Features - Scots Language

SHY GEORDIE
by Helen B Cruikshank

Hugh MacDiarmid with Helen B Cruikshank

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Helen B Cruikshank ( 1886-1975 ) was born near Montrose in the North-east and educated there. She worked as a Civil servant and spent most of her life in Edinburgh. As Secretary of Scottish PEN she befriended many of the poets of the Scottish Literary Revival, offering particular support to Hugh MacDiarmid and his family when times were hard for them in the Nineteen-Thirties.

Up the Noran Water

In by Inglismaddy

Annie's got a bairnie

That hasna got a daddy.

Some say it's Tammas's,

An' some say it's Chay's ;

An' naebody expec'it,

Wi' Annie's quiet ways.

Up the Noran water

The bonny little mannie

Is dangled an' cuddled close

By Inglismaddy's Annie.

Wha the bairnie's daddy is

The lassie never says ;

But some think it's Tammas's,

An' some think it's Chay's.

Up the Noran Water

The country folk are kind ;

An' wha the bairnie's daddy is

They dinna muckle mind.

But oh ! the bairn at Annie's breist,

The love in Annie's e'e -

They mak' me wish wi' a' my micht

The lucky lad was me !