The biggest
literary prize in the country is now known as the Scottish Mortgage Investment
Trust Book Awards, in partnership with Creative Scotland.
Somebody in
Creative Scotland should tell their sponsors that the Scottish Mortgage
Investment Trust is a bad name for a company, let alone a literary prize.
People doze off before the third word.
Put it
another way: no intelligent writer would ever dare to start a book with the
phrase “The Scottish Mortgage Inverstment Trust Book Awards, in partnership
with Creative Scotland…”
When they
are asked, “What’s doing?”, few authors will comfortably reply, “Oh, not so
much. I’ve been shortlisted for the Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust Book
Awards, in partnership with Creative Scotland.” They just might say, “I’m up
for the SMITs!”
We can see
why the organisers avoid the acronym. In some parts of Scotland a “smit” is a
dialect word for an infection. SMIT is also an American salvage company. “The
SMIT Awards” would nonetheless be preferable to “The Scottish Mortgage
Investment Trust Book Awards, in partnership with Creative Scotland.” It’s got
more punch.
That said,
this week we praise the Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust Book Awards, in
partnership with Creative Scotland. They have just shoved £5000 into the West
Highland economy. And there could be more to come.
Let me
explain. The SMITs (see? It works) are a little like the UEFA European Football
championships. They have four qualifying groups. The winner of each group gets
£5000, and those four group-winning writers then proceed to compete for the
grand trophy of Scottish Book of the Year and another £30,000,
The SMITs
four groups are divided into Fiction, Non-fiction, First Book and Poetry.
The last of
these concerns us here. The 2012 poetry section was the Group of Death. It
included ‘The Bees’ by Carol Ann Duffy, who is the Poet Laureate. It included
‘Black Cat Bone’ by John Burnside, which has already scooped both the T S Eliot
Prize and the Forward Poetry Prize. The two most prestigious awards available
to UK versifiers. It included ‘As Though We Were Flying’ by Andrew Greig, who
is, when all’s said and done, Andrew Greig
It also
included a modest volume of poems in Gaelic and English called’ Aibisidh’. ‘Aibisidh’
is the work of the Free Press’s Gaelic columnist Aonghas Pàdraig Caimbeul, who
like some Mississippi delta bluesman was born and brought up at a crossroads,
even if it was a crossroads just south of Daliburgh.
Those of us
who care for Angus Peter, for his publisher Polygon, and indeed for the
national recognition of Gaelic writing,
shuddered when we saw that shortlist. ‘Aibisidh’ might just scrape a draw with
Andrew Greig, we thought, but Duffy and Burnside are a big ask. Once they start
stringing the quickfire passes together at the edge of Angus Peter’s penalty
area… well, at least he can say he was there.
Guess what?
Reader, he
won it.
When the
results of the group stages of the SMITs were announced two weeks ago (sadly, I
was in sunny France, or I’d have told you earlier) the poetry section was
topped by Aonghas Pàdraig Caimbeul’s ‘Aibisidh’. Carol Duffy and John Burnside
were on the plane home. Angus Peter pockets £5000 tax-free and goes with three
other authors to the final stage and the possibility of that £30, 000 Book of
the Year award.
We now have
a couple of responsibilities. The first is to buy and read ‘Aibisidh’, to see
what all the fuss is about. You will not be disappointed. The book is
essentially a paean to Angus Peter Campbell’s Uist childhood (‘Aibisidh’ is of
course a formulation of ‘ABC). As such it will chime with any Gael over the age
of 40, and with a good many younger.
But being
Angus Peter, it is much more than that. He sees the world in Uist. In this
universe Stanley Matthews rubs shoulders with Edward Dwelly, El Greco, Iain
Crichton Smith and Stirling Moss. We are lifted from Garrynamonie School to the
Kilt Rock and the Battle of the Somme. It is vivid, moving and alive.
And having
bought, read and digested this most acclaimed of collections of modern Gaelic
poetry, we can actually help it to win the cup, put another £30,000 into Angus
Peter’s pocket and contribute even more to the local econom y of his present
home in Lochalsh.
The SMIT
Book of the Year is decided by public vote. You have to go online to do it, but
by now most of us are capable of that. I don’t know how many votes it takes to
win the SMIT, but I’d bet that if half of the readership of this paper
contributed, we’d swing it.
So here’s
what you do. You go to: www.scottishbookawards.com , youwill see ‘Click Here to
Vote’.
You will
then be taken to a list of four books. Three of them are irrelevant to your
purposes. You put your mark by ‘Aibisidh’ by Angus Peter Campbell. You give
them your name and email address, and send in your vote.
You do all
of that before August. And when Angus Peter is rich beyond the dreams of
avarice, all 10,000 of us queue up to ask him for an ice cream.
‘Aibisidh’ by Angus Peter Campbell, Polygon
£9.99
Roger Hutchinson on
books, West Highland Free Press, Friday 29 June 2012.