National Library of Scotland’s Centenary Tour Heads to Shetland

Shetland Museum and Archives will host the final instalment of The National Library of Scotland’s centenary programme later this month with a focus on the poet Hugh MacDiarmid.

Running March 28 through June 20, Outwith: Valda, MacDiarmid and Whalsay will focus on the years that MacDiarmid (pen name of Christopher Murray Grieve) and his wife Valda Grieve spent in the Shetland island of Whalsay, exploring how the island influenced their lives and work despite persistent challenges.

Christopher Grieve spent nine creative years (1933–1942) in Whalsay, Shetland. However, it was Valda’s strength, resilience and independence that were central to their survival. By immersing herself in the island community and forging relationships, she helped sustain their daily life in the face of poverty, ill health and isolation. Her creativity and strong will shaped both their shared experience and Hugh MacDiarmid’s writing. 

During these years, he wrote half of his life’s work, drawing on Whalsay’s landscape and people, while the experience profoundly influenced his engagement with Scottish identity, language and politics.

The exhibition will feature original manuscripts of Shag’s Nest and In Dury Voe from the National Library’s collections, poems that were written during MacDiarmid’s Whalsay years. Visitors will also be able to see personal letters sent between Chris and Valda in this period.

“We’re delighted to send these precious and personal papers from our shelves in Edinburgh to the museum in Shetland," said Director of Collections, Access and Research, Alison Stevenson, "and to collaborate with Shetland Museum and Archives to create an exhibition and events programme that will bring the past to life for residents of and visitors to Lerwick. These manuscripts and letters will help visitors step into the lives of this couple and discover how the island community and rugged tranquillity of Shetland shaped both their personal lives and creative legacies. We’re particularly excited by the renewed focus on Valda, whose memory is still kept alive by people in Whalsay today, and who leaves a fascinating legacy that we’re still learning more about.”
 
Other key items in the exhibition include photographs from the Grieves Estate, and loans from Whalsay Heritage Centre including Valda’s knitting pattern books.

This exhibition is a continuation of the National Library’s national outreach programme OUTWITH: National Library around Scotland which has been marking the Library’s centenary around the country. OUTWITH also continues in Perth, where The Last Letter of Mary, Queen of Scots can be viewed for free in Perth Museum until April 26. Robert Burns' poem Lament of Mary, Queen of Scots, On the Approach of Spring written in Burns' own hand is on display at the nearby AK Bell Library until April 25.