A degree of trouble and strife for crime writer

Published on Wednesday 3 December 2003 00:00

BEST-SELLING city crime writer Ian Rankin has infuriated his wife by inadvertently upstaging her at her degree ceremony.

Miranda Rankin - who met her husband when the pair were students at Edinburgh University in 1981 - was delighted to be receiving a post-graduate degree in public health from the same institution after two years of study.

But just before the ceremony her husband, the UK’s best-selling crime writer, got a letter inviting him to receive an honorary Doctor of Letters degree at the same ceremony today.

Mr Rankin said: "It was a part-time course, but she put in a lot of hard work and was feeling quite proud. Then I got a letter through the door inviting me to accept this honorary degree. She was furious and turned the air blue shouting at me. She worked for her degree and here was me getting mine for nothing."

The author of the Inspector Rebus novels, who graduated from Edinburgh in 1982 with a degree in English Language and Literature, has written a short story for the university’s magazine

Also set to receive honorary degrees today were entrepreneurs Professor Ian Ritchie and Dame Vera Stephanie Shirley.

Prof Ritchie serves as chairman, deputy chairman or director of a number of firms including Digital Bridges and Voxar. He was to receive the honorary degree of Doctor honoris causa. Dame Stephanie, founder of the IT firm Xansa, was also to receive the honorary Doctor honoris causa degree.