A Scots Poem

If you look up the Scots language on Wikipeadia it says it not be be confused with Scottish English or Scottish Gaelic.  Or Doric I would add. That  is another tongue found up near Aberdeenshire. They call all men 'Dod' up there for some reason...esp if they are called George.

Anyway  all this will be the subject of another blog  because the  subject  of this one is a  woman called Betty MacKellar who  is an award winning  poet and one of those writers who has lyricism dripping  from her lips - or out of her pen. She is one very talented lady.

Betty is from Edinburgh originally but grew up in Selkirk then she saw sense and married a west coast  man – a sheep farmer whose family still own land up and around Murshiel and Lochwinnoch. The hills of the area are steeped in legends and history so she doesn’t look much beyond her front door for inspiration for her poetry.

 She started writing poetry when she retired from her job as a teacher in the local school.  And she hasn’t looked back.

There are many clips of her on You Tube, reading out her own stuff as she has one of those beautiful voices that ....well she sounds the way milk chocolate would if it could talk. 

I have included one of her poems here, written in Scots. You can see that she uses the same language as Burns did and it has that same smooth gentle rolling cadence. It is quite difficult to sound angry  in Scots.

I'm sure you will understand it, just do an impression of Sean Connery as you read it out loud and it will come naturally enough.


I’ll vote No

Me?

wi the bluid o the Picts in my veins

an Scotland in my heart

vote No?

Aye, me!

An I’ll tell ye for why.

I hae a Union Jack gripped in the ae haun

an Scotland’s flag ticht in the tither

I’m like a mither wi twa bairns

looin them baith the same.

What’s this daftness

aboot brakin oor family in twa?

“Bide thegither”

I coonsel my bairns.

“that way ye’ll be strang.”

We belang in the same hoose.

Argie bargie wi yer brither gin ye please.

Brithers argue.

But hae it in yer mind ayeways

that his enemy’s your enemy

his freen yours an a’.

                                                   

Stick by that bulldog Sassenach

like the wee Scotch terrier that ye are.

Thegither we’ll snap

at thae fat cats that sup oor cream,

sink oor teeth in the beam ends

o real villains.

                                             

Scots, English – Brits,

we’re a’ Jock Thamson’s bairns

brithers unner the skin ower three hunner year.

When I was wee

I slept soonder

for bidin wi my brither an my sisters

unner the same roof.

Noo I’m auld

I’ll gae happier tae my rest

Kennin the family’s no pairtit.

Better thegither!


Betty MacKellar.

                            

Caro Ramsay    16th May 2014