Brian D. Osborne was born in 1941 in Glasgow. Working in public libraries, he became President of the ScottishLibrary Association in 1992, until retiring from librarianship in 1995 to concentrate on writing. Specialising inhistorical biographies, Scottish literature, history andculture, he also writes for magazines in the UK and USA. He has written extensively on the Scottish novelist and short-story writer, Neil Munro, and is Secretary of the Neil Munro Society. Ronald Armstrong has had a long career in Scottish education as head teacher of three primary schools. Latterly he was an assistant director of the Scottish Consultative Council on the Curriculum, with a particular responsibility for a major review of the curriculum, especially in the area of environmental studies.