Robin Jenkins

(born September 1912 - died February 2005) - Flemington, near Cambuslang

Born John Robin Jenkins in the Lanarkshire village of Flemington in 1912, Jenkins was a prolific but not always successful author during the 1950s, 60s and 70s. He his most famous for his novel The Cone-Gatherers, which is often studied at Scottish schools as a Higher English set text.

After attending Hamilton Academy, Jenkins studied English at the University of Glasgow, and graduated in 1936. He was an English teacher in Glasgow for a number of years, moving to the Borders at the start of WWII. A conscientious objector to the war, he worked for the Forestry Service in Argyll. He first started writing after the war, and his first novel, So Gaily Sings The Lark, was published in 1951. He later moved abroad, working for the British Council in in Afghanistan, Spain and Borneo. In 1968 he returned to Scotland, and became a full-time writer two years later.

Jenkins has written around thirty novels, and in 2002 was awarded the Andrew Fletcher of Saltoun prize by the Saltire Society for his lifetime achievement as a writer. He was also awarded an OBE in 1999.

Robin Jenkins died in 2005, aged 92; the novel The Pearl-Fishers was posthumously published in 2007 after being discovered in a drawer by his daughter.

The Awakening Of George Darroch
This novel is based on a momentous event in Scottish history, the Great Disruption of 1843, when a group of ministers took on the establishment in a bitter conflict which split the Church of Scotland down the middle.
The Changeling
Exploring the theme of the fate that awaits goodness and innocence in the face of growing up and learning to live in our society, this novel charts the story of Tom, a 13-year-old from a Glasgow slum, and the events of a holiday with his teacher.
Childish Things
This text begins with a funeral at which Gregor McLeod is mourning the death of his wife. It soon becomes evident that McLeod is a womaniser and despite his very recent bereavement, is being pursued by an assortment of attractive women.
The Cone-Gatherers
Calum and Neil are the cone-gatherers - two brothers at work in the forest of a large Scottish estate. But the harmony of their life together is shadowed by the dark obsessive hatred of Duror, the gamekeeper.
Dust On The Paw
Abdul Wahab, an Afghan science teacher, is eagerly anticipating the arrival of his British fiancée, Laura Johnstone, in the capital of his home country. However, the employees at the British Embassy are in turmoil at this new arrival and all the disaster they are sure that this mixed marriage will bring.
Fergus Lamont
From his origins as an illegitimate child in the slums of Glasgow, Fergus Lamont sets out to reclaim his inheritance and to remake his identity as soldier, poet and would-be aristocrat.
Guests Of War
In the autumn of 1939, as the Nazi Blitzkrieg sweeps across Europe, the people of Gowburgh are forced to prepare themselves for war. Women and children of the town are evacuated to Langrigg, causing tension with the population of their new home.
Just Duffy
The themes of this novel are central to all Jenkin's work. In its stark simplicity, Just Duffy lays claim to being one of his most powerful novels. Its drive and power bear witness to a modern Greek tradegy played out on a Scottish stage.
Lady Magdalen
Magdalen, the 14-year-old daughter of Lord Carnegie has a love of art and beauty and a horror of barbaric practices such as the burning of women thought to be witches. With civil war brewing, family alliances are paramount and Carnegie arranges her marriage to James Graham, the future Marquis of Montrose.
Leila
Set on the tropical island of Savu, 'Leila' is a tender love story involving Scottish teacher Andrew Sandilands and Leila, the exotically beautiful daughter of a local politician. The lovers are soon torn between the small-minded mores of the expat community and Leila's determination to play a role in her country's future.
Love Is A Fervent Fire
Hugh Carstares, badly wounded in the war that cost him his wife, seemed to himself and to his superiors in the forestry service only the burnt out wreck of a hero. But in Kinlochgarvie he found people on whose lives his coming acted as a catalyst for the hopes and despairs never acknowledged by them in secret.
A Love Of Innocence
A moving story of two young boys growing up haunted by dark secrets from the past.
Matthew And Sheila
Following the death of his mother and rejection by his father, schoolboy Matthew is taken to Lunderston by his guardian where he meets Sheila. She introduces him to her own beliefs and together they call upon the supernatural to solve his problems.
The Missionaries
'The Missionaries' tells the story of a remote Scottish island invaded by a Christian sect claiming the right to live and worship there. With the island's owner intent on their eviction, Andrew, a young student, springs to their defence, despite his father being the Sheriff in charge of the eviction.
The Pearl-Fishers
When beautiful pearl-fisher Effie Williamson arrives in a rural Scottish village with her grandparents and siblings, the residents react in many different ways from hospitable warmth to outright rejection, exacerbated when the religious Gavin Hamilton takes the family into his home.
Poverty Castle
'Poverty Castle' is a novel set within a novel, in which the happiness of an idealistic family in Argyll is tempered inexorably by events, human nature, and the socialism of industrial Glasgow.
The Sardana Dancers
Jonathan and Maddy are desperate for something significant, something creative to happen in their lives. They become passionately involved with John, an aggressive, working-class Glaswegian painter, and beautiful Barcelona student, Montserrat, whose brother is an imprisoned Catelan patriot.
Some Kind Of Grace
Two British travellers, Donald and Margaret, have disappeared in the wild mountainous region of nothern Afghanistan. The authorities in Kabul say that they have been murdered by the inhabitants of the small village. But John McLeod, a friend of the missing couple, travels to Kabul and starts his own enquiries.
The Thistle And The Grail
The Thistle is the unlucky local football team of Drumsagart, a drab industrial town in Lanarkshire. Cursed with poverty, an ineffective president and a string of defeats, the Thistle team members are running low on morale, especially when it seems like there are many people against them.
A Very Scotch Affair
'A Very Scotch Affair' is set in Glasgow and tells the tale of Mungo Niven, a man who possesses a fiercely Scotch conscience and who feels trapped in a drab and unfulfilling existence.
A Would-Be Saint
The story of a young footballer growing up between the First and Second World wars.