| Lorna J. Waite | |
| Birth Date: | 27 August 1964 |
| Death Date: | 12 August 2023 |
| Occupation: |
|
| Education: | MSc, PhD |
| Alma Mater: | University of Edinburgh |
| Nationality: | Scottish |
| Language: | Scots and English |
| Birth Place: | Kilwinning, Ayrshire |
Lorna J. Waite, PhD (27 August 1964 - 12 August 2023), was a Scottish academic, community activist and poet who, like Robert Burns, also from Ayrshire, wrote in both English and Scots.[1] She had an awareness of social justice from her childhood and wrote poetry about the impact of the closure of heavy industry on communities in the West of Scotland. Waite researched post-industrial folk memory in a Wingate scholarship (2002) and as her PhD thesis, and in a children's novel.
She was awarded a New Writer's Bursary by the Scottish Arts Council and a writer in residence placement at Hugh MacDiarmid's cottage at Brownsbank in the Scottish Borders (2011). Waite was a Jessie Kesson Fellow at Moniack Mhor (2012). Waite wrote about the Scots' love of football and about Gaelic culture, and was also an art critic involved with a number of publications including the radical magazine, Variant [2] and participated in a wide range of art events[3] in collaboration with artists and writers and local communities.[4]
Born Lorna Janet Waite in Kilwinning, and brought up in Kilbirnie in the industrial area of Ayrshire, in the West of Scotland. She attended Garnock Academy, and studied French, German and Latin, as well as the local bard, Robert Burns, whose Scots narrative poem Tam O'Shanter, she recited well at school. At primary school, she visited New York, and was impressed by the United Nations building, and the idea of world peace, which later prompted her to join the campaign for nuclear disarmament (CND), and being arrested for protesting at Faslane. She later advocated Scottish independence.[5]
Waite was the first of her family to attend university, studying psychology at Edinburgh University and undertook a MSc with distinction in community education. Her doctoral thesis, at Duncan Jordanstone College of Art was titled
The impact on the local communities around the steelworks as well as the deliberate destruction of archive materials relating to the work was core to her poetry, including 56 poems in her book '
Waite was a member of the Tartan Army of fans who follow the Scottish football team, contributing to a book of poetry, edited by Alec Finlay, Football Haiku
As an art critic, Waite wrote for Variant and collaborated with Richard Demarco, including writing about their cultural visit with 30 artists, writers and teachers to Poland, including a visit to Auschwitz She also worked with photographers Jo Spence and Maud Sulter, whose photography she had reviewed in 1996.[13] Waite had a strong interest in preserving the natural world, and linked with Alastair McIntosh and Vérène Nicholas at the Centre for Human Ecology.
Another collaboration was in 2004, with Donald Urquhart, following her interest in astronomy, in making a model of the solar system in the landscape of West Lothian, following the eighteenth century work (the Kirkhill Pillar), by the Earl of Buchan, who founded the Society of Antiquaries. Waite presented her work to the society, titled To remain worthy of the land: the Earl of Buchan, the Kirkhill Pillar Project and the re-animation of Scottish cultural history.
She was learning Gaelic and edited, Sealladh Às Ùr Air Ealain Na Gàidhelt Achd: Rethinking Highland Art which followed up an exhibition Uinneag dhan Àird an Iar: Ath-Lorg Ealain na Gàidhealtachd / Window to the West: The Rediscovery of Highland Art, at the Edinburgh City Art Centre (2011),[14] and she often visited the Highlands on holidays and in her last days.
On 21 October 2020, Waite was a key speakerat the virtual Scottish Transport & Industry Collections Knowledge Network (STICK) conference on the topic Cultural Retrieval: land use and postindustrial folk memory.[15]
In 2023, she wrote a poem in Scots on the Gaelic dictionary maker, Edward Dwelly, which was translated into Gaelic by Marcas Mac an Tuairnair (editor) and included in Cruinneachadh: A Gathering',[16] a
Gerda Stevenson said of Waite:
"Lorna was luminous, powerful, brave yet humble, with a touching vulnerability. A remarkable woman, whose being somehow embodied the cultural strata of this richly diverse small nation we inhabit, and whose work we should all know about."Lorna J. Waite died of cancer at home in Edinburgh on 12 August 2023, and is survived by her husband, Professor Emeritus Murdo Macdonald.