I’m Claire, a writer from North Ayrshire.

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I left at sixteen and spent much of my adult life moving around Scotland, England and a little further afield, with settled stretches alongside periods of considerable transience. After a few earlier returns, I eventually found my way home again, where the North Ayrshire coast, familiar places and family history have given me a new sense of being rooted.

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Sport has been part of that journey since childhood. I began playing football and basketball in North Ayrshire and, over the following thirty-five years, found my way in and out of sport in different places and at very different points in my life. I’ve played it, studied it, worked in it, spent long periods away from it and, more recently, returned to playing in my forties.

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Other places brought different things into my life. During my years in Devon, I became more connected to the land and particularly loved the folk traditions around Totnes, including singing nights where older adults would sing songs unaccompanied. There was something about people simply gathering and sharing what they carried, in all the rawness and beauty of the moment, that stayed with me.

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Return

Coming home to North Ayrshire has given me a new vantage point from which to look back across those years. Through writing, I’ve begun revisiting the places I’ve lived, the people I’ve encountered and the things that travelled with me or found me along the way. Sport is part of that story too, and returning to it after many years away has opened up new questions about participation, relationships and belonging.

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I’m now completing a BSc in Sport Coaching & Development at the University of the West of Scotland, where some of those questions are beginning to find another home.

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The writing here follows those threads through place, movement, sport, memory and the stories we carry with us, without necessarily knowing in advance where they will meet.

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As always, I’ll see where the road leads.

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Claire L. Gibb is a North Ayrshire writer exploring place, memory, sport and belonging. Read more of my Writing on Sport.