Body & Soul events are Scotland’s foremost mind, body and spirit events’ organiser.  They have been organising fairs all over Scotland for the past fifteen years at numerous prestigious venues including Glasgow’s Royal Concert Hall, Dundee’s Caird Hall, Edinburgh’s Meadowbank Stadium and the Beach Ballroom in Aberdeen.

The two Donalds, Donald McKinney (right in pic) and Donald Busby (left in pic) are at the helm and have recently relocated their offices from Edinburgh to the Northern Coast of Scotland. Thurso in Caithness is now the hub for Body & Soul events and also where the Donalds call home. Donald McKinney, a published author, and Donald Busby, an aspiring artist, chose the location to inspire their creativity.

Both Donalds have a history in bookselling.  Donald McKinney worked with the Glasgow Bookshop Collective in Great Western Rd; Donald Busby started working as a bookseller while still at school and continued working in John Smith’s in Glasgow until graduating from college in 1982. As a student he also worked in The Third Eye Centre (now CCA) in Glasgow, installing art exhibitions and invigilating.

Donald McKinney studied European politics at Stirling and Strathclyde universities and worked as a researcher in the European Government, based in Luxembourg. In the mid eighties, after a brief spell in the Social Security Dept of the Civil Service, Donald Busby worked in Edinburgh’s Fruitmarket Gallery, installing contemporary art exhibitions and running the gallery bookshop. Meanwhile, Donald McKinney was also working in the Civil Service before becoming self employed as a journalist, writing pieces for Scottish national newspapers and magazines.  In 1988, Donald Busby became manager of Scotland’s first New Age bookshop, Body & Soul, in Edinburgh’s Hamilton Place and enjoyed the soaring interest in all things esoteric.

In 1993, the Donalds became owners of Body & Soul bookshop, with Donald Busby managing and Donald McKinney dealing with the accounts whilst also teaching Politics at Edinburgh University and Spanish History and Politics at Stirling University. A few years later, they decided to start organising local fairs as a way of getting the books from the shop out to people around Scotland. This quickly grew to the point where they were organising up to thirty-five fairs in a year including Glasgow, Edinburgh, Perth, Stirling, Aberdeen, Inverness, Galashiels, St Andrews, Haddington, Peebles, Ayr, Castle Douglas, Elgin, Motherwell, Paisley, Newcastle and Harrowgate

In 2003, Body & Soul changed their name to Second Sight and specialised in second hand books. Donald McKinney had his first book Walking the Mist published by Hodder, followed by his second book Celtic Angels. Donald McKinney went on tour around the UK promoting his books giving talks and workshops. In 2005, the Donalds sold Second Sight bookshop and moved Body & Soul to office premises by Ocean Terminal in Leith.  But the book bug was not to disappear and Donald McKinney started selling books online as Doonhill Books.

Now, in Thurso, Doonhill Books continues to expand, Donald McKinney is publishing his third book on Celtic spirituality, Why We Howl and the Moon, and Body & Soul fairs this year take in Aberdeen, Glasgow, Stirling, Dundee and Edinburgh with high profile guest speakers such as Diana Cooper, Ursula James and David Hamilton. As well as organising the fairs, Donald Busby is focusing on his own art and Buddhism.

www.bodyandsoulevents.com

Source: Lyn McNichol PR