I was born and brought up in Dundee. During the 1960s and 70s it was a city in decline. The jute-spinning and whaling elites had built riverside mansions, drunk and otherwise frittered their wealth away.

I was around for the collapse of the docks and the Timex factory. Massive local government and police corruption continued to punish the poor and keep the city underdeveloped and ugly. DC Thomson’s portfolio of comics and incurious newspapers trundled on, and a comfortable bubble of university and small business types floated in the midst of punitive housing schemes. As brown-envelope scandals came and went, a young person could learn a lot about the world. While Britain becomes Dundee writ large at least I’m not disappointed. I never expected anything else.

AL Kennedy: ‘Like small-town folk everywhere, I did appreciate what there was of culture.’ Photograph: Murdo Macleod/The Guardian

But Dundee also gave me life-long inspirations in nature. Looking at the city remains dismaying, but it has a view of varied, rich and lovable country. The Cairngorms and the fishing villages of Fife aren’t far. I grew up with reed beds, cuckoo and curlew calls, autumn geese skeins, light sheeting over the Tay estuary and the sight of basking seals. If I’m too far from the sea I get anxious.

And, like small-town folk everywhere, I did appreciate what there was of culture. As a toddler I was awed by the vast book palace that was the Perth Road Library. The Carnegie-funded edifice suggested books were important. They are, so that was good to know early. I never dreamed I’d end up writing books – just in time for there to be no more libraries.

The Dundee Repertory theatre, like many Dundonian buildings, had a habit of burning down. We all spent what seemed lifetimes raising funds for a proper theatre and after the new Rep opened I basically lived there: in the youth theatre, working backstage, reviewing.

The feeling of being at the bottom of a well and having to scream gave rise to a great deal of artistic expression

The sense that Dundee was ignored or laughed at in the rest of Scotland was powerful. And Scotland itself was still encouraged to be ashamed of its accents, forgetful of its history and generally just apologetic. The feeling of being at the bottom of a well and having to scream gave rise to a great deal of artistic expression. Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design slowly seeded the place with artworks, and a generation of visiting and resident authors decided to write the screams down and smuggle them out – including Don Paterson, John Burnside, WN Herbert, Michael Marra and myself. Next would come world-beating game design, blending dark humour, violence and dystopian cynicism … Can’t think where all that came from.

Like many Dundonians of my generation, I fled. I moved to Glasgow for 25 years, a place filled with passion, self-education. I miss Dundee’s humour, its love of the bizarre, its kindness, its priority on humanity and its tough love for the arts. The only good thing about not living there is coming back and seeing how beautiful it can be – an Arts and Crafts city, its sunsets like furnaces.