matriculation photograph (Downing College Archive, DCPH/2/1/7; credit: Lafayette Photography Ltd) Sources While at Downing, Hamish was actively involved in College life, rowing at 5 in the 4th Boat in his first term and rising to 3 in the 3rd Boat in the Lent Bumps, although he only appears to have rowed in his first year. This photograph, originally from the family collection, shows Henderson, seated far left, with other members of his crew.

Some time ago, we had a debate on the radical rising of 1820. I said at that time that I thought that it was sad that many people in our country did not know the history of the 1820 martyrs and that our history was not properly taught in schools. The same is true of our debate today. Hamish Henderson left behind a wonderful legacy, but comparatively few people in our country know about it. That is a mark of the fact that our history and culture have been largely submerged for a long time. Everyone in the Scottish Parliament should be making an effort to try to change that to some extent.

Themes

Norman Buchan on Hamish, Tocher no 43, School of Scottish Studies, University of Edinburgh, 1991, p 19-21 That is an interesting point of view. I hope that when the Scottish Parliament finally gets its new building we will be able to commemorate those Scots who came before us and who helped us to attain the Parliament. Hamish Henderson was generous with his time and money for people of creative talent. He was even generous towards Hugh MacDiarmid—who came from my constituency—with whom he had a famous and public dispute, as Cathy Peattie said. How important the topic of that dispute is for us today. Poetry and all culture are there for the enjoyment of all people, not just for the enjoyment of a few privileged, educated people. Our culture belongs to all of us because it comes from all of us. Harvie, Christopher (1998). No Gods and Precious Few Heroes: Twentieth-century Scotland. p.16. ISBN 9780748609994. Hamish Henderson (1919-2002) first heard the name of Antonio Gramsci mentioned when he fought alongside the Italian partisans during the liberation of Florence in 1944. The Italian communist would become a major influence on the work of Scotland’s preeminent folklorist, poet, songwriter and political activist of the twentieth century. Not necessarily, or primarily, the Marxist theoretician, but rather the Sardinian soul mate, whose fate in Mussolini’s prisons reminded Henderson of the similar martyrdom of one of his other great heroes, the Glaswegian socialist and home ruler John Maclean. As Corey Gibson points out in the core chapter on ‘Gramsci’s Folklore’ in this study on the work of Henderson, Gramsci’s ‘overarching philosophical concepts’, the buzz-words of Gramsci scholarship — ‘cultural hegemony’, ‘national-popular’ and ‘traditional and organic intellectuals’ — are ‘conspicuous only in their absence’. But Henderson could immediately bond with Gramsci, seeing the linguistic, cultural and political parallels between Sardinia and Scotland, in their relationship with Italy and Britain, respectively. For Henderson, who used the prize money of the Somerset Maugham Award (1949) he received for his Elegies for the Dead in Cyrenaica (topped up with a fortuitous win on the horses) to return to Italy and finish his translation of Gramsci’s Prison Letters, the Italian’s interest in culture as an agent, and particularly his interest in popular and folk culture, established an immediate affinity with Henderson’s thinking. It was one of the misfortunes of Henderson’s life that his translation had to wait for nearly thirty years before it was published; thus, his pioneer role in introducing Gramsci to the British left is often overlooked.

I regret to say that I did not know Hamish Henderson personally—I would not want to distort the truth by claiming some sort of familiarity—but I know something of his works and his important legacy. I want to pay a sincere tribute to his multifaceted talents and his eventful life, which has helped to shape the way in which we think of ourselves, our culture and our nation. I first became aware of the work and personality of Hamish Henderson in the early 1970s, when I was involved in a big birthday party in Glasgow for another left-wing thinker and protector of the folk song tradition in Scotland, Norman Buchan. Some of those who came to that party had been brought to public attention and to the awareness of folk singers and folk song lovers around the world through the work of Hamish Henderson. Many guests were there, including Billy Connolly as one of the Humblebums. He was not connected to Hamish Henderson at that time. It was a memorable occasion when those people came together. Thus, Gibson differs from Henderson’s biographer Timothy Neat in the assessment of the alleged fork in the road of Henderson’s career, when he, apparently, switched from poetry to folklore, coinciding with taking a role in the incipient School of Scottish Studies, founded in 1951 at the University of Edinburgh. By reading the Elegies and the (collected and modified) Ballads of World War II in tandem, he shows that they do differ in ‘form and technique’, but less so in ‘morality’ or ‘political philosophy’. He could have added that Henderson had already collected folk song and lore before the War, for example on Canna, under he auspices of Séamus Ennis and the Irish Folklore Commission (which would become an important partner of the fledgling School of Scottish Studies in the 1950s).I do not claim to be an expert on the folk revival, on poetry, or even on Hamish Henderson, but I know enough about him to realise that, when an assessment is made of his contribution to the life of Scotland, he will stand head and shoulders above any of his political contemporaries who happened to get elected to Parliament at Westminster or Holyrood. It is fitting that we try to pay tribute to such a Scot, who was a giant of the 20 th century. However, the event marked the first time that Scotland's traditional folk music was performed on a public stage. The performers included Flora MacNeil, Calum Johnston, John Burgess, Jessie Murray, John Strachan, and Jimmy MacBeath. The event was extremely popular and was regarded as the beginning of the second British folk revival. Following the outbreak of war, Hamish tried to enroll with the Cameron Highlanders on 4 September 1939, but poor eyesight meant his call-up was delayed. Returning to Cambridge, he continued to use debates at the Union and various political meetings to speak up against Chamberlain and in favour of socialism. In late 1939, he was involved in setting up the Cambridge Students’ People’s Convention, ‘to steer government policy towards a Socialist future’.