Moira Armstrong suggests in her letter about Sunset Song (2 December) that publicity for the film has implied that there had been no earlier attempt to dramatise my grandfather’s novel, citing the BBC’s wonderful 1970 TV version. She should rest assured that the director Terence Davies has consistently and generously credited Vivien Heilbron’s portrayal of Chris Guthrie as his inspiration for his 15-year labour of love. She and James Naughtie (Loons and queans and orramen, G2, 25 November) were concerned about Terence’s capturing of the landscape and language. But the film’s potentially toughest critics, the current residents of “Kinraddie”, the fictional setting of the novel, gave it a resounding Doric cheer when it was shown in Arbuthnott village hall, two miles from where Lewis Grassic Gibbon was brought up, on St Andrew’s Day.
Alister Martin
Welwyn Garden City
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