Corrie revival is to be welcomed
IT is good to see a revival of interest in the work of Joe Corrie (“Time is right for revival of Corrie’s mining family drama”, The Herald, October 3). I have a volume of 90 of his poems, the first of which – The Image o’ God – is worthy of a place in your poetry column. The foreword is written by Sir Hugh S Roberton, conductor of The Glasgow Orpheus Choir. Verses in praise of the choir are included in the selection:
And long may life give us the will and the art
To waken the echoes of song in the heart.
Sir Hugh describes Corrie’s visits to his home as “like a draft of cool spring water”, and his verse as “fruits garnered from an unkind, often a sour soil”.
In the early 1980s, The Scottish Theatre Company toured with Corrie’s play Robert Burns, directed by David Hayman, with a cast including Roy Hanlon, Tom Watson, and Paul Young. As secretary of the Mauchline Burns Club, I was invited to the Palace Theatre, Kilmarnock, to speak to the cast about Burns’s time in Mauchline, when he stayed in High Street. In 1928 Sir Hugh spoke to the recently formed Burns Club on The Common Man and Poetry, and again in 1930 on Scottish folk songs.
Our Burns House Museum has a portrait of Corrie by T Bonar Lyon (1894- 1968), presented by his daughterin-law, Mrs Sheila Bonar Lyon.
As your article’s headline rightly states the time is ripe for a revival of Corrie’s work, but mention should be made of his residence in Mauchline. Ian Lyell, Hon. president, Mauchline Burns Club, 9 East Park Avenue, Mauchline. FOLLOWING David Ross’s excellent article on the medical MacLeod family of North Uist (“Island is to pay tribute to family for 70 years of service as GPs”, The Herald, October 1) and James McKelvie’s letter (October 2) on his forefather the legendary Dr McKelvie of Oban, whose funeral procession was reputed to have been three miles long, may I add a couple of further Highland legends of the pre-Dewar era?
Dr Roger (Ruaridh) MacNeill of Colonsay was Argyll’s first medical officer of health, serving with distinction from 1890 until his death in 1924 and gave key evidence to the Dewar Committee in Oban in October 1912, as did Dr Lachlan Grant of Ballachulish, whose service to his community and the wider Highland society from 1900 until his death in 1945 are about to be recognised in a book by Dr Roddy MacLeod. Dr Grant’s evidence to the Dewar Committee is widely regarded as providing the blueprint for the Highlands and Islands Medical Service and then the National Health Service which developed from the Dewar Report into Medical and Nursing Attendance in the Highlands and Islands. Dr Iain McNicol, Member of the Dewar Centenary Committee, Dunvegan, Port Appin.