Roddy Lumsden Interviews Matthew Fitt

Dundonian writer Matthew Fitt has been busy recently. As well as his continuing involvement with Itchy Coo, the imprint which specialises in Scots books for children, he has published two new books. One is a hilarious Scots version of Roald Dahl's book The Twits. The other, Time Tram Dundee, is a lively and original book (aimed at older children but very readable by adults too), with fabulous cartoons, which sees driver Mr Scrymgeour, young Davie the clippie and seagull Eh Ken whisked back in time in an old tram to follow the city's history (and its debatable legends, which are marked with a handy 'Haivers Alert'!).

Roddy Lumsden: Congratulations on Time Tram Dundee. On the cover, Jacqueline Wilson calls it 'a rare treat for the bairns'. Sometimes I read books for children in a 'second guessing' fashion, but I really engaged with this as an adult reader – it's fun and informative. How did the project come about?

Matthew Fitt: With Heritage Lottery Funding, Lynn Moy, Moira Foster and Stuart Syme of Dundee City Libraries commissioned Keith Robson and I in early 2005 to create a bairns' history of Dundee. Like most Dundonians, we were starting with very little general knowledge about the town. It's a city that's been razed and bulldozed and reinvented so many times that there are hardly any physical clues that this was once a grand and important town. The history books and the tomes stored in the City Archive had a different story to relate.

Once Keith and I had that story in our heads, we had to work out a way to retell it for the bairns. As we wandered round the graveyards, standing stones and closes looking for inspiration, we noticed seagulls flying above us or peeking down at us from the tops of buildings. Admittedly, Dundee's not the only town in the world that can boast it has seagulls but it is a place which has moved away from the sea (literally). The spot on which the present city square now stands is a whole quarter mile further away from the shore line that it once was. Landfill has reclaimed so much from the Tay that the town's proud maritime past is really hard to imagine. So we employed the services of a seagull to remind readers of this. And we used a tram that could travel back in time to get us about.

RL: The format is obviously transferable to other journeys. Is there a chance the Time Tram might visit other cities in the future? I'm not sure we'd approve of a dirty great thing like a tram in St Andrews, but perhaps Edinburgh and Glasgow?

MF: The Dundee Time Tram would only really go to St. Andrews for a cone out of Janetta's and a game of puttin anyway but this project might be something that Glasgow or Aberdeen should consider.

RL: The book is a collaboration with cartoonist Keith Robson, who has done a splendid job. How did that collaborative process work?

MF: Keith and I had a great time putting all this together. I researched the history, Keith researched the period costume and architecture and then we put in our blood, sweat and tears to make it all work. It was a physically demanding process but well worth it in the end.

RL: You have also just published The Eejits – a version in Scots of Roald Dahl's The Twits. Tell me about that. Was there something about these unpleasant characters which fitted the language more than Dahl's other creations?

MF: It was the title that decided the choice of Dahl book. I mean, The Eejits is a gift and I can't believe nobody's picked up on that one before. Plus there is a long tradition in Scots of flytin or verbal attack so Itchy Coo is delighted to be linking in to that strong literary heritage.

RL: When you are writing in Scots for kids, do you worry about some words (say pliskie or fozie) not being known, or do you trust them to pick up words in their context?

RL: I worry that they don't know them in the first place. I worry that many call the Scots language 'slang'. But I'm not so concerned that readers will not get the meaning of the less common Scots words. Every child who has read the book so far has simply used the context. There is also a very handy reference title available, namely the original The Twits, if anyone's really toiling.

RL: Itchy Coo seems to be thiving as a new imprint. Small children seem to love the sounds of Scots. Is one of the difficulties getting older children comfortable reading in Scots after they have got used to so many books in English?

MF: It takes about ten minutes for older pupils to tune into the Scots and away they go. Some children are mildly interested in the Itchy Coo books, others enjoy the funny poems and illustrations but for an awful lot of pupils who are often deemed reluctant readers in English, reading modern books in their own language for the first time can be a liberating, life-changing experience.

RL: So, what projects are you working on now and next?

MF: Itchy Coo is working at a translation of a graphic novelisation of Kidnapped and then we'll be looking at doing a Burns book. I personally want to get back to my own writing and maybe kick a fitba again, something I've not done for a lang time.