E. O'H. Milne

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E. O'H. Milne, Shetland poet, born Emily Christine O’Hanlon Peterson on the 4th of December 1907 at the Schoolhouse, Gruting, she was the daughter of John Scott Peterson, schoolmaster, born 3rd January 1863, in Skeld of the same parish, Sandsting. Her mother was also a teacher, Christina Ann McInnes, born on the 2nd April 1873, at Logie in Perthshire.

Emily was the sixth of seven children born to them. Her oldest brother, older by twelve years, was the writer and photographer, John Peterson. She married Alexander Milne, had two children and spent her adult life in Scotland, but she continued to write dialect poetry ‘in exile’ and was a regular contributor to the local press.

E. O’H. Milne died in 1970, eight years after her poetry was collected by The Shetland Times in 'Wi Lowin Fin'. Her poetry is written in her own distinctive, phonetic spelling of the dialect, and her foreword shows her to be acutely aware of the issues of orthography:

“ … The dialect spoken throughout Shetland has many local variants, and no standard spelling. The usual custom is to spell phonetically the variant most familiar to the writer. This is successful where readers are familiar with all the variants, but it poses a different problem when readers outside the Islands are to be considered. Should phonetic spelling be used rigidly, or should the writer compromise with Scots or English for the sake of being better understood? The latter practice has led at least one reader to suggest that the Shetland dialect does not merit independent designation, and that Shetlanders would be well advised to write in pure Scots … ”

Emily Milne's poem 'Wir Midder da Sea' has inspired a play by Grace Barnes and a line from it was adopted by Lise Sinclair as the title for her musical suite, Ivver Entrancin Wis.