Sorley MacLean
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life
Edinburgh (1943-1956)

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After recovering from his war injuries, Sorley MacLean returned to Edinburgh to resume teaching at Boroughmuir High School in Edinburgh in 1943. The following year, 1944, he met Renee Cameron from Inverness, who was to become his life’s companion. They were married in Inverness on 24 July 1946, and began their life together in Edinburgh.

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Sorley MacLean’s friend, James B. Caird, described his choice as the best decision he had ever made. Teaching in Peebles at the time, he saw how they complemented one another, and he commented that with her sense of humour, sound practical sense and sunny disposition, combined with an appreciation of the finer things of life, Renee Cameron was the perfect wife for him.

During this time Sorley MacLean entered actively into the literary life of Edinburgh, and he and his wife became close friends with the poet Sydney Goodsir Smith, both families sharing a house in Craigmillar Park for about eighteen months, before the MacLeans moved to Atholl Place, where they stayed for a short period of about three months. They then took up residence in Queen Street in 1948, where they remained for about four years until they moved to St Ninian’s Terrace. This was also the time when he wrote some of his finest poems, perhaps most notably ‘Hallaig’, the poem with which he is perhaps most closely associated at the present day. It was composed during the period 1952 to 1953, and it was first published in the periodical Gairm in 1954. Other poems appeared in literary periodicals: ‘Feasgar Samhraidh: Linne Ratharsair’ in Poetry Scotland (1949); ‘An Ceann Thall’ in the first issue of Gairm (1952); and ‘Chunna mi long sa’ Chaol Chanach’ in Gairm (1954). In addition, he gave radio broadcasts and was a frequent reviewer.

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In 1947, Sorley MacLean was promoted to be Principal Teacher of English at Boroughmuir High School. While he liked the school and the pupils he had at Boroughmuir, he increasingly felt a desire to return to the West Highlands and so he sought teaching appointments that would enable him to return. In 1956, he was promoted to be Headmaster of Plockton Secondary School, and he moved there in February 1956, his wife joining him about a month later.



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