Charles Murray

GWEED WIRDS is affa trickit tae use the photaes and text fae oor pairnter Elphinstone Institute in the pages aboot Charles Murray.

HAMEWITH

Charles Murray is easily the maist-kent and maist popular Scots makars fae 1910 tae the 1960s; bit his scrievin wis modest, three sma buikies o verse. Though there wisna onything amateur aboot his wark, Murray wisna professional screever and hid tae scrieve fan iver he hid ony spare time, fittin it aroon his wark life first is a prospecter and heid-chiel o a mine then as a heid colonial civil servant in the new-biggit Union o Sooth Africa.

Three individual collections cam oot in his lifetime - Hamewith (1900, 1909); A Sough o War (1917) and In the Country Places (1920) - the latter twa the traditional 'slim volumes' in fit verse afften appeart. The poems fae a three were vrocht the gather in Hamewith and Other Poems in 1927 fit bed print till the 1960s.

Charles Murray wis born on 28 September 1864, oot by Alford and wis the second bairn an only loon o Peter Murray, a jyner turned grieve. His mither Margaret deid fan he wis three and he vrocht up be his aunt, Mary Robbie. Efter skweel it Gallowhill, he served his time for five eer at Walker and Beattie, land surveyors in Aiberdeen.

He mynt later thit 'I came to Aberdeen, a country lad of sixteen with a "cockit" bonnet and, because it was winter, a big "gravit.' His only worry in the big city 'was when the chief's bell rang and I had to go to him and try to say a few sentences in what I thought to be English... The difficulty of translating my thoughts... was a real trouble.'

Bit that worry didna last lang and Murray seen got lairnin aboot his chosen wark and despite his modest backgrun, became a richt social success.

Ae freen mynt thit he, in nae time, became the maist popular member o the maist hail gran club o West End young chiels syne apairt fae his rare personality he hid a kyne o gifts:

'He was... a good shot, a keen angler, played several games well, could take his part in amateur theatricals, even took prizes at athletic sports such as throwing the hammer, played the fiddle, did pen and ink caricatures, was a good hand at bridge.

Charles Murray as a young chiel, pinted be his sister Sarah.

Efter three eer o wark in Aiberdeen, he went tae Sooth Africa, far he wis tae bide for neist 25 eers. He landit it Cape Toon in Januar 1889 an, efter a fylie there, set oot for Kimberley, the diamond toon far he visited the De Beers Mine. Efter this he went on tae Johannesburg and worked in mines in the Transvaal and Mashonaland. He served in the Second Boer War and wis eventually appyntit Deputy Inspector of Mines. Within ten eers was Secretary for Public Warks for the Union of Sooth Africa. He wis made a CMG (Companion of St Michael and St George) in 1922 and came hame tae Scotland we his wife, Edith, an settled in Banchory. He deid there on 12 April 1941.

MURRAY AND HIS SCOTS

'the vernacular was under a cloud...tabooed and frowned upon by most of our educational mentors. Hamewith helped to change attitudes in schools and in many...some or other of [Murray's] poems are being committed to memory by the pupils' and 'even HM Inspectors hail the "Hamewith"

Alexander Mackie

Bit Murray's wark wisna confined tae Doricland in e North East; mony of his poems - lik his maist popular The Whistle - became weel-kent far ayont Aiberdeenshire. Murray follaet the gran echteenth century predecessors Ramsay, Fergusson and Burns and creatit a poetic tung fit wis draan on the Scots he heard arooo him as he wis grouwin up. Mony o the wirds and phrases he uses belong tae the Doric o his ain Aiberdeenshire bit he wis canny tae mak his Scots open tae fowk fae ither placies an a. So, like Mary Symon, he bytimes uses the regular north-east 'f' for 'wh', and his best known poem is 'The Whistle' and not 'The Fussle'. Mony a Doric reader tho will ayewis read it as Fussle.