A “battle-scarred veteran of the Culture War” has ended her regular newspaper column after writing it for more than 20 years.

Award-winning writer Dani Garavelli has bowed out from contributing her regular piece for Scotland on Sunday.

In her final column Dani, pictured, said she still hoped to “pontificate in print now and then, whenever I have something specific to say and can find someone willing to publish it”.

She added there had been “much change to reflect on” in the years since she began writing the column, recalling being “dragged kicking and screaming” on to Twitter by her then-boss Kenny Farquharson in 2012.

Dani went on to further reflect on the role of social media in everyday life in the piece, which carried the headline ‘Battle-scarred veteran of the Culture War salutes you – Dani Garavelli bows out’.

She wrote: “Call it polarisation, call it the Culture War, but we are constantly being forced to pick teams; to tie our colours to some embattled mast: nationalist/unionist, Leaver/Remainer, pro-trans/anti-trans, pro-Salmond/anti-Salmond – binary choices everywhere, with little room for uncertainty or nuance.

“People want to know where you stand, and if where you stand is on some shifting middle ground, some of them will lift you up and drop you in a camp of their own choosing

“As a columnist, reading about yourself is often like staring into some distorting mirror; you cannot recognise the image being reflected back at you.”

Dani concluded: “After all these years, I need time out: to recalibrate; to think new thoughts; to look for answers.

“I hope I’ll be back now and again. For all the frustrations of the current discourse, I can’t imagine staying out of the fray for long.