View from the Bench: My Life in Poetry

View from the Bench celebrates the Life in Poetry of Lillias Scott Forbes, a nonagenarian poet, daughter of the composer Francis George Scott. Her poems in Scots and English goes back to 1936 and her last poem date August 2011, representing a cross-section of her 75 years of poetry writing. 'As a result of her father's friendships, she mixed with acclaimed poets from an early age and was encouraged by them in her own writing - W.S. Graham, Hugh MacDiarmid, Dylan Thomas and, Willa and Edwin Muirs, to mention only a few. Her poetry described her life in Britain, France, South Africa and specially her feelings for Scotland. It is clearly an autobiographic poetry book. And as fellow poet Eleanor Livingstone, said " - the passing of years and of those earlier generations obviously hasn't dimmed Lillias Scott Forbes' passion for poetry and she expresses herself delighted that her muse hasn't fled entirely 'at her advanced age'."

Table of Contents:
Poems 2 Cliches 4 View From the Bench 5 Sounds Missing 6 Cambridge 6 Near Basingstoke, Remembering Oxford 7 Brown's Piece Barn 8 Coming Home 9 In the Gallery 10 Passing by 10 The Gate 11 Snow Song 11 Piddington 12 Gardens at the Rhinns 13 At Moniack Mhor 14 By Achray Side 15 Sailing Up the Loch 16 The Path 19 Scotland 20 Before the Tunnel 21 Camargue 22 Place de la Sorbonne 24 Murevigne 26 Street Cries 28 Under the Parasols 29 Quai des Grands Augustins 30 Blinds 31 Cafe Mirage 32 South Street Cafe 33 Runaways 34 La Grande Jatte 35 Curtain - rise 36 Uncle Vanya 37 Simply Mozart 38 My Father's Way 41 The Sea 42 Risin Frae the Waters 43 The Giftie 44 The Bodach 45 To a Gaelic Broadcast 46 Old Border Shepherd at Poetry Reading 47 The Giving of the Garment 48 Doors Open Day 49 The Half-Inch Tweeddale 51 The Tryst 52 Roup 54 The Turn in the Road 55 Nae Bield in Falkland 56 To Duncan, on His Birthday 57 Stags Passing 58 Birds Talking Backward Glances from the Bench 60 In the Conservatory 61 Anonymous 62 The Mother 63 A Buchan Man 64 The Stane-Chapper 66 Fractured 67 Turning a Fresh Eye 68 Hindmaist 69 At Cruden 69 Watching the War Report 70 Shades 71 Charity Shop 72 Exile 73 Antique Dealer 74 In the Reading Room 75 Virgin Wool 76 By the Langfall, Langholm 79 Going Native 80 I Know my Place 81 Duties Include ... 82 Let Me Too, Go Down stepping ston es 84 Stepping Stones 90 Swan Song 91 Coterie of the Literati, St. Andrews 92 Artist in Academe 93 Villanelle 94 Aids to Authorship 95 La Terrasse a Sainte Adresse

About the Author :
Lillias Magdalene Scott, daughter of composer Francis George Scott and singer Burges Gray, was born in Glasgow in 1918. Growing up in a musical family she was also encouraged by her father's literary friends, including W.S. Graham, Willa and Edwin Muir, Hugh MacDiarmid and Dylan Thomas. In 1963 she married Scottish composer Eric Chisholm, then Professor of Music in Cape Town, who set some of her poems to music, including 'Fragment', 'Johnnie Logie', 'Love's Reward', 'Prayer', 'Skreigh o' Day', which were published in the pamphlet Poems of Love. When Eric died in 1965, Lillias returned to Scotland and settled in Fife. She ran an art gallery in Falkland where she met her second husband, John Forbes (orchestral woodwind specialist). After John's death she moved to St. Andrews where she continued to write poetry, some of which has been published in the following pamphlets: Poems of Love (MacDonald); Turning a Fresh Eye (Akros); A Hesitant Opening of Parasols (Calderwood Press) and in magazines and anthologies: Markings Publications; Accents of Fife; Modern Scottish Women Poets (Canongate Classics); University of St Andrews Open Association; The Herald; The Edinburgh Book of Twentieth-Century Scottish Poetry (Edinburgh University Press) Craigarter Press; Fife Lines (Fife Council); The Fife Anthology (Birlinn). As Prof. Alan Riach said, "Lillias Scott Forbes is a nonagenarian whose memory is magnificently stocked with perceptive accounts of a generation almost lost to our contemporaries..."

Review :
'Lillias Scott Forbes is one of Scotland's national treasures, a vivid and bright personality, a nonagenarian whose memory is magnificently stocked with perceptive accounts of a generation almost lost to our contemporaries...' - Prof. Alan Riach, St Andrews in Focus, 2009 'The passing of years and of those earlier generations obviously hasn't dimmed Lillias Scott Forbes' enthusiasm for poetry and she expresses herself delighted that her muse hasn't fled entirely "at her advanced age".' - Eleanor Livingstone ' - her poems are humane, wise, accepting, engaged - ' - Bookworm, The Scotsman.