BBC Blog on GMB Stories

The Orkney Reader in Residence was asked by the BBC to write a blog post to accompany the three GMB stories to be broadcast on BBC Radio 4 from this Sunday for the next three Sundays. You can read it by clicking on the link above. And you can find your way to the stories by clicking on the GMB stories link.

"It is the word blossoming as legend, story, poem, secret that holds a community together and gives a meaning to its life." 

George Mackay Brown, 1969,  An Orkney Tapestry

The picture of George Mackay Brown here is one that I stumbled upon among the work of a pavement artist when I returned to Glasgow after starting the Reader in Residence post in Orkney.

My family bought it for me and I'm looking forward to getting it framed and bringing it 'home' to Orkney. 

Tune in to the stories starting this Sunday. They are well worth listening to.

The first one is The Wireless Set due to be broadcast:

Sunday 28 April 
7.45 pm 
BBC Radio 4

Three George Mackay Brown Stories

GMB on the street in Stromness

BBC Radio Four will broadcast three stories of George Mackay Brown on the following three Sundays.       The first one, The Wireless Set will go out this Sunday at 7.45 pm.

Produced and directed by Kirsteen Cameron, the story is described on the website: 

... set in 1939, a couple are bemused by their son's gift of a wireless set, but when he leaves the small island community for service in the Navy, they and their neighbours keep a close ear upon the news it brings of the war's progress. 

Kirsteen Cameron BBC

The full list and dates of stories to be broadcast on 
BBC Radio Four are:

The Wireless Set - Sunday 28 April 7.45pm

The Five of Spades - Sunday 5 May 7.45pm

The Masked Fisherman - Sunday 12 May 7.45pm

There is something very satisfying about having a story read to you and it must be many years since George Mackay Brown's stories have been broadcast. So it is to Kirsteen Cameron's credit that she has decided to bring these three stories to life on the airwaves.

At the heart of Orkney's literary community, George Mackay Brown lives on in the work of the George Mackay Brown Fellowship which was set up to promote writing in Orkney and bring new authors to the attention of the Orkney reading public.