'My personal skyway': Author's joy of cycling over Forth Road Bridge as it approaches 60

About the time I was starting to cut my journalistic teeth in Dunfermline in the 1980s, a 12-year-old from the Fife town was taking part in a charity run across the Forth Road Bridge.

The many stories about both that crossing and its railway bridge counterpart that I wrote back then - and since - helped forge my interest in covering transport.

Meanwhile, the young runner, Gavin Francis, who became a doctor and author, developed a life-long interest in bridges, which has culminated in his latest book, The Bridge Between Worlds - A Brief History of Connection.

Published on September 12, it takes the reader across the globe, but Francis keeps returning to the two Forth bridges - and their newish Queensferry Crossing neighbour.

As he jokingly explained to an Edinburgh International Book Festival audience on Friday: “It’s such a fundamental border, as a Fifer who moved to Edinburgh - and also for the Roman empire.”

The Forth Road Bridge and Forth Bridge from rapeseed fields in West Lothian | Lisa Ferguson/The Scotsman

It’s all too easy for those of us lucky enough to live in Scotland to take our magnificent scenery for granted, with Francis praising the “cinematic quality” of the Forth estuary viewed from the south, and the bridges as “emblems of the future rather than practical structures of steel and cement”.

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He said: “I feel as if I don’t live in the shadow of these bridges but in their light. They stand as symbols of the ingenuity of humanity and a reminder there are countless possibilities for human connection that are still unexplored.”

Gavin Francis praised the "cinematic quality" of the bridges in the the Forth estuary | Edinburgh International Book Festival

However, what really captured my imagination was his description of cycling back to Fife over the usually deserted Forth Road Bridge bike lane. He said: “I have the place to myself - it’s like pedalling over my own personal skyway, over the old Roman imperial frontier.”

Gavin Francis described the Forth Road Bridge bike path as his "personal skyway" | Lisa Ferguson/The Scotsman

It was a timely reminder to cherish that magnificent feat of engineering as it approaches its 60th anniversary on September 4.

The bridge was the longest suspension bridge outside the United States when it was opened in 1964, and remains one of the world’s most significant such long-span crossings.

Bereft of most of its traffic since its neighbour opened in 2017, the “Guid Passage” is all the more inviting now for cyclists. I’m looking forward to following in Francis’ tracks to mark its big birthday - especially as I’m about to enter a seventh decade myself.