Sunday afternoons on Radio 4 are not, as a rule, headline-generating. But last weekend’s programme Tremolo arrived in the wake of a raft of newspaper stories highlighting its central revelation; that Scottish singer-songwriter Justin Currie, front man of Del Amitri, has been diagnosed with Parkinson’s.

Tremolo delicately explored the impact of that diagnosis on Currie and on his friends and family.

It began with Currie playing - or trying to play - one of Del Amitri’s signature tunes, Nothing Ever Happens. He had to give up after a minute.

“The plectrum is just squeezing out of my hand. I can’t really do it anymore. This was the first thing that I noticed I couldn’t play properly and I didn’t know why,” Currie explained.

“This is a song that I’ve played thousands and thousands of times. When you’re doing something you know really well, like riding a bike or something, and you suddenly can’t do it properly anymore you think you’re going mad.”

In this case, however, the problem is more physical than mental. A shake in his hand that Currie has given the name “Gavin”.

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Gavin, Currie said, “is an underminer and an intermittent reminder that I’m ill and unsteady.”

In turn, this has undermined his own sense of self.

“As lead singer and songwriting leader, steadiness has been my strongest suit,” Currie suggested. “I might be a mediocrity, but I’m always there, reliable and consistent. Now I’m somewhere else, distracted and flaky.”

Not all the time, it should be said. When I spoke to Currie for The Herald Magazine back in January he was deliciously sarky and sparky; still the peacock pop star. There was nothing mediocre about him at all. But Tremolo offered, understandably, a more introspective, at times even nostalgic self-portrait.

“I’ll come to, 26 again,” he fantasised at one point, “setting out on this adventure with a band and a bass guitar, fit as a fiddle, strong as an ox.”

There will be a few of us who would wish the same. But the reality is different and Currie knows stoicism is the only option he has. “If you’re going to be happy you’ve got to live in the present,” he told us. He deserves credit for doing just that.

The Herald: Simple MindsSimple Minds (Image: free)

Still, talking about nostalgia … Last Sunday on Radio Scotland Billy Sloan interviewed Jim Kerr and Charlie Burchill in Australia as Simple Minds prepared to play Sydney Opera House.

“I attended their first ever gig at Satellite City in Glasgow in 1978,” Sloan reminded us.

Now, some 46 years later Sloan was on the other side of the world where the Glasgow band received their first ever taste of success.

He spoke to Kerr and Burchill, as well as the band’s manager and the Australian A&R man who signed them to Virgin. He even met the Scottish singer Mary Kiani, originally from Drumchapel and now resident in Sydney, who some of you may remember from a couple of dance hits with The Time Frequency in the early 1990s.

Playing at the Sydney Opera House had long been an ambition for Simple Minds. They ended up performing two shows there on the same day. And Sloan was along for the ride. But then he has been since 1978.

While we’re talking about Radio Scotland’s musical coverage, it’s worth noting that Deacon Blue’s Ricky Ross was recently named Country Music Association International Broadcaster of the Year for his Another Country show. The distance between Pacific Quay and Nashville is not so far after all. Radio Scotland's music output remains one of its strongest suits.

There has been some grumbling about Radio 3 dumbing down of late and Sunday’s Sound of Cinema day certainly saw some social media fallout. From what I heard of it, though, it seemed like a genuine attempt to engage thoughtfully with film music (something Radio 3 has a history of, it should also be said).

In the latest episode of Private Passions Edinburgh-based film-maker Mark Cousins chose Doris Day, Elisabeth Lutyens and Liz Fraser singing Song to the Siren, whilst articulating the crossover between music and film.

“Most filmmakers aspire to be musicians, I would say. Most films aspire to the status of music,” he suggested. Oppenheimer as opera anyone?

Listen Out For

Free Thinking, Radio 3, Wednesday, 10pm

It’s been 900 years since David I became the Scottish King, and 600 years since James I ascended the Scottish throne. In this episode of Free Thinking Anne McElvoy examines Scotland’s ideas of monarchy.