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Note to Editors - please feel free to utilise any of the text below for your publications. Contact Jon Tait at jonmarktait@aol.com if you require further information.
ROTHBURY’S BAREARSE BOY
Barearse was the name of the Tait family peel tower up in the Cheviot hills near Yetholm during the days of Border strife, so it was a straightforward choice of name for Rothbury poet Jon Tait’s debut collection which comes out from Smokestack Books in June.
“Twenty years ago I won the novice section of the Rothbury Traditional Music Festival Dialect Poetry competition with a poem called ‘Mixer Crazy.’ Trouble is, I was the only entrant IN the novice section that year,” jokes Tait, who now also works as a postman in Carlisle.
“The festival has a long and proud tradition of nurturing Northumbrian poets and has had some great characters such as Graham Dick, Allan Wood, Harry Lime and the legendary Andrew Charleton, known as the son of the Coquet, performing over the years.”
Tait is originally from Rothbury but moved to Carlisle with his wife Sally Robson, also from the Coquet valley, when her work as a nurse took her across to Cumbria in 2000.
“I keep in touch with the writing scene at home and it’s been great to see the development of writers such as Richard Mason, with his humorous poaching poems saving and preserving two traditions, and his sister Nicola Crane’s winning poem last year ‘Haad me hand, fathaa’ was as good and poignant a piece of writing as you’ll see anywhere.”
“I guess you would probably now call me a Carlisle poet – I’ve lived in the City for 15 years - but my thick Northumbrian accent will always give away my true heritage. Most of the lads at the post office think I’m a Geordie, but I’m not really – I’m a Northumbrian. I was born in Ashington and lived in the Coquet valley until I was 28.”
There has been somewhat of a renaissance in dialect poetry in Northumberland recently with a number of people working to preserve the unique language.
“James Tait does a lot of work in the local schools encouraging dialect poetry. James isn’t a direct relation, but he’s a Tait so if you go back far enough, he’s likely to be a Barearse Boy too. My family have lived in the border hills for many, many generations and it’s obviously influenced my work. Many of the poems in my debut collection concern the exploits of the reivers and their descendants,” says Tait, 42, whose ancestors were involved in reiving with Sir Robert Kerr of Cessford in the 16th Century.
“My grandma, Jean, was a Scott from just over the border in Liddesdale and the maternal line have also had an influence on my writing. There’s a great story about the reiver William Scott who was forced to marry the daughter of Sir Gideon Murray after he’d indulged in the local passion for lifting sheep once too often. Murray’s daughter Meg wasn’t the prettiest lass around and Scott reckoned he’d rather die than marry her. But he soon changed his mind when they stood him in front of the noose,” he continues.
“My great, great, great grandfather James Scott was a gamekeeper from Canonbie who ended up working for the Duke of Northumberland as the last Keeper of Warkworth Castle before the State took it on in 1922,” says Tait. “That’s how that side of my family ended up across in Northumberland. My great, great, great, great grandfather William Tait came down from Kelso to work as a butcher at Wingates at the back of Simonside in 1796 and the family have been in Rothbury ever since.”
Tait was the press officer at defunct Scottish League side Gretna after completing a degree in Journalism at the University of Cumbria and has previously worked as a joiner, plumber’s mate, labourer, building site storeman and nightshift bakery packer.
“There’s one local character who was probably as influential as anyone in me becoming a poet,” he says.
“The house painter John French Jackson, whose poem Simonside was framed on the wall in the chippy for many years, once stopped me at the top of Jacob’s Ladders when I was on my way to Thomlinson’s middle school. “Wheor yuh gannin’, son?” he asked. “Aa’m away to schuel, Jackie.” I replied. “Whey, you divn’t want to dee that, man. Get away up on the hill and play with the snakes,” he said. Get away up on the hill and play with the snakes. Learn from your life experiences. It was a great lesson.”
‘Barearse Boy’ is scheduled for publication on June 1st while Tait’s debut novel ‘First Plane Home,’ which is available now, also explores the Anglo-Scottish border and themes of identity.
It’s a story about a young boy named Andy Armstrong as he grows up in the hills of rural Northumberland. When Andy is six in 1978 England haven’t qualified for the World Cup, so he supports Scotland instead and his tale continues across four competitions following the Tartan Army.
“Last year’s Scottish Referendum split North of the Border roughly in half between those that feel very British and those that feel very Scottish – but there is a grey area in between, those that didn’t get a vote – the Anglo Scottish,” said Tait.
“I’m an Englishman born in Northumberland with a Scottish heritage and I wanted to put a lot of that mixed and confused sense of belonging into Andy,” he continued.
First Plane Home is a story of finding identity, of friendships and the legacy of the Border Reivers, Georgie Best, racing pigeons and, of course, football.
The Thatcher years provide a backdrop to the novel, with her presence looming large before she becomes Prime Minister in ‘78, The Falklands War in ’82 and the aftermath of the Miner’s strike in ‘86. First Plane Home is a nostalgic look back at working class culture and the last of the British blue collar manual workers while also examining the nature of the Border itself.
Tait has previously written two chapbooks of poetry – Midnight at the Snake Motel (Alternating Current, 2010) and Lucky to get Nowt (Blackheath Books 2011) and a walks book, Northumberland: 40 Coast and Country Walks (Pocket Mountains 2013).
First Plane Home is published by Enigma Press and is available as a paperback from Amazon for £6.63 or as a Kindle edition for £3.33.
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