Iain Crichton Smith (1928-98) was born in Glasgow and raised by his widowed mother on the Isle of Lewis before going to Aberdeen to attend university. As a sensitive and complex poet in both English and his native Gaelic, he has published many collctions of verse, from The Long RIver in 1955 to A Life in 1986. The latter volume looks back over his years in Lewis and Aberdeen, to remember a spell of National Service in the fifties, leading to his work as an English teacher in Clydebank and Dumbarton, and from 1955 at the High School in Oban until his retirement in 1977. He has been recipient of a number of literary prizes, Scottish Arts Council Awards and fellowships, as well as the Queen's Jubilee Medal and, in 1980, an OBE.