MAKAR | DUFFTOONFir mony fowk e day, e war makars mean fowk lik Rupert Brooke, Siegfried Sassoon, Wilfred Owen or Scotland’s ain E A Mackintosh – chiels fa focht an hid in mony cases deid in e sotter o e trenches. Thone war makars thit we admire e day didna ayewis hae their scrievin taen oot in buiks or wis weel-kent until efter e war wis deen.
An yit in Dufftoon, Banffshire, bed a spinster damie in her fifties, fa's verse, scrievit in the war, an in Scots, catched e mood o mony fowk an maun be some o e maist fine war verse o e time aboot bein sair-made an lost. She wis caaed Mary Symon. Her vreetin is o national stannin. |
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Bit is wis the Great War thit brocht oot her best wark, we that wark scrievit in Scots. After Neuve Chapelle (1915) is a ca tae airms bit it gies a keek o fit life it the front wis like; at its yokin telling o the affa loss o the Gordon Highlanders. A Whiff O’Hame wis included in a Christmas Book gien tae sodgers in 1916, urging the lads “To ache, an’ fecht, an’ fa’.” The Soldier’s Cairn and A Recruit for the Gordons staun testimony tae foo she kwid express the thochts of them fa focht an the sair-made loss of them at hame. Aa o them shid be read.
Bit it is The Glen’s Muster Roll; the Dominie Loquitur, publisht in February 1916, fit stauns as the maist byordinar Scots elegy tae cam oot o the Great War. Nae ither poem evokes so effectively the sense of the loss tae a place o a hail generation of loons. An elegy of the war deid o a sma placie, spoke be the Dominie, an lats us ken thit fowk at hame kent fine fit hell and loss war meant. The vyce of the Dominie is compelling. He has lairned ivry ain o the hunner or sae loons - young chiels - fas names mak up the muster roll. The poem concentrates on the fates o echt o his loons, the detail absorbing and affa, affa moving, bit nivver sentimental. It the feenish, Dominie his a hellish sicht o the deid an wounded gan back tae the squeel room. |
They speir it their aul maister. |
Mary Symon deid at hame, Pittyvaich Hoose, on 27 May 1938. She wis beeryt we her mither an fadder in a kirkyard at Mortlach in the placie she kent best an loved sae weel. Charles Murray 'Hamewith' wis ain o her pall bearers.
Mary Symon’s poems an scrievin stand tall, testimony tae a rare talent and brain. Bit it is as a war poems that mak her a makar o national importance, we a richt skill fir capturing the hellishness o war, sair-made fowk an placies - an aa deen in her aine tongue. |
The Dufftown News obituary said o her: |
Hing't up aside the chumley-cheek, the aul' glen's Muster Roll |