Margaret Tait

Margaret Caroline Tait (11 November 1918 – 16 April 1999) was a Scottish film maker and poet.

Life
Tait was born and raised in Kirkwall, in the Orkney Islands off the north coast of mainland Scotland, before being sent to school in Edinburgh.

She died in Kirkwall in 1999.

Education
Tait attended the University of Edinburgh, gaining qualifications in Medicine (1941). Between 1943 and 1946 she served in the Royal Army Medical Corps, stationed in India, Sri Lanka and Malaya. She subsequently moved to Rome to study filmmaking at the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia (1950–1952).

Career
After studying in Italy, Tait returned to Scotland and founded Ancona Films, named after the street where she had lodged while studying in Rome. On her move back to Orkney in the 1960s, Tait continued to make films and took inspiration from the landscape and culture of Orkney.

In 50s and 60s' Edinburgh she was close to, though not a member of, the Rose Street Poets, which included such figures as Hugh MacDiarmid, Sorley Maclean and Norman MacCaig.

Tait made 32 short films and one full-length feature, Blue Black Permanent. In addition, Tait wrote prose and poetry, and published three poetry books - origins and elements, The Hen and the Bees, and Subjects and Sequences.

An annual Margaret Tait Award was established in 2010 in conjunction with Glasgow Film Festival.

Filmography

 * One Is One (1951)
 * Three Portrait Sketches (1951)
 * The Lion, The Griffin And The Kangaroo (1952)
 * Happy Bees (1955)
 * Orquil Burn (1955)
 * A Portrait of Ga (1955)
 * The Leaden Echo And The Golden Echo (1955)
 * Calypso (1956)
 * The Drift Back (1956)
 * Rose Street (1956)
 * Where I Am Is Here (1964)
 * Palindrome (1964)
 * Hugh Macdiarmid : A Portrait (1964)
 * The Big Sheep (1966)
 * Splashing (1966)
 * A Pleasant Place (1969)
 * He's Back (The Return) (1970)
 * John MacFadyen (The Stripes In The Tartan) (1970)
 * Painted Eightsome (1970)
 * On The Mountain (1974)
 * Colour Poems (1974)
 * Aerial (1974)
 * These Walls (1974)
 * Tailpiece (1976)
 * Place Of Work (1976)
 * Aspects Of Kirkwall : Shape Of A Town (1977)
 * Aspects Of Kirkwall : Occasions (1977)
 * Aspects Of Kirkwall : The Ba, Over The Years (1981)
 * Aspects Of Kirkwall : The Look Of The Place (1981)
 * Aspects Of Kirkwall : Some Changes (1981)
 * Landmakar (1981)
 * Blue Black Permanent (1992) (Feature)
 * Garden Pieces (1998)