The attachment is from news articles I have
had handed down to me regarding my cousin Alexander Mackenzie Davidson. He
was a famous Doric poet, and story writer.
Thanks,
Lexi
HE IS A BRILLIANT PIANIST AND COMPOSER, AND ALSO HAD POEMS PUBLISHED.
(from the Memoirs of Margaret Hunter Mackenzie Clark Burfoot)
Forward from "Tinker's Whussel" by A.M. Davidson:
Alexander Mackenzie Davidson (1897-1979) wrote a brief sketch of his life
and ideas in the Spring of 1979. His father, a merchant, was the son of
Midmar crofters. His mother was the daughter of Alexander Mackenzie, an
upholsterer, who had been born in Kilkenny in Southern Ireland, but came to
Aberdeen as a boy. In his late teens he volunteers for and participated in
the Carlist Civil war in Spain, which broke out in 1833 when Don Carlos
challenged the succession of his niece. Queen Isabella, for whom her late
father, King Ferdinand, had revoked the Salic Law. Like many other
idealistic young men, Mackenzie found himself trapped in Spain, from which
he eventually escaped and landed at Portsmouth penniless, walking home every
inch of the way to Aberdeen. This Spanish adventure, however, added a rich
store of anecdote to the family inheritance.
At the age of three our poet attended a dame school in Rosemount Viaduct
under a kindly Miss Ried. Then he went to Mile End School and from thence
to Robert Gordon's College as a "Sillerton loon" on a four-year foundation,
his mother being now a widow. Straight from school he entered a large legal
and commercial office. Let us continue the story in his own words: "I sat
on the high stool for the next quarter century among some Dickensian
characters: a clerk at thirty bob a week. Happy days. Then the staff was
made redundant, so I opened a small lending library in the Hardgate, which
was a complete flop. Through a little influence I was offered a job in the
Public Library, as a general dogsbody, and when the war ceased was made
Assistant-in-Charge at the Old Aberdeen Branch."
While he was still sitting on the clerkly high stool Mr. Davidson had his
first poem published, a broadsheet entitled "The Golden Youth" issued in
1925 by Porpoise Press in Edinburgh. A second collection "Cortege" was
published by the Porpoise Press in 1927. For years he had been contributing
short poems to James Leatham's magazine "The Gateway" and Leatham duly
published two booklet:"Tales from a Highland Glen" and "The Little Cobbler"
(children's verses) from the Deveron Press, Turriff.
Mr. Davidson's early work was all in English and it was not until 1932 that
"The Weaver's Loom", a privately printed volume, included his first Doric
poems. These, though he did not realize it at the time, were the real clue
to his future as a writer."After the
Deveron Press publications" he confess "I completely dried up and turned to
my first love; musical composition. I sent some manuscripts to the BBC, who
had previously broadcast an orchestral suite of mine from Edinburgh. I was
asked to attend an interviews, but at the last minute had so little
confidence as to what I could possibly do among all the young professionals
- being a congenitally shy bird - that I funked it".
Suddenly in the 1960's the years in the desert were over. Scots was the
answer. The first thing to open the floodgates of inspiration was a single
poem, "The Makar O Miracles" (see page 22). Now came the time of the
rediscovery of roots. "My father" he wrote "encouraged me to speak in his
own natural tongue: "Niver say Yes, loon, say Ay'. So I was brought up on
the Doric at home. Then, by spending to working months annually or many
years at the Midmar croft, I was steeped in it. And today I m far mair at
hame a fine crack wi the ferm fowk roon aboot here (his home in Muchalls)
bys some o the ithers. Doric has a secret world of its own, an atmosphere I
am unable to define".
Mr. Davidson's Aberdeenshire Doric poems soon
became a regular feature of the North-east Muse poetry corner in "The Press
& Journal" and three were reprinted in 'The north-east Muse Anthology' of
1977 and 1978. His long poem 'The Thirlin Mull' was published in the poetry
magazine 'akros' in 1977 and is reprinted here by the permission of the
editor Duncan Glen. 'Tinker's Whussel' the title poem of this collection
won first prize in a poetry competition conducted by 'Lallans' the magazine
of the Scots Language Society.
Amid the great variety of his output, A.M.
Davidson has one unifying theme; conservation - the conservation of our
spiritual heritage, of our threatened countryside and towns, of our common
humanity as Scots. He has written lovingly of vanishing institutions like
the country shop, sold out by cars and supermarkets, of the moleskin breeks
despised and rejected by the new oligarchy of the countryside, of the
vandalism of Aberdeen's town planners;
Far's Strawberry Bank? Far's the auld Wallace Tour?
Fat's come owre the Denburn ablow and abeen?
An' dammit, ye've flittit oor Tarnty Ha'
rugged doon the New Market and muckt up the Green.
Old Aberdeen, which he new so well, inspired many of his poems. When he
died at the end of 1979 he was survived by his widow, Beatrice, and his son.
Many joined in saluting his passing and his
poem "Ferlies i' the Rik" was read with much acclaim at the annual dinner of
the Scots Language Society, just as his 'Vandalism' was at an earlier
meeting in the Aberdeen Civic Society.
As the Doric vocabulary in common use by the
younger generation dwindles and declines many who love the mither Tongue can
turn to the poems of A.M. Davidson to experience its use in a fresh and
completely natural way. This litle book should be exchanged by friends who
still love it, bringing a breath of home to exiles and delighting every true
son of north East Scotland.
Cuthbert Graham.
ALEXANDER MACKENZIE DAVIDSON (1897-1979) discovered in the last ten years of
his life a way to the heart of Northern Scots. By writing in the North East
vernacular, the homely Mither Tongue that was enjoying a striking revival
his verses in ' The Press & Journal' reached a mass public in the northern
half of Scotland. They thrilled to his sharply evocative pictures of
traditional institutions - 'The Village Shop' - 'The Fishwives in the Green'
- 'An Aulton Legend'. They enjoyed his reductive humor in 'Dinna Forget the
Moleskins' and 'The De'il Bamboozled'. They delighted in his creation of
reural characters in 'Cripple Fittie' and 'Ferlies i' the Rik'.
He presented a world which they had known from their own early years, but
which, like the poet himself, they saw being ruthlessly dismantled by modern
bureaucratic vandals and they were happy to join with him in the great cry
of protest 'Vandalism'...
Far's Strawberry Bank? Far's the auld Wallace Tour?
Fat's come owre the Denburn ablow and abeen?
An' dammit, ye've flittit oor Tarnty Ha'
rugged doon the New Market and muckt up the Green.
At his most profound A.M. Davidson had something to say that went right to
the heart of present day society and his challenging poem 'Makar o Miracles'
became a theme song of the Year of the Child.
This book has been produced in response to a widespread demand that
Davidson's Scots poems should not be allowed to remain uncollected and
remembered only in the warm recollection of northern Scots but should be
presented in pleasing printed form with appropriate illustration. The
illustrator, Charles Bannerman, a member of the modern Cromarty Group, is an
Aberdeen artist who was one of the most distinguished products of Gray's
School of Art in Aberdeen. The extensive Glossary will be valued by readers
who wish to check up on the colorful native vocabulary at the North East of
Scotland.
Gourdas House, Publishers
5 Alford Place
Aberdeen AB1 1YD
One of the North-East's most outstanding Doric poets, Alexander Mackenzie
Davidson, has died aged 82. Mr. Davidson, 5 Monduff Road, Muchalls, was born
in Aberdeen and was educated at Mile-End School and Robert Gordon's College.
He joined the staff of Aberdeen Public Library and was in charge of the Old
Aberdeen branch for many years. His works included many poems about old
Aberdeen.
Evening Express
29th January 1980 |
