Iain Crichton Smith

1928 - 1998

Biography

Iain Crichton Smith was born on the 1st January 1928 in Glasgow, and moved to Lewis two years later with his parents, both of Highland origin, and his two brothers.

His father died shortly afterwards, and he and his brothers were brought up by his mother in rather frugal conditions in the crofting community of Bayble.

Stornaway

The view from Bayble

The Isle of Lewis

The Isles of Lewis and Harris are at the North west corner of the group of islands known as the Hebrides or Western Isles. The Hebrides are known as the “long island” as they stretch for 100 miles.

Lewis is a fairly flat island with many spectacular sandy beaches and a rugged coastline. The Gaelic name for Lewis is Leodhas which means marshy. Most of the island is indeed covered by a blanket of peat.

Today some 20,000 people live on Harris and Lewis and it is the most populated of the Western Isles group.

Crichton Smith talked of his life in one of his final interviews in 1998:

“When I was growing up my mother was very protective of me. My father had died of tuberculosis and I was getting a lot of bronchitis. She thought that I had to be protected or I would end up with tuberculosis. Accordingly, I was kept at home a lot of the time and was in bed a lot because of this bronchitis. This meant that I did a lot of reading.

I think that was probably the main difference between myself and the other boys in the village. I was reading poetry and prose. The other boys — in those days you could leave school at 14 — would go to the fishing, but if you passed this bursary exam you could go to the Nicolson Institute in Stornoway.”

Crichton Smith went to school in Stornoway, attending the Nicholson Institute.

“I went there at the age of 11. I was still reading poetry, and composing poetry, but I never showed it to anyone. There was no tradition of writing in my family at all. And there was no tradition of writing poetry in the schools, because in those days Scottish education was very austere. You didn’t have anything to do with creativity. I kept the work I did in a big notebook but I never showed it to anyone.”

A Presbyterian culture

The Western Isles culture remains very strong, particularly in its religious beliefs. Sundays remain a very special day, and many people observe strict compliance to the “Free Church” traditional values.

An atheist in reactionThings that restrict and stifle have always been Smith’s target. In his own upbringing, he deeply resented the influence of the Free Church, and his attacks on it are apparent throughout his work.

Calvinists are always represented in his work as black figures, a symbol of their denial of joy and anything so trivial such as writing poetry and stories.

The pious islanders found him all the most offensive for writing his work in English, forsaking the Gaelic of his upbringing.

“When I was growing up on Lewis, for example, the children’s swings were chained on a Sunday so that they couldn’t be used.”

“In the Free Church for instance, women mustalways wear hats when they go to church.”

His mother’s influence

His childhood years on Lewis greatly influenced Smith’s attitudes. His mother, Christina Campbell, struggled to raise her children on very little money, yet remained fiercely proud with a strong sense of island tradition.

“My mother was living on a widow’s pension, and there were three of us, so we wereactually very poor. I think she was getting something like eighteen shillings a week.”

Recurring symbols

Christina Campbell, a fisher girl whose reddened hands came to be symbol of endurance to her son, became a black figure in Crichton Smith’s psyche. Several of his poems feature

old women and there is something of his mother in each one. He attacked the Calvinist faith to which Christina was devoted and she condemned his success as a poet, a harsh judge of his accomplishments.

Leaving the islandUpon leaving Lewis he attended the University of Aberdeen, where he read English, graduating in 1949, and after a spell of National Service in the fifties, went onto become an English teacher, taking up posts in high schools in Clydebank, Dumbarton, and finally Oban.

Betrayal

The characters that appear in Crichton Smith’s work were islanders whom he knew very well and, while he rejected their beliefs and way of life, he did understand them and even admired their strength.

He has been criticised for his often negative view of Lewis and it should be taken into account that he was a lonely child with a lot of illness and a good deal of unhappiness in his family background.

A troubled mindThe guilt he felt for the betrayal of the culture of his upbringing and at his mother’s condemnation was a source of constant anguish. The death of his mother in 1969 resulted not in freeing him from the ties to his old life but in a complete mental breakdown.

In 1977 he retired to concentrate full time on writing, and in the same year he married Donalda Logan who was instrumental in restoring his peace of mind.

An honoured authorSmith was honoured with an OBE in 1980, won several literary prizes, Saltire Society and Scottish Arts Council awards and fellowships, and was awarded honorary doctorates from the Universities of Glasgow, Dundee and Aberdeen. Although he travelled frequently, lecturing, visiting and giving poetry readings around the world, he remained very much a writer based in the Highlands of Scotland, with Gaelic culture, history and landscape informing his work.He continued to live in the village of Taynuilt, near Oban, with his wife Donalda, until his death in 1998.

Professor Donald Meek, of Aberdeen University’s Department of Celtic, was taught by Iain Crichton Smith while at school in Oban.

“Iain Crichton Smith was an outstandingly talented man. He was inspirational in his teaching and writing. As a teacher, he opened new horizons for his pupils, who will remember him for his clear exposition and effortless humour. As a writer, he brought Gaelic literature into a new era. As a poet and novelist, he explored deep human issues in a manner which was both Highland and universal. I will never forget his self-effacing brilliance – he was a literary giant who sought no honours.”