William Soutar

Published on Wednesday 4 October 2006 12:41

WILLIAM Soutar was born in 1898 and attended school in Perth before joining the Royal Navy in 1916.

When he demobilized in November 1918, Soutar suffered his first bout of ankylosing spondylitis, arthritis of the spine, a crippling condition which eventually kept him bedridden for the last 13 years of his life.

He had an unsuccessful spell at Edinburgh University, graduating in 1923 with third class honours in English after constantly challenging the establishment on the curriculum's content. Nevertheless, it was poetry which was Soutar's passion and talent.

Along with Scots poet Hugh MacDiarmid, Soutar had contempt for contemporary poetry and embarked upon writing "synthetic Scots", a distinctive blend of Scots tongue. By 1930, Soutar was a prolific writer, famous for his "bairn rhymes" for children.

When illness took over, Soutar continued to work fervently from his bed while educating himself on the news of the day. The horrors of the Spanish Civil War inspired him to write one of his best works, The Children.

While bedridden, he also kept a series of diaries. By July 1943, Soutar knew that illness was in its final stages so he began The Diary of a Dying Man to document his final journey. In many literary circles it is regarded as a masterpiece.

Following his death on 15 October 1943 at his home in Perth, MacDiarmid edited some of Soutar's poems and published them in 1948. Forty years later, WR Aitken published a substantial edition of Soutar's work. His diaries have also attracted interest. American diarist scholar Thomas Mallon brought Diaries of a Dying Man back into print in 1988 after parts of it were published in 1954 by Alexander Scott. However, the fact that in 1998, Soutar's centenary year, none of his work was in print suggests that Soutar's contribution to Scottish literature has not yet been fully recognised.