Hamish Henderson: A Biography. Volume 1 - The Making Of The Poet (1919-1953)

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Dividing his time between Continental Europe and Scotland, he eventually settled in Edinburgh in 1959 with his German wife, Kätzel (Felizitas Schmidt). Like other members, I congratulate Cathy Peattie on securing this debate. I, too, lodged a motion on Hamish Henderson and I am delighted to take part in the debate.

In another article, which was published in The Scotsman 10 years later, Hamish Henderson referred to the painful experiences of the Scottish Labour Party, when one third of the party was expelled for claiming to be revolutionary as well as socialist. He wrote: He was first and foremost a poet. He did not just agitate and campaign as a politician; he thought and he felt. I always got the sense that the rawness of his feelings for the men and women around him drove him on.Hamish Henderson’s credo was derived from Heinrich Heine’s ‘Poetry becomes People’ — the perfect fusion between folk and art poetry. Gibson is right: with his song ‘The Freedom Come-all-Ye’, written for the Clydeside peace marchers in 1960, he produced the ‘most compelling example of a poetry that “becomes people”.’ So much so, that, despite Henderson’s own rejection of that idea, lots of people would want to see it used as the Scottish national anthem. I am grateful to Cathy Peattie for securing the debate. I apologise for the fact that I will have to make an early departure from the chamber, but I have something else to go to. I intend no disrespect by leaving early. In my lifetime, the ascendent neoliberal agenda of globalisation has deeply transformed the material conditions of our world, and may yet bring about our ultimate destruction. Hamish Henderson was generous with his time and money for people of creative talent. He was even generous towards Hugh MacDiarmid—who came from my constituency—with whom he had a famous and public dispute, as Cathy Peattie said. How important the topic of that dispute is for us today. Poetry and all culture are there for the enjoyment of all people, not just for the enjoyment of a few privileged, educated people. Our culture belongs to all of us because it comes from all of us.

The " Freedom Come-All-Ye" ( Scottish Gaelic: Thig Saorsa Uile) is a Scots language song written by Hamish Henderson in 1960. matriculation photograph (Downing College Archive, DCPH/2/1/7; credit: Lafayette Photography Ltd) SourcesAs other members have said, Hamish Henderson grew up in Perthshire in poverty. In growing up in that part of our country, he inherited the rich oral tradition of which he made great use later on. Linda Fabiani and Cathy Peattie both referred to the importance that Hamish Henderson placed on recording forgotten people. The recordings of the Gypsy Travellers are a source of an oral and cultural tradition that would have been otherwise much neglected. Hamish Henderson (1987), " Antonio Gramsci" in Ross, Raymond J. (ed.), Cencrastus No. 28, Winter 87/88, pp.22 – 26, ISSN 0264-0856 Tom Hubbard, "Hamish Henderson as Translator", in Hubbard, Tom (2022), Invitation to the Voyage: Scotland, Europe and Literature, Rymour, pp.93 – 95, ISBN 9-781739-596002