Professor
Derick S. Thomson (5 August 1921 – 21 March 2012)
Derick Thomson – Professor of Celtic, Gaelic scholar,
teacher, language planner, poet, writer, editor, businessman, politician,
propagandist, chairman of boards and trusts in abundance - was a colossus of
twentieth-century Scotland. In both the
sharpness of his mind and its many practical applications, he carved a niche
for Gaelic (first and foremost) and for himself (as a ceaseless promoter of the
language in word and in print) that is unlikely to be replicated in the near
future, and will certainly never be surpassed.
Privileged with a gifted ancestry, steeped in traditional
Gaelic culture, Derick Thomson was born in Stornoway in 1921, but he was reared
in Bayble, Point. His father James Thomson, a stalwart of the Church of
Scotland and a published poet, was for many years headmaster of Bayble School. His mother’s people from Ceòs – from whom he
derived his middle name ‘Smith’ – were noted for their wealth of Gaelic song
and story. Thomson’s Lewis upbringing
thus facilitated and combined many of the strands which would later
characterise his own career as a magisterial and multi-talented exponent of
Gaelic language and literature, a creative poet and a commentator on island
life and society, including its ecclesiastical dimensions.
Thomson graduated from the University of Aberdeen
with a First Class degree in English Literature and Celtic. After war service in the RAF, he embarked on
the Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic Tripos at Cambridge, established by the
pioneering scholars, Hector Munro Chadwick and his wife Norah Kershaw Chadwick,
to encourage bridge-building and interdisciplinary study between the Celtic and
Germanic strands of Britain’s cultural heritage. He achieved similar distinction
there, and then proceeded to the University College of North Wales, Bangor, to
study with the Rev. Professor J. E. Caerwyn Williams, for whom he had an immense
respect.
Splendidly equipped for analysing the wider Celtic
family of languages and related cultures, Derick Thomson served through the
ranks of the academic profession in Scotland, first in Edinburgh (where he
assisted Professor Myles Dillon and collected Gaelic tradition for the new
School of Scottish Studies), then Glasgow (where he taught Welsh, alongside
Professor Angus Matheson), followed by Aberdeen (where he was Reader in Celtic)
and finally Glasgow again, this time as Professor from 1963 until 1991. His academic hallmark lay pre-eminently in
placing Gaelic literature, rather than the minutiae of the language itself, at
the centre of his curriculum. The
rebalanced programme for Celtic and Gaelic studies was particularly evident at
Glasgow, where, as Professor, he built a powerful and vibrant department which
was at its peak in the 1960s and 1970s, and contributed immensely to the
formation of Gaelic teachers, broadcasters, writers and academics. All the main Celtic languages and their
literatures were taught, with Gaelic at the centre. In presenting Gaelic afresh within this broad
perspective, Thomson formulated new approaches to scholarly analysis and
understanding, while encouraging wider interest, as is evident in his many
books and articles, among them The Gaelic
Sources of Macpherson’s ‘Ossian’’ (1952), An Introduction to Gaelic Poetry (1974), and his indispensable Companion to Gaelic Scotland (1983).
Thomson’s name will always be associated
particularly closely with Glasgow, as it was there that he laid, and later
built upon, the foundations of his distinguished and multi-faceted career,
within and beyond the cloisters. In Glasgow in 1951, with the support of Finlay
J. MacDonald, he established the celebrated Gaelic periodical Gairm. It was through Gairm, which was distributed to
secondary schools throughout the islands, that many became familiar with the
name and persona of Thomson’s alter ego,
Ruaraidh MacThòmais. Gairm became
without question the vehicle for a creative revolution in Gaelic literature,
far beyond the schools. Edited by MacThòmais for just
over 50 years, and appearing four times a year, it was a phenomenal achievement
in its own right, demonstrating his unrivalled capacity for sustained hard work
and creative thinking. Profits from Gairm,
and no doubt fair amounts of his own money, were ploughed into the creation of Gairm
Publications, which continued to publish books into the 1990s. Gaelic
publication was facilitated further by his brainchild, the Gaelic Books Council,
founded in 1968. It continues to this day as an essential corner-stone of
Gaelic publishing, going from strength to strength and existing independently
of Glasgow University, where it began.
Ruaraidh MacThòmais’s creativity was evident in
every aspect of Gairm, from its
business and trading arrangements to his concise editorials, penetrating
reviews, Gaelic short stories and essays – but it was manifested pre-eminently
in his verse. For MacThòmais, poetry in
traditional and modern (free verse) forms was the breath of artistic life, animating
no less than seven volumes – An Dealbh
Briste (1951), Eadar Samhradh is Foghar
(1967), An Rathad Cian (1970), Saorsa agus an Iolaire (1977), Creachadh na Clàrsaich (1982, his
collected works, up to that point), Maol
Garbh (1995), and finally his retrospective and valedictory Sùil air Fàire (2007). Like the forms of his verse, his themes
changed across the years, spanning the hankerings of the young exile for Lewis,
his reactions to city life in more settled middle age, the umbilical nature of
his relationship to Lewis (forever central to his world), his political perceptions
of Scotland, Highland and Lowland (he was a forthright and unashamed
Nationalist), his expeditions to the hills of Perthshire (where he lived for
some years), and his cameos of multi-cultural Glasgow in the 1990s and early
2000s.
From 1950 onwards, Derick Thomson was unquestionably
‘the man with the plan’ not only for Gaelic literature, but also for Gàidhlig ann an Albainn, ‘Gaelic in
Scotland’, the title of an influential little book which he edited and
published in 1976 as ‘a blueprint for official and private initiatives’
relating to Gaelic. Subsequent language promoters, by and large, did no more
than finesse the templates which Derick Thomson and his team sketched out. Before the concept of ‘language planning’ was
officially invented and turned into a profession in its own right, Derick
Thomson was already ‘on the job’ for Gaelic. His visionary thinking also led to
the establishment of the Historical Dictionary of Scottish Gaelic at Glasgow in
the early 1960s. Although the original
venture faltered because of lack of funding and a less than robust long-term
strategy, it has now been resurrected as Faclair
na Gàidhlig, with its own Skye-based co-ordinator, while its invaluable
archive at Glasgow is being digitised in twenty-first century style. Thus restructured, the ‘Dictionary’ is producing
outputs beyond Thomson’s imagining.
Derick Thomson was, in sum, a creative genius, whose
many activities have shaped both Gaelic and Scotland. This was justly recognised in the award of
several distinguished prizes and honorary degrees, including a Fellowship of
the British Academy and DLitts from the Universities of Wales, Aberdeen and
Glasgow. He was sharply analytical,
subtle, highly sociable, disarmingly humorous, skilled at getting his own way,
outstanding in his ability to comprehend the essence of others and to notice
any of their qualities which could become grist to his Gaelic mill. He was also
a formidable adversary, if crossed (sometimes accidentally) in planning or debate. Although a powerful figurehead, he was not,
on the whole, a ‘consensus operator’ or a ‘team player’; at times he could be almost
imperial, if not quietly dictatorial, moulding his students’ and his employees’
minds to conform as closely as possible to the ‘Thomson template’, with all the
tensions implicit in such an approach. Nevertheless,
his knack for ‘talent-spotting’ and the excellence of his ‘template’ encouraged
many aspiring scholars, poets and writers to try their hands, and he often
provided the means to publish their work. Thomson was thus a complex individual
of many personae, a one-man institution with many subsidiaries and agendas, all
of them finding their focus and fulfilment in Gaelic and Scotland, and his
commitment to the good of both.
Appearing on the Gaelic and Scottish scene in the
late 1940s, Derick Thomson was able to shape his world as he wanted it to
be. He was allowed, and perhaps even
encouraged, to do so by the nature of Scottish universities in the second half
of the twentieth century. His like will
not be seen again, not only because he was unique, but also because the
intellectual milieu in which he flourished has changed dramatically. Focusing on its own survival in an ever more
challenging political and economic climate, and increasingly under the thumb of
managers, the present-day university ‘system’ no longer allows staff such a
generous degree of creative latitude to promote their own wider causes. In a
liberal post-war ethos which favoured reconstruction and the emergence of
strong personalities, Professor Derick S. Thomson saw his chance and took it, and
we – most notably the Gaelic speakers of Scotland – are the beneficiaries of
his many endeavours. Tapadh leibh, a Ruaraidh, a ghaisgich gun
choimeas, airson gach euchd a rinn sibh.
Donald
E. Meek
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