Something old, something new… I started writing this some weeks ago, hence the opening sentence.
Yesterday, exactly five years after I wrote “On Norman MacCaig and a bit of controversy“, I bumped into the journalist Patrick Richardson, the author of Looking for Landfall. It turned out he had been taught by the poet Norman MacCaig while at Carrick Knowe primary school, and confirms that MacCaig was well known for beating children locally.
On one occasion, Norman MacCaig pulled up Patrick Richardson on some matter of spelling or grammar, and took the tawse to him. Patrick told me that his mother was so horrified by MacCaig’s brutality that she came in the next day and complained directly to the school.
Many years later, Richardson recognised MacCaig on the street – he was a kenspeckle figure – and confronted him about the beating. He said MacCaig blushed when he mentioned it and walked away.
Some details of this can be found in Patrick’s memoir.
Patrick Richardson: Brief Bio
Born in Sussex, Patrick grew up in Edinburgh, where he attended local schools. He later shared a flat with the politician Robin Cook.
Richardson is a successful journalist, having written for the Guardian, the Daily Telegraph, the Sunday Telegraph, the Sunday Times, the Herald, the Sunday Herald, the Independent and The Scotsman. He has travelled through some of the most exotic parts of the world, and probably any summary I give here will not do him justice. He was raised as a Quaker which probably partly explains his mother’s disdain with McCaig.
Links
* Official website
* In Search of Landfall, official website
* Wikipedia article
Literary Corstorphine 