Jessie Kesson (1916-1994)

Jessie Grant MacDonald was born in Inverness in 1916. Jessie’s early  childhood in Elgin is glimpsed in semi-autobiographical novel ‘The white bird passes'(1958). In the novel, the young girl Janie is parted from mother Lisa and sent to the orphanage of Skene.

Janie’s wanderings with Lisa in the woods of Morayshire inspire poetry in mother and wonder in child. It is the enchantment of nature – and among woods in particular – that make for a recurring motif in the earlier and later works of the writer. Here the sanctuary of the wood is often glimpsed as a place of security among the trials of farm labour or as an escape from loneliness for the ‘ootlin’, or outcast child, tied to institutional or agricultural service. The plight of the ‘ootlin’ is often prevalent in Jessie Kesson’s work. In ‘The white bird passes’ the child’s wonder is also viewed through the tumult of ‘The Lane’ and the colourful characters who live in this overcrowded alley among the Elgin slums.

Like Dickens with his imaginary ‘Magic Lantern’ to describe the street scenes and sounds of Victorian London that would hold him spellbound, in ‘The white bird passes’ Jessie shines her own sensory lantern on the back-streets of Elgin during the interwar years.

It can be fickle to separate fiction from fact in much of Jessie Kesson’s work. At Elgin Sheriff Court in 1927 mother Liz MacDonald was charged with neglect and daughter Jessie ordered to be removed to a home until she was 16 years old. It would seem that promiscuity in real life, rather than prostitution is what defined Lisa in ‘The white bird passes’. It was one of the social judgments passed on Liz who would end her days wasting away from the debilitating effects of syphilis before finally dying in 1949. What binds fact and fiction is the unconditional love Jessie Kesson had for her mother. This was reflected in the love Janie had for Lisa with all her reciting of poetry an ballads in ‘The white bird passes’.

Much is owed to biographer and editor Isobel Murray for the accounts of Jessie Kesson’s life. And also for her gathering of Jessie’s lesser known works that have featured in broadcast and print, while revealing poems, stories and plays written partly or mainly in Scots.

Upon reaching the end of her term at Proctors Orphanage at Kirkton of Skene and the trustees denying her a scholarship – an attainment deemed unacceptable for an orphan let alone a girl – Jessie was tied to the labours of farm girl Aberdeenshire, a predicament that would lead to a decline of mental health and nervous breakdown. She spent a year at the Royal Cornhill Hospital in Aberdeen before being sent to recuperate at Achabuie in the crofting township of Abriachan, set in the hills high above the north bank of Loch Ness. It was here she would meet husband and life partner Johnnie Kesson, a cattleman who, as a boy, had been orphaned out into farm service at nearby Balmore.

The couple relocated for a time to farming hamlets in  Aberdeenshire and the Black Isle, locations that would impact on later novels ‘Glitter of mica'(1963) and ‘Another time, another place’ (1983). The latter set on wartime Black Isle where a young married girl is attracted to an Italian prisoner of war. ‘The white bird passes’ was adapted for television by director Michal Radford in 1980. Radford would also direct the 1984 BAFTA award-winning film version of ‘Another time, another place’. ‘Where the apple ripens and other stories’, was published in 1985.

Jesie Kesson was instilled with a love of poetry and literature while under the tutelage of teacher Donald Murray during her schooldays at Skene. In her letters held at the Library she references poets such as A E Housman, Walt Whitman, Shelley and the popular Doric poet Charles Murray (1864-1941).

It was when Jessie was residing at a farm near Old Meldrum that she chanced to meet writer Nan Shepherd on a train journey. This coincided with the day she had learned of the death of poet Charles Murray. Jessie Kesson had announced news of this event to her fellow passenger, sparking off a conversation and genial exchange that would become a lifelong friendship. Shepherd later sought out Jessie at Old Meldrum and invited her to send a piece to poetry periodical ‘Sangschaw for Makars’, her contribution was duly published, resulting in a book token and her first writing in print.

While resolved to pursuing her writing ambitions, in the earlier days of her career Jessie had pieces published in the ‘Scots Magazine’ and ‘North-East Review’, her poem ‘Fir Wud’ came to the attention of Neil Gunn who both admired an encouraged her work, now finding a wider audience through BBC radio in Scotland. Moving to London in 1951 with husband Jonnie and their daughter and son, she continued to write for broadcast, film and publication, while working in a variety of other jobs from cleaner to social worker and artists life model.

While Jessie Kesson’s novels are written mainly  in English, she often uses Scots vocabulary sparingly and tellingly among the central narrative, often with strong effect in the voices of her characters. Thanks to the publication of ‘Somewhere beyond’ (2000) and ‘A Country dweller’s years; nature writings by Jessie Kesson’ (2009), both introduced and edited by Isobel Murray, a welcome light is shone on her lesser known Scots works. These include poetry, short stories, television and radio plays. Among the Scots pieces, at times a mixture of English and Scots, are:

From ‘Somewhere beyond’

• Ferm Deem (short story)
• A Scarlet Goon (poem)
• Fir Wud (poem)
• To Nan Shepherd (poem)
• Autumn Dyke (poem)
• Anybody’s Alley (radio)
• The Childhood (radio)
• We Can’t Go Back (radio)
• Somebody (poem)
• Reunion (television)

From ‘A country dweller’s years’

• Dusk (poem)
• Winter’s Wid (story)
• The Flowering Currant (story)
• Contentment (story)
• Pilgrimage (story)
• Apples Be Ripe (radio)
• Highland Spring (radio)
• The Cottar’s Wife (talk)

The Library holds several copies of Jessie Kesson’s novels and several copies of the short story collection ‘Where the apple ripens’. A copy of the collected novels and stories in the ‘Jessie Kesson omnibus’ is also held at the Library. It also holds a copy of ‘A country dwellers years’ and ‘Somewhere beyond’, as introduced and edited by Isobel Murray, as well as in the biography ‘Jessie Kesson; Writing her life’. The Library’s manuscript collections also holds several files of letters, correspondence and articles relating to Jessie Kesson. along with handwritten and typewritten manuscripts an manuscript fragments of biography, stories, poems an plays.

Jessie Kesson is considered one of the foremost modern Scottish authors. As well as her novels and poetry she wrote over 30 features and plays for BBC Radio and was producer of BBCs ‘Woman’s Hour’. She received honorary degrees from Aberdeen and Dundee universities. The Jessie Kesson residency, drafts of letters she had writen while in her 70s show that she was imbued with an inveterate work ethic. Holding out against doctor’s orders while meeting with commissions an engagements, perfectly expressed at that time in her own words:

‘Give me work till my life ends: and life till my work is done.’