Tributes to well versed poetry library founder

TRIBUTES have been paid to Angus Calder, one of Scotland's most distinguished intellectuals and the founder of the Scottish Poetry Library in Edinburgh, who has died in the city aged 66.

BORN in 1942, Angus Calder was a respected historian, poet, essayist, editor and political commentator.

The son of Scottish journalist and peace activist Lord Peter Ritchie Calder, he studied English literature at Cambridge before quickly carving out a career as a literary critic and cultural commentator.

His 1969 book, The People's War: Britain 1939-1945, was the work that made his name. The vivid social history looking at the way the Second World War affected ordinary people has never been out of print since and is still considered by many to be the definitive book about the events of that period in Britain.

He moved to Scotland in 1971 and worked for 14 years as a lecturer with the Open University, a position in which he gained a reputation as one of the finest minds in the country.

His 1991 book, The Myth of the Blitz, controversially examined the idea of the British reaction to the bombings, and uncovered evidence to show that ideas of the stoic, civilised reaction to the Blitz was partly propaganda which hid the true stories of looting and rape.

The writer, poet and historian wrote works covering a wide range of fields, including modern African history.

He had a keen interest in poetry, and as well as writing books on poets such as Byron and Eliot, he worked as an editor of the prose of Hugh MacDiarmid.

An award-winning poet himself, with four collections to his name, his poetry won the 1967 Eric Gregory Award and the 1970 John Llewellyn Rhys Prize.

In 1984, he helped to set up the Scottish Poetry Library in Edinburgh and served as its first convener.

The library has since gathered a huge collection of contemporary poetry written in Scotland, in Scots, Gaelic and English, as well as historic Scottish poetry and contemporary works from almost every part of the world.

Tom Devine, professor of Scottish history and palaeo-graphy at Edinburgh University, said: "In my own field he was a major figure, but his creativity and contribution was much deeper than that.

"He was in a literary sense a renaissance man. His work covered poetry, editing and fiction." Mr Calder is survived by his first and second wives, Jenni and Kate, and by four children, a son and two daughters from his first marriage and a son from his second. He died in Edinburgh last Thursday, just weeks after being diagnosed with lung cancer.