Margaret Tait 100

Margaret Caroline Tait, Orcadian film maker, poet and medical doctor was born, one hundred years ago tomorrow, on the 11th November 1918 - Armistice Day.

Her family lived in a flat on Broad Street, opposite St Magnus Cathedral and so would have heard the ships honking in the harbour and seen the bunting bedecked streets from their window on that day.

Tait trained as a doctor in Edinburgh after primary schooling in Kirkwall and a secondary education in Edinburgh. She enlisted in 1943 and served with the Royal Army Medical Corps in the UK and the Far East where she began to write short stories.

Margaret Tait's Italian Student Matriculation Card with photograph dated 1947.
Orkney Archive Reference D97/1/6

After some time working as a locum doctor (and writing screenplays) in various parts of Britain, Tait travelled to Perugia in 1950 to research a film. She ended up abandoning the proposed film and instead enrolled at the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia film school in Rome for a two year course. This led to the formation of Ancona films with fellow student Peter Hollander.

Margaret Tait and Peter Hollander
Orkney Archive Reference D97/44/5

For the next 46 years, Tait worked under the banner of Ancona films, largely alone and in various Scottish locations, making short films which were partly funded by her continuing work as a locum. Books of poetry were also produced, short stories and a children's book. She made watercolours, wrote a novel and took photographs.

Watercolour design for film Painted Eightsome.
Orkney Archive Reference D97/44/2

In 1992, Tait finally directed her long gestated feature film Blue Black Permanent at the age of 72.

Continuity polaroids used during the filming of Blue Black Permanent.
Orkney Archive Reference D97/13

When she died at the age of 80 in April 1999, her husband Alec gifted several crates worth of letters, photographs, poems, screenplays, paintings, personal diaries, filming diaries, notebooks and personal documents to the library and archive. 48 boxes worth have been catalogued and are available to view.

Several items are currently on loan to GOMA in Glasgow, Summerhall in Edinburgh and Northlight in Stromness, all of whom are currently hosting exhibitions celebrating Margaret Tait's centenary. There is also a small display in the Orkney Room in the Orkney Library & Archive.

If you are unable to visit us in person, then please see below for more images from our exhibit and click here to watch her films.

Poster and ticket for the 1955 Rose Street Film Festival held in Margaret Tait's Edinburgh flat.
Orkney Archive Reference D97/23/1/19&20 



Storyboard for Blue Black Permanent
Orkney Archive Reference D97/26/8

Orkney Archive Reference D97/13

Great Tait #2

Not long until the Orkney Book Festival begins on April 14th. There are two evenings of films and talks devoted to Margaret Tait and we have put together a small exhibition from our collection of Tait's papers in the archive searchroom.

Come and have a look at scripts, photographs, letters and notebooks which show how valued Margaret Tait's work was both within and outside of Orkney.

A Chance For You to See What We've Been Banging On About For So Long...

Films and talks about Margaret Tait?

Films by Margaret Tait?

Yes Please!

See you all there. We'll be the ones at the back with bells on.

The Searchers

The Archive department have been running around in a faff all morning because we are confused by our own cataloguing system.

All of our deposits and collections are numbered in a set, very logical fashion. First of all, a collection gets a number. For example, the 97th collection that is a deposit or gift is called D97. Each box within that collection then gets it's own number; so the 19th box in collection D97 would be D97/19.

This sequential numbering follows right the way through folders, to individual envelopes within that folder, to pieces of paper within said envelopes. So when I want to look at a Guardian article called 'The Deadly Call of The Sea' which was sent to Margaret Tait when she was writing Blue Black Permanent, I am given the number D97/19/15/7/16. Therefore, I know that the article is the 16th piece of paper in the 7th envelope in the 15th folder in the 19th box of the Margaret Tait collection, which is deposit collection number 97.

It is a very logical system and is never deviated from. So why did we spend an hour this morning running around like headless chickens whilst bemused customers waited patiently for their requested archives?

We 'lost' three things this morning. One has never been given a number, one was given a number which was not entered into the database and one deposit had been catalogued,numbered and placed on the correct shelf but a certain person, who most definitely was not me, couldn't see it for looking. So basically, the system is perfect, yet we are simpletons.

Don't let this post stop you from handing stuff in though, this morning was a rare aberration, we always find things eventually and it's probably quite entertaining to watch us all running about looking for stuff. Click below and imagine us scurrying from room to room, looking in cupboards, boxes and shelf units with puzzled expressions on our faces.

Margaret Tait - 1918-1999

11 years ago today, Margaret Tait passed away at the age of 80. She left behind one feature film, several shorts films, short stories and three collections of poetry.

We are currently cataloguing her archive of papers, photographs, scripts and correspondence.

It is only in that last few years that Margaret Tait has been properly celebrated.

In 2004, LUX arts agency published a Margaret Tait reader names 'Subjects and Sequence', the name of one of Tait's poetry collections and a DVD of selected films from 1952-1976 followed in 2005.

The author Ali Smith is a fan of her work and included some of her poems in 'The Reader', an anthology of personal favourites published in 2006. Last year , to mark the 10th anniversary of her death, the Tate Modern screened a selection of her films and Ali Smith read some of her poems.

The rainbow is still a miracle

Even when we know what it's made of,

Or think we do.

Whether we really know, as perhaps we do,

Or just think we do,

As is very likely,

It's still magic.

It's just there.

Water particles, refracted light, curvature of space,

might all be a part of it

But it's still what it is.

It is still there.

It is irrefutably a miracle.

Extract from 'Cave Drawing of the Waters of the Earth and Sea', taken from the collection 'Origins and Elements' by Margaret Tait.

Tait Treats

This day in 1895, The Lumière brothers, Auguste and Louis, put on their first screening of moving images.

Margaret Tait is arguably Orkney's most celebrated film-maker and 1992's Blue Black Permanent was her only feature length film.

We hold two albums of beautiful continuity Polaroids for the film in her archive. These stills were made for the benefit of director, cinematographer, wardrobe and make-up artists and simply record all the physical details of a scene. Some have scribbled notes along the bottom such as 'sleeve down' and 'Andrew. scene 137'.

They may just be practical, visual prompts but they are lovely objects in their own right.

How did she manage to make something as every day as a table set for tea or a pair of sandals on the beach look so pleasing and evocative?

Orkney Archive Reference D97/13

Blue Black Permanent

We have been asked a couple of questions about our copy of Margaret Tait's feature length film 'Blue Black Permanent.' The copy that we hold is on DVD and is for reference purposes only.

Visitors can request to watch it in the library on a laptop or, if we get a bit of notice, on a nice big telly.

17th June 2009 - Blue Black Permanent

Today we received a long awaited copy of Margaret Tait’s only full-length film, Blue Black Permanent from BFI.

Margaret Tait was an Orcadian film-maker who originally trained as a doctor but began to write, direct and shoot self-funded short films during the 1950s when she studied film-making in Rome. Films, along with writing poetry and short stories, soon became Margaret’s main focus and, although never achieving huge recognition in her lifetime she was very well-respected as an artist by her peers.

Blue Black Permanent was first written in the early 1970s but was not actually filmed until 20 years later when Margaret was in her early 70s. As the production received funding from (amongst others) Channel 4 and Grampian Television, the film was shown on television several times soon after its release and is therefore the best known of Margaret Tait’s films.

The archive holds a semi-catalogued collection of Margaret Tait’s papers and a few of her short films. The collection includes several scripts, copious amounts of production material and files full of correspondence relating to the film. This acquisition of her most famous and ambitious work will augment an already fascinating set of records.