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the
GEORGE MACKAY BROWN website
Anecdotes
and Memories
page 1
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contributed
I’m of Orcadian descent, my dad’s grandfather having emigrated to Canada from near Finstown. My father was very intrigued by the character of a bard portrayed in one of GMB’s stories. The bard had our family surname (Corston), and Dad wondered for years if he was based on a real figure - maybe a distant ancestor. My parents visited Orkney during the 1980s, and while in Stromness, Dad decided he would try and find out about the bard. He found GMB’s house, knocked, and the door was answered by GMB himself. Dad made his enquiry, which interested Mackay Brown greatly. The bard character was purely fictional, but GMB had purposely picked our family name for two reasons. First, it’s a very old Orkney name, so he felt it was particularly suitable for the time period he was depicting, and second, he had researched and had found that the name had actually died out in Orkney, so he felt it wouldn’t reflect on anyone living there now. At that time, GMB had a regular column in the Scots Magazine. A few months after the visit, what should turn up in his column but a short account of Dad’s visit and enquiry. Mackay Brown described Dad as " a pleasant middle-aged Canadian" - Dad, in his 70s at the time, was thrilled to be described as middle aged, not old! Christine Corston, Dartmouth, Nova Scotia ~~<>~~ "This Corston the ballad singer had a rare talent indeed, a thing you would never guess from the way he blew his nose in his sleeve and slapped the buttocks of any lass that bent to lay peats on the kithcen fire.
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I am
a crystallographer by training. A
crystallographer is a scientist whose specialty is to study crystals.
Crystals or crystalline matter, when exposed to intense x-rays
produce a regular patterns of dots.
Analysing these patterns of regularly distributed spots,
crystallographers can unravel the atomic structure of matter in the
crystals. So, what is the connection with GMB? I
had encountered 'anti-science' poems before. From the disappointment of
J. Keats in the poem Lamia, where he laments that Mr. Newton was
'Unweaving the Rainbow' by explaining it, to the boring explanations
that Mr. Walt Whitman had to endure by the 'Learned Astronomer' [poem When
I Heard the Learn'd Astronomer included in Leaves of Grass].
However, this graphic description of the effect of science in our world
sounded so desperate that I had to learn more about the poet writing
such an outcry. Being
a writer myself, I could not resist including in my book a brief poem of
GMB in relation to the definition of poetry: Dr. Cele Abad-Zapatero, protein crystallographer, published 'Crystals and Life: A Personal Journey' in 2002 [International University Line, La Jolla, CA. USA] GMB References: [1]
from Flotta Flare Orkney: Pictures
and Poems, 1996 and 1998, |
| My grandfather, John Taylor
of Bathgate, Birsay, was 80 in July 1994. I wanted to do something special
for his birthday, and eventually hit on the idea of asking GMB to write
some form of celebratory poem dedicated to Mr. Taylor. I had never previously had any contact whatsoever with GMB, although my mother was two years behind him at Stromness Academy. However I wrote to him with my request and was delighted to receive a response within a week. He returned the birthday card which I'd hopefully enclosed. On it he'd written an acrostic poem. GMB ignored my request to name his fee. Accordingly when visited Orkney that summer, I took with a me a case of 'Brains Beer'. When I called to deliver it, he invited me in and was hospitality itself. C.J. Buttwell |
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John Taylor, Birsay |
| GRACE ROSSI
Grace, this whole Some day (with a blessing) Stromness 30.10.1994 |
| When given a whisky and asked
if he'd like water with it, George would reply, "If there's
room." IH Stromness |
See also the Obituary
by Archie Bevan,
friend and literary executor
~~~
If you
would like to contribute an anecdote. memory or photograph
please email suevic@freenetname.co.uk
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