A WRITER who was determined to find his former teacher after making a promise to her when he was just 11 was quickly reunited with her thanks to social media.

Kenny Boyle took to Twitter in a bid to find his primary seven teacher Mrs McGlennan. The appeal went viral and by the end of the day, he had been sent her email address.

The 37-year-old attended Our Lady of the Missions Primary in Thornliebank and revealed how Mrs McGlennan had an “immeasurably huge” impact on his writing when he was a boy.

He explained that the last thing she said to him at the end of his primary school journey was “promise when you get your first book published, you’ll send me a copy”.

Kenny, who is a full-time actor and playwright, has written his debut book, The Tick and The Tock of The Crocodile Clock, which will be released in May.

He said: “We’re going to meet up sometime in the near future for a coffee. I don’t have the book to give her yet, it’s still in the post so it should be with me in the next few days. When I get it we’ll have a chat and catch up on the last 26 years of our lives.

“We spoke over email yesterday, and it was lovely. She’s 74 and she’s still teaching. She teaches refugees and asylum seekers. It’s just so right because she’s such an incredible teacher.

"She loved her job so much and still does and it’s great that she’s doing this tangible good in the world. It’s just incredible to know.

“She is the person that made me realise that people, beyond my parents and my family who were always very supportive, can value things and made me think that writing might be a career I could have, and it might be something that was worth doing, and not just a waste of my time.

“She had an immeasurably huge impact because support from an authority figure can change your entire outlook. She totally changed my opinion on whether it was worthwhile to write or not.”

READ MORE: Glasgow man in bid to find former teacher after making promise when he was just 11

Kenny was amazed to have found Mrs McGlennan, whose first name is Margaret, so quickly, and revealed two people had actually put him in contact with her.

He said: “I didn’t know if I would have found her at all when I put the post out. I had so little information, I just had her surname, so I was like ‘I’ve got no chance’. But then I had MP’s retweeting it and by the end of the day, yeah, magic happened so it was incredibly quick. Twitter is so powerful when it feels like it.

“Two people actually put me in contact with her, kind of at the same time. One was her granddaughter, and that’s the one that I saw first but around about the same time her nephew’s wife also sent a message with a picture of her reading my post that I didn’t see until later, so I think poor Mrs McGlennan was getting contacted by people all day long being told ‘there’s this guy on Twitter looking for you’!

“I’m so looking forward to meeting. We talked about some of my friends, her old pupils, and she remembers everything so clearly and it’s unbelievable because it was 27 years ago, and she still remembers all this stuff. It’s amazing.”

Kenny, who played the lead character in Lost in Christmas and has appeared in Scot Squad, was born on the Isle of Lewis.

He went to school in East Renfrewshire and moved to Shawlands when he was studying at college and university.

His debut novel is available to pre-order now and will be released in May.

He said: “I got diagnosed with anxiety and depression in 2019, which I always kind of knew I had but getting a diagnosis was kind of weirdly freeing because now I had a name for it.

“During lockdown I started thinking about how it affected my life. So, I wrote this book which is basically about anxiety and depression but also a story of a young woman who tries to steal a priceless work of art. So, on its surface, it’s a heist but deep down it's about friendship and mental health.”

To purchase a copy, click here.