Dig into tall tales from Craig’s travels abroad

Selkirk’s Craig Douglas has spent more than 30 years making sure offshore rigs in every corner of the world are operating within the rules.

The 64-year-old grandfather’s training company is regarded as one of the best and most progressive in the business, and now his memoirs, Circulate Bottoms Up, is charting highly and critics are queuing up to post five-star reviews.

Craig admits the pandemic lockdown, which has prevented him travelling for work, allowed him the time to finally sit down to research and write his own story.

He explained: “It was a friend of my wife who said how much she enjoyed my stories about the places I visited and the people I worked with, and she suggested I wrote some of them down.

“Since March 2020, I’ve not been able to travel to Vietnam an d the other countries I normally conduct training in, which gave me plenty time to start writing. Circulate Bottoms Up is really just about what I have experienced since I joined the oil industry in 1986.

“Everything in the book, however unlikely some of it may sound, is true.

“It’s about the characters I’ve met, the horrific accidents I’ve witnessed, the places I’ve seen, the changes that have happened, and the dangers I’ve faced through political unrest and coups.”

In the book, Craig introduces readers to Mexican pirates, ill-mannered Americans, Scottish psychos, and even a spear-throwing Indonesian picket line.

The safety expert dodges Brazilian kidnappers and Nigerian militia, convinces a South African film-crew his workmate is Diego Maradona, and somehow flees Qatar authorities with his liberty and a suitcase of banknotes.

Craig, who is a former chairman of his hometown’s football club, added: “The message I hope to convey in Circulate Bottoms Up is that no matter what life throws at you, you simply pick yourself up, dust yourself down and keep going.”

Visit Amazon and search for Craig Douglas, where the paperback and Kindle formats of the book are both available.