The National Library of Scotland has worked since the 1950s to build an unrivalled collection of modern Scottish Literary papers. This collection of almost 100 letters from Mackay Brown to Kenna Crawford, as well as 26 manuscript poems. The letters enrich the Library’s existing George Mackay Brown collection, which includes significant literary papers and much of his extensive correspondence with a wide circle of friends, some famous and some unknown.
In 1986, at the invitation of Nora Kennedy, Kenna Crawford visited Orkney where she met George Mackay Brown. Brown was captivated at first sight and she became hist last muse. One of his early acts of friendship was to write a poem, ‘Kenna’s Return to Orkney’, in her sketchbook. This is significant. Crawford had never been to Orkney before, but from the outset Brown links her to the island, giving her a mythic Orcadian connection which makes her even more of an inspiration. At this time George Mackay Brown was 64 and Kenna Crawford just 26. Their relationship was entirely platonic but it is clear from the letters that Brown was in love with his muse.
Their friendship lasted for the rest of his life. In the early years, the letters were closer to journals: Brown wrote to Crawford almost daily and sent the results off in batches. The letters recorded his daily life: his feelings and ideas, how his work was progressing, highs and lows (he suffered bouts of depression), friends he had seen, Orkney gossip and the weather, his health and the tourists (these last three are a constant feature of Brown's letters). And he writes longingly of her, and of how she inspires him: 'How you get the poems out of me, like a snake charmer bringing a cobra out of a basket'.