Grassic Gibbon was a true Scottish radical | Letters

It is gratifying to see that Lewis Grassic Gibbon’s classic Sunset Song has now been made into a film by the wonderful Terence Davies (Loons and queans and orramen by James Nughtie, G2, 25 November). It will hopefully lead to his Scots Quair trilogy finding a new and wider readership. His writings have long been a staple on the bookshelves of leftwingers but not well known beyond. His evocative and deeply human characterisation of the hard lives of the lowland crofters is unparalleled in our literature. However, in the adulation, almost all pundits fail to underline his politics. In Glasgow, he became increasingly involved in leftwing campaigns and helped set up the Aberdeen Soviet. His experience of Glasgow slum life and the Red Clydeside movement radicalised him further and it is pretty certain that, as a British Socialist party member, he would also have been a founder member of the Communist party – but then, as a soldier based abroad, it is unlikely that he would have been able, or even at encouraged, to hold a membership card. He would maintain his radical political stance to the end of his life.
John Green
London

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