Hills of home

We’ve not heard much from expatriate Scots in recent weeks. So many feel such a strong affiliation, roots ‒ and Robert Louis Stevenson, living in Samoa in 1893, expressed it all so powerfully.

Blows the wind to-day, and the sun and the rain are flying,
Blows the wind on the moors to-day and now,
Where about the graves of the martyrs the whaups are crying,
My heart remembers how!

Grey recumbent tombs of the dead in desert places,
Standing-stones on the vacant wine-red moor,
Hills of sheep, and the howes of the silent vanished races,
And winds, austere and pure.

Be it granted me to behold you again in dying,
Hills of home! and to hear again the call;
Hear about the graves of the martyrs the peewees crying,
And hear no more at all.

I posted these verses, ‘To SR Crockett’, about the ‘Grey Galloway land’ last year, but now seems a good time to re-visit them.

Scotland the Brave?

It’s never been easy, making a living in Scotland. In recent decades, there has been the oil to hold up the economy and before that there were all those UK-based public service jobs (including the army) that provided consistent employment.

Of course, many of the Scots being fine entrepreneurs, historically it was England and the British Empire that provided many with a platform to exploit their talents (including my own ancestors).

Presumably the oil won’t last for ever, so, unhitched from England and Wales – with a YES vote looking more and more likely – their best chance would seem to be in the EU, assuming that the EU keeps them on.

Scotland the Brave? My old boss, Bill Weithas, always used to equate bravery with high risk.

It’s their choice. Roll on September 18.

On receiving a dedication

The Scottish novelist SR Crockett sent a copy of his newly-published set of short stories, The Stickit Minister, to Robert Louis Stevenson, who was by this time living in Samoa, with the inscription:

To Robert Louis Stevenson of Scotland and Samoa I dedicate these stories of that Grey Galloway land where about the Graves of the Martyrs the Whaups are crying – his heart remembers how.

Deeply moved, the homesick Stevenson wrote this poem, which he sent to Crockett:

To S. R. Crockett
On receiving a dedication

Blows the wind to-day, and the sun and the rain are flying,

Blows the wind on the moors to-day and now,
Where about the graves of the martyrs the whaups are crying,
My heart remembers how!

Grey recumbent tombs of the dead in desert places,
Standing-stones on the vacant wine-red moor,
Hills of sheep, and the howes of the silent vanished races,
And winds, austere and pure.

Be it granted me to behold you again in dying,
Hills of home! and to hear again the call;
Hear about the graves of the martyrs the peewees crying,
And hear no more at all.

Of course, he never did behold again the hills of home. He died in Samoa, which he also loved, in 1894.

Above: Portrait of Robert Louis Stevenson by GP Nerli, Samoa,1892, Scottish National Portrait Gallery