The Poems: The Boddamers' Monkey

The Boddamers’ Monkey is a collection of place poems published in Very Limited Edition in 2004.
The title comes from the traditional song of the same name:
Eence a ship sailed roon the coast,
an aa the men in her wis lost,
Barrin a monkey up a post,
sae the Boddamers hanged the monkey oh!
Tradition goes that during the Napoleonic wars a ship ran aground off Boddam. The only survivor was a monkey which the Boddamers hanged, thinking it was a French spy, but gave it Christian burial anyway. In the past, to rile the inhabitants of Peterhead and Boddam, other North Easters would enquire ‘Fa beeriet the monkey?’

This collection includes the prizewinning ‘Salute tae a Bonnie Fechter’, a poem written in tribute to the late Hamish Henderson.