Alexander McKay, as well as giving occasional talks on Thomas Blake Glover (he was also an adviser to a BBC Great Explorers documentary about him), and writing articles on Japan, continues to struggle with an account of his life offshore. He spent around thirty years in the oil industry, much of the time overseas but also more than a decade in the North Sea, and was traumatized by some horrific incidents. He still suffers from nightmares and is trying to exorcise these by writing about them.
The father of two adult daughters and grandfather of three, he lives in Edinburgh with his Japanese wife of forty years.