Granny Albyn's Complaint

It is the 1st of May, and we are among the 'fair field full of folk' gathered on Glasgow Green to celebrate May Day. On every side are Chartists and Suffragettes, trades unionists and Communists, tourists and film-crews, artists and asylum seekers, the homesick and the homeless, the long-time-dead and the yet-to-be-born. Helen Crawfurd and John Maclean are here, so are Edwin Muir, Ronald Stevenson and Edwin Morgan, Rosa Luxemburg, Paul Robeson and Nelson Mandela, Matt McGinn and St Mungo, a chorus of voices coming together in dialogue and potential unity in the Dear Green Place that is - or might be - Glasgow.

Granny Albyn's Complaint is a love-letter to the city where David Betteridge has spent the best part of his life. Lyrical, narrative, satiric and reflective, his poetry celebrates the city's radical political and artistic traditions, in despair and hope, struggle and advance, continuity and loss, and all the lovely flarings-up of human achievement. Green thoughts in a red shade.

'There is more to Socialism than a hatred of capitalism – though that is not a bad starting point. But love is more fundamental to the Socialist spirit than any other single factor. This is why I like very much this selection of poems by David Betteridge.'— Jimmy Reid (former UCS shop-steward)

David Betteridge has worked as a teacher and teacher-trainer in Scotland, England, Norway, Sweden, the Czech Republic, Pakistan and Nepal. He has co-authored several books for the classroom. Granny Albyn's Complaint is his first book of poetry. He lives in Glasgow.