'Suicide note' sparks panic . . and the start of Brian's writing career

Published on Monday 5 October 2009 09:55

IT is perhaps not the image that would inspire most people to put pen to paper.

But Brian Dillon was so moved by witnessing the suicide of a neighbour that he wrote a poem depicting what he thought her last words might have been.

Not only did the suicide note poem lead him into a whole new world of creative writing, but it also sparked a dramatic police search after a fellow student at Edinburgh University found it and took it to be real.

The misunderstanding then led Mr Dillon to follow it up with a short story entitled Sorry – and has kept on writing ever since.

He has now had his first book published, after dreaming about it since his brush with writing 15 years ago.

Mr Dillon, from Wester Hailes, said: "I wrote a suicide note of what I thought she might have written and foolishly left it at Edinburgh University.

"I was staying at my mother's for a few days and because nobody could reach me, the police broke into my house to see if I was OK."

Mr Dillon's science fiction novel Galactic Peacemaker has been published by YouWriteOn and is available to buy from online bookstores.

Its publication has been a life-long dream for Mr Dillon, and is also a great achievement for him as he is dyslexic.

Mr Dillon, 60, said: "I've been writing on and off for about 15 years but I've been writing this book seriously for three years.

"All I wanted was to see it in print. I didn't do it to make money. I don't know how good or bad it is but it doesn't matter because all I wanted was for people to get the chance to read it."

A spokesman for Stevenson College said: "Brian has been a client at West Edinburgh Action, a department of Stevenson College Edinburgh that works with the local community to provide help in developing employability skills and widen opportunities into learning.

"Brian has been helped in various ways over a number of years including confidence building, learning to suit his requirements, job search, in-work support and IT development.

"Brian's aim was to write a story that was universal and appealed to a wide range of readers.

"He wanted to create an old fashioned story of good triumphing over evil which covered a number of contemporary themes.

"Brian is keen to stress that the main purpose of the story is to entertain."