[240 Crescent St., Northampton, Mass.]

1.‘Maxwelton [sic] braes are bonnie’, first line of the Scottish song ‘Annie Laurie’. TSE reports (above) hearing the song aboard the SS Letitia.

2.JamesBridie, James Bridie (1888–1951) – pen name of Dr O. H. Mavor – physician and playwright.

3.Frank Morley to Donald Brace, 28 Dec. 1934: ‘It is a desperate occupation trying to get any biographical details from Gunn … The man’s age is a mystery; his up-bringing I suspect to have been much as described in MORNING TIDE [1931]. If the boy in MORNING TIDE isn’t Gunn literally, he is spiritually … Whatever his formal training, his real life has always been out-of-doors, fishing, walking the moors, watching the anamiles, and taking a hand in whatever poaching was going on.’ Gunn to MacDiarmid, 9 July 1938: ‘Eliot is really a sincere kind fellow’ (Dear Grieve: Letters to Hugh MacDiarmid (C. M. Grieve), ed. John Manson [2011], 219). Geoffrey Faber’s diary, 22 Jan. 1931, on Gunn: ‘a tall dark Highlander, very easy & affable’. He and his wife Jessie (Daisy) Gunn (1887/8–1963) lived in a bungalow they built at Inverness. See further Gunn, Selected Letters, ed. J. B. Pick (1987); F. R. Hart, Neil M. Gunn: A Highland Life (1981).

4.MorleyMorley, Frank Vigorwhich Morley describes;g5n to the Gunns, 6 Apr. 1937: ‘Hurrah. George’s driving was magnificent as usual, and got us through fog and in one place – believe it or not – through a good ten feet of snow – smack through the middle of it – which if you think I am exaggerating, will be proved by photographs [taken by TSE], if they develop. I forget just where the snow was, but there was really a lot of it. After that we had to pass through a cloud, and George managed that too; and we got to Helensburgh in time to catch a train which got us to the Night Scot, and so back to the grindstone.

‘As to our great and lasting gratitude to both of you, I will record that more fittingly later. Just now I am not in a condition to write, partly through the stack of urgencies which the royal Stewart [C. W. Stewart, a director of F&F] is piling on me, partly because Uncle Tom was so jealous of what he called Daisy’s preferential treatment towards me, that he certainly scarified me all night long. I told him that he, being the successful dramatist and all was spoiled by being lionised in London; and that it was the highlands that rightly brought out the essential verities. The lowlands too, for when we got to Helensburgh last night we were just in time to be taken up to say good night to Sally Blake. We had to go up because Sally was asking for us, and in these terms. First she asked for the man (meaning me) and when I had had my dismissal, she asked for the boy. So the boy (Uncle Tom) was once more put in his proper place … Hurrah once more, and all great gratitude for your nobilities towards us. I hope the legs of the caravan are not permanently splayed – we are enormously the better for it.’

Morley to his brother Christopher, 6 Apr.: ‘I myself am just this morning back from a strenuous foray in Scotland. Eliot and I went up by train last Wednesday night; emerged from the train at Dumfries, where we discovered George Blake, looking very burly, in the station hotel; and we spent that day very happily routing around Galloway with George. As you once remarked, George has a good nose for routing, and it was a very agreeable and beautiful stretch of lowlands hitherto unknown to us. We blazed a good trail and thought of you at various moments. The weather on that Thursday was good though cold, and we were glad that Ellie had a good fire when we eventually reached Helensburgh. It was our first inspection of George’s seat, The Glenan; which is an old mansion in the heart of Helensburgh pleasantly protected and very comfortable. On the Friday we called on the Glasgow booksellers and flushed a very odd covey at lunch; the most remarkable person being James Bridie who in private life is Dr Mavor. After lunch – that’s to say what in London we should regard as after tea – we collected Ellie and set forth in George’s little Singer (which is really no larger than a sewing-machine so that portions of me were at all times exposed to the airts [sic]) and successfully reached and spent the night at Cairndow; were [sic] a most remarkable thing happened – we found staying in that same inn, the real George Blake: George’s formidable Uncle George who rapidly had all of us in thrall and before whom our George quailed as in childhood. It was a good evening, with Uncle George holding the platform with an account of the building of the highland railway back in the ’80s. On Saturday we travelled under an unfortunately cold and gloomy sky, sometimes through the sky, by way of Inverary (which, though Campbell’s headquarters, is the most remarkable and beautiful town in Scotland) up the glen and past the new and very pleasing rough stone memorial of Neil Munro, towards Appin. Appin was new to us, and is very good; after Appin it was the familiar road by Mr Carmichael past Loch Ness (no monster visible on so cold a day) to Neil Gunn’s quarters. We spent two nights with Gunn, Uncle Tom and I sleeping in a caravan in his back garden; or perhaps I should say spending what remnant there was of each night in the caravan. Yesterday we left Inverness in good time and plugged along through snow and fog to reach Helensburgh in time to catch a connection for the Night Scot, which has just landed us back.’

MorleyScotlandScottish food;a6EdinburghScotlandGlasgowScotland to Donald Brace, 9 Apr. 1937: ‘“My heart”, said Uncle Tom last night as we were talking it over, “is in the highlands, but I am glad my digestion is back in London.” One reason why we particularly missed you was that the forces weren’t large enough to divide into the Caledonian Hotel; and Uncle Tom and I therefore slept in a caravan which Neil and Daisy now keep in their back garden. Whatever exhalations we let off, they had an astonishing effect on the seagulls, if they were seagulls and not pixies, who were pattering most of the night on the caravan roof; and I swear that the Loch Ness monster crawled right under us once, if not twice. The caravan had been erected on stilts, and at my end they splayed somewhat and gently subsided, which perhaps was why we dreamt of strange doings. Also the caravan meant that we couldn’t even get your kind of an Inverness bath. In fact, George and Ellie (they slept in the house) so monopolised the bathroom at the Gunns that we never did see what was inside it, and our only personal hygiene during the 58 hours was the whisky – which was, of course, unusually beautiful. Still, Uncle Tom did miss his Enos, and even I began to feel livery before the end.

‘George’s house at Helensburgh, which we had never seen before, is very comfortable. I made a bad break, though, by taking up some remark about potato scones. Please let this be a serious warning to you. If ever you hear the name again, fly for your life. The amazing thing to me is that the Scots, like the Norwegians, will cook quite decent flapjacks and whaffles [sic] and what not, but will never serve them while they are fresh but only after a three days cold. My innards are now so trained that I can eat two or three rubber bath mats; but from Uncle Tom’s remark, perhaps his aren’t. I don’t think he will be very well for a few days …

‘There were many high moments as well as low ones, and I am sorry you missed the inn at Cairndow, and the sight of Inverary and Neil’s discourse on second sight, which elicited Uncle Tom’s own ghost story. But taking it all in all, I think I am getting too old for such forays.’

5.TSEFaber, GeoffreyThe Family Reunion described to;f4n toFamily Reunion, Thedescribed to GCF;b8n Geoffrey Faber, 20 Apr. 1937: ‘GunnGunn, Neil M.inspires The Family Reunion;a4n showedCarmina Gadelicainspires The Family Reunion;a1 me a book called Carmina Gadelica from which I got a hint for my play … It is a gloomy play, I rather think it is going to be much the grimmest thing I have ever written: when I tell you it is about a birthday party you will see the possibilities: everything goes wrong except the cake. That sounds as if I had been influenced by Chehov, Techechoff, Checkhov, and perhaps I have.’ To J. H. Oldham, (?Dec.) 1941: ‘As an example of religious verse on a relatively primitive level (c) I would offer the Christian prayers and incantations found in that remarkable repository, the Carmina Gadelica or anthology of Gaelic (Scottish) poetry.’ (See TSE, ‘Revival of Christian Imagination’: CProse, 6, 241). To H. W. J. M. Keuls, 1 Nov. 1956: ‘The general intention was to give the effect of a Gaelic rune or incantation.’

6.The coronation of King George VI on 12 May 1937.