[6] In her teens, Gillies sang, danced, and played at cèilidhs, concerts, and Mòds, and even introduced a touch of Gaelic culture to BBC Radio Scotland's Children's Hour.

In 1962, three months after leaving Oban High School, she won the coveted Women's Gold Medal[7] for singing at the Royal National Mòd—an honour which brought with it a raft of opportunities to perform in concerts, tours, folk-clubs, and festivals on both sides of the Border.

She took part in a televised folk concert in Glasgow's Kelvin Hall, organized by poet/folklorist Hamish Henderson, where she sang alongside Scots and Irish traditional performers such as Jeannie Robertson and The Chieftains.

In 1965, Gillies graduated MA (Celtic and English) from the University of Edinburgh, and went on to complete a post-graduate year as research student/transcriber in the School of Scottish Studies, at a time when the collection of Scotland's heritage of Gaelic song was at its peak.

She spent the next five years completing her apprenticeship both as a singer, under the tutelage of German Lieder experts Helene Isepp,[10] Ilse Wolf[11] and Paul Hamburger, and also (to "have something to fall back on", as her grandmother always said) as a secondary school teacher of English, History and Music.

Having acquired a Postgraduate Certificate in Education from the University of London (PGCE), she went on to teach in a huge, progressive, arts-oriented comprehensive school in Bicester, Oxfordshire, famed for the size and quality of its Music Department: its impressive end-of-term productions involved the whole community and included Wagner's Die Meistersinger and Verdi's Nabucco (with Gillies in the rôle of Abigail).

[13] Showcasing Gillies' wide musical repertoire and also featuring her talent as a storyteller and illustrator, this show gained her the rather ironic title of "Best TV Newcomer of the Year", as voted for by readers of the Daily Record for TRICS, the Television and Radio Industries Club of Scotland.

In each programme Anne told a separate love story through music and dance with the help of a troupe of male Broadway dancers, and each featured a male star of film and stage: George Chakiris (American Academy Award-winning actor/dancer, best known for creating the rôle of Bernardo Nuñez, leader of the Sharks, in the Hollywood smash-hit musical West Side Story), David Hemmings (star of Michaelangelo's Antonioni's English film Blow-up), French actor / dancer Jean-Pierre Cassel (Murder on the Orient Express, Oh!

• Numerous guest appearances on popular BBC TV series such as Castles in the Air, Songs of Scotland, The Max Boyce Show and Talla a’ Bhaile; on, Independent channels, Thingummyjig, Sir Harry Secombe’s Highway; and of course the live Hogmanay shows (BBC and ITV network/UK) in which Gillies starred regularly, over the years, alongside Scottish stars such as Kenneth MacKellar, Iain Cuthbertson, Alastair MacDonald, Peter Morrison and Annie Ross.

• Children's programmes: Gillies' brief stint as Scottish anchor-person on the Multi-coloured Swap Shop (presented by Noel Edmonds and Keith Chegwyn) was interrupted by the birth of her third child.

She was also a guest presenter on BBC's Saturday Night at the Mill (where she interviewed, among others, Tippi Hedren, star of Alfred Hitchcock's film The Birds) and, in the 1990s, completed a 5-day stint chairing Channel Four's live daytime current affairs programme Powerhouse.

Principal among these was the Greater Govan Youth Theatre, a network of groups designed to develop skills and overcome social, sectarian and territorial dichotomies among young people.

Working alongside Iain Mac 'Ille Mhicheil (John O. Carmichael), the show was made by MNE for Scottish Television, and became hugely popular with Gaelic and non-Gaelic audiences alike throughout Scotland and Ireland.

Her extensive charity singing appearances were recognised by the award of Rotary International's Paul Harris Fellowship, not only her performances for Rotary itself (after-dinner speeches and cabaret performance, Burns' Suppers etc, at local and international levels) but also for her support of other organisations (Childline, Action Research, the Duke of Edinburgh Award Scheme, the Ayrshire Hospice, British Heart Foundation, the Highland Fund, the Iona Community, the Malcolm Sargent Trust, Cancer Research, Age Concern, Sight in Grampian, the Epilepsy Association of Scotland, Equity Benevolent Fund, the Red Cross, the Police Federation, etc.

What Dr Anne Lorne Gillies has produced is a Gaelic history of the world.” and, in complete contrast, the Gaelic drama-documentary (Brìgh for BBC2) which she co-wrote with the late, celebrated comedian Norman MacLean, and which earned Gillies' favourite of all her many reviews over the years: "There is a clear temptation to say that Para Handy, Master Mariner was ‘chust sublime’, but since it contained only a passing reference to the incident involving a flying tortoise in Glasgow's Carrick Street, the accolade is withheld... An affectionate, thoroughly enjoyable film."

An anthology of 251 songs carefully chosen from her own personal repertoire and that of some of the great tradition-bearers at whose feet she sat over the years (Flora MacNeil, William Matheson, John Maclean…) it represents over four centuries of Gaelic life in every corner of the Scottish Gàidhealtachd and beyond.

With the help of simple yet highly sensitive musical transcriptions, English translations of all the lyrics, and readable but wide-ranging commentaries, it portrays the feelings of the Gaelic-speaking people themselves in their own words: love, loss, war, exile, humour...