Murray Watson (61-66) is the author of a new biography celebrating the life and legacy of one of rugby union's most iconic voices, Bill McLaren. Entitled The Life and Times of Bill McLaren: They’ll be dancing in the streets of Hawick, the book is published by Grosvenor House Publishing and draws on a substantial archive that Murray helped to create, and which has been digitised and preserved by the University of Stirling.

Exploring thousands of personal letters, documents and oral history interviews, the biography traces Bill's life from the meticulously kept scrapbooks of his childhood and his war time service in Italy, through a promising rugby career cut short by tuberculosis, to his work as a PE teacher, journalist and ultimately the most celebrated commentator in rugby union.

The book analyses what made Bill's broadcasting so distinctive, examining his forensic attention to detail and his unique system for collecting, storing and retrieving information. Long before computers became commonplace, he developed his own version of spreadsheets through a series of highly detailed “Big Sheets” which Murray likens to a form of pre-digital artificial intelligence.

A native of Hawick, the Scottish Borders town synonymous with rugby and also Bill McLaren's hometown, Murray first encountered the commentator's distinctive style while a boarder at Pocklington School. Reflecting on those days, he recalls: "We used to watch international rugby matches on a black and white television set... we always enjoyed the pawky humour, erudition and Scottish accent of Bill McLaren in the commentary box."

More than sixty years later, Murray has paid tribute to the man widely regarded as the voice of rugby through this definitive account of his life and work.

To mark the book's publication, Murray shared a photograph of himself seated at Bill McLaren's desk, part of a reconstruction of the commentator's famously chaotic study now on display in the Press Gallery at Murrayfield Stadium.

The Life and Times of Bill McLaren is available online and from bookshops nationwide.