The Boy in the Train is a poem written in Scots, by Mary Campbell (Edgar) Smith (1869–1960), first published in 1913. It is featured in many anthologies of Scottish verse, texts related to railway history, and is routinely quoted when discussing linoleum, and the history of the Scottish town Kirkcaldy. It is a popular poem in Scottish culture, often being a children's party piece, and "recited by generations of primary school children". The crime-writer Val McDermid, who was born in Kirkcaldy, has said "As school kids we all had to learn The Boy in the Train".
Origin
Mary Campbell Smith was born in Tongland, Kirkcudbrightshire, and was the daughter of the Reverend Andrew Edgar, minister of Mauchline, Ayrshire. In 1895 she married George Smith (1868–1957), the headmaster of Merchiston Castle School in Edinburgh. They would take their Easter holidays in Elie, Fife, travelling there by train. Written in Scots, the poem quotes an inquisitive young boy who was in their carriage, asking questions on the way to his grandmother's house in Kirkcaldy, Fife. The poem captures the growing pre-war industrialisation of Kirkcaldy, including the distinct smell of the linoleum factories, for which the town was famous.
Publication and text
Publication history
The Boy in the Train was first published in August 1913 in a single-issue school magazine, called the Total Eclipse, produced by the school-boys of Merchiston Castle School. No copies of this are known to have survived. The poem was reproduced in the official school journal, The Merchistonian, in August 1913 (although the poet was not named). By 1915 The Boy in the Train was known to Sir Michael Nairn (1838–1915), industrialist and owner of seven of Kirkcaldy's linoleum factories, who had the poem printed up as a calling card. The poem appeared in full in the Fife Free Press in 1916, attributed to a "young man belonging to Pathhead, who is now in the United States" with the initials "C.N". It became popularly known as Next Stop Kirkcaldy and from the early 1920s was widely reported as being a popular concert recital piece both in Fife, and elsewhere in Scotland.
In 1925 it was published in a book of Twentieth Century Scots Verse, selected by Mr William Robb, Chief Inspector of Schools in Lanarkshire. Robb was an expert in Scots dialect, interested in the "revival of the use of the Scots vernacular tongue as a literary medium", lecturing and publishing on Modern Scots Poetry. Robb was the first to name Mary Campbell Smith as author of the poem, citing his source as the Total Eclipse 1913 magazine. Twentieth Century Scots Verse also contains the only other known poem by Mary Campbell Smith, Mirren McKee. After publication in this volume, The Boy in the Trains popularity increased, and has been included in many anthologies of popular Scottish verse. It has often being recorded as having been performed and enjoyed at concerts throughout Scotland. By the mid 20th Century was synonymous with Kirkcaldy in popular culture.
Although she lived to see the growing popularity of her poem, it is believed that Mary Campbell Smith never set foot in the station that she made famous.
Form
The poem is written in four stanzas in phonetically transcribed Scots. The four stanzas each have eight lines (octaves), in alternating Iambic tetrameter and Iambic trimeter with some playing with Anapestic stressing. The strong rhythm echoes the noise of a steam train travelling at speed along tracks. The poem uses the ABABCDCD traditional rhyme scheme. However, the last line of the first three stanzas is repeated: "next stop Kirkcaddy", giving repetition of the D rhyme in each stanza, although changing from question to growing confidence as a statement. This is resolved in the final two lines, with the poem's well-known phrase: For I ken mysel' by the queer-like smell / That the next stop's Kirkcaddy!
Analysis
Interpretation
The Boy in the Train describes the steam train journey of an un-named, young boy with his mother and father, from an unnamed western point on the coastal train line in Fife, as they travel eastwards and then north to Kirkcaldy railway station, to visit his grandmother. The poem is a range of questions asked and excited, humorous observations made by the boy, leaving no space for any reply, but showing his developing reasoning as he goes through a landscape he starts to recognise. Although first published in 1913, the date of writing is unknown.