Wigtown Book Festival launches Hugh McMillan’s book of modern folklore and poetry exploring the character of Dumfries and Galloway
The Wigtown Book Festival is to unveil its own first book – the magnificently quirky Gallovidian Tales by poet and author Hugh McMillan.
The launch is on Tuesday, 2 October at the festival at an event where Hugh will be in conversation with the BBC’s Allan Little.
Gallovidian Tales is loosely inspired by the work of John Mactaggart who, in 1824, produced the Scottish Gallovidian Encyclopaedia. It was commissioned by the festival with funding from Fresh Start for the Arts, a Dumfries and Galloway Chamber of the Arts initiative dedicated to supporting the region’s creative sector.
Hugh, like Mactaggart, introduces readers to unusual people and curious tales (tall, true and indeterminate) and also includes an abundance of insights into places, traditions, definitions plus history and poetry. Both works provide a characterful perspective on one of Scotland’s least familiar regions.
An accomplished poet and retired history teacher from Penpont, Hugh has followed Mactaggart’s example in gathering tales, recording conversations, selecting and writing poetry and researching the cultural diversity of his native region.
In keeping with Mactaggart’s book the work is presented in an encyclopaedia format, with alphabetical entries and it covers a similarly eccentric range of topics including:
Anthony Hopkins Bench syndrome
Anwoth – village of the damned
Bank Managers and the British Union of Fascists
Love and death
The Ludgin Hoose Cat
Pauchle or Pockle (to gain advantage by underhand means)
and Pie (more specifically pie, class and poets)
There are stories and anecdotes of all kinds; one concerns a local GP who claimed to be Dr Bodkin, former personal physician to Tsar Nicholas II which, if true, made him at least 123 years.
Hugh said: “Like the original encyclopaedia, I hope this volume is unique, full of fun and good poetry. Mactaggart would still recognise some things about the region today, others would be utterly foreign to him: Mactaggart’s Galloway is not my Galloway. We are both in perfect agreement, however, that it is a weird and magical place.”
The book delights in building a shooglie layer of tales on others from earlier times – capturing many aspect of the region’s history alongside the testimony of living people.
Adrian Turpin, Festival director, said: “For years the festival has offered authors and publishers the chance to launch books for readers all across the world, but this is the first time we have commissioned a work of our own. The result is absolutely wonderful.
“We wanted Hugh to create a work that was closely linked to the people and the region where the festival is held, and he has done this supremely well. Gallovidian Tales is a real pleasure – since reading it for the first time, the stories keep on popping back into my mind.
“I’m sure people will thoroughly enjoy the launch event and hearing Hugh’s anecdotes about the book and his life-long love of Dumfries and Galloway’s culture and people.” The book is published by Roncadora Press and costs £15.
Cathy Agnew, Acting Chair of the Chamber, said: “Our whole aim is to promote the region’s arts, heritage and creative people. Hugh’s book embraces all three goals in a single, wonderfully entertaining piece of work which captures the lives, loves and landscapes of south west Scotland and its people – past and present.”
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