Tom Buchan

ON Wednesday a friend phoned to tell me that the poet and dramatist,

Tom Buchan, had been found dead, out in the woods, up in Forres. As my

friend said: ''He had all that energy. He contributed so much. Whatever

he did, it wasn't nothing . . .''

We need to mark his passing, and perhaps we will be able to do so

through some kind of get-together in the months ahead. In the meantime,

I cannot give a full picture of the man and his work but offer the

following based on my personal impressions.

I first got to know Tom Buchan in the early seventies when he joined

up with a group of us to read poetry in the Glasgow streets. His book of

poems, Dolphins at Cochin (1969), was already published and at first it

seemed surprising that someone already accepted by the Scottish literary

establishment should come forth and read with us. Had he not been an

English teacher? Didn't he live up on Hyndland Road? He turned up to

read with a Fidel Castro cap on his head and satirical mischief playing

around his long-jawed face.

Tom made no secret that much of his life was lived in rebellion

against his father, a Protestant minister with repressive attitudes.

None the less he had a mystic sense of life, which led him on the one

hand towards the Iona Community, on the other to India where he lived

and worked for a while presenting travelling theatre -- fragments from

the Mahabharata. The memory of India, particularly its land mass, its

surrounding hills, the sense of it as ''mother'', never left him.

Glasgow-born, he had been educated there and at Aberdeen Grammar

School, before going on to Glasgow University where he graduated in

1953. He taught in Scotland and India before becoming a full-time writer

in 1971.

In 1972, his first play, Tell Charlie Thanks for the Truss, was

presented at the Traverse Theatre, directed by Michael Rudman. It told

the story of a revolutionary army whoinstead of guns used sexual power

gathered from an orgone box strategically placed in the Highlands of

Scotland.

It was a great blast at Scottish male uptightness, including a

wonderful portrayal of Mad Mitch. With a band on stage and the action

moving from dialogue to song and dance, quirky humour to social comment,

he had invented a new stage format.

This came to full fruition some time in the following year when he was

teamed up with the then emerging Billy Connolly to create the legendary

Great Northern Welly Boot Show for Clyde Fair International, a Glasgow

arts festival. The show filled the King's, and, though Billy was

undoubtedly the star, there was no doubting the sturdy power and

inventive liveliness of Tom Buchan's writing.

Later the Welly Boot Show was performed at the Edinburgh Festival by a

co-operative company. It received great acclaim and was an inspiration

to many people. Tom Buchan did not manage to follow up on the success,

however. To do that he would have needed to form a theatre company, and

this was not easy for him. As it was, John McGrath and 7:84 (Scotland)

inherited the Buchan format and used it to further legendary effect.

Writing to me in 1993 about the various manuscripts of his plays, Tom

Buchan said: ''The one thing that doesn't exist is a proper script of

the Welly Boot Show, and if you ever laid hands on one I'd be interested

to hear about it. Probably has some historical interest. I notice

commentators seem to think that modern Scottish agitprop started with

The Cheviot -- not that I give a f***. My own debts are really to Joan

Littlewood's productions of Brendan Behan's plays, which never get put

on, of course.''

If only someone in the theatre had been willing to take him on and

keep him occupied! As it was, Tom Buchan, finding no response by which

he could survive, either physically or spiritually, not in established

culture, began to move off into experiments with psychedelics and UFO

mysticism.

His short period as editor of the literary magazine Scottish

International showed how far he had travelled from the cultural squares.

For better or for worse. There were new influences on him then. He

seemed to have imbibed some political paranoia. He came to tell me that

he and I were on a CIA hitlist. What on earth for, said I.

It is difficult. Some people say of Tom Buchan that he was a great

promise that was never fully realised. But perhaps it depends how you

look at it. Here are his own words from his letter to me of June 1993:

''I'm just off with a posse of ex-Glasgow Findhorn freaks to my

spiritual home on the Scoraig peninsula (where I lived for some years

and where Alice-Emma now Sundara forsooth has a meditation centre and my

eldest Lawrence a house) for a laid-back midsummer rave-up in the middle

of nowhere.

''Baldy, 60 Grandpa Buchan still has a great (mainly theoretical)

fondness for sex, drugs and live state-of-the-art rock'n'roll! To tell

you the honest truth, Tom, I've never been so bouncy. Findhorn keeps me

up to scratch in all departments and when I get pissed off with it I

head for the hills as always.''