ID 129
Title Hamish Henderson - a Various Man
Broadcast 2008-10-14 00:00:00
Network Radio 4
Presenter Fred Freeman
Producer Mike Hally
Precis He's been called "the most important Scottish poet since Burns" but he's better known overseas than elsewhere in the UK. Nelson Mandela sought him out after his release from Robbin Island, Pete Seeger gamely attempted some of his Scots dialect poetry and E P Thompson called him "that rare man, a poet". This programme gives a flavour of the extraordinary life and work of Hamish Henderson.
Duration 28
Txtime 1899-12-30 11:30:00
Repeat
Rpttime
Description He's been called "the most important Scottish poet since Burns" but he's better known overseas than elsewhere in the UK. Nelson Mandela sought him out after his release from Robbin Island, Pete Seeger gamely attempted some of his Scots dialect poetry and E P Thompson called him "that rare man, a poet". Ask anyone south of the Border to name the leading Scottish poets and most would get stuck after "Robert Burns" and perhaps, horrifyingly, "William McGonagall" but there's at least one other whose name deserves much more recognition - this programme gives a flavour of the extraordinary life and work of Hamish Henderson.

He was not just a poet and song-writer of international stature, but also "a various man", one with a range of talents and interests that added up to a colourful and influential life. Winner of the Somerset Maugham prize in 1949 for his war poetry 'Elegies for the Dead in Cyrenaica', a folklorist who pioneered use of the portable tape recorder and led the Scottish Folk Revival, from his base in Edinburgh University's School of Scottish Studies, one of the earliest anti-apartheid campaigners ... and much more.

He wrote the definitive soldier's song in the Italian campaign "we are the D-Day Dodgers", a scathing satirical response to Lady Astor's comment in Parliament that British soldiers in Italy were just keeping out of the way of the real fighting. Denis Healey famously reduced himself to tears when he sang it on television. Henderson had been a Quaker ‘courier’ before WW2, becoming an Army officer during it, and accepting the formal surrender of Italy in April ‘45.

As an early anti-apartheid campaigner he wrote "Men of Rivonia (Free Mandela)" which was sung by prisoners on Robben Island and echoed by offshore fishermen, earning Mandela’s personal gratitude. But his most enduring song is likely to be the "Freedom Come All Ye", written originally for anti-Polaris protesters in 1960 and set deliberately to a World War I pipe tune “The Bloody Fields of Flanders”. Although the lyric is Scots dialect it is used so richly that the meaning comes across even before the more unfamiliar words are explained and it's been adopted by protest movements in a number of other countries. The singer Dick Gauguin is leading a popular move to make it Scotland's national anthem.

This programme mixes performance of some of Henderson’s poetry and song with new interviews on location and a variety of rare archive clips, such as Pete Seeger attempting one of his dialect poems in a personal recording for Henderson.
SqDogNumber 18
Pic1
Caption1
Pic2
Caption2
Pic3
Caption3
Pic4
Caption4
Pic5
Caption5