John Angus

John Angus

**updated 6 October 2025**  I have completely redone this entry, because it originally began with a conflation, sourced at the National Library of Scotland, of John Angus with other persons. That error has been corrected, and I have now updated this entry with information provided by the author's daughter.*

John Angus 

John Angus (b. Montrose, Scotland, 5 December 1906; d. Stornoway, Scotland, 23 March 1968) 

John Angus was the third of five children (three sons--the first had died in infancy--then two daughters) of John Angus (1874-1956), a manager of Chapel Works (a flax mill) and a chairman of the Montrose Public Library,  and Hope Wallace Angus, née Chalmers (1874-1946), who were married in Montrose on 1 September 1904. 

He was educated at the Montrose Academy and at University College, Dundee, where he studied civil engineering.  Professionally he worked first in the city engineer's department in Dundee, then at Dunblane, with the Perthshire County Council. Angus married Marie Margaret Stewart (1923-2018) on 27 December 1951 in Edinburgh. They had three children, two sons and one daughter. Around 1952 he was appointed the resident engineer for the Isle of Lewis at Stornoway, in the Outer Hebrides. "Jock" Angus died in Stornoway aged 61. 

His first two books are both fantasies, and both are rare today. The Sheltering Pine (London: Hutchinson, [April] 1934) was published as no. 20 in “Hutchinson’s First Novel Library.” Hutchinson’s blurbed the book very strangely, as if expecting it to fail because it is a fantasy: “None but the most ambitious of writers adopt fantasy as the motif in their first novel, and few achieve success with it. Mr. Angus, however, has succeeded with brilliance in this strange, haunting story which deals with a man who lived under the protection and guidance of the ancient spirits of a pine tree.”  Here the fairies of a remote Highland glen seem to have more life than the central human characters upon whom they effect the curse and blessing of the titular pine tree.  The Times Literary Supplement noted: "The descriptive passages have charm and a certain power of evocation, the action of the book is rapid, there is suspense, excitement and several minor characters who give the impression of truth. The book is least successful in creating interest in the chief characters" (23 August 1934). 

The book had at least a small success. It was quickly followed by The Homecoming: A Tale of Two Ages (London:  Hutchinson, [June] 1935). Again Hutchinson's blurbed it strangely: 

It is customary in this modern age to deride fantasy, to ridicule the faerie element in life and to concentrate on what are known as "hard facts". When John Angus published The Sheltering Pine and courageously told his strange story of the deathless "Little Folk" of Celtic legend, few expected for it the success it finally achieved.  

Now, in his second novel, Mr. Angus, with the same brilliance of imagination, in the same quiet style so well suited to the mysticism of his subject, tells a story in which the past and present are inextricable involved, and of a warlock who cheated death five hundred years ago, played havoc down the centuries, and met his final defeat in out present century.

The Homecoming is even more steeped in Scottish history than its predecessor. Angus invents a character James Ogilvie and places him in the middle of a fifteenth-century conflict between the Ogilvies and the Lindsays, and sets up a mystery to do with the comfit box given to him by his wife. He is killed by the evil Anthony Sinclair, who is in turn killed by his master, Earl Beardie. Sinclair's spirit then passes from with to witch until the present time when the comfit box is discovered and the story plays out. The Times Literary Supplement said: "Mr. Angus's touch is not so sure when he is writing of the present day as it is when he deals with the exciting scenes of 1444, but if his pen seems to flag and his modern characters are not completely successful, his fantasy nevertheless holds its interest to the end" (27 June 1935).

After the publication of his first two novels, Angus began contributing short stories to The Scots Magazine, and later to The Scottish Annual and the Braemar Gathering Book, published for the prestigious and longstanding Games festival held in Braemar every year since the early nineteenth century on the first Saturday of September, and usually attended by the British royal family. At the age of fifty Angus started writing poems. His final short story "The Voices" appeared in The Scots Magazine the month before his death. After his death, his friend Margaret Fairweather Michie wrote:  

Although John Angus was born in Montrose and died in Stornoway, his roots were in Glenesk. For him the Glen was the source and inspiration of the bulk of his work. From his early days, when he spent July along with his family at Migvie, he was thirled to the place. John was first and foremost a story-teller, both verbally and on paper. The Sheltering Pine and The Homecoming, his published novels, appeared in the 1930s, and at this early stage his flair for fantasy was apparent, So also was his ability to describe the Glen folk. Later he concentrated on the short story. (The Scotsman, 29 March 1968)

An unpublished Scottish historical novel from the late 1940s, Balnamoon: The Rebel Laird (about James Carnegy, later James Carnegy-Arbuthnott 1712-1791,  a Jacobite supporter defeated at the Battle of Culloden in 1746 who hid near his family home in Glen Esk in north east Scotland), was published by InverMark Books of Cheltenham, run by his son Niall Angus, who also published the slim volume Glenesk: The Collected Poems of John Angus. Both are dated 2006, but were apparently distributed in early 2007. 

*Thanks to Shona Partridge for her help.