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Edi Stark dips into her radio archive and delivers this rare and revealing conversation with the Scottish poet Norman MacCaig. The interview was recorded in 1993, at the poet’s home in Edinburgh, three years before he died.
With characteristic modesty and wry humour, he talks to Edi about finding it easy and quick to pen a poem when it comes ‘chapping at the door’ although he says it is ‘agony’ to hear it being read.
His father was a pharmacist and he credits his mother with his ability with language, despite her never learning to read or write. He was a ‘hot boy at the dancing’ and on the ‘best day’ of his life he met his beloved wife Isobel at a university dance. It was she who sent his poems to a publisher when he was in his thirties and he talks movingly about how much he misses her, after her cruel death from cancer.
He recalls his schooldays, friendships, being a conscientious objector during the war and we hear him reading his poetry which he admits he does ‘rather well’.

CREDITS:
Thanks to Norman MacCaig’s family and publisher, Polygon.

Art work: Monoprint, East Coast: Twilight by Philomine Wales RIBA. Instagram: philominew
Graphic design:Trudy Shillum.
Audio engineers: Lee McPhail and Doug Maskew.
Podcast adviser: Jennifer Tracey
Commissioning editor: Gareth Hydes

Producer and presenter: Edi Stark, Stark Productions.
Twitter: @edistark
Instagram: edistark_radio