THE CELTIC CONNECTION » MARCH 1997
Page 9
A WILD RIDE AT SEA TOSSES SHIP AND CREW
By HAMISH MacINTOSH
SHETLANDS — After hurricane force winds roared across Scotland on February 20, the skipper of an oilfield safety vessel described his crew's ordeal, when a huge wave smashed their bridge windows and caused £100,000 pounds' worth of damage.
Speaking in Lerwick, where shipwrights are busy repairing the "Grampian Pride," Captain Jim Sutherland said "Lives would have been lost, had the crew not responded in the excellent way they did."
He said that, at 5 AM, first mate Keith Turner and watchkeeper Jamie Dickson were on the bridge 100 miles offshore, when the wave
smashed down on the little ship. Turner said it was a heart-stopping moment "I saw it coming and yelled 'Duck!' to Jamie."
The sea burst the only unshielded window and tonnes of water flooded the bridge, ruining electronic and electrical equipment and blacking out all lights.
Dickson said he probably owed his life to Turner. "I've not experienced such a thing before, although I've seen some poor weather." He escaped with minor bruises, after finding himself covered in broken glass.
Sutherland, a sailor with 31 year's experience, said the incident proved again that the North Sea was the wildest sea in the world.
He was asleep in his bunk and the force of the impact threw him through a bulkhead. While he was climbing up to the bridge, the water flooded through the ship. He said, "I could feel that Keith was turning the vessel in order to let her float."
After a minute or two of panic, the 12-man crew reacted "brilliantly." They got on their survival suits, and quickly put out several fires caused by water short-circuiting electrical gear.
When essential repairs to the engines are completed in Lerwick, the "Grampian Pride" is expected to sail for Aberdeen for a complete electrical refit.
Cache of Forgotten Scotsman Poems Found Enshrined
CELESTE SINCLAIR
EDINBURGH — After his death at age 85, a treasure trove of previously unpublished poems written by Norman MacCaig, one of the most popular and critically-acclaimed Scottish poets of the Twentieth Century, was discovered by his son Ewen MacCaig.
Ewen said that his father was a remorseless self-editor, who ruthlessly discarded anything which did not meet his own exacting standards. Not long before his death, MacCaig told Ewen, "If you find any rubbish left when I go, throw it out."
Not long after his father's funeral on a bitter January day, Ewen settled down to go through the papers which had been stored in files and cardboard boxes in the sitting room of his flat in Edinburgh.
He was staggered by what he found. There were copies of reviews, outlines of speeches given at Burns suppers, essays, a few letters, broadcast talks, commonplace books and other memorabilia.
Best of all, however, were the poems, both in manuscript and typescript form, which Ewen, who is well-acquainted with his father's work, did not recognize.
He soon realised that here was a major part of the MacCaig oeuvre which had never been published. In all, Ewen reckons, there are more than 650 unpublished poems. At least 100 of these are up
to the standard of MacCaig's best work. The poems, along with other significant manuscripts and memorabilia, are now in Edinburgh University library.
The estimated value is around £125,000, but a recent application to the National Lottery Fund for their purchase was unsuccessful. Doctor Murray Simpson, special collections librarian said, "It would be terribly sad if they were allowed to go out of the country."
The plan is to publish MacCaig's previously acknowledged works with a selection of the new poems this Fall in a revised edition of The Selected Poems, edited by Douglas Dunn. A new edition of The Collected Poems is also planned, with perhaps 100 new poems added to the original 700.
A MacCaig Poem
Once i saw it
a green-haired pebble
in a trickle of water.
There was a mountain above it looking patriarchal and a loch below it looking virginal.
But i'm thinking chiefly
of the green-haired stone
that was a great-to-the-nth-grand-
child
of the mountain and was infinitely slowly sifting and dribbling down into the pure and gentle water below it.
An image of me,
an image of everyone.
in Japan
EDINBURGH — A Scot who helped shape modern Japan, and whose life was said to be the inspiration of the opera Madame Butterfly, could soon become better known in his native country.
Thomas Blake Glover, nicknamed the Scottish Samurai, is revered in Japan, where his former home in Nagasaki is visited by millions every year, but is virtually unknown in Aberdeen, from where he emigrated at 21 years old, in 1859.
He developed interests in trading, mining, brewing and shipbuilding and was the first foreigner to be awarded Japan's highest honour, the Order of the Rising Sun.
The Scots entrepreneur, whose statue overlooks Nagasaki harbour, was married to a Japanese woman for 30 years. His affair with another woman, who had his son, is said to have inspired the opera.
The Mitsubishi Corporation will create a shrine in Scotland for Japanese tourists and the Scots. The company, which Glover helped to found, has offered to buy the house from Aberdeen City Council.
The house would be restored to the way it was when the Glover family lived there in the 1850s.
— The Telegraph
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