Ian Hamilton Finlay

Ian Hamilton Finlay was born in Nassau, Bahamas, in 1925. As a child he was brought to Scotland, where he attended boarding school. His education ended at the age of thirteen, when at the outbreak of war he was evacuated to the Orkney Islands.

A short spell at art school in Glasgow was followed by a period in London before Finlay joined the army in 1942. At the end of the war, he worked as a shepherd, studied philosophy, and began to write short stories and plays, some of which were broadcast by the ...