The Dear Green Place & Fur Sadie

Continuing the themes of artistic freedom vs social responsibility that Archie Hind wrote about in The Dear Green Place, in Fur Sadie we're introduced to a busy housewife who impulsively buys a second-hand piano in a fit of nostalgia.

I am absolutely gutted that Archie didn't finish this novel! The little we do have of it is so beautifully written, and despite only existing in seventy-three pages Sadie is fully realised. Her dedication to her ambition to learn to play the piano, even as she has to navigate around the barely hidden disapproval of her husband and sons, is endearing, and I will always wonder how her relationship with her piano teacher, Mr McKay, might have developed.

“McKay sat down and played Für Elise while Sadie sat stiff and upright on a hard chair, her hand clasped in her lap. ...He had turned to her. ‘You know that wee tune, I suppose?'

‘Oh yes,' she said. ‘Fur Sadie,' and it wasn't until McKay put his head back and laughed that she clapped her hand to her mouth.

‘Fur Sadie,' he said, laughing, missing out the umlaut and so turning the word into Glasgwegian. ‘Fur Sadie.'”