It was fifty years ago this month that humankind first went into space. This was achieved by soviet astronaut Yuri Gagarin (1934-1968). Gagarin was born in the village of Klushinka, Russia, and entered training at the Orenburg Pilots’ School in 1955. In 1957 he became a lieutenant in the soviet air force and was chosen to be one of the pilots in the soviet space programme in 1960. Gagarin was launched into space aboard Vostok 1 on 12 April 1961, and made a complete orbit of the earth. This made him not only the first human in space, but an overnight world hero. Because of his celebrity, officials back home were anxious that he should come to no harm, but during routine training in 1968 his aircraft crashed and he was killed.

The Scots Language Centre marks the occasion of this first human flight into space with a poem which first appeared in Lallans journal:

Ferlies furth the yird

Is onie ither bodies oot yont
this birlin sphere?
Jock Tamson’s bairns is ettlin
nou tae hear
an blinkin raidio throu
the jeilt black naethin
til Alpha Centauri
nummers gang raikin.

Pioneers an Voyagers
flichtit ben the starns
graithen skeillie wrocht
wi graithars’ harns
forkin furth oor solar airt
for ootwardlie wit forby
stowed wi souns an sichts o yird
for ootrels tae spy

Oor solar airt a prein heid
awa fae the wurlin mids
nyne plenits stravaigin roun
an wabblin on thair sticks
whill on the yird
- oor blue green hame -
staunin on its grun
keikin at nicht wi naikit een
Andromeda’s fordest won

Whit graithen nou we hae
tae reinge oot fae this globe
the Hubble airtit starnward
daes a fairlie fouterie job
gaitherin photies o munes
blackthirls an solar airts
for astrologs on compters
tae prent galactic cairtes.

Dauvit Horsbroch (Lallans, 1999)