal memories of Iain. A musical interlude saw us listening to Jackson Browne's, For A Dancer, and then singing, Always Look On The Bright Side of Life. Mary Wallace who had conducted IainÆs funeral in June then spoke before introducing a number of local writers / friends who read from IainÆs works. Lesley Glaister chose a section from Stonemouth, and Ron Butlin a very sweary extract from The Quarry, before Ian Rankin read from Raw Spirit. So we had Ian Rankin reading the words of Iain Banks, where he (Iain Banks) gets mistaken for him (Ian Rankin). That was odd, and was followed by more music, Mahna Mahna, from the Muppets, and as we departed there was some Led Zepplin, Kashmir.
I felt privileged to be invited, and hopefully to some extent represented the fans.
After announcing in April of this year that he was "officially very poorly" scottish author Iain M Banks passed away from cancer on June 9th.
I was lucky enough to meet and interview the man in 2007 a truly lovely, funny engaging guy and very approachable by mad bearded irishmen.
He's since had an asteroid named after him but my friend dave h over on the forum was invited to his memorial ceremony. I repost his report here
Iain Banks Memorial Ceremony
This took place in Stirling on Saturday July 6th. A Humanist celebrant led the remembrance which started with two high school friends (Les McFarlane & Ken MacLeod) and a cousin (Alastair Wreford) talking about personal memories of Iain. A musical interlude saw us listening to Jackson Browne's, For A Dancer, and then singing, Always Look On The Bright Side of Life. Mary Wallace who had conducted IainÆs funeral in June then spoke before introducing a number of local writers / friends who read from IainÆs works. Lesley Glaister chose a section from Stonemouth, and Ron Butlin a very sweary extract from The Quarry, before Ian Rankin read from Raw Spirit. So we had Ian Rankin reading the words of Iain Banks, where he (Iain Banks) gets mistaken for him (Ian Rankin). That was odd, and was followed by more music, Mahna Mahna, from the Muppets, and as we departed there was some Led Zepplin, Kashmir.
I felt privileged to be invited, and hopefully to some extent represented the fans.
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