Beyond The Dear Green Place: Recovering the Lost Works and Literary Networks of Archie Hind

When Archie Hind published The Dear Green Place in 1966 it had immediate impact, winning the Guardian Fiction Prize, Yorkshire Post Award for Best Book, and Scottish PEN Frederick Niven Prize. While Hind’s semi-autobiographical work about the writer struggling to write his magnum opus against the odds in industrial, working-class Glasgow (the ‘Dear Green Place’ of the title) was quickly recognised as a landmark of British fiction, his wider career and literary achievements have been forgotten, in large part because no papers or archive were assumed to have survived his death in 2008. Excitingly, however, Hind’s archival materials have recently resurfaced and been secured by Dr Eleanor Bell for the University of Strathclyde’s Archives and Special Collections. What can we learn about this enigmatic writer, his literary works and broader cultural networks from a detailed study of this collection? The Hind papers contain a wealth of previously unseen materials of significant cultural value, including literary manuscripts, unpublished playscripts, treatments for television (co-written with Alasdair Gray), correspondence with significant Scottish writers (including Gray, Ian Hamilton Finlay, Willa and Edwin Muir), extensive literary journalism, photographs and memorabilia, which, when fully contextualised, will illuminate Hind’s influential, collaborative role in shaping and developing the cultural life of Glasgow and beyond over several decades. This project sheds new light on one of Britain’s most important, yet, to date, overlooked postwar writers. Many are unaware that Hind wrote radio plays and short stories during the 1950s and 1960s, few have explored his experiences as an activist working on the Easterhouse Project (1968-1969) and its remit to reduce gang and knife violence in Glasgow or know of his ten plays written during the 1970s and 1980s for groups including John McGrath’s influential 7:84 Theatre Company. This acquisition therefore allows for a full assessment of Hind’s complete literary output not previously thought possible. Working innovatively across literary studies, oral history, archive studies, and documentary filmmaking, the project provides the first critical assessment of Hind’s contribution to the intellectual and cultural life of Glasgow during a time of fundamental cultural, economic and political change, culminating in a series of events to mark the centenary of his birth in 2028. This will involve: A full cataloguing of the papers by our Project Archivist (specialist), who will coordinate digitisation and online publication of the papers (where data protection and copyright legislation permits). The academic element of the project conducted by Bell (project lead), comprising an edited, critical edition of Hind’s uncollected works and selected literary correspondence, and three journal articles (marking the sixtieth anniversary of The Dear Green Place in 2026, Hind’s fifty-year friendship with Alasdair Gray, and Hind’s important, yet still under-recognised contribution to Scottish theatre). Bell will record oral history interviews with those who knew and worked with Hind during his lifetime, with transcripts and digital recordings made available in Strathclyde University Archives and Special Collections. These interviews will form the basis of a documentary film made in collaboration with award-winning filmmaker Kevin Cameron (consultant), to be premiered at Glasgow Film Theatre in celebration of Hind's centenary. This will be complemented by various public talks and events throughout 2028 (facilitated by our Research and Innovation Associate), sharing Hind’s invaluable contribution to Glasgow, Scottish and wider British literature with a range of academics, teachers, theatre groups, and the general public.