On September 26th 1994 Jessie Kesson, the author of Another Time Another Place, died.
Born Jessie Grant Macdonald in an Inverness workhouse in 1916, Jessie Kesson was a novelist and playwright most famous for her first novel, the semi-autobiographical The White Bird Passes.
Jessie was raised in an orphanage from the age of eight, finally leaving in 1932 to go into service. However, she suffered a nervous breakdown and was sent to recuperate near Loch Ness, where she met her future husband, Johnnie Kesson.
In the 1930s and ’40s Kesson contributed to The Scots Magazine, and wrote over 30 features and plays for the BBC. In 1947 she moved to London to further her writing, supporting herself with a variety of odd jobs. Her heart, however, remained in Morayshire and Aberdeenshire.
In the 1980s she was awarded honorary degrees from Dundee and Aberdeen Universities.
Jessie Kesson died in London in 1994
Her legacy includes an annual award that was founded in 2009 by Moniack Mhor to honour her inspirational life and work.
The successful candidate receives time and space to develop their work, as well as opportunities to expand their practice. This includes delivering creative writing workshops based on or inspired by Jessie Kesson’s life and work in local schools, libraries, or community centres.
A poem by Jessie Kesson, written in March 1973 when she lived in East Linton, East Lothia, list D. Girl, or boy for that, got the name from where social workers placed a child who was seen to be a problem, getting in trouble with the authorities or possibly fighting at school etc they would have been causes for them to be placed in these schools, which were residential, another name for them would be Approved Schools, my own brother ended up spending time in one of these, St Josephs in East Lothian.
Moment of Communication with List D. Girl.
F - - - off! she said. Dismissing me and my persuasions with a contemptuous stare that crinkled to a smile of small surprise When I in anger roared F - - - off to Where??
Sincerely, Jessie Kesson
