In 1951, Henderson was instrumental in creating the first Edinburgh People’s Festival, a left-wing competitor to the Edinburgh Festival and the forerunner to the current Edinburgh Fringe. He helped to found the School of Scottish Studies at the University of Edinburgh, bringing recognition to talented traditional singers such as Jeannie Robertson and ensuring the survival of the Scots ballad tradition. In recognition of his significant contribution to the University, where he worked from 1955 to 1987, he was made an Honorary Fellow on his retirement. Macdonald, Hugh (24 July 2014). "The Games opens: a ceremony of gallusness with a powerful charity theme". Herald Scotland . Retrieved 30 December 2021. His book of war poetry, "Elegies for the Dead in Cyrenaica" won him the Somerset Maugham award. He doubled his prize money with a successful long shot on the Grand National. He gave up his job with the Workers Educational Association to travel to Italy, where he translated the prison letters of Antonio Gramsci. Though he was born in Blairgowrie, Perthshire, [3] Henderson spent his early years in nearby Glen Shee and eventually moved to England with his mother. He won a scholarship to Dulwich School in London; however, his mother died shortly before he was due to take up his place and he had to live in an orphanage while studying there. [ dubious – discuss]

His sang Freedom Come All Ye wis sang at the Scots Parliament oan his centenary. [6] [1] The Varsity o Edinburgh haes an archive o Henderson's warks an correspondence. [7] Sandy Bell's, the tavern frequentit bi Hamish Henderson Selected warks [ eedit | eedit soorce ] The Freedom Come-All-Ye by Hamish Henderson". Scottish Poetry Library (in Inglis) . Retrieved 23 Januar 2022. Hamish Henderson (1995), Zeus as Curly Snake: The Chthonian Image, in Ross, Raymond (ed.), Cencrastus No. 52, Summer 1995, pp.7 – 9, ISSN 0264-0856a b "Letters: Honouring the great Hamish Henderson". HeraldScotland (in Inglis). 31 August 2019 . Retrieved 23 Januar 2022.

And that brings us full circle to the animating core of Henderson’s work in all forms, at all stages of his career, though variously expressed. This, in an interview of 1966: New managerialism’, the organisational arm of neoliberalism, is a mode of governance driven by a market logic of efficiency, productivity and competition where a class of ‘professional managers’ wield control. Henderson’s friendships extended into many spheres which may have seemed incompatible but were brought together in his enormous energies, voracious reading, extraordinary linguistic ability and deep commitment to socialist politics. Among other notable achievements, he translated the prison letters of Antonio Gramsci; accompanied the American folklorist Alan Lomax on the collecting tour of Scotland which proved the impetus for the folk revival; promoted the singer and storyteller Jeanie Robertson, who carried the tradition of the travelling people; locating that tradition was also Henderson’s great work; he became one of the founding members of the School of Scottish Studies at the University of Edinburgh; and effectively laid foundations for the Festival Fringe.I will always remember two of Hamish Henderson's letters, which I think are important and should be put on the parliamentary record. He wrote the first to the socialist newspaper, Tribune. He warned socialists against an over-reliance on what we now know as the parliamentary road to socialism. He reminded us that socialism James Hamish Scott Henderson grew up in a culture rich with balladry and poems. He was born in Blairgowrie, Perthshire, the illegitimate son of Janet Henderson, who brought him up speaking Gaelic. His first five years were spent in Glenshee, he attended primary school in Blairgowrie before his mother got a job as cook-housekeeper in Somerset; ‘thus I heard and sang the folk songs of three nations [in five dialects and two languages] long before I had the faintest knowledge what a folksong was.’ Henderson went on to formal schooling at Dulwich College – by which time his mother had died – and Downing College, Cambridge, where he read French and German. He was first and foremost a poet. He did not just agitate and campaign as a politician; he thought and he felt. I always got the sense that the rawness of his feelings for the men and women around him drove him on. The collection included the songs and styles of the travelling people that Hamish would first have heard in the berry fields of Blairgowrie, which was the area where he was born. Hamish realised that other collectors had neglected those songs and styles and set about correcting that neglect, not as a curator, but as a friend. He had a commitment to the oral tradition and the way in which songs evolved to reflect the lives of the people who sing them. Unfortunately, funds were short, tapes were expensive and the recordings were not always permanent.

The Times Literary Supplement in its review in January 1949 wrote about the former soldier's poems, reflecting upon his experience. It noted: I, too, start by congratulating Cathy Peattie on obtaining the debate and by congratulating the various contributors. This week, a certain rather vacuous female journalist on "Newsnight" referred, in her criticism of the Scottish Parliament, to the fact that we did such things as discussing Hamish Henderson, as if that were something that a proper Parliament does not do. I believe that commemoration of such an important Scottish figure and his contribution to Scotland's song and musical traditions is a worthwhile subject for debate in the Parliament.Hamish Henderson (1987), " Antonio Gramsci" in Ross, Raymond J. (ed.), Cencrastus No. 28, Winter 87/88, pp.22 – 26, ISSN 0264-0856 Eberhard Bort, editor (2010) Borne on the Carrying Stream: The Legacy of Hamish Henderson, Grace Note Publications ISBN 978-1-907676-01-7 In my lifetime, the ascendent neoliberal agenda of globalisation has deeply transformed the material conditions of our world, and may yet bring about our ultimate destruction. As John McAllion mentioned, Hamish Henderson campaigned for inclusion and social justice and was—perhaps above all—an international socialist. He commemorated Scotland's socialist traditions in works such as " The John MacLean March", which Cathy Peattie recited. I recall looking all over the place for a copy of "The John MacLean March"—a task that seemed to be completely impossible—during my 13-year period of exile in the south of England.

Tune History - The Bloody Fields of Flanders" (PDF). Schoolofpiping.com . Retrieved 15 November 2015. Earlier this month I was at the Scottish Storytelling Centre in Edinburgh to take part in one of a series of events celebrating the legacy of Hamish Henderson in what would have been his 100th year. Dividing his time between Continental Europe and Scotland, he eventually settled in Edinburgh in 1959 with his German wife, Kätzel (Felizitas Schmidt). Hamish Henderson's approach was not that of a detached observer. He had tremendous enthusiasm and, by transferring that enthusiasm to others, he encouraged them. One of the most famous people whom he encouraged to record was the singer Jeannie Robertson. As Ian Jenkins said, he followed in the tradition of many other Scottish poets and preservers of tradition. Robert Burns did much the same when he went around Scotland in the 18 th century, collecting what might have become forgotten works and traditions and preserving them for posterity.Like all cultural nationalists—in the best sense of the term—Hamish Henderson was also an internationalist. The two stances are indivisible. They both arise from a curiosity about and identification with the question of our humanity and our relationships with one another. The song's tune is an adaptation of the First World War pipe march "The Bloody Fields of Flanders", composed by John McLellan DCM (Dunoon), [4] which Henderson first heard played on the Anzio beachhead. He wrote the lyrics after discussions with Ken Goldstein, an American researcher at the School of Scottish Studies, who had enjoyed Henderson's rendition of the tune. [5] It was subsequently adopted by Glasgow Peace Marcher CND demonstrators and the anti- Polaris campaign (for example, notably at the anti-Polaris protests at Holy Loch in 1961).