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Hamish Henderson: A Biography. Volume 1 - The Making Of The Poet (1919-1953)

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The " Freedom Come-All-Ye" ( Scottish Gaelic: Thig Saorsa Uile) is a Scots language song written by Hamish Henderson in 1960. Macdonald, Hugh (24 July 2014). "The Games opens: a ceremony of gallusness with a powerful charity theme". Herald Scotland . Retrieved 30 December 2021. His book of war poetry, "Elegies for the Dead in Cyrenaica" won him the Somerset Maugham award. He doubled his prize money with a successful long shot on the Grand National. He gave up his job with the Workers Educational Association to travel to Italy, where he translated the prison letters of Antonio Gramsci. Hamish Henderson’s credo was derived from Heinrich Heine’s ‘Poetry becomes People’ — the perfect fusion between folk and art poetry. Gibson is right: with his song ‘The Freedom Come-all-Ye’, written for the Clydeside peace marchers in 1960, he produced the ‘most compelling example of a poetry that “becomes people”.’ So much so, that, despite Henderson’s own rejection of that idea, lots of people would want to see it used as the Scottish national anthem. This highly anticipated documentary pays tribute to the many contrary forces and diverse facets of Henderson's life as a poet, soldier, intellectual, activist, songwriter and leading force in the revival of Scottish folk music.

The obituaries spoke of a feud with Hugh MacDiarmid and his biographer, Alan Bold. Hamish and Alan were banned from Milne's Bar for fighting. Passions had run high following a disagreement in the columns of The Scotsman about Hugh MacDiarmid's attitude to poetry. The feud is often remembered, but the cause has been forgotten. I believe that that cause is significant and worth revisiting, as it tells us much about Hamish's principles and the way that they permeated all his activities. Though he was born in Blairgowrie, Perthshire, [3] Henderson spent his early years in nearby Glen Shee and eventually moved to England with his mother. He won a scholarship to Dulwich School in London; however, his mother died shortly before he was due to take up his place and he had to live in an orphanage while studying there. [ dubious – discuss] The song's tune is an adaptation of the First World War pipe march "The Bloody Fields of Flanders", composed by John McLellan DCM (Dunoon), [4] which Henderson first heard played on the Anzio beachhead. He wrote the lyrics after discussions with Ken Goldstein, an American researcher at the School of Scottish Studies, who had enjoyed Henderson's rendition of the tune. [5] It was subsequently adopted by Glasgow Peace Marcher CND demonstrators and the anti- Polaris campaign (for example, notably at the anti-Polaris protests at Holy Loch in 1961). I, too, start by congratulating Cathy Peattie on obtaining the debate and by congratulating the various contributors. This week, a certain rather vacuous female journalist on "Newsnight" referred, in her criticism of the Scottish Parliament, to the fact that we did such things as discussing Hamish Henderson, as if that were something that a proper Parliament does not do. I believe that commemoration of such an important Scottish figure and his contribution to Scotland's song and musical traditions is a worthwhile subject for debate in the Parliament.

Documentary film about Hamish Henderson, a colossal figure in Scottish culture and a man of endless passion and curiosity, whose poems continue to elevate and inspire a nation.

I will always remember two of Hamish Henderson's letters, which I think are important and should be put on the parliamentary record. He wrote the first to the socialist newspaper, Tribune. He warned socialists against an over-reliance on what we now know as the parliamentary road to socialism. He reminded us that socialism Tom Hubbard, "Hamish Henderson as Translator", in Hubbard, Tom (2022), Invitation to the Voyage: Scotland, Europe and Literature, Rymour, pp.93 – 95, ISBN 9-781739-596002 Many song-makers might have stopped there in righteous anger, but Henderson adds depth, tragic irony: Today, we live in tight grip of a new life-destroying creed which shapes our cultural and social realities. Politically, MacLean was like Hamish Henderson. Both were internationalists and both would have felt very much at home in a Scottish workers' republic. However, MacLean was a pacifist whereas Hamish was prepared to fight for peace. MacLean was a conscientious objector in the first world war, who went to prison for his stance. In the second world war, the threat of fascism was too great a challenge to Hamish Henderson's socialist principles and he enlisted. He served first with the Pioneer Corps, then he was an intelligence officer, serving in north Africa and with the partisans in Italy. He accepted and translated the Italian surrender.And that brings us full circle to the animating core of Henderson’s work in all forms, at all stages of his career, though variously expressed. This, in an interview of 1966: Henderson was very much a part of the ‘folk process’ he championed. For some, this position was problematic and riddled with contradictions, but these were contradictions that Henderson himself embraced. His affinity with the cultural politics of the Italian Marxist Antonio Gramsci is important here. A constant theme in Henderson’s writing, like Gramsci’s, is the role of the intellectual in society. Gramsci famously ‘hated indifference,’ believing that ‘living means taking sides.’ ‘Those who really live’ he wrote, ‘cannot help being a citizen and a partisan.’ In this spirit, Henderson refused to separate his life, scholarship, art and politics – writing, Hamish Henderson made a double contribution—of an institution that I hope will be nurtured and treasured by the University of Edinburgh and by the Scottish nation, and of a live folk tradition that will continue into the future. If the Parliament does anything to honour his name, it should be to support that folk tradition and the institution that he has left us with.

Hamish Henderson was Scotland's leading folklorist, as well as a major poet, soldier, socialist, songwriter, CND peace campaigner and anti-apartheid activist. He was born in Blairgowrie on 11 November 1919. His mother was Janet Jobson Henderson (d. 1933), a cook and housekeeper who had served as a nurse on the western front, and his father was James Scott (1874–1934), an army officer. He was raised by his Gaelic-speaking mother and his Episcopalian, Jacobite maternal grandmother, spending his early childhood in Blairgowrie and Glenshee. He also spent time in Dundee, Somerset, and Devon. Orphaned at the age of thirteen, Henderson obtained scholarships first to Dulwich College and then to Downing College, Cambridge, where he read modern languages. He wis wi intelligence in Warld War II in Noorth Africa an Italy, an on 2 Mey 1945, Henderson wis at the surrender o Marshal Rodolfo Graziani. [3] He screived war poetry and gaithered or scrieved sangs: Elegies for the Dead in Cyrenaica (1948), The 51st (Highland) Division's Farewell to Sicily and Ballads of World War II (1947). Efter the war, he tocht in Germany and wi preesoner o war in Comrie. [2]

But he also had to grapple with Gramsci’s view of folklore as Janus-faced. Gramsci spoke of ‘various strata’ — beside the ‘often creative and progressive ones’ he also highlighted ‘the fossilized ones which reflect conditions of past life and are therefore conservative and reactionary’. Henderson called it Gramsci’s ‘unresolved but creative clash of contradictions’. While recognising these tensions, where he perhaps parted with Gramsci was when the latter claimed that folk culture had to be ‘overcome’ and that, in Corey Gibson’s words, ‘folklore can have no place in the development of a working-class hegemony and, therefore, no place in the revolutionary future as imagined by a Gramscian Marxism’.

In an earlier debate, Roseanna Cunningham referred to a recent project that linked traditional arts and tourism. Our culture is an important aspect of the experience that a visitor can have of our country. Only in Scotland can one experience Scottish culture. One can experience many other sorts of cultures here, which one can experience elsewhere, but Scottish culture is unique and special to us. We should be proud to project our culture to our visitors from overseas. I am pleased that the Scottish Arts Council is giving greater recognition to the role of traditional arts and that more money has been devoted to the promotion of those arts. I am sure that traditional art forms will continue to flower in Scotland. In 1983 he wis votit Scot o the Year in 1983, bi Radio Scotland listeners; he refusit an OBE in protest aboot nuclear weapons. [5] Mario Relich, ‘”Apollyon’s Chasm”: the poetry of Hamish Henderson’, The Dark Horse, 12/13 (Winter 2001-2) Henderson’s biographer Tim Neat (2010) suggests that his credo ‘Poetry Becomes People’ captures the essence of his beliefs and life’s work. This phrase comes from a poem series called ‘Freedom Becomes People,’ published in 1985, inspired by the German poet Heine: Timothy Neat (2012) Hamish Henderson: Poetry Becomes People (1952-2002), (In Inglis) Birlinn Ltd, Edinburgh [11]I would like briefly to reflect on and develop what Jamie McGrigor said. In the school of Scottish studies, Hamish Henderson leaves us with an institution that is a magnet for young people from all over the world. I meet many students at the University of Edinburgh who have come here specifically to visit the school of Scottish studies. Next week, a group of Estonians will visit the Parliament from the school of Scottish studies. They have come specifically to learn about Scottish folk music and to study the collection that Hamish left. As John McAllion mentioned, Hamish Henderson campaigned for inclusion and social justice and was—perhaps above all—an international socialist. He commemorated Scotland's socialist traditions in works such as " The John MacLean March", which Cathy Peattie recited. I recall looking all over the place for a copy of "The John MacLean March"—a task that seemed to be completely impossible—during my 13-year period of exile in the south of England. The collection included the songs and styles of the travelling people that Hamish would first have heard in the berry fields of Blairgowrie, which was the area where he was born. Hamish realised that other collectors had neglected those songs and styles and set about correcting that neglect, not as a curator, but as a friend. He had a commitment to the oral tradition and the way in which songs evolved to reflect the lives of the people who sing them. Unfortunately, funds were short, tapes were expensive and the recordings were not always permanent. Henderson was instrumental in bringing about the Edinburgh People's Festival Ceilidh in 1951, which placed traditionally performed Scottish folk music on the public stage for the first time as "A Night of Scottish Song". However, the People's Festival, of which it was part, was planned as a left-wing competitor to the Edinburgh Festival and was deeply controversial. At the event, Henderson performed The John Maclean March, to the tune of Scotland the Brave, which honoured the life and work John Maclean, a communist and Scottish nationalist hero.

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