0:00:05 > 0:00:08In a small town outside London
0:00:08 > 0:00:09a writer is typing the final
0:00:09 > 0:00:11chapter of his novel.
0:00:12 > 0:00:14This is his seventh.
0:00:15 > 0:00:17With a growing family to support,
0:00:17 > 0:00:20he's vowed that this will be his last attempt.
0:00:25 > 0:00:29Contained in the manuscript is a story of loss,
0:00:29 > 0:00:30the memories of a Scottish childhood
0:00:30 > 0:00:35and a generation of young men wiped out by the Great War.
0:00:37 > 0:00:41This young novelist was part of a small army of writers who
0:00:41 > 0:00:43were attempting to change Scotland.
0:00:44 > 0:00:48To rescue her from an invasion that had come from south of the border.
0:00:50 > 0:00:54Rather than military, these occupying forces were cultural.
0:00:56 > 0:01:01By the 1920s, Scotland's identity, her culture and voice were
0:01:01 > 0:01:06fast disappearing, eclipsed by her imperial English neighbour.
0:01:09 > 0:01:12Scotland had become a figure of fun.
0:01:12 > 0:01:14In music halls up and down the country
0:01:14 > 0:01:17she had been reduced to a tartan caricature,
0:01:17 > 0:01:19a music hall joke.
0:01:20 > 0:01:24This is the story of a group of resistance fighters.
0:01:24 > 0:01:27Writers and artists who plotted revolution.
0:01:28 > 0:01:33A revolution that would revive Scotland's disappearing culture
0:01:33 > 0:01:35and let her voice be heard.
0:01:36 > 0:01:39They would fight, not with guns and bombs,
0:01:39 > 0:01:42but with thoughts and words.
0:01:42 > 0:01:47Words that helped shape the modern Scotland that we know today.
0:02:06 > 0:02:091919, and the war was over.
0:02:12 > 0:02:14There was a sense of relief.
0:02:14 > 0:02:16Things could only get better.
0:02:16 > 0:02:19People flocked in their thousands to the country's music halls
0:02:19 > 0:02:21and theatres looking for entertainment.
0:02:32 > 0:02:36This was the golden age of variety theatre in Scotland.
0:02:37 > 0:02:40Music Hall was the entertainment of the Industrial Revolution.
0:02:40 > 0:02:42Music Hall, wherever it was, was always
0:02:42 > 0:02:44local or regional in character.
0:02:44 > 0:02:45It was always a people's theatre,
0:02:45 > 0:02:47a people's entertainment.
0:02:47 > 0:02:48But in Scotland because there was a
0:02:48 > 0:02:50national cultural dimension to it,
0:02:50 > 0:02:52it had a distinct character of its own.
0:02:55 > 0:02:59It was tartan, it was kitsch, it was escapist.
0:03:00 > 0:03:03An invented version of Scotland that found its way into all
0:03:03 > 0:03:05sorts of productions.
0:03:09 > 0:03:12Scottish pantomimes have a scene called the Highland Glen scene.
0:03:12 > 0:03:14It's a scene added into Scottish pantomimes,
0:03:14 > 0:03:17something like Cinderella, it doesn't matter what it is,
0:03:17 > 0:03:19whereby we're suddenly transported
0:03:19 > 0:03:23to a Highland glen and it's an excuse for Scots dancing
0:03:23 > 0:03:25and a medley of Scots songs,
0:03:25 > 0:03:29so it's a celebration of Scottish identity in costume and song.
0:03:30 > 0:03:34One of the most popular performers of the time was Tommy Lorne.
0:03:35 > 0:03:37Part clown, part comic,
0:03:37 > 0:03:41he was the leading pantomime star of his generation.
0:03:41 > 0:03:43- OLD RECORDING:- 'I'm surging o'er with passion,
0:03:43 > 0:03:45I'm so angry that,
0:03:45 > 0:03:49'I feel as if I could burst a paper bag.'
0:03:49 > 0:03:53Lorne wore white make-up and white gloves worn over long
0:03:53 > 0:03:56expressive hands, taking Highland fantasy to new heights.
0:03:58 > 0:04:02Lorne depicted a surreal, almost grotesque version of Scotland.
0:04:03 > 0:04:07But Lorne's portrayal of his country wasn't to everyone's taste.
0:04:14 > 0:04:17Christopher Murray Grieve was 27 years old
0:04:17 > 0:04:21when he left the Royal Army Medical Corps.
0:04:21 > 0:04:23At the front Grieve had witnessed the deaths
0:04:23 > 0:04:25and suffering of his fellow Scots.
0:04:27 > 0:04:31But at home, his countrymen were reduced to a laughing stock.
0:04:37 > 0:04:41After the war, Grieve and his wife, Peggy, settled in Montrose,
0:04:41 > 0:04:44a prosperous harbour town on the Angus coast.
0:04:48 > 0:04:53In Montrose, Grieve took a job as a reporter on the local paper,
0:04:53 > 0:04:55the Montrose Review.
0:04:56 > 0:04:59He covered the unveiling of the town's war memorial.
0:05:01 > 0:05:05To some, this was a tribute to those who had fallen for King,
0:05:05 > 0:05:06country and Empire.
0:05:07 > 0:05:12But to Grieve, it was a reminder of wholesale, industrialised
0:05:12 > 0:05:14slaughter in the trenches.
0:05:16 > 0:05:20Of the friends and comrades needlessly ordered
0:05:20 > 0:05:23to their deaths by the British ruling class.
0:05:26 > 0:05:29To Grieve, nothing less than a revolution
0:05:29 > 0:05:33would prevent this from ever happening again.
0:05:35 > 0:05:38And there was inspiration close to home.
0:05:40 > 0:05:41Another nation had taken up the fight
0:05:41 > 0:05:44against the British ruling elite.
0:05:53 > 0:05:57In Ireland, Republican fighters had overthrown British imperial rule.
0:05:57 > 0:06:02Violent, bloody and hard-fought, it was a battle for independence,
0:06:02 > 0:06:06sparked by the discovery of a new cultural confidence.
0:06:08 > 0:06:09An Irish voice.
0:06:09 > 0:06:12"Know, that I would accounted be
0:06:12 > 0:06:13"True brother of a company
0:06:13 > 0:06:16"That sang, to sweeten Ireland's wrong
0:06:16 > 0:06:19"Ballad and story, rann and song
0:06:19 > 0:06:21"Nor be I any less of them..."
0:06:21 > 0:06:24Grieve wanted to follow the Irish example
0:06:24 > 0:06:27and emulate what writers like Joyce and Yeats had achieved.
0:06:28 > 0:06:30Grieve saw how Ireland
0:06:30 > 0:06:32valued its cultural workers,
0:06:32 > 0:06:33its writers, its playwrights,
0:06:33 > 0:06:35the esteem that the playwrights enjoyed,
0:06:35 > 0:06:37but also the political purchase.
0:06:37 > 0:06:41So Irish literary figures, cultural figures took some
0:06:41 > 0:06:45credit for having pushed Ireland towards the solution which
0:06:45 > 0:06:48led eventually to independence and the man who became the first
0:06:48 > 0:06:52president of the Republic of Ireland had given a lecture in 1892
0:06:52 > 0:06:55called The Necessity Of De-anglicising Ireland.
0:06:55 > 0:06:58And I think what Grieve had at the back of his mind was something
0:06:58 > 0:07:01quite similar, the de-anglicisation of Scotland
0:07:01 > 0:07:04and he saw himself being at the centre,
0:07:04 > 0:07:07or certainly being an important drive towards creating this
0:07:07 > 0:07:10Renaissance Scotland based on the Irish literary model.
0:07:10 > 0:07:12"And Time bade all his candles flare
0:07:12 > 0:07:15"To light a measure here and there.
0:07:15 > 0:07:17"And may the thoughts of Ireland brood
0:07:17 > 0:07:19"Upon a measured gratitude."
0:07:22 > 0:07:24This was the inspiration Grieve needed.
0:07:26 > 0:07:28Why couldn't Scotland do the same?
0:07:28 > 0:07:31After all, there had been a political will for
0:07:31 > 0:07:33self-determination before the war.
0:07:35 > 0:07:39Just as the war was breaking out a home rule bill had actually been
0:07:39 > 0:07:42agreed for Scotland, it had been passed in the British Parliament.
0:07:42 > 0:07:45So Scotland actually politically was part
0:07:45 > 0:07:48of the way to gaining home rule just before the First World War.
0:07:50 > 0:07:54What I find personally quite baffling is all these
0:07:54 > 0:07:58voices had died by the time the war ended.
0:07:58 > 0:08:02There seemed to be no pressure whatsoever on reviving
0:08:02 > 0:08:04home rule, or very little pressure on reviving home rule.
0:08:04 > 0:08:07In some senses Scotland had to take a deep breath
0:08:07 > 0:08:10and think about what kind of politics it actually wanted,
0:08:10 > 0:08:16whether it really wanted to be a part of a United Kingdom or
0:08:16 > 0:08:19the extent to which it wanted to become independent.
0:08:22 > 0:08:24But Grieve's mind was already made up.
0:08:25 > 0:08:28A divorce from the English was required.
0:08:29 > 0:08:33He'd start a revolution right here in Montrose.
0:08:35 > 0:08:39Just as the Irish had done, Scottish writers would stir the nation
0:08:39 > 0:08:44with a new progressive national literature.
0:08:44 > 0:08:46But he had a problem.
0:08:50 > 0:08:53The bookshelves of Scotland were already filled with
0:08:53 > 0:08:55a particular type of Scottish book.
0:08:57 > 0:08:59If Grieve was going to be successful,
0:08:59 > 0:09:03he'd have to transform the reading habits of the population.
0:09:05 > 0:09:10Scottish literature after the First World War
0:09:10 > 0:09:13was thriving but it's basically
0:09:13 > 0:09:16representations of Scotland which emphasised
0:09:16 > 0:09:19the parochial, the sentimental,
0:09:19 > 0:09:23the religious devotion of the ordinary people, the kaleyard.
0:09:24 > 0:09:29One book in particular, written by a religious Anglo-Scot, had sold
0:09:29 > 0:09:32millions of copies throughout the British Empire.
0:09:35 > 0:09:37The term kaleyard even
0:09:37 > 0:09:39originated in this book.
0:09:39 > 0:09:43Although it meant cabbage patch, it came to mean a rose-tinted
0:09:43 > 0:09:47and sentimental view of Scottish rural life.
0:09:49 > 0:09:53Kaleyard novelists just sold because they were offering
0:09:53 > 0:09:57reassurance and comfort to people
0:09:57 > 0:10:00whose lives were smoky, industrial and nasty.
0:10:00 > 0:10:04There's an idea that this is a kind of couthy Scotland which is all,
0:10:04 > 0:10:06it's going back into the kind of the reminiscences of
0:10:06 > 0:10:08parents and grandparents.
0:10:08 > 0:10:10It's a Scotland which is not real,
0:10:10 > 0:10:13which exists quite apart from industrialising Scotland
0:10:13 > 0:10:16of the Victorian period so it's therefore entirely bogus.
0:10:18 > 0:10:21Once the reader had stepped into this tartan fantasy,
0:10:21 > 0:10:24these books offered moral instruction on how to be
0:10:24 > 0:10:27a good Christian and know your place.
0:10:29 > 0:10:31"He was broken that day,
0:10:31 > 0:10:33"and his sobs shook the bed
0:10:33 > 0:10:36"for he was his mother's only son and fatherless,
0:10:36 > 0:10:39"and his mother, brave and faithful to the last,
0:10:39 > 0:10:41"was bidding him farewell.
0:10:41 > 0:10:43"Dinna greet like that, John,
0:10:43 > 0:10:45"nor break yir hert,
0:10:45 > 0:10:48"for it's the will o' God that's aye best."
0:10:49 > 0:10:54These novels play a part in establishing
0:10:54 > 0:10:58social order of a sort.
0:10:58 > 0:11:02You know, within the Empire there are these devoted people who
0:11:02 > 0:11:08sometimes go off to war, for example, but they are in fact
0:11:08 > 0:11:12the salt of the earth and their conduct is
0:11:12 > 0:11:16without doubt meant to be exemplary in every way.
0:11:18 > 0:11:21Grieve's gripe was they were travestying Scottishness
0:11:21 > 0:11:24and they were creating something which was an exclusive view
0:11:24 > 0:11:29of Scotland as a place in which... it was a sentimentalised view,
0:11:29 > 0:11:32simply there to entertain using their Scots language,
0:11:32 > 0:11:37their Scots language voice as a way of amusing people rather than
0:11:37 > 0:11:39actually as a way of forensically studying the world.
0:11:41 > 0:11:45But the world of kaleyard wasn't restricted to the page.
0:11:45 > 0:11:48One man made it a global sensation,
0:11:48 > 0:11:50Harry Lauder.
0:11:50 > 0:11:52Sporting a glengarry and kilt,
0:11:52 > 0:11:57Lauder promoted this fantasy version of Scotland on the world stage,
0:11:57 > 0:11:59a capering caricature of Scottishness.
0:12:01 > 0:12:06Grieve hated Lauder, deriding him as an overpaid clown,
0:12:06 > 0:12:10an infliction that was foisted on the Scots by the English
0:12:10 > 0:12:14but Lauder was an unstoppable force.
0:12:14 > 0:12:18He was now the international ambassador of Scottish culture.
0:12:19 > 0:12:21"The reason why the Harry Lauder
0:12:21 > 0:12:22"type of thing is so
0:12:22 > 0:12:25"popular in England is because it corresponds to the average
0:12:25 > 0:12:29"Englishman's ignorant notion of what the Scot is.
0:12:29 > 0:12:32"It is high time the Scots were becoming alive to the
0:12:32 > 0:12:36"ulterior effect of this propaganda by ridicule."
0:12:46 > 0:12:49Grieve's solution to the relentless march of Lauder
0:12:49 > 0:12:52and kaleyard was to compile a selection of poems.
0:12:54 > 0:12:59Northern Numbers contained a mixture of good and bad poetry.
0:12:59 > 0:13:03Grieve expected the reader to understand the difference.
0:13:03 > 0:13:05- HE RECITES:- I'm sighing here my lone-self
0:13:05 > 0:13:08In a foreign land and fair
0:13:08 > 0:13:10Where the sun is ever gleaming
0:13:10 > 0:13:11And I can live at ease
0:13:11 > 0:13:13For it's me that will be dreaming
0:13:13 > 0:13:15Of the dear days that were
0:13:15 > 0:13:17On that jewel of an island
0:13:17 > 0:13:19In the sweet Hebrides.
0:13:20 > 0:13:24You know, it's utter rubbish. It's total guff. It's terrible.
0:13:24 > 0:13:26It's sentimental, trite,
0:13:26 > 0:13:28but he's also putting it alongside work by a
0:13:28 > 0:13:30younger generation of writers
0:13:30 > 0:13:32who have returned from the war and who are
0:13:32 > 0:13:35looking at cities, Glasgow and Dundee, and saying,
0:13:35 > 0:13:36"What's going on?
0:13:36 > 0:13:38"What have we gained? What about poverty?
0:13:38 > 0:13:41"What about the state of women?
0:13:41 > 0:13:43"What about the state of society generally in terms
0:13:43 > 0:13:46"of the gulf between the rich and the poor?"
0:13:46 > 0:13:47- HE RECITES:- Around comes tea
0:13:47 > 0:13:50Philanthropy must know no bound
0:13:50 > 0:13:52And buns weeks old,
0:13:52 > 0:13:55But oh, tuppence the lot, how very cheap!
0:13:55 > 0:13:59Magnanimous, quite fit for gentle ladies' palates - God!
0:13:59 > 0:14:02Monkeys in a cage get nuts and...
0:14:02 > 0:14:08..the tea and buns cost the soul of any of these ones
0:14:08 > 0:14:11The female things, I mean.
0:14:11 > 0:14:13Now, this is poetry of a very different order.
0:14:13 > 0:14:16This is much closer to The Waste Land
0:14:16 > 0:14:19than McKenzie's sentimental Scotland.
0:14:19 > 0:14:21And MacDiarmid is putting this stuff together
0:14:21 > 0:14:23and saying, "Well, this is the reality."
0:14:23 > 0:14:26And the gulf between the sentimental Scotland
0:14:26 > 0:14:32and the reality of the economic oppression of the people who
0:14:32 > 0:14:35live here, we need to confront that as writers.
0:14:35 > 0:14:37We can't look away from that.
0:14:38 > 0:14:39He has an agenda.
0:14:39 > 0:14:41He wants to stir things up and he wants people
0:14:41 > 0:14:44to read more widely than to be settled
0:14:44 > 0:14:47and complacent about what Scotland is and that's how it is.
0:14:47 > 0:14:51He wants people to be aware of the reality of the world around them.
0:14:52 > 0:14:57He worked long and hard in search of a language worthy of a Scots poet.
0:14:58 > 0:15:02He sought out fading regional dialects,
0:15:02 > 0:15:05he trawled old dictionaries hunting for words.
0:15:07 > 0:15:13Fludder, when a river swells in some degree so as to become discoloured.
0:15:13 > 0:15:15Fortaivert, much fatigued.
0:15:15 > 0:15:18- Hilter-skilter.- Hilter-skilter. - Hilch.
0:15:18 > 0:15:21Hijinks, a very absurd mood.
0:15:21 > 0:15:23Hilliegeleerie.
0:15:23 > 0:15:26These old-fashioned Scots words had been
0:15:26 > 0:15:30the language of the nation's greatest writers for centuries.
0:15:32 > 0:15:34But they had been forgotten as English
0:15:34 > 0:15:36began to be spoken more widely.
0:15:36 > 0:15:40Scots was consigned to the pages of dusty old dictionaries.
0:15:43 > 0:15:45But for Grieve, this material
0:15:45 > 0:15:48was a rich vein of the Scots vernacular.
0:15:50 > 0:15:54And he hadn't only rediscovered his literary language,
0:15:54 > 0:15:56he'd reinvented himself.
0:15:57 > 0:16:01Christopher Murray Grieve became Hugh MacDiarmid.
0:16:02 > 0:16:05He took his pen name from Scotland's mythological past,
0:16:05 > 0:16:11choosing Diarmuid, a Celtic warrior from a group of legendary poets.
0:16:11 > 0:16:13And the first poem by this saviour
0:16:13 > 0:16:15of the Scots language - The Watergaw.
0:16:43 > 0:16:47In Montrose library there's another clue as to where MacDiarmid
0:16:47 > 0:16:49found his new poetic voice.
0:16:51 > 0:16:54This is the original copy, 1915.
0:16:55 > 0:17:02And if you look at page 169,
0:17:02 > 0:17:06you find a very interesting thing.
0:17:06 > 0:17:10That virtually the first lines of his poem,
0:17:10 > 0:17:14The Watergaw, are just there.
0:17:14 > 0:17:17So you have "weet nicht", "a weet forenicht",
0:17:17 > 0:17:20and you have "yow-trummul",
0:17:20 > 0:17:23"I saw yon antrin thing, a watergaw",
0:17:23 > 0:17:30so the first lines of his first major poem in Scots
0:17:30 > 0:17:32basically is in this book, but
0:17:32 > 0:17:35I just find it fascinating that he may well
0:17:35 > 0:17:40have picked up this very volume and opened it up, fascinating.
0:17:42 > 0:17:45- HUGH MACDIARMID RECITES:- "Ae weet forenicht i' the yow-trummle
0:17:45 > 0:17:48"I saw yon antrin thing
0:17:48 > 0:17:51"A watergaw wi' its chitterin' licht
0:17:51 > 0:17:52"Ayont the on-ding
0:17:52 > 0:17:55"An' I thocht o' the last wild look ye gied
0:17:55 > 0:17:57"Afore ye deed!
0:17:57 > 0:17:59"There was nae reek i' the laverock's hoose
0:17:59 > 0:18:01"That nichtan' nane i' mine
0:18:01 > 0:18:03"But I hae thocht o' that foolish licht
0:18:03 > 0:18:04"Ever sin' syne..."
0:18:04 > 0:18:07He had such a wonderful voice, so evocative.
0:18:07 > 0:18:09I remember it very well
0:18:09 > 0:18:10and normally he was standing
0:18:10 > 0:18:13at the end of a very long table at an 85th birthday party,
0:18:13 > 0:18:15or something like that,
0:18:15 > 0:18:18when I heard him speaking as Hugh MacDiarmid.
0:18:18 > 0:18:22As Christopher Grieve, of course he still had the same voice
0:18:22 > 0:18:26but it was rather less oratical and terrifying.
0:18:29 > 0:18:32Some years later, MacDiarmid recorded the poem
0:18:32 > 0:18:34in Scots and English.
0:18:34 > 0:18:36His political agenda was clear.
0:18:36 > 0:18:38- HUGH MACDIARMID RECITES:- "..the last wild look ye gied
0:18:38 > 0:18:39"Afore ye deed!
0:18:40 > 0:18:43"There was nae reek i' the laverock's hoose that nicht..."
0:18:43 > 0:18:46I think he's deliberately over complicating the Scots here.
0:18:46 > 0:18:49He quite likes the amount of baffle the Scots provides.
0:18:51 > 0:18:54- HUGH MACDIARMID RECITES: - "One wet early evening
0:18:54 > 0:18:56"After the sheepshearing season in July
0:18:56 > 0:18:59"When the newly-shorn ewes are trembling..."
0:18:59 > 0:19:02He's deliberately robbing it of all poetry in the English
0:19:02 > 0:19:05translation that he's giving it, it's...
0:19:06 > 0:19:09- HUGH MACDIARMID RECITES: - "Beyond the downpour of the rain
0:19:09 > 0:19:12"And I thought of the last, wild look you gave..."
0:19:12 > 0:19:15Even though he goes quite a long way out of his way to make
0:19:15 > 0:19:17the English version sound terrible in that,
0:19:17 > 0:19:20you have to admit that the Scots really has poetry to it.
0:19:20 > 0:19:24It is full of vitality that he had not been finding
0:19:24 > 0:19:27perhaps in his English version to that point.
0:19:31 > 0:19:34This war of words had a purpose.
0:19:35 > 0:19:38MacDiarmid was parading the power of Scots,
0:19:38 > 0:19:41its deep emotion, to rally his political cause.
0:19:43 > 0:19:47The 12 lines of The Watergaw were a foundation for a new identity
0:19:47 > 0:19:52and voice, a foundation to build an independent Scotland.
0:20:02 > 0:20:06- RADIO:- 'This is London calling. London calling...'
0:20:06 > 0:20:08'Next on BBC Two Scotland,
0:20:08 > 0:20:11'David Attenborough calls it one of the wildlife wonders of...'
0:20:11 > 0:20:14In 1922, the year The Watergaw was published,
0:20:14 > 0:20:17another Scot started to promote the spoken word.
0:20:17 > 0:20:22A man who stood squarely in the path of Hugh MacDiarmid.
0:20:24 > 0:20:28Far from reviving and celebrating Scots, John Reith's
0:20:28 > 0:20:32imperial vision was for everyone to aspire to speak correctly.
0:20:32 > 0:20:36- RADIO:- '..the several, far, scattered units of the family...'
0:20:36 > 0:20:39Appointed General Manager of the new British Broadcasting Company,
0:20:39 > 0:20:42Reith opened local radio stations all over Britain.
0:20:43 > 0:20:48A powerful new medium, a powerful way to reinforce
0:20:48 > 0:20:50a sense of Britishness.
0:20:50 > 0:20:52And the accent he chose to promote it
0:20:52 > 0:20:56was called Received Pronunciation.
0:20:56 > 0:20:58RP, Received Pronunciation,
0:20:58 > 0:21:01was the accent of the upper class,
0:21:01 > 0:21:04the ruling class, the privileged class.
0:21:04 > 0:21:07So it was aspirational for the middle classes,
0:21:07 > 0:21:10it was certainly something that they desired.
0:21:10 > 0:21:13And that's when we saw the rise in elocution lessons.
0:21:13 > 0:21:15It was a vocal status symbol.
0:21:15 > 0:21:17- RADIO:- 'Good evening, everybody...'
0:21:17 > 0:21:22Soon RP voices were heard in households across Scotland.
0:21:22 > 0:21:25Scottish accents started to change.
0:21:25 > 0:21:29- RADIO:- 'The Director-general of the BBC.'
0:21:29 > 0:21:31'Good evening, ladies and gentlemen.'
0:21:31 > 0:21:33Reith led by example,
0:21:33 > 0:21:35clearly elevating and refining his speech.
0:21:35 > 0:21:37- RADIO:- '..as significant as any
0:21:37 > 0:21:39'in the ten years of British broadcasting.'
0:21:39 > 0:21:44One of the main differences is in what we call the rhotic R.
0:21:44 > 0:21:47We pronounce our R wherever it is in the word.
0:21:47 > 0:21:50But RP speakers do not pronounce the R after
0:21:50 > 0:21:54a vowel sound so you would get 'butt-ah', 'mutt-ah', 'flutt-ah'.
0:21:54 > 0:21:57- And here, Lord Reith says... - '..in many years since...'
0:21:57 > 0:22:02..'yeahs' instead of 'years' and for a Scot,
0:22:02 > 0:22:04that's not a natural way to say the word 'years',
0:22:04 > 0:22:10so he has adopted a non-rhotic delivery for the word 'years',
0:22:10 > 0:22:13he's not pronouncing the R after a vowel sound.
0:22:13 > 0:22:16- RADIO:- 'In almost every sphere of human activity...'
0:22:18 > 0:22:21Lord Reith has a real hybrid in his delivery.
0:22:21 > 0:22:24He does sound upper-class, but there
0:22:24 > 0:22:28are certainly Scots aspects to his delivery.
0:22:28 > 0:22:31- RADIO:- 'The governors of the BBC send
0:22:31 > 0:22:34'our warm greeting to listeners everywhere.'
0:22:36 > 0:22:41While MacDiarmid was writing his Scots poetry, read by a few,
0:22:41 > 0:22:45Reith had a direct line into millions of Scottish homes.
0:22:45 > 0:22:50RP became THE accent to climb the social ladder.
0:22:50 > 0:22:53You'll find us all one big, happy family here.
0:22:53 > 0:22:55Perhaps just a teeny-weeny bit unorthodox
0:22:55 > 0:22:59but that's better than being old-fashioned, isn't it?
0:22:59 > 0:23:03Actor Alastair Sim had grown up in Edinburgh.
0:23:03 > 0:23:07For the son of a Gaelic speaker surrounded by Scots voices,
0:23:07 > 0:23:09a career as an actor proved tough.
0:23:11 > 0:23:15Sim soon realised that success could only come
0:23:15 > 0:23:17if he hid his Scottish accent.
0:23:18 > 0:23:21After teaching elocution for several years,
0:23:21 > 0:23:25RP became his ticket to success.
0:23:25 > 0:23:27The whole form are really quite amazingly advanced
0:23:27 > 0:23:28in their chemistry.
0:23:28 > 0:23:31Shall we see what they're up to?
0:23:31 > 0:23:34..as seen here in The Belles Of St Trinian's.
0:23:34 > 0:23:37Come along now, Miss Crawley, you must tear yourself away.
0:23:37 > 0:23:39We've lots more to see, you know.
0:23:39 > 0:23:42Scotland was sounding more and more English.
0:23:42 > 0:23:47If MacDiarmid's Scots revival was going to succeed, he'd need help.
0:23:54 > 0:23:59The House of Dun, just a few miles along the road from Montrose,
0:23:59 > 0:24:02and an unlikely place for MacDiarmid to find an ally.
0:24:05 > 0:24:09Violet Jacob, although the daughter of a long established aristocratic
0:24:09 > 0:24:13family, wrote in a rich Scots voice,
0:24:13 > 0:24:16rooted in the earth of the Angus countryside.
0:24:16 > 0:24:20And like MacDiarmid, she'd also been deeply affected by the war.
0:24:26 > 0:24:30Wounded in the carnage of the Somme, her only son, Harry,
0:24:30 > 0:24:32died in a hospital in Calais.
0:24:35 > 0:24:36He was just 20 years old.
0:24:39 > 0:24:44Violet's haunting collection of poems, More Songs Of Angus,
0:24:44 > 0:24:46was published in 1918.
0:24:47 > 0:24:51This is the one that contains the poems that she wrote after
0:24:51 > 0:24:53the death of Harry, her son.
0:24:53 > 0:24:54And there's a poem called
0:24:54 > 0:24:56The Field Of The Lirk O' The Hill
0:24:56 > 0:24:59where there's a widow
0:24:59 > 0:25:02who has obviously lost her husband,
0:25:02 > 0:25:04her son has gone to war and she's lost him
0:25:04 > 0:25:07and she's just wondering how the farm's going to be run.
0:25:50 > 0:25:54"Aye, bairn, nae mair, nae mair
0:25:54 > 0:25:57"I' the field by the lirk o' the hill!"
0:26:02 > 0:26:06Violet Jacob also wrote poems in English.
0:26:06 > 0:26:09But MacDiarmid instantly recognised the emotive power of her
0:26:09 > 0:26:11work in Scots.
0:26:11 > 0:26:13It was exactly what he was looking for.
0:26:23 > 0:26:26MacDiarmid continued to write and publish poetry.
0:26:28 > 0:26:32In November, 1922, he was elected as a Montrose town councillor.
0:26:33 > 0:26:37As an independent socialist, he loved to stir things up.
0:26:37 > 0:26:39His new position brought him
0:26:39 > 0:26:42into contact with other like-minded revolutionaries
0:26:42 > 0:26:46and one of those was William Lamb.
0:26:46 > 0:26:47Lamb wasn't a writer,
0:26:47 > 0:26:51but he expressed himself just as powerfully with his hands.
0:26:55 > 0:26:58Lamb had been a sculptor before the war but when he returned from
0:26:58 > 0:27:04the trenches of France he wanted to create distinctly Scottish art.
0:27:04 > 0:27:09Just as MacDiarmid was a Scots poet, he'd be a Scots sculptor.
0:27:11 > 0:27:14What you get is a sense of the impact that
0:27:14 > 0:27:16war had on Lamb and the impact of
0:27:16 > 0:27:17being introduced to
0:27:17 > 0:27:18new Continental styles because
0:27:18 > 0:27:23this sculpture of David Collie is very smooth in his features.
0:27:23 > 0:27:25It's almost like a Roman centurion, in a way,
0:27:25 > 0:27:27it has that classical element to it.
0:27:28 > 0:27:32Yet Head Of Boy, which is done after the war, you can see the same
0:27:32 > 0:27:35subject in a more expressive style.
0:27:35 > 0:27:39His hair becomes more ruffled, it's more energised.
0:27:39 > 0:27:42It's much more about capturing the personality of the person
0:27:42 > 0:27:44rather than just their appearance.
0:27:47 > 0:27:50The war not only changed Lamb's style,
0:27:50 > 0:27:52it left him badly injured.
0:27:53 > 0:27:57With a piece of shrapnel embedded in his right hand,
0:27:57 > 0:28:01he painstakingly retrained his left as his working hand.
0:28:05 > 0:28:08Lamb's subjects were the people around him,
0:28:08 > 0:28:10the fisherfolk, the dock workers,
0:28:10 > 0:28:13the ordinary men and women of Montrose.
0:28:14 > 0:28:16He wanted to give them a voice,
0:28:16 > 0:28:19those who'd rarely been heard in Scotland before.
0:28:20 > 0:28:23All in keeping with the spirit of MacDiarmid's new
0:28:23 > 0:28:25National Art and Political Movement.
0:28:31 > 0:28:34They used to have meetings and I think you get that sense of that
0:28:34 > 0:28:37relationship between the two in this work.
0:28:37 > 0:28:41That very forceful presence of Hugh MacDiarmid comes across
0:28:41 > 0:28:46with the wild radiating hair emanating from his head.
0:28:46 > 0:28:50There is a running joke with Lamb and Violet Jacob.
0:28:50 > 0:28:53When Lamb was working up to doing this sculpture
0:28:53 > 0:28:57he said to Violet, "I'm going to be very cruel
0:28:57 > 0:29:00"when I do this, I'm going to make it horribly like him."
0:29:04 > 0:29:07Behind the respectable shop fronts and houses,
0:29:07 > 0:29:11Montrose was now home to a new community of writers and artists.
0:29:13 > 0:29:16Far from its tradition of fishing and golf,
0:29:16 > 0:29:21Montrose had become an unlikely hotbed of cultural revolutionaries,
0:29:21 > 0:29:24fuelled by MacDiarmid's vision and energy.
0:29:26 > 0:29:29He certainly was trying to kick off something.
0:29:29 > 0:29:34You can't just start a revolution on your own so you need to create
0:29:34 > 0:29:39a scene and I think he was producing literary magazines aplenty and
0:29:39 > 0:29:44he seemed to have joined just about every political group in Montrose.
0:29:49 > 0:29:52The list of names is like a roll call
0:29:52 > 0:29:54of Scottish cultural life in the 1920s.
0:29:56 > 0:30:00There was artist Edward Baird, writer and translator Willa Muir,
0:30:00 > 0:30:04novelist Compton Mackenzie, composer Francis George Scott,
0:30:04 > 0:30:06poet Helen Cruickshank...
0:30:06 > 0:30:09Montrose in the 1920s was
0:30:09 > 0:30:12the cultural capital of Scotland, there's no question.
0:30:12 > 0:30:17It was the writers, artists and sculptors and composers.
0:30:17 > 0:30:18There was a centrality,
0:30:18 > 0:30:21and MacDiarmid was at the core of that,
0:30:21 > 0:30:22exploding in all directions.
0:30:22 > 0:30:25There's obviously something tremendously kind of energising
0:30:25 > 0:30:28in having a group of like-minded people
0:30:28 > 0:30:31close together and, you know, speaking to one another,
0:30:31 > 0:30:32reading each other's work,
0:30:32 > 0:30:34creating this idea of a kind of movement.
0:30:38 > 0:30:41And the command centre was a newly built council house -
0:30:41 > 0:30:45the home Grieve shared with his wife, Peggy, and their two children.
0:30:48 > 0:30:52This is 16 Links Avenue, where the Grieves lived.
0:30:52 > 0:30:55There were many visitors to the house.
0:30:55 > 0:30:57There's a famous occasion when
0:30:57 > 0:31:00MacDiarmid got himself a bit drunk
0:31:00 > 0:31:02and ended up asleep in the bath...
0:31:02 > 0:31:04naked.
0:31:04 > 0:31:07And in order to get him out of the bath,
0:31:07 > 0:31:11Edwin Muir had to crawl in the bathroom window, pull him out...
0:31:12 > 0:31:15..laid him down in the living room in front of the fire
0:31:15 > 0:31:16and had to leave him there.
0:31:16 > 0:31:20It's...not very dignified for such a distinguished poet,
0:31:20 > 0:31:21but there we are.
0:31:23 > 0:31:26Edwin Muir wasn't always on bath duty.
0:31:26 > 0:31:30He was married to the feminist writer Willa Muir.
0:31:31 > 0:31:33Willa had been brought up in Montrose,
0:31:33 > 0:31:36living over her parent's draper's shop on the high street.
0:31:38 > 0:31:40She wrote two novels.
0:31:40 > 0:31:43Her first was called Imagined Corners
0:31:43 > 0:31:46and set in the fictional town of Calderwick.
0:31:48 > 0:31:52"The town of Calderwick turned its back on the sea and the links,
0:31:52 > 0:31:54"clinging with that instinct for the highest
0:31:54 > 0:31:57"which distinguishes so many ancient boroughs
0:31:57 > 0:31:59"to a ridge well above sea level
0:31:59 > 0:32:03"along the back of which the high street lay like a spine
0:32:03 > 0:32:05"with ribs running down on either side..."
0:32:07 > 0:32:11Not only is it a thinly disguised description of Montrose,
0:32:11 > 0:32:15it's also a comment on what it's like to be an educated woman
0:32:15 > 0:32:16in a provincial Scottish town.
0:32:18 > 0:32:20Dismissing the conventions of kaleyard,
0:32:20 > 0:32:24she explores the stifling social and intellectual straitjacket
0:32:24 > 0:32:26of small-town life in Scotland.
0:32:31 > 0:32:35Willa was a radical new female addition to MacDiarmid's circle.
0:32:36 > 0:32:39Also in attendance at gatherings and parties
0:32:39 > 0:32:41was one of MacDiarmid's close neighbours.
0:32:43 > 0:32:45Number 12.
0:32:45 > 0:32:47And in number 12, there lived a young man,
0:32:47 > 0:32:49about 16 years old at that time,
0:32:49 > 0:32:52called Tom MacDonald
0:32:52 > 0:32:56who was a regular visitor to the Grieve household.
0:32:56 > 0:32:58He was much taken with MacDiarmid
0:32:58 > 0:33:01and the intellectual conversation that he inspired,
0:33:01 > 0:33:06and later he adopted the pen name of Fionn MacColla
0:33:06 > 0:33:09and became one of Scotland's finest novelists.
0:33:15 > 0:33:17"There is a mystery about language
0:33:17 > 0:33:20"which is the mystery of life itself.
0:33:20 > 0:33:21"When as long as Gaelic,
0:33:21 > 0:33:25"and for that matter, its near descendant Scots, were spoken,
0:33:25 > 0:33:28"a beauty and sensitivity, a light and tenderness,
0:33:28 > 0:33:32"a wit and wisdom clothed not only the Scottish mind
0:33:32 > 0:33:34"but Scotland itself."
0:33:41 > 0:33:45MacDiarmid had now amassed a small army.
0:33:45 > 0:33:49A group of revolutionary, bold, creative people
0:33:49 > 0:33:52reading each other's work and sparking new ideas
0:33:52 > 0:33:54forging a future for Scottish culture.
0:33:56 > 0:34:02And by the mid-1920s, they were gaining an international reputation.
0:34:02 > 0:34:05One leading French literary critic, Denis Saurat,
0:34:05 > 0:34:10wrote of, "Le Groupe de la Renaissance Ecossaise".
0:34:10 > 0:34:14The new movement now had a name - The Scottish Renaissance.
0:34:16 > 0:34:18The Scottish press took notice, too.
0:34:19 > 0:34:21"It cannot be said that
0:34:21 > 0:34:24"this present group of Scottish writers lack confidence.
0:34:24 > 0:34:28"They have Mr Hugh MacDiarmid. He is the new poet.
0:34:28 > 0:34:32"His followers will have it that he is the new Burns."
0:34:33 > 0:34:36MacDiarmid had seized attention,
0:34:36 > 0:34:39now it was time to grasp the thistle.
0:34:41 > 0:34:45He wanted to write a revolutionary poem.
0:34:45 > 0:34:47A poem that would force the Scots
0:34:47 > 0:34:50to take a long, hard look at themselves.
0:34:51 > 0:34:53He'd been planning it for years...
0:34:55 > 0:34:58..collecting fragments and scraps of ideas.
0:34:58 > 0:35:01But it was an all-consuming project.
0:35:01 > 0:35:05He'd need a quiet place to escape to piece it all together.
0:35:05 > 0:35:08Well away from the pressures of Montrose.
0:35:11 > 0:35:13So in August 1926,
0:35:13 > 0:35:17he went on holiday carrying his suitcase of ideas.
0:35:22 > 0:35:26Where he'd gone was a mystery until very recently.
0:35:26 > 0:35:28when local teacher Andy Shanks
0:35:28 > 0:35:31made the connection to the small village of St Cyrus,
0:35:31 > 0:35:33just seven miles north of Montrose.
0:35:38 > 0:35:39I've always been fascinated about
0:35:39 > 0:35:41the story of its inception.
0:35:41 > 0:35:43I mean, it took him years to put together.
0:35:43 > 0:35:46And, of course, he writes a letter to the publisher
0:35:46 > 0:35:48saying, "I'm trying to get it finished,"
0:35:48 > 0:35:51and he always put the addresses of the place he'd stay.
0:35:51 > 0:35:53And I was walking past here,
0:35:53 > 0:35:55and in my head is all this stuff about MacDiarmid -
0:35:55 > 0:35:58I always think about it when I'm walking here -
0:35:58 > 0:36:02and I walked past there, and there, on the wall, Avondale.
0:36:02 > 0:36:04It's the cottage where MacDiarmid wrote
0:36:04 > 0:36:07probably the most important poem in the last century in Scots,
0:36:07 > 0:36:09there, in the cottage.
0:36:09 > 0:36:11"..what gin it's your ain vomit that you swill,
0:36:11 > 0:36:13"and frae Life's gantin..."
0:36:13 > 0:36:17"Move dimly like a dream wi'in while endless faith..."
0:36:19 > 0:36:22A Drunk Man Looks at the Thistle is about Scotland,
0:36:22 > 0:36:27and that sense of take stock of what's around us,
0:36:27 > 0:36:30stop and let's look, pause.
0:36:30 > 0:36:32And a lot of it is very tragic
0:36:32 > 0:36:35and very full of sorrow
0:36:35 > 0:36:38at the loss of the preceding decades.
0:36:38 > 0:36:42"Its deidly coils aboot my buik are thrawn
0:36:42 > 0:36:45"A shaggy poulp, embracin' me and stingin',
0:36:45 > 0:36:47"And as a serpent cauld agen' my hert,
0:36:47 > 0:36:49"Its scales are poisoned..."
0:36:49 > 0:36:51A Drunk Man Looks at the Thistle is such
0:36:51 > 0:36:54a...kind of cornucopia of different things.
0:36:54 > 0:36:56There are translations from Russian poetry,
0:36:56 > 0:36:58there are snippets of broad Scots,
0:36:58 > 0:37:01there are little rhymes, bits of songs,
0:37:01 > 0:37:04and all of these things he had done at different times.
0:37:04 > 0:37:06I mean, you look at the size of this poem
0:37:06 > 0:37:09and the breadth and scope of it,
0:37:09 > 0:37:11this was an enormous thing he was doing.
0:37:11 > 0:37:13He changed Scottish literary history.
0:37:13 > 0:37:16"O that its prickles were a knife indeed,
0:37:16 > 0:37:19"But it is thowless, flabby, dowf and numb.
0:37:19 > 0:37:22"Sae sluggishly it drains my benmaist life..."
0:37:22 > 0:37:26This poem was what MacDiarmid had been working towards for years.
0:37:26 > 0:37:30"In mum obscurity it twines its obstinate rings
0:37:30 > 0:37:33"And hings caressin'ly, its purpose whole.
0:37:33 > 0:37:35"And this deid thing..."
0:37:35 > 0:37:37What he's doing is taking an overview of Scotland
0:37:37 > 0:37:41and the aftermath of the war and so on,
0:37:41 > 0:37:44but also of the general strike in the 1920s.
0:37:44 > 0:37:47So there's an immediate, almost journalistic commentary
0:37:47 > 0:37:48in that respect.
0:37:48 > 0:37:52And I think the two things that he comes to at the end,
0:37:52 > 0:37:55or through...rather through the process,
0:37:55 > 0:37:58is a total confidence that an independent Scotland
0:37:58 > 0:38:00can structure this world politically
0:38:00 > 0:38:03for its own...for the advantage of the people who live here
0:38:03 > 0:38:07and that that's nothing unless you have a socialist revolution as well
0:38:07 > 0:38:09that has to be egalitarian.
0:38:09 > 0:38:13So the politics of that are there in the language of the poetry,
0:38:13 > 0:38:18the...the escalation or rediscovery or reclamation of Scots
0:38:18 > 0:38:22as a vital valid literary language,
0:38:22 > 0:38:24and it's there in the structure of the poems
0:38:24 > 0:38:26as he develops throughout his career, through his life.
0:38:29 > 0:38:33Here, at last, was a fully modern poem in Scots,
0:38:33 > 0:38:40as one critic noted, "..with all the force of a childbirth in church".
0:38:40 > 0:38:43MacDiarmid had written a great national poem,
0:38:43 > 0:38:45a blueprint for a modern Scotland.
0:38:47 > 0:38:52In 1928, he proudly stood in a line-up of nationalist politicians
0:38:52 > 0:38:55at the National Party of Scotland's first rally.
0:38:58 > 0:39:01MacDiarmid's vision for an independent Scotland
0:39:01 > 0:39:03appeared to be well on course.
0:39:10 > 0:39:12But had anyone actually noticed?
0:39:18 > 0:39:22In Glasgow in 1928, people turned out in their thousands,
0:39:22 > 0:39:24queuing for hours in the cold.
0:39:24 > 0:39:26So, who were they here to see?
0:39:28 > 0:39:31It certainly wasn't MacDiarmid,
0:39:31 > 0:39:35it wasn't an exciting new writer reading their latest work...
0:39:35 > 0:39:38It was, in fact, Harry Lauder.
0:39:41 > 0:39:43They'd come to see him as he made the transition
0:39:43 > 0:39:46from star of the stage to star of the screen,
0:39:46 > 0:39:48making a personal appearance
0:39:48 > 0:39:51at the premier of his first film, Huntingtower.
0:39:55 > 0:39:57The man - or woman - in the street
0:39:57 > 0:39:59paid little attention to the new poetry.
0:40:01 > 0:40:03They were far too busy going to the flicks.
0:40:10 > 0:40:12It's often said that when people came to the cinema
0:40:12 > 0:40:14they were walking on carpet
0:40:14 > 0:40:15for the first time,
0:40:15 > 0:40:17they were experiencing electric light.
0:40:17 > 0:40:21There's a lovely story of a little old lady in Brechin.
0:40:21 > 0:40:24The trade press reports in 1919
0:40:24 > 0:40:26that she went to the cinema on a regular basis
0:40:26 > 0:40:28because it only cost her tuppence,
0:40:28 > 0:40:30and for that, she would have an evening in,
0:40:30 > 0:40:31she wouldn't have to heat her house,
0:40:31 > 0:40:33she wouldn't have to light her house.
0:40:33 > 0:40:36She came in, she wrapped herself in a shawl and she fell asleep.
0:40:36 > 0:40:38So, you were trying to appeal to
0:40:38 > 0:40:40as wide an audience as you possibly could.
0:40:40 > 0:40:42It really is an attempt at a mass audience.
0:40:45 > 0:40:49Scotland's very own tartan national treasure
0:40:49 > 0:40:52was then catapulted to Hollywood
0:40:52 > 0:40:56and was seen larking about alongside Chaplin.
0:40:56 > 0:40:58Lauder was a natural for film
0:40:58 > 0:41:02and the arrival of sound provided the perfect medium for his act.
0:41:03 > 0:41:06When sound comes, again, we go back to Lauder
0:41:06 > 0:41:08as the variety artist
0:41:08 > 0:41:11where he's performing his familiar songs,
0:41:11 > 0:41:14songs that the audience if they so wished could join in with
0:41:14 > 0:41:16and knew very well.
0:41:16 > 0:41:18And that really becomes his hallmark, as it were,
0:41:18 > 0:41:20in the early sound era.
0:41:20 > 0:41:23# Roamin' in the gloamin' with my lassie by my side
0:41:23 > 0:41:25# When the sun has gone to rest
0:41:25 > 0:41:28# That's the time that we love best... #
0:41:28 > 0:41:33Lauder's films depicted a Scotland that audiences were familiar with...
0:41:34 > 0:41:36..but didn't actually inhabit.
0:41:36 > 0:41:40It's tartanry, it's the kaleyard, it's rural Scotland,
0:41:40 > 0:41:44and in some respects, that was often because dramatists felt
0:41:44 > 0:41:47that this was when Scotland was at its most distinctive.
0:41:47 > 0:41:50It's often said that if you wanted to make a Scottish subject,
0:41:50 > 0:41:53you to set it in the 19th century or earlier
0:41:53 > 0:41:55because that was what was distinctively Scottish.
0:41:55 > 0:41:58The 20th-century was not distinctively Scottish.
0:42:01 > 0:42:04Now, for some Scottish cultural critics,
0:42:04 > 0:42:06that's a source of concern
0:42:06 > 0:42:08because it means increasingly that the Scottish population
0:42:08 > 0:42:12is subject to another culture, as it were,
0:42:12 > 0:42:14a culture that is not distinctively Scottish.
0:42:16 > 0:42:19But audiences weren't particularly bothered,
0:42:19 > 0:42:23and going to the cinema quickly became part of everyday life.
0:42:26 > 0:42:30MacDiarmid's radical writings couldn't compete.
0:42:30 > 0:42:33His masterpiece poem, A Drunk Man Looks at the Thistle,
0:42:33 > 0:42:36had only sold 99 copies in its first year.
0:42:38 > 0:42:42There was no appetite for political revolution either.
0:42:43 > 0:42:45In the 1929 general election,
0:42:45 > 0:42:48the Nationalists failed to make an impact,
0:42:48 > 0:42:52limping home with just over 3,000 votes in total.
0:42:53 > 0:42:55MacDiarmid was disappointed,
0:42:55 > 0:42:58but he had more pressing problems to deal with.
0:42:58 > 0:43:01His outspoken views were getting him into trouble.
0:43:03 > 0:43:05He's very uncompromising,
0:43:05 > 0:43:09but uncompromising people don't often find themselves greatly loved,
0:43:09 > 0:43:11and this was MacDiarmid's problem.
0:43:11 > 0:43:15He had also been so provocative and so outrageous
0:43:15 > 0:43:19in some of the things he'd said and so antiestablishment
0:43:19 > 0:43:22that he was becoming more and more unemployable.
0:43:24 > 0:43:30So MacDiarmid himself was in despair at really getting anything done,
0:43:30 > 0:43:34of really making the changes that he could see needed to be made.
0:43:37 > 0:43:40At home, his marriage was disintegrating,
0:43:40 > 0:43:44and his long-suffering wife, Peggy, left with their two children.
0:43:45 > 0:43:46He was heartbroken.
0:43:48 > 0:43:52In 1929, MacDiarmid left Montrose and his job.
0:43:52 > 0:43:55He left under a cloud,
0:43:55 > 0:43:58deemed too left-wing, too nationalist,
0:43:58 > 0:43:59too revolutionary.
0:44:01 > 0:44:03He drifted to England
0:44:03 > 0:44:06and from one disastrous writing job to another.
0:44:06 > 0:44:10Not the ideal place for a self-confessed Anglophobe.
0:44:11 > 0:44:16The problem was MacDiarmid was eccentric,
0:44:16 > 0:44:19and he...but he knew the power of eccentricity,
0:44:19 > 0:44:23and being eccentric means being on the fringe.
0:44:23 > 0:44:25He was able to look at things in a different way from other people,
0:44:25 > 0:44:28he refused to accept a lot of the commonplaces
0:44:28 > 0:44:30about British culture
0:44:30 > 0:44:32and the values that British culture placed on itself.
0:44:34 > 0:44:38But then he would always just go just a little too...too far.
0:44:39 > 0:44:44MacDiarmid met his second wife, Valda, in a bar in London.
0:44:44 > 0:44:46He was vulnerable.
0:44:46 > 0:44:50He was drinking heavily, destitute and in poor health.
0:44:51 > 0:44:52To help him recover,
0:44:52 > 0:44:56the couple retreated to the remote island of Whalsay in Shetland.
0:44:56 > 0:44:58It was a new start,
0:44:58 > 0:45:02but MacDiarmid was now living at the extreme edge of poverty
0:45:02 > 0:45:06at the extreme edge of Scotland.
0:45:06 > 0:45:10He was a man at war with his own country and at war with himself.
0:45:11 > 0:45:15The heady days of Montrose seemed a distant memory.
0:45:17 > 0:45:20So, what of MacDiarmid's vision for Scotland?
0:45:20 > 0:45:23What would happen to the hungry new talent,
0:45:23 > 0:45:26the green shoots of his cultural renaissance?
0:45:31 > 0:45:34In fact, MacDiarmid's ideas had spread beyond Montrose.
0:45:39 > 0:45:41In the Edinburgh suburb of Corstorphine,
0:45:41 > 0:45:43a couple have discovered that their house
0:45:43 > 0:45:47became the new literary hub of the Scottish Renaissance.
0:45:49 > 0:45:53- We bought the house in 1975. - It was our house in 1975, yes.
0:45:53 > 0:45:56We bought it directly from Helen Cruickshank.
0:45:57 > 0:46:00We bought her book. That told us a tremendous amount...
0:46:00 > 0:46:01Yes, that was the main...
0:46:01 > 0:46:04..about the house and about the people who had been here
0:46:04 > 0:46:06and what the house was used for.
0:46:06 > 0:46:09It was used as a meeting place, really.
0:46:09 > 0:46:12It was for everybody that was anybody
0:46:12 > 0:46:16in literature or art during her lifetime.
0:46:16 > 0:46:18Made it very interesting.
0:46:19 > 0:46:25Helen Cruickshank had grown up in Hillside just outside Montrose
0:46:25 > 0:46:28and had spent most of her working life as a civil servant in London.
0:46:29 > 0:46:34In 1924, she moved back to Scotland to care for her elderly mother.
0:46:35 > 0:46:37And they bought a house called Dinnieduff.
0:46:39 > 0:46:42This photograph was taken here in this window.
0:46:42 > 0:46:45I can't understand how they got all those people in, it's not that big.
0:46:45 > 0:46:48- That's Helen's mother.- Yes. - Edwin Muir.
0:46:48 > 0:46:50There's Willa Muir as well.
0:46:50 > 0:46:53And that's Helen at the back here.
0:46:53 > 0:46:58I'm very fond of dialect and Scottish dialect
0:46:58 > 0:46:59and Scottish poetry,
0:46:59 > 0:47:02so it just...it meant a lot when I discovered that all this
0:47:02 > 0:47:04had been going on in this... And we'd bought it.
0:47:04 > 0:47:06It was super.
0:47:08 > 0:47:12Helen rekindled the renaissance atmosphere of 16 Links Avenue,
0:47:12 > 0:47:16opening her home to writers and artists.
0:47:16 > 0:47:19Dinnieduff became the new headquarters
0:47:19 > 0:47:21of the Scottish cultural scene.
0:47:22 > 0:47:25MacDiarmid made occasional visits.
0:47:25 > 0:47:28Helen was all too aware of his misfortunes.
0:47:28 > 0:47:32She would often send food parcels and blankets to him in Shetland.
0:47:33 > 0:47:38Helen was always very generous with her time and with her hospitality.
0:47:38 > 0:47:42People stayed here often, but in a tiny little bedroom,
0:47:42 > 0:47:45and she called the bedroom the prophet's chamber.
0:47:45 > 0:47:47It was very, very sparse.
0:47:47 > 0:47:50But at least it was a bed for the night.
0:47:50 > 0:47:53Some of the artists stayed here, the writers stayed here
0:47:53 > 0:47:56for days, weeks at a time if they were down on their luck.
0:47:56 > 0:48:00But she had...the Muirs,
0:48:00 > 0:48:03erm...Hamish Henderson slept here,
0:48:03 > 0:48:05the great Hugh MacDiarmid slept here,
0:48:05 > 0:48:09Dr Nan Shepherd stayed in this room and many more.
0:48:09 > 0:48:13I mean, it was a proper prophet's chamber.
0:48:19 > 0:48:24In 1932, a new novel by an unknown writer dropped through the letterbox.
0:48:26 > 0:48:28And from the moment they started reading,
0:48:28 > 0:48:32neither Helen Cruikshank nor her mother could put it down.
0:48:32 > 0:48:35The pair immediately recognised
0:48:35 > 0:48:38the hills and fields of Angus and the Mearns,
0:48:38 > 0:48:42the place where they'd come from, the place they both called home.
0:48:46 > 0:48:50Sunset Song follows the story of a young girl, Chris Guthrie,
0:48:50 > 0:48:52growing up at the turn of the century
0:48:52 > 0:48:55in a crofting community in Northeast Scotland.
0:48:58 > 0:49:00As people and places are torn apart
0:49:00 > 0:49:02by the carnage of the First World War,
0:49:02 > 0:49:05their traditional way of life disappears forever.
0:49:08 > 0:49:11The author, Lewis Grassic Gibbon,
0:49:11 > 0:49:13had grown up less than 20 miles from Montrose.
0:49:16 > 0:49:19Many years later, Gibbon wrote the novel
0:49:19 > 0:49:21from his home in Welwyn Garden City.
0:49:23 > 0:49:24He wrote it in six weeks,
0:49:24 > 0:49:28often late into the night with practically no revisions.
0:49:30 > 0:49:34"So, that was Chris and her reading and schooling,
0:49:34 > 0:49:38"two Chrisses there were that fought for her heart..."
0:49:38 > 0:49:43After it was published, it immediately caused a sensation.
0:49:43 > 0:49:47"..and learning was brave and fine one day,
0:49:47 > 0:49:49"and the next, you'd waken..."
0:49:49 > 0:49:51There's a fantastic passage where she talks about
0:49:51 > 0:49:53the Scots Chris and the English Chris - very famous.
0:49:53 > 0:49:56Perhaps a cliche nowadays it's become so famous,
0:49:56 > 0:49:58but it's deeply important.
0:50:02 > 0:50:07"So, that was Chris and her reading and schooling,
0:50:07 > 0:50:08"two Chrisses there were
0:50:08 > 0:50:12"that fought for her heart and tormented her.
0:50:12 > 0:50:16"You hated the land and the coarse speak of the folk
0:50:16 > 0:50:19"and learning was brave and fine one day
0:50:19 > 0:50:21"and the next, you'd waken
0:50:21 > 0:50:23"with the peewits crying across the hills
0:50:23 > 0:50:25"deep and deep,
0:50:25 > 0:50:27"crying in the heart of you..."
0:50:27 > 0:50:29It ties into the society.
0:50:29 > 0:50:33The English Chris is her aspiration to learn, education.
0:50:33 > 0:50:36The education system at the time is English, Anglo-centric,
0:50:36 > 0:50:38the language is English.
0:50:38 > 0:50:40The society that she's in
0:50:40 > 0:50:43and her language that she's grown up with is Scots.
0:50:43 > 0:50:45So there's a conflict there that shouldn't really be there.
0:50:48 > 0:50:50What set the book apart was the way
0:50:50 > 0:50:52Gibbon blended English and Scots together.
0:50:52 > 0:50:57The characters spoke English, but using the natural rhythm of Scots.
0:50:59 > 0:51:04Sunset Song was the breakthrough novel of the Scottish Renaissance.
0:51:05 > 0:51:09What he is definitely doing is he is creating a voice of modern Scotland
0:51:09 > 0:51:10because that is the voice
0:51:10 > 0:51:13that most people in modern Scotland actually use.
0:51:13 > 0:51:16It's a voice which is English
0:51:16 > 0:51:19but which is inflected with strong elements of Scots.
0:51:19 > 0:51:24So you can show your identity in the language of another,
0:51:24 > 0:51:25if you want to put it that way,
0:51:25 > 0:51:27but you can do it in a way that also makes it your own.
0:51:29 > 0:51:33But who exactly was this new mystery author, Lewis Grassic Gibbon?
0:51:35 > 0:51:37Helen Cruickshank was desperate to find out
0:51:37 > 0:51:40and sent a letter to the book's publisher.
0:51:40 > 0:51:45"We would be delighted to welcome Lewis Grassic Gibbon at Dinnieduff
0:51:45 > 0:51:48"if he or she were visiting Edinburgh."
0:51:50 > 0:51:53An immediate reply came from Welwyn Garden City,
0:51:53 > 0:51:56signed in the author's real name, James Leslie Mitchell.
0:51:58 > 0:52:00Just as MacDiarmid had done,
0:52:00 > 0:52:02Mitchell gave himself a Scottish pen-name.
0:52:06 > 0:52:09He came and stayed in the prophet's chamber many times
0:52:09 > 0:52:12and made friends with Helen Cruikshank, MacDiarmid
0:52:12 > 0:52:14and the circle of Scottish writers.
0:52:16 > 0:52:21As MacDiarmid later acknowledged, Mitchell had cracked it.
0:52:21 > 0:52:23He has succeeded in finding...
0:52:23 > 0:52:25"..a Scottish literary voice.
0:52:25 > 0:52:28"It was the first major Scottish work of fiction
0:52:28 > 0:52:31"in which any kind of Scots was used throughout
0:52:31 > 0:52:34"for narrative as well as dialogue.
0:52:35 > 0:52:38"This volcanic emergence of the Scots genius
0:52:38 > 0:52:40"at its most veridical
0:52:40 > 0:52:44"at the very time when the general view was that Scots was dead
0:52:44 > 0:52:48"and incapable of becoming the medium of modern literature."
0:52:51 > 0:52:54The Scottish writers who were the ones in the know,
0:52:54 > 0:52:59the people like MacDiarmid, Neil Gunn, Compton Mackenzie,
0:52:59 > 0:53:01James Barke, Helen Cruickshank,
0:53:01 > 0:53:06they all saw instantly that this is a landmark in Scottish literature.
0:53:06 > 0:53:09And it was republished, I think, five times within a matter of weeks.
0:53:09 > 0:53:13And I think he was as surprised as his publisher was, actually,
0:53:13 > 0:53:18at the...you know, the rip-roaring success that the book was.
0:53:18 > 0:53:21He, all of a sudden, was catapulted
0:53:21 > 0:53:24to the forefront of the Scottish literary renaissance.
0:53:27 > 0:53:29And it wasn't just a book that spoke to Scots -
0:53:29 > 0:53:31it had universal appeal.
0:53:31 > 0:53:34The New York Times voted it Book of the Week,
0:53:34 > 0:53:36and a Hollywood film company showed interest.
0:53:38 > 0:53:42Mitchell had succeeded where MacDiarmid had failed.
0:53:42 > 0:53:47His Scots voice would find its way into the homes of millions of people.
0:53:49 > 0:53:51They became great friends.
0:53:51 > 0:53:54MacDiarmid came to visit Mitchell at his home.
0:53:55 > 0:53:59The two pioneers of Scottish letters collaborated
0:53:59 > 0:54:01and published an anthology together.
0:54:03 > 0:54:05Well, this one is called Scottish Scene,
0:54:05 > 0:54:08or The Intelligent Man's Guide to Albyn.
0:54:08 > 0:54:11And, of course, whenever they're using words like this,
0:54:11 > 0:54:15you have to be slightly ironic and realise that what they're doing
0:54:15 > 0:54:17is playing with the conventions of the time.
0:54:17 > 0:54:18So, you've got the map of Scotland,
0:54:18 > 0:54:21and you've got Lewis Grassic Gibbon, or James Leslie Mitchell,
0:54:21 > 0:54:24being run out of town by the minister,
0:54:24 > 0:54:27and you've got MacDiarmid up in Shetland looking down.
0:54:27 > 0:54:32So it's a sense of looking at the whole of the scene of Scotland
0:54:32 > 0:54:34from different perspectives and in different ways.
0:54:37 > 0:54:41They dedicated the book to their friend Helen Cruickshank,
0:54:41 > 0:54:44acknowledgement of her unstinting support.
0:54:46 > 0:54:50Scottish Scene would be their only collaboration.
0:54:51 > 0:54:56On 7 February, just one week before his 34th birthday,
0:54:56 > 0:54:58Mitchell died suddenly.
0:55:00 > 0:55:03Of the many letters of sympathy received by his wife,
0:55:03 > 0:55:05one came from MacDiarmid in Shetland.
0:55:07 > 0:55:11"Leslie's untimely death is a serious blow.
0:55:12 > 0:55:15"He had achieved a very remarkable tale of work
0:55:15 > 0:55:19"and won a definite place in the history of Scottish literature."
0:55:21 > 0:55:24A simple ceremony was held at Arbuthnott Kirk
0:55:24 > 0:55:26to lay his ashes in the Mearns earth.
0:55:28 > 0:55:30Many of Scotland's writers were there,
0:55:30 > 0:55:32including Helen Cruikshank.
0:55:34 > 0:55:38"This man set the flame of his native genius
0:55:38 > 0:55:43"under the cumbering whin of the untilled field.
0:55:43 > 0:55:47"Lit a fire in the Mearns to illuminate Scotland,
0:55:47 > 0:55:51"clearing the sullen soil for a richer yield."
0:55:55 > 0:55:59So, what had this group of artists, of resistance fighters,
0:55:59 > 0:56:01left behind for future generations?
0:56:07 > 0:56:11MacDiarmid found recognition for his writing in his later years,
0:56:11 > 0:56:15but his political vision for Scotland has not been realised.
0:56:16 > 0:56:20He did witness the rise of the Scottish National Party,
0:56:20 > 0:56:23falling in and out with them in true MacDiarmid style.
0:56:23 > 0:56:26"It was Ewan Tavendale, him she hadn't seen since the day of the..."
0:56:26 > 0:56:30Perhaps his biggest achievement was having the conviction
0:56:30 > 0:56:33to step forward and fight at the right time.
0:56:34 > 0:56:38The time when Scotland's culture was fast disappearing.
0:56:39 > 0:56:41I feel most proud of him
0:56:41 > 0:56:43for reacting against the worst of Scotland,
0:56:43 > 0:56:45even though he probably is
0:56:45 > 0:56:47some of the aspects of the worst of Scotland himself.
0:56:47 > 0:56:52But he doesn't want to, you know, be top of the class,
0:56:52 > 0:56:54he wants to shake things up a little,
0:56:54 > 0:56:59and I think that's something that Scotland can always use.
0:56:59 > 0:57:03What did the Scottish Renaissance reawaken or lead to?
0:57:03 > 0:57:06What did it regenerate or what did it rejuvenate or bring about?
0:57:08 > 0:57:11Well, you would not have a political awareness in Scotland
0:57:11 > 0:57:12that you have now.
0:57:12 > 0:57:15You wouldn't have the self-confidence
0:57:15 > 0:57:18in the writing of Irvine Welsh or James Kelman
0:57:18 > 0:57:22or Alasdair Grey or AL Kennedy or Janice Galloway.
0:57:22 > 0:57:25All of that comes as a legacy
0:57:25 > 0:57:29from the revolutionary aspirations of MacDiarmid
0:57:29 > 0:57:35and his fellow writers and artists in the 1920s in Montrose.
0:57:35 > 0:57:37"So, that was Chris and her reading and schooling,
0:57:37 > 0:57:40"two Chrisses there were that fought for her heart..."
0:57:40 > 0:57:43In the wake of Scotland's renaissance,
0:57:43 > 0:57:48Scots began to recapture a sense of who they were.
0:57:48 > 0:57:52They saw Scotland transformed.
0:57:52 > 0:57:56MacDiarmid's band of revolutionaries is owed a great debt.
0:57:57 > 0:58:00Today, at Montrose Academy,
0:58:00 > 0:58:03the significance of their legacy is clear.
0:58:03 > 0:58:07Once, children were disciplined for speaking Scots in class.
0:58:07 > 0:58:13Now, they're reading it aloud from modern Scottish novels.
0:58:13 > 0:58:16"..the beauty of it in the sweetness of the Scottish land and skies..."
0:58:16 > 0:58:2121st-century Scotland is a country sure in its own voice,
0:58:21 > 0:58:27and it stands on the shoulders of those 1920s cultural fighters
0:58:27 > 0:58:30who fought for Scotland's voice
0:58:30 > 0:58:31and won.