Favourite verse helps to keep 91-year-olds afloat

THEY met more than 70 years ago and were drawn to each other because of their mutual love of poetry.

Now, Mark and Alena Stewart, both 91, feature in a new book, Carry A Poem, free copies of which are being handed out across the city in February as part of this year's City of Literature reading campaign.

The poem that features in the book with their story is Where Go The Boats? by Robert Louis Stevenson – although the Newington couple say they could never choose a favourite, with their tastes ranging from the sonnets of Shakespeare and Milton, to Norman MacCaig and John Pudney.

Alena says: "It is an evolutionary thing. There are poems I knew as a child and used to recite at parties and then others I preferred when I grew up."

Mark agrees: "It is impossible to choose one poem. It makes you think of Desert Island Discs and how difficult it is to choose eight discs only."

To mark their 90th birthdays, Mark and Alena compiled a booklet of their best-loved poems over the years. Named Mony a Canty Day after a line in the Robert Burns poem John Anderson My Jo, the booklet was created as a gift for friends and family.

Mark, from Dumfries, and Edinburgh-born Alena met at the University of Edinburgh in 1937. Even then the two shared a love of poetry, quoting verses to one another, just as they do now. Alena says: "We both grew up learning poetry."

In 1943, the couple were married in North Morningside Parish Church. After 66 years of marriage, the parents of three and grandparents of five's lives are still full of poetry and affection. Alena says: "We prop each other up at 91."

• To find out more about the Carry a Poem Campaign visit www.carryapoem.com.