‘I just want to tell folk what their true history is’: An Evening with Billy Kay at John O’Groats

Billy Kay will be telling stories from a small-town childhood and sharing his passion for the Scots language at the opening event of the 2025 John O’Groats Book Festival.

“I haven’t been to Caithness for a few years, so I’m looking forward to it,” the renowned writer and broadcaster said, ahead of An Evening with Billy Kay at the renovated John O’Groats Mill on Friday, June 20.

At 73, Billy continues to live and breathe Scottish history and culture. His latest book, Born in Kyle: A Love Letter tae an Ayrshire Childhood, will feature prominently in his book festival talk and he will also be discussing themes from his other works The Scottish World, Knee Deep in Claret and Scots: The Mither Tongue.

Billy is no stranger to Caithness, or its dialect, having visited the county frequently during the course of one of his post-university jobs.

“Before I got into doing Scottish studies, I began doing a modern languages degree at Edinburgh University and because of that I was quite a fluent French and German speaker in my twenties,” he explained.

“I had two summers working for a firm called Travel Scotland doing a multilingual coach tour, and it was French and German and Scandinavian people. Part of the journey was to John O’Groats and we spent a night in the Station Hotel in Wick – so every fortnight for two summers I was in Wick, in the Station Hotel.

“I had studied the history of Scots, so I was aware of the Caithness dialect and its links to Orkney and Shetland, etc. But it’s very much a dialect of Scots, my own native language that I grew up speaking in Ayrshire, so I was fascinated by that, and I listened to it and tuned my ears into it.

“I’ve always been interested in the history and culture of Caithness as a very unique place.

“I spent a year travelling around the world when I left university. I spent about six weeks in Thailand, working there. In the searing heat and humidity of Bangkok I read Neil Gunn’s novel The Silver Darlings, which is partly set in Dunbeath, and I was transported back to the caller, cool air of the north.

“It was such a vivid experience reading that book in that place, and that gave me a taste to see Caithness when I got back.”

Billy has been introduced as a “language activist”, and that is how he is described in a certain online encyclopaedia, but he says he has “nae idea” who came up with that term.

“Basically I’m just somebody who has studied the history of their culture,” he said. “I was able to study Scots at university and I was so astonished by the riches that I found.

“I just want to tell folk, especially working-class people who missed out on their history and their language and their culture, what their true history is – because it gives them such a different perspective on who they are if they know that their language, instead of being an uncouth patois, is a language that goes back centuries and was spoken by kings and great medieval poets.

“Some people might call me a language activist but I’m just really somebody who loves their culture and their language, and I’m trying to tell people the richness of their ain mither tongue and ma mither tongue that I was brocht up speaking.”

At the BBC, Billy created the acclaimed Odyssey series of radio documentaries, some of which had Caithness themes: Stroma was one, the flagstone industry was another, and he also examined the Caithness/Patagonia connection. Odyssey also featured the music of local folk band Mirk.

Looking ahead to his John O’Groats appearance, Billy said: “I’ll be exploring the various books. I’ll talk a bit about Born in Kyle, which is a memoir mainly about growing up in Ayrshire in the 1950s and ’60s, with some passages which are very humorous, looking back on things that we did then.

“We were the last of the pre-television generation, so it was very much a case of entertaining yourself, and describing the food and the leisure activities and the collecting we did. The one external influence was the films, and there’s a couple of great cowboy stories that I tell. Audiences laugh a lot when I tell a couple of these stories.

“Although it’s Ayrshire, it’s small-town Scotland. It’s written in Scots but the Caithness audience will have no problem understanding it, and I think people from any small town – and I would include Wick and Thurso and places like that – will identify with these stories.

“I’ll also talk about the themes in the other books – the history of Scots in Scots: The Mither Tongue, the influence of the Scots abroad in The Scottish World and the wine history in Knee Deep in Claret, which is mainly a history of the Auld Alliance and how that influences our wine-drinking tradition to this day, with claret still very much a national favourite.”

Billy now lives in Newport-on-Tay, a corner of Fife that is “very much tied in with Dundee historically”.

Festival organiser Ian Leith said: “The John O’Groats Book Festival welcomes Billy Kay for an evening celebrating Scottish culture, history, language and much more.

“Billy is well known for his award-winning radio and TV documentaries and for his books. His work for Scotland has also been recognised abroad, winning the Wines of France Award and the Mark Twain Award given by the St Andrew’s Society of the State of New York.

“Here, Billy will talk about the language, history, folklore and literature of his home in the Irvine Valley and read passages in a powerful, resonant Scots that is shot through with a sense of belonging – and a sense of humour.”

Signed copies of all of Billy’s books will be available on the night, priced £10 and £15 (cash only).

An Evening with Billy Kay takes place at John O’Groats Mill on Friday, June 20, starting at 7pm. Entry is free but places should be booked by calling 07715 493696 or contacting Ian Leith at ian@baselineresearch.co.uk

The event is supported by Scottish Book Trust.

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