Malcolm (Calum) Smith Centenary, 29th May 2012. About "As ‘Safety’ Saw It".

Between 4 October 1955 and 7 September 1956 a weekly column appeared on page 3 of the Stornoway Gazette, under the heading “As I See It: M,S.”

This is an annotated (or pedant’s) edition of all the articles, reproduced with some notes by the author himself (e.g. on Gaelic terms) and identifying many literary allusions, along with extracts from reactions to ‘M.S.’ in the same newspaper.

 "Around the Peat-fire", by Calum Smith (“M.S.”) was published by Birlinn (Edinburgh) , in  November2001. A new  ‘Anthology’ edition including a selection from ‘As I See It’ appeared in September 2010 (Birlinn) and is still available.

Further details and/or extracts could be posted here if requested by email or via a comment.

The range of the articles is show by this Rough Guide to Topics:-

Automation, expectation of benefits from

Bothans (drinking dens); vs. village halls; and Daily Herald reporter

Bridge, in need of repair

Burns, Robert: Burns Night

Camouflage, nature vs. artifice

Capital punishment, case against

Christmas, commercialisation of

Corporal punishment in schools (Essex, Lewis)

Crofting: proposed Crofters' Society; viability of; Crofting Commission

Deadline-meeting, early morning, seagull

Economy: egg-scheme, argument over; fish, price for varied catch

Food: kippers (and jam); herring, school canteen, spam

Gaelic language: erosion of; used in advertising

Gambling, football pools: advantages of nationalising

Graffiti and desk-carving, suggested remedy for

Harris, distinct from Lewis; Harris Tweed, rapid production of

Highlanders, fighting spirit

Lewis: as ‘abroad’; criticised; holidays in; need for (social) history of 

Moon, in poetry and space race

National Service, criticism of in Economic Research Council report

Newspapers, falling circulation

Peat-cutting, experience of

Registrar-General for Scotland, Annual Report 1955

Religion, requirement to profess, in Navy

Reputations, posthumous: Henry VIII, Richard III, Stalin

Rivers, falling in

Robeson, Paul, appreciation

Royal tour, unreliable reporting

Rubbish: bins; dumping, litter

Segregation, racial (USA), iniquity of

Smith, Roderick, ex-Provost of Stornoway, appreciation of

Smoking, and lung cancer risk

South Uist Rocket Range, local reactions to

Speech, articulacy, elocution

Sports, value of participation in

Squatters, on land, and plot-holders

Stone-throwing, dangers of

Stornoway Trust

Stornoway: sheep wandering in; municipal improvements ahead of royal visit

Story-telling: a Lewis ‘character’

Street-lighting, benefits of

Subsidies, public spending: opera compared with local needs

Sunday trading (London)

Supernatural: fairies; ghost-stories

Superstition: prevalence of; detrimental effects

Teachers: Superannuation Bill; political vetting (Renfrewshire)

Temperament, `artistic', flaws in

Tinkers: attitudes to, changing way of life

Trees, protection of (firewood in Castle Grounds)

Wind: hurricane names; unseasonal May weather

Youth, attitudes to; swimming, boys

Photo: E. A. Smith
Stornoway c1959

Booklet as a pdf here.

Burns Night – As ‘Safety’ Saw It 56 years ago: Gastronomic Immortality?

For A’ That

All over the world, at this time, elaborate preparations are being made to celebrate the anniversary of the birth of “Scotland’s National Bard” and to “honour” the ploughman poet who has found for himself a place, if not in the hearts, at least in the stomachs, of a wide variety of people in many countries and climes.

            So now would seem as good a time as any for me to confess that I have never attended a Burns’ Supper. Not that I have any rooted objection to supping, or to Robert Burns – although he wrote almost as much bad verse as he wrote good – but rather because I cannot reconcile in my own mind two such separate appetites as one for food and one for poetry; and I feel that by trying to combine the two I would only succeed in confusing both. For me, there is no common link between a palate for whisky and haggis and an aesthetic appreciation of lyrics.

            One may commemorate a dead genius in many and meaningless ways – meaningless at least to those whose hearts or brains are illumed by a flicker from the torch of the genius; but he can only be honoured through his works, and by any enlightenment that a diligent perusal of these works may bring to the genuine seeker: certainly he cannot be honoured by producing, in his name, elaborately succulent suppers interspersed with dilettante sentiments.

            How much more sparsely would a great many such anniversary functions be attended were the food and drink eliminated and only poetry served up neat? It would appear that Burns, and he shares the distinction with many other poets and artists in all fields, has achieved a sort of gastronomic immortality. And it is ironical that so much in the way of good things should be consumed, using Burns as an excuse, when he himself, during his lifetime, on occasion found it difficult to fend for himself and his family.

            Another irony of this poet’s post-mortem fame is the diverse creeds, classes, countries, and peoples that are gathered together – at least once a year – to do him homage. People who would look at him askance were he alive today, go into raptures over him – post-prandial raptures anyway. Representatives of countries where his outspoken expressions of his social and spiritual values would possibly earn him incarceration come flocking to his shrine – but then just as the schools expurgate some of his works, so many who pay lip-service to his genius, do not hesitate to smother the flame of his spirit when the implications are unpalatable.

            When God left man in the freedom of his own will he bequeathed upon him the right to rebel. And seldom has the flame of rebellion against convention, injustice, tyranny, and hypocrisy burned more fiercely in any heart than it did in the heart of Robert Burns. Like every true poet, every true artist, he respected realities and detested shams. That is why it seems almost like blasphemy to have so many shams perpetrated in his name, for no-one can persuade me that the vast majority of celebrations this month will not be attended as social, rather than literary functions – or convince me that apart from the briefed speakers, more tributes will be paid to the poetry than to the cooking.

            Consider with what a white heat of indignation he himself would have lambasted the contributors to such a situation, or, with what derisive mockery lampooned them!

            You will have understood by now that I think quite a lot of Robert Burns, although I do not worship at his shrine. You will also have begun to understand why my only participations in anniversary rites have been confined to the simple, but enjoyable, literary ones of my school debating society days.

            And there is also, of course, the fact that I don’t think Robert Burns is Scotland’s best poet; although he may be Scotland’s National Bard not only by Scotland’s but by the world’s acclaim. One or two poets in the Gaelic language, if less prolific, were just as good: and I consider that Duncan Ban Macintyre was a better lyric poet than Burns.

            And anyone who wants to argue about that must have read both Robert Burns and Duncan Ban Macintyre; and I’m not prepared to discuss the matter over a supper!

Calum Smith writing as M.S., in the Stornoway Gazette, 17 & 20 January 1956.

Burns’ song “A man’s a man for a’ that” was played at Calum’s (humanist) funeral in 2003.

Fighting the Cuts: How they did it in 1931.

SmothPubs  Invergordon booklet tells the story.

See also:

Barry Duncan, Invergordon ’31: How Men of the RN Struck! and Won. Southampton, Duncan, 1976. 53pp. Original price £1 (out of print).  A very readable, informative account by a writer who knew the Navy, understood the politics, and had met some of those involved.   “The cover signal spells STRIKE.“

 

OUT NOW

Himalaya and Invergordon pamphlets (see previous postings)

 

COMING SHORTLY: Two new pamphlets due out midweek (week beginning 7/11/11)

Himalayan Encounters: Ladakh 1944. (Notes on a ‘Trip’ from Srinagar to Khalatse) by Kenneth Behrens.(2011). 20pp. £1.50

... with additional notes and observations on Kashmir and the North West Frontier Province.  

From Recollections: An Album, containing 136 photos with handwritten captions and notes, 2 maps, and 2pp. handwritten text. Kenneth Behrens, an officer in the British army in India, put the book together and sent it to his young daughter in 1945. The original album was presented to the British Library in December 2007.

UPDATE (June 2017)

A new pdf of this pamphlet with images is now available

======================

Invergordon 1931. Shipshape and Mutiny Fashion: How they Fought the Pay Cuts, by Liz Willis (2011). £0.70p

Financial crisis, national (coalition) government imposing a programme of drastic cuts in wages, supposedly forced on them by the state of the world economy, and insisting on the need for public-sector workers to accept a lowering of living standards, extending even to the armed forces, in the national interest… The year was 1931, and one of the first and most effective shows of resistance came in an unexpected quarter.

A shorter version of this text appears in the current issue of  Black Flag, No.234, late 2011, pp.17-19 (with some nice pictures).

Titles already available or coming shortly

Back-list (retrospectively added to this imprint):

As ‘Safety’ Saw It: Around Stornoway in the 1950s. Articles by Calum Smith.(2009). 56pp. £3

Women in the Spanish Revolution by Liz Willis (2010 edition)16pp. £1.00

What is Libertarian History? by Liz Willis (2011) 12pp. £0.60p [price marked 90p]

Forthcoming:

Himalayan Encounters: Ladakh 1944. (Notes on a ‘Trip’ from Srinagar to Khalatse) by Kenneth Behrens.(2011). 20pp. £1.50.

Invergordon 1931. Shipshape and Mutiny Fashion: How they Fought the Pay Cuts by Liz Willis (2011). £0.70p

Availability:

Copies of some of these may be found in Housmans bookshop or at meetings of the Radical History Network [Haringey/North East London].

SPUBS 

Welcome to SmothPubs

Small cheap A5 booklets on diverse mostly historical topics of a broadly libertarian socialist persuasion, with sundry excursions into interesting byways.

Short print-runs to allow for new editions on request, with updates and amendments.