ONE of Auchinleck’s most famous sons is the centre of a BBC documentary to be screened this weekend as the build-up to September’s referendum continues.

As Scotland stands on the brink of a momentous decision, Andrew Marr explores the writers who have reflected, defined and challenged Scottish national identity over the last 300 years And he begins with local literary hero James Boswell.

Andrew Marr filmed the Boswell-inspired episode of ‘Great Scots: The Writers Who Shaped a Nation’ at Auchinleck House, which was built between 1755 and 1760 by James Boswell’s father, Alexander, 8th Laird of Auchinleck.

Key members of the hugely successful Boswell Book Festival provided advice and consultation throughout as they showed the BBC crew around Auchinleck, pointing out its landmarks and examples of Boswell’s remaining legacy.

The crew even filmed during this year’s festival.

Book Festival Chairman James Knox said: “I’m thrilled that Boswell and Auchinleck have received such recognition from Andrew Marr and the BBC.

“The Trust was closely involved in advising the programme makers and even opened the Boswell Mausoleum in Auchinleck Church.

“It’s truly great that our campaign to raise Boswell’s profile has been met with such success.” Boswell was a man torn between his patriotic duty at home and his desire for fame and adventure elsewhere, it is Boswell’s colourful life and work that captures vividly the uneasy relationship between England and Scotland in the century that followed the act of union.

Marr’s Boswell journey started when his mother gave him a copy of his diaries when he was just a boy and it’s not hard to see why the tales of a young, ambitious Scot dazzled by the bright lights of London captured his imagination.

In the opening episode Marr retraces Boswell’s journey from his privileged but austere childhood in East Ayrshire, to the vibrant streets of London and on to the epic wilderness of the Western Isles.

Andrew Marr declared Boswell to be “a hero of mine” and proclaims: “James Boswell - the father of modern journalism, the inventor of the literary biography and prolific diarist.

“As a writer Boswell didn’t deal in myths but in real men and women with real passions and real appetites. He wanted to record their actual words - the insults the anecdotes the beliefs.” Marr describes Auchinleck House as: “A slice of Jane Austen slap bang in the heart of Ayrshire”.

The episode will air on BBC 2 on Saturday August 16 at 9.15pm.