George Mackay Brown and Orkney

The Verb

The Verb celebrates Orkney and the work of George Mackay Brown in his centenary year. One of Scotland's greatest 20th century writers, George Mackay Brown was a poet, novelist, columnist and chronicler of Orcadian life.

Ian McMillan is joined this week by the novelist James Robertson who is fascinated by 'time' in George Mackay Brown's work and has said his writing is 'full of beautiful sentences, big ideas, mischievous comedy, powerful tragedy and, again and again, simple observations that make you pause and say, yes, that’s it, that’s how it is'. James' most recent novel 'News of the Dead' also explores time.

Alison Miller is National Library of Scotland and Orkney Library & Archive's Scots Scriever - she shares her love of George Mackay Brown's poem 'Them at Isbister' which appears in 'The Storm and other Poems', his first collection. Alison invites listeners to contact BBC Radio Orkney if they have a copy; only 250 were printed and she is part of a project to track as many down as possible ( [e-mail]).

Josie Giles has just published a verse novel called 'Deep Wheel Orcadia' which has Orcadian dialect at its heart. 'Deep Wheel Orcadia' itself is described as 'a distant space station struggling for survival as the pace of change threatens to leave the community behind'. Josie reads poetry in Orcadian dialect and in English translation and explains how the English has been made less transparent.

Artist Anne Bevan grew up in Orkney and George Mackay Brown was a family friend. She reads letters from two 'fairies' ( Moonbeam and Rosebud) which George wrote for her when she was a child, and reads the poem he dedicated to her when she was at art school. Anne explains how he still inspires her art. http://www.annebevan.co.uk/