A 91-year-old retired businessman from the west of Scotland has today published his second novel to show that, with the right attitude, old age can still be about achievement.

Gray Laidlaw, who now lives in the Erskine Home for ex-Service men and women in Bishopton, become a first-time author three years ago at the age of eighty-eight, with his novel Past But Very Present.

His new novel, Shadow of Treachery, also partly set in the Second World War, is about love across the generations and how the past can cast long and deadly shadows.

“I wanted to publish this book to show that, even in old age, you can still achieve things,” says Gray. “Old age shouldn’t be about what you can’t do any more, but about all the things that you can still do.”

After attending St Andrew’s University, Gray served in the RAF during the war, primarily in the development of early radar, latterly posted to HQ RAF Fighter Command in charge of radar on all night fighters.

It was also there in 1943, that he met his wife Margaret who was a WRAF Section Officer. They were married in 1944 and have two children.

After the war, Gray enjoyed a successful business career in Glasgow, only taking up writing after he retired from the glass trade. “I’ve been very lucky to have had wonderful years at St Andrews University and in the RAF, and a long and happy marriage to my dear wife,” says Gray. Like his first novel, Shadow of Treachery is also dedicated to his wife, who died in 1998.

Shadow of Treachery has been self-published by Trafford Publishing.

Editor – Third Age.