Joy Hendry, on the launch of Willa Muir's The Usurpers, March 31st 2023,The University of St Andrews

We were so sorry that Joy Hendry couldn't make it to St Andrews for the launch of The Usurpers. This is the text she kindly sent to be read at the event. 

‘Peerie Willa Muir’

I am deeply disappointed not to be able to be with you this afternoon, to launch this previously unpublished novel, The Usurpers by Willa Muir. It is wonderful to see the contribution she made to the richnesses of Scottish literature at last being recognised.

Back in 1980, when the world of Scottish literature especially, but in fact all of the arts, was largely a male domain. By then I was into my stride editing Chapman and gaining some confidence, and I began, starting with myself and the magazine, to review that situation. I had to recognise, rather painfully, that in my own magazine, and even in my own head, I was perpetuating that male domination. The result was the production of Woven by Women, No 27-8, long out of print, the first publication ever to look at the contribution of women to the arts in Scotland, and attribute real worth to it.

The issue caused a storm, but, quite soon after, others began to realise this matter needed urgent attention. In 1980, it was still possible for a leading poet and academic of the day to say to me, without flinching: “Scottish women poets: you mean there are any?”

My first commission for that issue was to ask Marion Lochhead, then in her 80s, to write ‘A Feminine Quartet’, in which she drew attention to Violet Jacob, Marion Angus, Nan Shepherd and Willa Muir. She was delighted to do so, and thought it long past time, which of course it was.

All of these women, perhaps Willa particularly, are tremendously important as role models for women attempting the pen today, and what they have to say to us all, gender irrespective, about Scotland and the world as they understood it is enormously valuable.

In 1980, the whole world of Scottish culture was itself neglected, and the entire work of the magazine Chapman was geared towards trying to correct these imbalances. Thankfully, the world we find ourselves in now, is much more enlightened, as is clear in developments like the publication of The Usurpers by Colenso Books.

In reflecting on Willa, and all gifted women like her, what might we have had from her had she lived today, in an environment in which woman are encouraged to expect and hope for so much more from themselves.

Joy Hendry

Professor Dame Sally Mapstone, Principal of the University of St Andrews, 

introducing the event and manuscript exhibition.