About the book: 1983 / Bernard McLaverty was born in Belfast in 1942. He worked for ten years as a technician in the medical laboratory of Queen's University in Belfast before starting to study English department of the same university. He then moved to Edinburgh, where he taught at a comprehensive school, and currently lives on the Isle of Islay off the west coast of Scotland. He is also the author of the novel Lam, the collection Mysteries and Other Stories, which won a Scottish Arts Council Prize in 1977, and the children's book Man's Search for a True Friend, which he himself illustrated. Drawing from life" is taken from the anthology of stories "Firebird-1", published jointly by the publishing houses "Penguin Books" and "Allen Lane" in 1982. With their permission, we publish McLaverty's story on our pages.