Margaret Tait

Margaret Caroline Tait (11 November 1918 – 16 April 1999) was a Scottish film maker and poet.

Life

Tait was born and raised in Kirkwall, in the Orkney Islands off the north coast of mainland Scotland.

She died in Kirkwall in 1999.

Education

Tait attended the University of Edinburgh, gaining qualifications in Medicine (1941). She later moved to Rome, where she studied filmmaking at the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia (1950–1952).

Career

After studying in Italy, Tait returned to Scotland and founded Ancona Films. On her move back to Orkney] in the 1960s, Tait continued to make films and took inspiration from the landscape and culture of Orkney.

Tait made 32 short films and one full-length feature, Blue Black Permanent. In addition, Tait wrote prose and poetry, and published three poetry books - origins and elements, The Hen and the Bees, and Subjects and Sequences.

Filmography

• One Is One (1951)
• Three Portrait Sketches (1951)
• The Lion, The Griffin And The Kangaroo (1952)
• Happy Bees (1955)
• Orquil Burn (1955)
• A Portrait of Ga (1955)
• The Leaden Echo And The Golden Echo (1955)
• Calypso (1956)
• The Drift Back (1956)
• Rose Street (1956)
• Where I Am Is Here (1964)
• Palindrome (1964)
• Hugh Macdiarmid : A Portrait (1964)
• The Big Sheep (1966)
• Splashing (1966)
• A Pleasant Place (1969)
• He's Back (The Return) (1970)
• John MacFadyen (The Stripes In The Tartan) (1970)
• Painted Eightsome (1970)
• On The Mountain (1974)
• Colour Poems (1974)
• Aerial (1974)
• These Walls (1974)
• Tailpiece (1976)
• Place Of Work (1976)
• Aspects Of Kirkwall : Shape Of A Town (1977)
• Aspects Of Kirkwall : Occasions (1977)
• Aspects Of Kirkwall : The Ba, Over The Years (1981)
• Aspects Of Kirkwall : The Look Of The Place (1981)
• Aspects Of Kirkwall : Some Changes (1981)
• Landmakar (1981)
• Blue Black Permanent (1992) (Feature)
• Garden Pieces (1998)

Bibliography

• The Grassy Stories: Short Stories from Children (Edinburgh: M.C. Tait, 1959)
• Lane Furniture: A Book of Stories (Edinburgh: M.C. Tait, 1959)
• origins and elements (Edinburgh: M.C. Tait, 1959)
• The Hen and the Bees: Legends and Lyrics (Edinburgh: M.C. Tait, 1960)
• Subjects and Sequences (Edinburgh: M.C. Tait, 1960)
• Poems, Stories and Writings, edited by Sarah Neely (Manchester: Carcanet Press, 2012)
• Subjects and Sequences: A Margaret Tait Reader, edited by Peter Todd and Benjamin Cook (London: LUX, 2004)

References

• Preserving the Hand-Painted Films of Margaret Tait, (MA Dissertation), Joss Winn, 2002

External links

• National Library of Scotland: Scottish Screen Archive (Biography of Margaret Tait with links to film details and clips)
• Scottish Poetry Library (Biography of Margaret Tait, recordings of her reading her poetry, and links to poem texts)