Basil Ramsay Anderson
BASIL RAMSAY ANDERSON was born in the northerly Shetland island of Unst in 1861. When he was five his father was drowned at the haaf (ocean fishing) off the island, leaving his mother to cope alone with six young children. They moved to Edinburgh in his teens. He was closely involved in the life of the expatriate Shetlanders who formed a group in exile there, both in the church and in radical politics. He published few poems in his lifetime, only gaining wider recognition for his abilities after his death from tuberculosis in 1888, at the age of 26.
