The Roddy Lumsden Archive

The archive is available to all for viewing. Details for arranging to view the papers are are the bottom of this page.

When Roddy moved to London in 1997, he left behind several boxes of his books, records and papers in his mother’s attic.

Upon the death of his mother, they were rediscovered when his brothers were clearing out his mother’s house and offered to Mark Reed, a friend who had known him since school and kept in touch throughout his life, with their last meeting being a few weeks before Roddy’s death.

Aside from the books and records, the papers provided a documented history of Roddy’s early life as a poet.

They included school jotters full of his earliest attempts at writing verse, correspondence from leading poetry publishers concerning the publication of his first book, many manuscripts and annotated verse, and many other letters and documents.

There were also a very large number of personal letters from girlfriends.

After taking several months to do an initial sort of the papers , and getting permission from the letter writers to keep them in the archive, Mark contacted the Edinburgh University Library to see if they would be interested in adding the six boxes of papers to their research collections.

Roddy had been a student at Edinburgh and so it made sense to have them deposited there. Unbeknownst to the donor, Roddy’s post-Edinburgh papers were being deposited in Newcastle, however splitting them between the two sites does reflect their belonging to different periods of Roddy’s poetical life.



Viewing The Papers

The six boxes of Roddy’s papers are available to view by anybody who wishes to see them.

In order to arrange a viewing at the University Library, e-mail [email protected] giving him at least a week’s notice. Paul is happy to give a guided overview of the papers before leaving viewers alone to take their time looking through them.