If you happen to be in Edinburgh around this time, and have an interest in poets writing in Scots, you might want to take a turn down to the National Library of Scotland, on George IV Bridge. In the main hall of the library you will find a display on the life and work of the poet Thomas Sturdy Law (1916-1997) who was born one hundred years ago on 31 October 1916. The son of Thomas Law – who became a Labour councillor - and Elizabeth Fisher, Thomas junior was raised in the mining community of Newarthill, Lanark and was of both Irish and Scottish descent. He was an engineering fitter by living, but took up mining after World War II and it is from that period that his earliest poems survive.

In the same era Law became friends with Hugh MacDiarmid who supported Law’s first published collection in 1948. Over the years Thomas wrote many poems on a number of themes and was a supporter of nuclear disarmament, Scottish home rule, and other causes for which he composed songs. His life and work are celebrated in a book called ‘At the Pynt o the Pick and Other Poems’ published in 2008. Thomas’s son, Councillor John MacPhail Law (1951-2010), was also an accomplished poet in the Scots language and a leading figure in the Scots-speaking community.

The TS Law display is currently featuring at the NLS and is free.