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It was with considerable sadness that I learned of John Manson\u2019s death a month after it occurred on August 3rd<\/sup>. John had been a \u201ca non-party Socialist since the dissolution of the CPGB\u201d[1] and a significant literary critic, translator and poet. I first met John in 2006 and last met him 2012. Those who want to know more about John\u2019s life and legacy should read the fine obituary written by Alan Riach in The Herald<\/em> on 28.8.20[2] <\/p>\n John and his friend David Craig, then both members of the Communist Party of Great Britain, had edited Selected Poems of Hugh MacDiarmid<\/em> for Penguin Books in 1970. In 2002, John co-edited Revolutionary Art of the Future \u2013 Rediscovered Poems of Hugh MacDiarmid<\/em> with Dorian Grieve and Alan Riach. In 2011, he edited Dear Grieve. Letters to Hugh MacDiarmid.<\/em> \u00a0John personally knew MacDiarmid and was responsible for persuading him to publish the full version of Third Hymn to Lenin<\/em> in 1956[3]. John also wrote many shorter articles on MacDiarmid.<\/p>\n It was through the MacDiarmid literary connection that John first made himself known to me. He wrote a very helpful response to my Beyond Broadswords and Bayonets<\/em>,[4] (Emancipation & Liberation<\/em> 5\/6), where I had suggested that MacDiarmid\u2019s poem Little White Rose,<\/em> written in 1931, was using a Jacobite motif to highlight the type of Scotland he supported. John\u2019s letter A few thoughts on literary matters<\/em> published in Emancipation & Liberation<\/em> no. 10,[5] showed that the inspiration for Little White Rose<\/em> came from elsewhere. \u00a0The fact that my point had been tucked away in footnote 47 gave me an early indication of John\u2019s thoroughness and grasp of detail, which was a hallmark of his scholarship. John also provided further information in his thoughts about MacDiarmid, including a poem The Covenanters<\/em> which formed part of his Second Hymn to Lenin and Other Poems<\/em> (1935). This was somewhat similar in tone to Robert Burns\u2019 comment on The Solemn League and Covenant<\/em>,[6]\u00a0which I had mentioned in my article .<\/p>\n John also drew my attention to David Craig\u2019s King Cameron <\/em>which fictionalised the later life of Angus Cameron, whom I had also written about in Broadswords and Bayonets<\/em>[7]. Whilst I was at Aberdeen University in the earlv 1970s, I had read Craig\u2019s Scottish Literature and Scottish People, 1680-1830, <\/em>at a time when it was very hard to find any works on Scottish culture from a Socialist point of view, although the Communist Party published valuable material in Scottish Marxist<\/em>.<\/p>\n I contacted John and we began to meet up after his trips from his home in Kirkpatrick Durham near Dumfries to the National Library in Edinburgh to do research on MacDiarmid. We used to go to the Bow Bar after he had finished his work. I learned that he was a friend of David Craig, author of \u00a0On the Crofter\u2019s Trail.\u00a0<\/em>Ever since my own visits to the Highlands and Islands, beginning in the 1960s, I had been fascinated by the crofting way of life. It came as a real education to me, that many crofters I met were very far from parochial in their outlook, and very well-informed. They had often travelled, not only throughout Scotland and England, but to the USA, Canada, and Australia, in search of work. John, who was himself from a crofting background in Caithness and Sutherland, became a friend of Craig\u2019s when they were at Aberdeen University in the early 1950s.<\/p>\n I learned so much from our conversations that I decided that I must interview John for Emancipation & Liberation<\/em>. I took the opportunity of a hillwalking trip in Galloway to visit John at his home. This interview\u00a0The Republic of the Imagination – John Manson talks about his life and works\u00a0<\/i>was published in issue no. 14.[8] When asked, \u201cWhat do you see as the significance of the literary side of politics?\u201d John replied, \u201cPolitics is part of the public life of the times and it should be recreated as an important aspect of culture.\u201d These thoughts were to be make a contribution to the magazine\u2019s decision to highlight the political role of culture in Freedom Come All Ye<\/em>,[9] and the cultural link between alienation and self-determination in its widest sense.[10]<\/p>\n Eventually the fruits of John\u2019s research were published in 2011. I attended the Andrew Fletcher of Saltoun award ceremony for John in Langholm on 17th April 2012. Langholm was MacDiarmid\u2019s birthplace. After his talk, I bought\u00a0a couple of issues of the Dumfriesshire and Galloway literary magazine, Markings<\/em>, which included some of John\u2019s articles and a copy of John’s \u00a0new book of poetry, Stabs and Fences<\/em>\u00a0. He signed it ,”Until we meet again”. John was averse to using e-mails and I had fallen out of the use of written letters. \u00a0I was hoping to hear of another \u00a0event where \u00a0John was speaking. Unfortunately, that was not to be.<\/p>\n But John has left a wealth of literary work, I can only agree with Alan Riach that John Manson\u2019s \u201cwas a life out of the limelight, away from celebrity and devoted to scholarship and provision for others through his attention to literature and political ideals. It is an extraordinary story of selflessness and commitment.\u201d I feel enriched for having known ~John, even if only for relatively brief period of his life,<\/p>\n [1] The Republic of the Imagination<\/a> – answer to the question \u201cHow would you describe yourself in political terms?\u201d<\/p>\n [2] Obituary: John Manson, literary researcher with an unparalleled understanding of Hugh MacDiarmid<\/a>)<\/p>\n [3] The Republic of the Imagination<\/a><\/p>\n [4] i) The internationalist contribution of the Cameronians [5] A few thoughts on literary matters<\/a><\/p>\n [6] ii) The split between the progressive secularised \u2018Covenanters\u2019 and the conservative and reactionary religious \u2018Covenanters\u2019<\/a><\/p>\n [7] ii) The split between the progressive secularised \u2018Covenanters\u2019 and the conservative and reactionary religious \u2018Covenanters\u2019<\/a><\/p>\n [8] Articles about John Manson<\/a><\/p>\n [9] FREEDOM COME ALL YE<\/a><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/republicancommunist.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/Unknown-6.jpeg\")
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