Letters: Late Scots scholar

I WAS interested in Douglas Gifford's description of Edwin Morgan as "the First Scots Makar" (obituary, 20 August).

This term is usually associated with the medieval Makars referred to in the poem by William Dunbar (1460-1520): Lament for the Makars. These poets (sometimes referred to in England as "the Scots Chaucerians"), wrote exclusively in Scots before the language had been undermined for political purposes, as a national language.

The poetry written by the Makars formed the inspiration for the Scottish Renaissance from the Kailyaird, initiated by the work of Hugh MacDiarmid in the first half of the 20th century. Edwin Morgan was a child when this took place.

As Lady Nairne put it so well: "Truith wul staun whan awthing's failin."

David Purves

Strathalmond Road

Edinburgh

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One morning in 1936, I found myself one of only two upper deck travellers on a Glasgow tram. Both of us were bound for the same destination. I, a recent entrant to the senior school there, aged 11; he a "big boy" of some 16 years (as I now learn), to be respected but scarcely greeted as a friend.

Both of us had in our time studied at Rutherglen Academy, "Stonelaw" as it was still then known. We had both then chosen to migrate to one or other of the "grammar schools" in Glasgow.

My fellow traveller was Edwin Morgan. He greatly impressed me that morning, as he was intently immersed in reading a copy of Ariel, Maurois' life of the poet Shelley.

There were few of my fellow scholars who rushed to buy a new-fangled Penguin as he had; we others, as admirers of LB Lambie and R Wilson and Ian Shaw, were more likely to be seeking a copy of either Rowan's or Forsyth's list of rugby fixtures for the coming year.

Edwin's choice was a clear pointer to his future as a successful and popular professor at Glasgow University and an innovative poet and translator, Poet Laureate of Glasgow and, indeed, of a devolved Scotland.

I am just sorry that no mention was made of his time at "the High" in the otherwise excellent obituary (20 August).

I feel confident that, like most of us who were fortunate enough to study there in the 1930s, Edwin Morgan would have confessed to a debt of gratitude for his years on Elmbank Street and to the High School's talented and stimulating staff of teachers.

Kenneth A D Inglis

Gelston

Castle Douglas