AFTER years as an Evening Times paperboy, John MacKay always dreamed of one day working for the newspaper.

There were no openings for him in the summer of 1986 when he was looking for his first job in journalism and our loss was STV's gain.

The 50-year-old's career started when he joined the Sunday Post as a junior reporter, moving on to BBC Radio Scotland and then being headhunted by STV bosses as a newsreader.

Now anchorman of the channel as well as current affairs programme Scotland Tonight, his 20-year anniversary at STV was on the day of the independence referendum results last year.

The pivotal date led him to think about what had changed in Scotland in the past 20 years. In a reflective mood while leafing through old diaries and scripts, he said he soon realised he had the material for a book.

Notes of a Newsman is published today and at the launch tonight at Waterstones in Argyle Street, Glasgow, MacKay will offer an insight into some of the biggest stories he has covered over the years and what goes on behind the cameras.

“When I joined STV we would never have seen the referendum happening. We might have seen the Scottish Parliament but we certainly would not have seen the country coming this close to independence,” he said.

The book follows MacKay’s story as a journalist, intertwined with the political development of his country and how much Scotland has dramatically changed over the years.

The journalist with two grown-up sons who grew up in Hillington and still lives in Renfrewshire with his wife Jo, started working during the Thatcher era.

Diaries meticulously kept throughout his career cover heartbreaking stories such as the Dunblane tragedy as well as interviews with first ministers.

He remembers being crammed into a small video room with Alex Salmond while he changed shirts to appear on a television lunchtime phone-in and being left with concussion when he had to do a piece to camera in Seville for Celtic’s UEFA cup final after being hit by a bottle.

One of his most memorable interviews was recently on Scotland Tonight when cyclist Graeme Obree openly talked about suicide.

“The way he spoke about the mindset that takes you there – he, of course, had attempted suicide – it was nothing I had ever heard before and I hope people got a lot from it,” he said.

One year on from the referendum and with the game-changing May General Election behind us, what does he see next for Scotland?

“The most you can look at is the next election in Scotland and I think it is generally accepted that the SNP are going to do very well. Whether there’s a Corbyn bound, whether Kezia Dugdale does manage to rejuvenate Labour in Scotland, that is open to question.

“That is part of the conclusion to the book. You talk to experts, specialists, analysts, all sorts of people and nobody gets it all right.”

Notes of a Newsman by John MacKay is published by Luath Press.