Interview with The Herald
My Place: Carmen Reid 
by Susan Swarbrick

St Cyrus beach, Aberdeenshire.

At heart I’m an urban girl – natural habitat wine bars and cafes – but I grew up near St Cyrus and have been going to the beach there since I was tiny.

It has a glorious stretch of sand that goes on and on for miles. It’s amazing how empty it is. Even when the car park is full the beach never feels busy.

There is a cliff at the back which goes all the way around and is home to a nature reserve. So the area has it all really: clifftop walks, sand, rock pools and these really big climbing rocks from which I’m always having to fish my daredevil children. There’s also this amazing boardwalk that goes from the car park, all along the dunes and over the old riverbed.

When I was a child I used to go swimming, although being the North Sea, it was absolutely freezing! I would get so cold I’d be completely white and would have to lie on the sand in the sun to get warm again.

Every year the school picnic would be on St Cyrus beach but it always seemed to be dreadful weather. We’d be huddling behind the rocks trying to get the sand out of our sandwiches and daring each other to go for a paddle.

Now I take my own children Sam (9) and Claudie (5) and we make sandcastles, go paddling and collect driftwood. Not just in summer – we go all year round and get buffeted by the wind.

My parents still live up there and whenever I visit I make sure I go to the beach almost every day.

The author was born near Montrose and lives in Glasgow with her husband Thomas and their two children. Her fifth novel The Personal Shopper is published by Corgi on July 2, priced GBP6.99.