TRIBUTES were paid yesterday to the historian and broadcaster, Dr Ian
Grimble, who was found dead at his home in Bettyhill, Caithness, at the
weekend. He was 73.
He was born in Hong Kong of Scottish parents, and educated at Balliol
College, Oxford, where he developed his interest in Gaelic poetry as
well as winning the university high-jump event.
The Lord Chancellor, Lord Mackay of Clashfern, said: ''He was a
tremendous chap who made history come alive. His death is a great loss
to Scotland and to history.''
Fellow historian John Prebble said: ''There were many things in my
earlier books which I could not have written without his help and
advice.
''His contribution was immense but I do not think he got the
recognition he should have had. His scholarship was of a very high level
and, unlike other popular historians, involved a great deal of original
research.''
Lorn Macintyre writes: Before Ian Grimble Scottish history came from
books, too often in the form of dull lessons.
But from the 1960s, when Ian first stood in front of a television
camera, the tall thin former high-jumper, who looked and sounded like a
gentleman scholar, made Scottish history a compelling subject through
his eloquence and authority.
In classic series such as Who are the Scots? and The Scottish Nation,
he told us what we should be proud of, in virtuoso performances without
an autocue.
He told me once about the making of one of the series, and revealed:
''I spent three days in Edinburgh and had to do the seven programmes,
one in the morning, one in the afternoon, and on the third day, two in
the morning and one in the afternoon.
''I couldn't have looked at any of the scripts; if I'd looked at one,
I'd have been lost. They were done without rehearsals. I went straight
from one to the other.''
His interest in Scottish history grew from his childhood recollection
as a small boy in 1920s Hong Kong, when he had listened spellbound to
his expatriate parents reciting tales from Scottish history.
He developed a life-time passion for all things Highland, and pursued
his fascination at Balliol College where he was introduced to the poetry
of Duncan Ban Macintyre in seminars on the great Gaelic poet.
But his diverse career took him away from his Gaelic studies.
He was commissioned in the Intelligence Corps and served in India in
the Second World War. Then followed a stint as a House of Commons
librarian, before he joined the BBC as a producer in 1955. He helped to
set up the first VHF local radio service in Britain, for the new masts
at Rosemarkie, Thrumster and Orkney, which he saw as a vital
contribution to local culture.
To prove his commitment to the Highlands, Grimble not only learned to
read and write Gaelic, but as a ''very mature'' student went to Aberdeen
University to do his doctorate based on a study of Gaelic society of the
North of Scotland. He tried to settle in the Highlands, at Bettyhill,
but lack of work opportunities defeated him.
It distressed him to have to sell his house at Bettyhill, but he
returned often to stay with friends ''who've forgiven me my betrayal'',
as he told me in an interview for The Herald in 1986, and later he
bought another house there, in which he was to die.
One only has to read through his list of publications to see how
Highland history benefited from his knowledge and literary skills.
His books include the Trial of Patrick Sellar, the villain of the
Sutherland clearances, a study of Robert Burns, and a celebration of a
great Gaelic poet in The World of Rob Donn.
But he also wrote books about Scotland in general, including Scottish
Islands, Castles of Scotland, and a novel, A Start in Life. He sent me
an advance copy of this and asked me for my opinion on it.
I am grateful for that afternoon we spent nine years ago in the
sunlight of Tobermory, while he waited for his guests to finish lunch
and rejoin the bus tour for which he was the guide, taking people round
the islands, and giving them the benefit of his observations on history.
''I have to be careful that I'm not prosecuted,'' that mischievous but
scrupulously truthful man who regarded himself as a ''student of social
history'' told me. ''I don't say into the microphone what I think of
certain island lairds.''
Lewis was his favourite island because that was where ''Scottish
civilisation was least undermined by the attempts to persecute the Gaels
out of existence''. But in his half century of dedication to Gaelic
culture Grimble helped to contribute to its resurgence through his
television appearances, his writing, and his co-founding of Strathnaver
Museum.
The Government support that Gaelic is now receiving through the Gaelic
Television Fund must have delighted him. What a pity it did not come
earlier, when he was in his prime as a television communicator.
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