Peter Jamieson
Shetlopedia - The Shetland Encyclopaedia that anyone can edit
Peter A. Jamieson, Shetland author and passionate Socialist, was born in Lerwick on the 7th of September, 1898, the fifth child of James Jamieson, a fisherman from Papa Stour, and Barbara Ann Williamson, born at Lunnasting, and later of Collafirth, Delting. The couple took up residence at 21 St. Magnus Street, Lerwick, where Peter Jamieson was to live all his life, surrounded by books and journals. The Jamiesons' neighbour in number 23 was the writer John Nicolson. Peter's childhood forms the basis for an atmospheric and illuminating story, 'I Did Not Like Sunday', published in No Scottish Twilight, Glasgow, 1950 - a volume of new Scottish fiction which also featured a story by Tom Henderson.
Jamieson's brother Robert had been a pioneer socialist, a member of the very successful Lerwick branch of the Social Democratic Federation in Lerwick before 1914. Robert died during the war. Peter then joined the 'Economics Club', a group of socialists close to the Communist Party who briefly produced a magazine called The Shetlander. Jamieson then joined the Labour Party, but never entirely threw off his admiration for Communism. He was a member of the very short-lived Lerwick branch of the Communist Party, established by Bob Cooney on the eve of war in summer 1939.
Jamieson depended for a living on his writing, and was always poor. His first book was The Viking Isles: Pen Pictures from Shetland, published by Heath Cranton of London in 1933, and he was active in the Shetland Poetical Circle and the Shetland Book Club during that decade. With Bertie Deyell, he gathered the material for the first substantial anthology of Shetland poetry, which failed to appear, but succeeded in rescuing a number of classic early Shetlandic poems from obscurity. He himself was an accomplished writer of Shetland lyrics.
In 1947, Jamieson was founding editor of The New Shetlander, as recounted in an article in the 60th anniversary issue, number 239. As a passionate Shetlander and visionary socialist who was disappointed by the post-war Labour government's lack of action in northern isles, particularly as the Shetland Labour Party's programme for crofting and fishing which Jamieson was largely responsible for writing failed to garner support in the party beyond Shetland, Jamieson felt action was required. The magazine, loosely based on The Shetlander, described itself as 'non-party', but its socialist agenda was clear. It was a voice for change. Although Jamieson gave up the editorial chair in 1956, he continued to write for the magazine.
Jamieson's second substantial publication was Letters on Shetland, from The Moray Press, Edinburgh, in 1949. It is a book of 272 pages which begins in the form of a reply to a correspondent: "In your letter you ask to be told 'all about Shetland!'" The book includes 22 photo plates, the majority by the Scalloway photographer C.J. (Clement) Williamson.
Jamieson's Crofting and fishing: The Shetland Labour Party's post-war programme was published in Lerwick in 1946.
Peter Jamieson died in Lerwick on the 7th of May, 1976.
External Link
Jamieson's partial translation into Shetlandic of 'The Seafarer', written in response to an earlier part-translation by John J. Graham and published under the name 'Stooraland', is available here.
