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DD10 9LQ The poet Violet Jacob was born in 1863 into an aristocratic family, lairds of the House of Duns, in Angus. Despite her well-to-do background, she wrote her poems in Scots. For Lisa Simmons, who teaches an adult education course on the life and work of the poet, Violet Jacob’s use of Scots in her poetry stemmed from a deep interest in the lives of those who were resident on the Duns estate: “She was surrounded by the servants at the house, ran free and was welcomed by the people of the estate. There was always that eagerness throughout her life to communicate with and understand the local population.” The First World War was to impact directly on Violet Jacob when her only son Harry died as a result of wounds he sustained at the Battle of the Somme in 1916. Violet transmuted her feelings of grief into her poetry, perhaps most vividly in her poem entitled Halloween, published in 1921. “Halloween is set in a bothy, people are guising and bobbing for apples,” explains Lisa. “By the fire in the bothy, a ploughman recalls a friend who didn’t come back from France. So this is after the war. The Halloween revels are going on all around him but he can’t stop thinking about his friend. He says at the end, ‘ye’ll mebbe hae yer Halloween…and the lichts of Halloween in France.’” “I think Halloween is about Harry without a shadow of a doubt, but she’s used the story of a ploughman who survived the war, but whose friend did not.”