News / Gentle Shetlander remembered
THE CHRISTIE family of Cunningsburgh celebrate a historic day on Saturday when a plaque is unveiled to commemorate their sculptor forebear.
Last November Adam Christie, who was immortalised in Kenneth Keddie’s 1984 biography The Gentle Shetlander, was chosen as one of the first 12 Scottish figures to be celebrated with a commemorative plaque, alongside such famous people as James Watt of the steam engine and television inventor John Logie Baird.
During almost 50 years he spent at Sunnyside Royal Hospital in Montrose for the mentally ill suffering from severe depression, he carved more than 200 sculptures using six inch nails, old files and glass for sandpaper.
He also wrote poetry and painted using discarded tins of paint on canvasses made from old flour bags.
In May, as part of Historic Scotland’s commemorative plaque scheme, a plaque was unveiled at Sleepyhillock cemetery in Montrose where Christie was buried in a pauper’s grave in 1950 aged 84 years.
On Saturday a second plaque is to be unveiled at the Cunningsburgh History Group’s history hut next to the local public hall.
The artist’s grand nephew Peter Christie has also built a cairn using stone from Christie’s old crofthouse at Aith, Cunningsburgh.
While looking for material for the cairn the family found one stone that had the name Adam Christie carved into it, showing that he had started working with stone before being taken to Sunnyside aged 32.
The family have invited Arbroath singer songwriter Dave Ramsay to attend Saturday’s event, which starts at 4pm and is open to the public.
Ramsay has been campaigning for seven years to have Christie’s work recognised and has written a song about the man, which he will sing at the ceremony.
The event has been organised by Peter Christie and his sisters Alma and Joan and brother Leonard, who will be joined by amongst other Shetland museum curator Ian Tait.
Christie was also an accomplished fiddle maker, making instruments out of old tea chests, a musician and composer and a group of young fiddlers will perform his composition Aith Rant on the day.
Peter’s wife Pat Christie said: “It means a great deal to the family to have this man recognised in this way.”
Last year the Montrose museum had a display on Adam Christie, and have donated some of their display boards to the Cunningsburgh History Group to put on their own exhibition next year.
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