INTRODUCING DOUG GAY - 4 CORNERS FESTIVAL 2024
26/01/2024
He strode out across a muddy Greenbelt field. Janice’s friend new him from old youth fellowship days and went over and chatted. He was Doug Gay and he was the singer in Candy Says. He was so cool.
No less cool when he played MainStage a couple of years later in the new Calvin’s Dream, the dark shades, the wind blowing back his hair. Did I say cool.
Calvin’s Dream were on the Sticky Music record label and I got to know those guys and therefore Doug again. There was lots going on under the cool. He seemed a sharp fella, theologically astute.
In 1992 he arrived at a festival we were organising in County Wicklow. Arklight. Over the next few years I got to know Doug as a very fine human being, even more theologically astute than I thought and a fine communicator.
I loved every seminar he led at Greenbelt even when the subject didn’t seem to be my thing. There was always a thought or line to take away and process.
That is all 20 years ago, some of it 30, and every chance I have gotten I try to spend some time with Doug. Janice and I value his counsel and how he widens our reading and thoughts and the way he nurtures us.
He’s a Church of Scotland minister, he is a Senior Lecturer in Theology and Religious Studies at Glasgow University. He has made two albums in recent years, both reviewed on this blog, and authored various books on theology and culture.
I am delighted to say that Doug is speaking at the 4 Corners Festival this year. How did it take so long!?
As well as the Radio Ulster morning service (11th), he will be our key note speaker on February 11th@7pm in the wonderful renovation that is St. Comgall’s on Davis Street, Doug will speak under the title Towards a Culture of Hope. I have heard Doug in private and publicly speak of hope and imagination for decades and he is the man for such a night as this.
Come on over. As well as Doug there will be songs from Eilidh Patterson, an exhibition about the story of Presbyterianism In West Belfast and I am sure a short look back at the entire festival before Doug inspires us out into the rest of the year.
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