https://indianpedia.org/index.php?action=history&feed=atom&title=Hamish_HendersonHamish Henderson - Revision history2026-07-31T04:30:49ZRevision history for this page on the wikiMediaWiki 1.45.4https://indianpedia.org/index.php?title=Hamish_Henderson&diff=364453&oldid=prevBot at 06:12, 22 December 20222022-12-22T06:12:48Z<p></p>
<p><b>New page</b></p><div>{{Short description|Scottish writer}}<br />
{{More citations needed|date=August 2022}}<br />
{{Use British English|date=January 2022}}<br />
{{Use dmy dates|date=February 2021}}<br />
[[File:Hamishhenderson.jpg|thumb|200px|Hamish Henderson's bust in [[South Gyle]]]]<br />
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'''Hamish Scott Henderson''' (11 November 1919 &ndash; 9 March 2002) was a [[Scotland|Scottish]] poet, songwriter, [[communist]], intellectual and soldier.<br />
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He was a catalyst for the [[folk revival]] in [[Scotland]]. He was also an accomplished folk song collector and discovered such notable performers as [[Jeannie Robertson]], [[Flora MacNeil]] and [[Calum Johnston]].<br />
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==Early life==<br />
Born on the first [[Armistice Day]] 11 November 1919, to a single mother, Janet Henderson, a [[Queen's Nursing Institute Scotland|Queen's Nurse]] who had served in France, then working in the war hospital at [[Blair Castle]].<ref name=":0">{{Cite web|last=Smith|first=Donald|date=14 November 2021|title=How war and family shaped the poetry of Hamish Henderson|url=https://www.thenational.scot/culture/19715393.war-family-shaped-poetry-hamish-henderson/|url-status=live|access-date=2021-11-14|website=The National|language=en|quote=A full version of this essay can be found in "Ghosts Of The Early Morning Shift" in An Anthology or Radical Prose from Contemporary Scotland, ed. Jim Aitken (Culture Matters, 2021)}}</ref> Though he was born in [[Blairgowrie and Rattray|Blairgowrie]], [[Perthshire]],<ref name="obit" /> Henderson spent his early years in nearby [[Glen Shee]] and eventually moved to England with his mother. He won a scholarship to the prestigious [[Dulwich School]] in London; however, his mother died shortly before he was due to take up his place and he was forced to live in an orphanage while studying there.<br />
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He studied Modern Languages at [[Downing College, Cambridge]] in the years leading up to [[World War II]], and as a visiting student in Germany ran messages for an organization run by the [[Society of Friends]] aiding the [[German resistance to Nazism|German resistance]] and helping to rescue Jews.<ref name="obit"/><ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.theguardian.com/news/2002/mar/11/guardianobituaries.booksobituaries |title=Books: Hamish Henderson |first=Timothy |last=Neat |work=[[The Guardian]]|date=11 March 2002 |access-date=18 October 2022}}</ref><br />
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==World War II==<br />
Although he argued strongly for peace, even well into the early years of the war, he became convinced that a satisfactory peace could not be reached and so he threw himself into the war effort. Joining as an enlisted soldier in the [[Royal Pioneer Corps|Pioneer Corps]], he later applied for and received a commission in the [[Intelligence Corps (United Kingdom)|Intelligence Corps]]. He was quite effective as an interrogator due to his command of six European languages and deep understanding of [[Culture of Germany|German culture]].<br />
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He took part in the [[North African Campaign|Desert War]] in [[Africa]], during which he wrote his poem ''Elegies For the Dead in Cyrenaica'', encompassing every aspect of a soldier's experience of the sands of [[North Africa]]. On 2 May 1945, Henderson personally oversaw the drafting of the surrender order of [[Italy]] issued by Marshal [[Rodolfo Graziani]].<ref>Neat, T. (2007, rep. 2009), Hamish Henderson - ''The Making of the Poet'', Volume I, p. 165.</ref><br />
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Henderson collected the lyrics to "[[D-Day Dodgers]]," a satirical song to the tune of "[[Lili Marlene]]", attributed to Lance-Sergeant Harry Pynn, who served in Italy. Henderson also wrote the lyrics to "The 51st (Highland) Division's Farewell to Sicily", set to a pipe tune called "Farewell to the Creeks". The book in which these were collected, ''Ballads of World War II'', was published "privately" to evade censorship, but earned Henderson a ten-year ban from BBC radio, preventing a series on ballad-making from being made. His 1948 [[war poet]]ry book, ''Elegies for the Dead in Cyrenaica'', received the [[Somerset Maugham Award]].<ref name="obit">{{cite news |url=https://www.scotsman.com/news/obituaries/dr-hamish-henderson-2469163 |work=[[The Scotsman]]|date=10 March 2002 |title=Dr Hamish Henderson |access-date=30 December 2021}}</ref><br />
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==Folk song collector==<br />
Henderson threw himself into the work of the [[folk revival]] after the war, discovering and bringing to public attention [[Jeannie Robertson]], [[Flora MacNeil]], Calum Johnston (see [http://www.tobarandualchais.co.uk/anna-calum.html Annie and Calum Johnston of Barra] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080314171218/http://www.tobarandualchais.co.uk/anna-calum.html |date=14 March 2008 }}) and others. In the 1950s, he acted as a guide to the American folklorist, [[Alan Lomax]], who collected many field recordings in Scotland. (See [https://archive.today/20120804115905/http://www.leopardmag.co.uk/feats/29/alan-lomax Alan Lomax, Collector of Songs]).<br />
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==People's Festival Ceilidhs==<br />
Henderson was instrumental in bringing about the [[Edinburgh People's Festival]] Ceilidh in 1951, which placed traditionally performed Scottish folk music on the public stage for the first time as "A Night of Scottish Song". However, the People's Festival, of which it was part, was planned as a left-wing competitor to the [[Edinburgh Festival]] and was deeply controversial. At the event, Henderson performed [[The John Maclean March]], to the tune of [[Scotland the Brave]], which honoured the life and work [[John Maclean (Scottish socialist)|John Maclean]], a communist and Scottish nationalist hero.<br />
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However, the event marked the first time that Scotland's traditional folk music was performed on a public stage. The performers included [[Flora MacNeil]], Calum Johnston, [[John Burgess (bagpiper)|John Burgess]], Jessie Murray, [[John Strachan]], and [[Jimmy MacBeath]]. The event was extremely popular and was regarded as the beginning of the second [[British folk revival]].<br />
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Henderson continued to host the events every year until 1954, when the [[Communist]] ties of several members of the People's Festival Committee led to the [[Labour Party (UK)|Labour Party]] declaring it a "Proscribed Organisation". Losing the financial support of the local trades unions, the People's Festival was permanently cancelled.<ref>Norman Buchan on Hamish, Tocher no 43, School of Scottish Studies, University of Edinburgh, 1991, p 19-21</ref> Henderson's own songs, particularly "[[Freedom Come-All-Ye|Freedom Come All Ye]]", have become part of the folk tradition themselves.<ref name="obit"/><br />
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==Later life==<br />
Dividing his time between Europe and Scotland, he eventually settled in [[Edinburgh]] in 1959 with his German wife, Kätzel (Felizitas Schmidt).<br />
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Henderson collected widely in the [[Scottish Borders|Borders]] and the north-east of Scotland, creating links between the [[Scottish Travellers|travellers]], the [[bothy]] singers of [[Aberdeenshire]], the Border shepherds, and the young men and women who frequented the folk clubs in [[Edinburgh]].<br />
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From 1955 to 1987 he was on the staff of the [[University of Edinburgh]]'s [[School of Scottish Studies]] which he co-founded with [[Calum Maclean (folklorist)|Calum Maclean]]: there he contributed to the sound archives that are now available on-line. Henderson held several honorary degrees and after his retirement became an honorary fellow of the School of Scottish Studies. For many years he held court in [[Sandy Bell's|Sandy Bell's Bar]], the meeting place for local and visiting folk musicians. In April 1979, he was ' the prevailing spirit' at the first Edinburgh International Folk Festival conference '''The People's Past''<nowiki/>' both on ballads and in challenging traditional history telling. He also spoke at a [[John MacMorran|Riddle's Court]] meeting which had hosted in the past, the [[Workers' Educational Association]] when he said that [[Calvinism]] was repressive in the Scottish psyche and that 'we had to divest ourselves of layers or preconception and misconception before we could come to grips with Scotland and its people.'<ref>{{Cite web|last=Smith|first=Donald|date=14 November 2021|title=How war and family shaped the poetry of Hamish Henderson|url=https://www.thenational.scot/culture/19715393.war-family-shaped-poetry-hamish-henderson/|url-status=live|access-date=2021-11-14|website=The National|language=en}}</ref><br />
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Henderson was a socialist,<ref name="obit"/> and beside his academic work for the University, he produced translations of the Prison Letters of [[Antonio Gramsci]],<ref>Antonio Gramsci, ''Prison Letters'', translated and introduced by Hamish Henderson, Pluto Press 1996.</ref> whom he had first heard of among Communist Italian partisans during the war. The translation was published in the ''[[Edinburgh Review#Edinburgh Review.2C 1984.E2.80.93|New Edinburgh Review]]'' in 1974 and as a book in 1988.<ref name="obit"/> He was involved in campaigns for [[Scottish home rule]] and in the foundation of the 1970s [[Scottish Labour Party (1976)|Scottish Labour Party]]. Henderson, who was openly bisexual, was vocal about gay rights and acceptance.<ref name="obit"/><ref>Neat, Timothy: [https://books.google.com/books?id=eb28BQAAQBAJ&pg=PP353 Hamish Henderson: Poetry Becomes People]</ref><br />
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In 1983, Henderson was voted Scot of the Year by [[Radio Scotland]] listeners when he, in protest of the Thatcher government's nuclear weapons policy, turned down an [[Order of the British Empire|OBE]].<ref name="obit"/><br />
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==Death==<br />
He died in Edinburgh on 8 March 2002 aged 82, survived by his wife Kätzel and their daughters, Janet and Christine Henderson.<ref name=":1">{{cite news|date=11 March 2002|title=Dr Hamish Henderson|work=The Scotsman|url=https://www.scotsman.com/news/obituaries/dr-hamish-henderson-1-606193|access-date=3 November 2022}}</ref><br />
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==Legacy==<br />
Henderson's complexities make his work hard to study: for example, [[Dick Gaughan]]'s commentary on the song-poem ''The 51st Highland Division's Farewell to Sicily'', while insightful, does not take into account the traditional divide between [[Bagpipes|pipers]] and drummers in the Scots regiments, the essential key to one reading of the text.{{Citation needed|date=March 2022}}<br />
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In 2005, [[Rounder Records]] released a recording of the 1951 Edinburgh People's Festival Ceilidh as part of ''The Alan Lomax Collection''. Henderson had collaborated heavily with the preparations for the release.<br />
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In August 2013, [[Edinburgh University]] announced that it had acquired his personal archive of "more than 10,000 letters from almost 3400 correspondents, plus 136 notebooks and diaries", dating from the 1930s to the end of his life.<ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.scotsman.com/arts-and-culture/edinburgh-university-buys-hamish-henderson-archive-1565361 |title=Edinburgh University buys Hamish Henderson archive |first=Brian |last=Ferguson |work=[[The Scotsman]] |date=8 August 2013 |access-date=30 December 2021}}</ref> These will be kept in the Special Collections department of the main library.<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20131230235923/http://www.hendersontrust.org/index.php/en/august-2013-press-release Hamish Henderson Archive Trust] Press release, August 2013, retrieved 8 August 2013</ref><br />
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Discussions around national identity and constitutional resettlement in Scotland, especially those surrounding the Scottish Independence Referendum of 2014, have often invoked Henderson's legacy. Politicians and cultural commentators alike describe their admiration for his song 'Freedom Come-All-Ye' and lend their voices to those touting it as an alternative national anthem. As a radical democrat whose political beliefs were closely bound up in the study of folk culture and high literature, Henderson's work expresses a tension between romantic nationalism and socialist internationalism which has been reaffirmed in public life in Scotland since his death.<ref>Corey Gibson, [https://books.google.nl/books/about/The_Voice_of_the_People.html?id=wBcCrgEACAAJ&hl=en The Voice of the People: Hamish Henderson and Scottish Cultural Politics], Edinburgh University Press, 2015</ref><br />
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Debate on his parenting, and a possible link to the eighth [[Duke of Atholl]] or a 'cousin' of that lineage,<ref name="obit" /> has continued into considering the 'cultural context' of the eighth Duke's role in designing the [[Scottish National War Memorial]] (opened 1927) bringing together the culture of 'the people', but also looking into Henderson possibly being possibly of royal or aristocratic blood, 'acknowledging a heritage that meant a lot to him, while still protecting his anonymity, and the power of his life's work to identify with everyman and everywoman.' [[Paul Potts (writer)|Paul Potts]] had called Henderson "That guy? He's one of the wandering kings of Scotland."<ref name=":0" /><br />
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==Further reading==<br />
* Hamish Henderson (1947) ''Ballads of World War II'', Caledonian Press, Glasgow {{oclc|6824582}}<ref>[http://www.horntip.com/html/books_%26_MSS/1940s/1947ca_ballads_of_world_war_ii_(PB)/index.htm ''Ballads of WWII''] (2014) The Jack Horntip Collection</ref><br />
* Hamish Henderson (1948) ''Elegies for the Dead in Cyrenaica'', J. Lehmann, London {{oclc|2806224}}<br />
* Hamish Henderson (1987), "[[Antonio Gramsci]]" in Ross, Raymond J. (ed.), ''[[Cencrastus]]'' No. 28, Winter 87/88, pp.&nbsp;22 – 26, {{issn|0264-0856}}<br />
* Hamish Henderson (1995), ''[[Zeus]] as Curly Snake: The [[Chthonic|Chthonian]] Image'', in Ross, Raymond (ed.), ''[[Cencrastus]]'' No. 52, Summer 1995, pp.&nbsp;7 – 9, {{issn|0264-0856}}<br />
* [[Alec Finlay]], editor (1992) ''Alias MacAlias: Writings on songs, folk and literature'', Polygon, Edinburgh {{ISBN|978-0-74866-042-1}}<br />
* [[Alec Finlay]], editor (1996) ''The Armstrong Nose: Selected letters of Hamish Henderson'', Polygon, Edinburgh {{ISBN|978-0-74866-191-6}}<br />
* Geordie McIntyre (1973), ''Resurgimento!'', an interview with Hamish Henderson, in Maisels, Chic K. (ed.), ''Folk Song and the Folk Tradition'', [[Edinburgh International Festival|Festival]] issue of the ''[[New Edinburgh Review]]'', August 73, pp.&nbsp;12 & 13<br />
* Raymond Ross, editor (2000) ''Collected Poems and Songs'', Curly Snake Pub., Edinburgh, Scotland {{ISBN|978-1-90214-101-5}}<ref>{{cite journal|url=http://www.lrb.co.uk/v25/n02/arnold-rattenbury/flytings|author=Arnold Rattenbury|title=Flytings|journal=London Review of Books|volume=25|number=2|date=23 January 2003|issn= 0260-9592}}</ref> <br />
* [[Eberhard Bort]], editor (2010) ''Borne on the Carrying Stream: The Legacy of Hamish Henderson'', Grace Note Publications {{ISBN|978-1-907676-01-7}}<br />
* [[Eberhard Bort]], editor (2011) ''Tis Sixty Years Since: The 1951 Edinburgh People's Festival Ceilidh and the Scottish Folk Revival'' {{ISBN|978-1-907676-10-9}}<br />
* Jack Mitchell (1976), ''Hamish Henderson and the Scottish Tradition'', in Burnett, Ray (ed.), ''Calgacus'' No. 3, Spring 1976, pp.&nbsp;26 – 31, {{issn|0307-2029}}<br />
* Timothy Neat (2012) [https://books.google.com/books?id=eb28BQAAQBAJ ''Hamish Henderson: Poetry Becomes People (1952-2002)''], [http://www.birlinn.co.uk/contact Birlinn Ltd], Edinburgh {{ISBN|978-0-85790-487-4}}<br />
* Corey Gibson (2015) [https://books.google.nl/books/about/The_Voice_of_the_People.html?id=wBcCrgEACAAJ&hl=en ''The Voice of the People: Hamish Henderson and Scottish Cultural Politics''], [http://www.euppublishing.com Edinburgh University Press], {{ISBN|978-0-74869-657-4}}<br />
* Ian Spring (2020), ''Hamish Henderson: A Critical Appreciation'', Rymour Books, Perth, {{isbn|978-1-8381863-3-3}}<br />
* [[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}}<br />
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==References==<br />
{{Reflist}}<br />
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==External links==<br />
*[http://www.electricscotland.com/history/other/henderson_hamish.htm Scotsman obituary]<br />
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{{Scots makars}}<br />
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{{Authority control}}<br />
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Henderson, Hamish}}<br />
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