Found: Hugh MacDiarmid’s forgotten war poems

Forgotten works by one of Scotland’s most celebrated poets, Hugh MacDiarmid, have been discovered in his birthplace in Dumfriesshire – a century after they were written.

Penned under his real name – Christopher Murray Grieve – the 15 poems were found among the archives of the library in his home town of Langholm. The first of these appeared exactly a century ago today in his local newspaper when he was just 22 years old. Like the rest, it had not seen the light of day since then.

Entitled A Recruit’s Farewell to Eskdale, it was written while Grieve was stationed at Hillsborough Barracks in Sheffield. In it the poet, who was to become one of the most influential Scottish writers in the 20th century, reflects on his youth in the “Muckle Toon”, as Langholm is known.