User:Stitchill/sandbox/life

THIS IS MY SANDBOX FOR ROBERT MCLELLAN'S CAREER

Life
McLellan was born in 1907 at Linmill, a fruit farm in Kirkfieldbank in the Clyde valley, the home of his maternal grandparents. He grew up in Milngavie where his father, John McLellan, in c.1912 founded and subsequently ran the Allander Press. McLellan was educated at Bearsden Academy in Glasgow before studying philosophy at the University of Glasgow, although he did not complete his degree due to ill-health. He met his future wife, Kathleen Heys while climbing in the Lake District. They were married  in 1938 and settled in High Corrie on the Isle of Arran where they lived modestly on his income as a playwright. McLellan served as a gun control officer ith the Royal Artillery during the Second World War, returning home in 1946. He served as a District Councillor for the Arran from 1955 onwards and was elected President of the Scottish Association of District Councils in 1962-4. He died in 1985 and is buried on Arran.

Writing Career
Robert McLellan began writing plays in the early 1930s, during the 'first phase' of the Scottish Renaissance. Most of his early drama was first premiered by Curtain Theatre in Glasgow, and other respected amateur companies such as Dumbarton People's Theatre. His first play was the one act comedy, Jeddart Justice (Curtain, January 1933) set in the world of the Border Reivers. The next six years, up to the outbreak of the war in 1939-40, were a prolific and experimental early period for McLellan, and his many successes included the 1937 debut by Curtain of the acknowledged masterpiece, Jamie the Saxt at the Glasgow Lyric with actor Duncan Macrae (actor) in the lead role. His last play of his early pre-war period, The Laird o Torwatletie (originally entited The Bogle), was completed during 1940, but had to wait until 1946 for its first production.

Although McLellan's playwriting career was interrupted after he enlisted with