The Flora Garry Lecture
The Doric Board has announced that it will host the third Flora Garry Lecture in October, an event created in memory of the acclaimed New Deer-born poet who died in 2000 aged 100. Each year, the annual celebration inspired by her work and efforts to preserve and promote the Doric tongue invites a distinguished speaker to reflect on an aspect of the North East’s cultural and literary heritage, with a particular focus on Doric.
This year the Lecture will look at the life and work of Mearns farmer’s son, James Leslie Mitchell who wrote one of Scotland’s most famous volumes Sunset Song under the name Lewis Grassic Gibbon. As well as exploring the profound connections between land and people that are common far beyond the area, the lecture will provide insights including how Gibbon was inspired by the Doric language of the people he grew up among, weaving it into the narrative of one of the finest Scottish novels ever written.
Supported by music, song, poetry and more from fellow Doric Board members, the keynote presentation will be given by Doric Board founder member and Grassic Gibbon Centre director and former chair Jim Brown MBE MLitt FSAScot ARAgS. Brought up on a small Mearns farm in similar circumstances to the author and, like him educated at Mackie Academy, Jim’s deep admiration for Gibbon’s work has run throughout his life which included 40 years in the grain trade and many years involved in Highland games and community work. At the age of 77, he gained a Masters in Ethnology and Folklore from Aberdeen University.
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