Billy Kay (born 1951) is a Scottish writer, broadcaster and language activist.[1] He developed an early interest in language, studying English, French, German and Russian at Kilmarnock Academy and English literature at the University of Edinburgh.[2]
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His study of the history and status of the Scots language, Scots: The Mither Tongue, his most notable work, was later adapted for a television series,[3] and an audiobook, recorded after setting up a home studio during the COVID-19 lockdown. Kay thought that many people would not have heard 'how the language sounds' in major Scots literature such as Barbour's Brus, R.L. Stevenson's Thrawn Janet, works by MacDiarmid and Burns or the Border Ballads covered in his book: a sound version, he said, would 'fill a big gap' in people's 'knowledge and appreciation of a great tradition'.[4]
Kay's popular radio series, Odyssey, broadcast by BBC Radio Scotland in 1979, was a ground-breaking work of oral history which captured the diverse experiences of men and women across Scotland, including migrants from Donegal, Kintyre fishermen, Lithuanians in Lanarkshire, Dundee jute workers, Shetland whalers, Tiree emigrants to Canada, and servicemen seeking to exercise their land rights on returning to Knoydart after the Second World War. The following year, Odyssey: Voices from Scotland’s Recent Past, a collection of material drawn from the first series, was published by Polygon Books.[5]
Despite the success of the first Odyssey radio series, no money was forthcoming to make any further programmes. Stewart Conn, BBC Scotland's Head of Drama, stepped in, attaching Kay to the drama department to ensure that the project survived. Three radio series of Odyssey were broadcast and a series was commissioned for television.[6] Odyssey: Voices from Scotland's Recent Past: The Second Collection, based on material from the later series, was published by Polygon in 1982.[2]
Kay drew on material on Dundee's female jute workers collected for the Odyssey series in writing Jute!, which was broadcast as a dramatised documentary directed by Marylin Ireland.[2]