An open
letter to
Kenny MacAskill
Should an
independent Scotland
be part of NATO?
The township of 12 people
which sells four million
cans of beer a year
Scotland
in the
heat
Alisdair or Alasdair?
MacCaig or Mc Craig?
Morgan sounds a bit Welsh, so no prob
Unlike many publications SR doesn’t have an online comment facility – we prefer a more considered approach. The Cafe is our readers’ forum. If you would like to contribute to it, please email islay@scottishreview.net
Today’s banner
Meikleour, Perthshire on New Year’s Day
Photograph by
Islay McLeod
How my husband
persuaded Norman MacCaig
to change his name
Steve Byrne
It was my late husband, Callum Macdonald, publisher of the poetry magazine Lines Review, who persuaded Norman MacCaig, to insert the ‘a’ between Mc, as it looked better on the page. I’m not sure exactly when this was but Norman appears in Lines Review 3, published in summer 1953, as McCaig but in number 5, published in summer 1954, as MacCaig. I thought some of SR’s readers might be interested in this little esoteric fact.
It is disgraceful about Milne’s Bar. Either they want to honour the poets or they don’t. To have one’s name spelt wrong is a huge annoyance, whether before or after death. Callum hated his Macdonald to be misspelt. MacDiarmid of course was a pseudonym and perhaps asking for trouble. I have great difficulty with capitals in the middle of Mac names, are they or are they not? I always have to check.
Tessa Ransford
They have misspelled Alasdair Gray’s name on the wall of the Scottish Parliament. I hope they are embarrassed. What a disgrace.
Edwin Moore
