Such an Air—a Coda
As briefly explained in Rousay Mending: a Footnote, the poet John Sharkey's arrival in Rousay was completely unexpected by Ian, whom he had followed there from Edinburgh more or less on a whim. Malnourished and sick with the rigours of travel, perhaps by hitch-hiking but certainly in impoverished circumstances, John spent a week or so recovering in hospital. As is further indicated in the Footnote, John's having been given a room in Millburn, after being taken on by the road squad and following the fire that destroyed his caravan, was a development that may have prompted Ian—not in general unsociable but wanting privacy— to spend more time at Nethermill. Some documentary evidence, including “Finlay’s House (in Rousay)” in The Dancers Inherit the Party, eventually to be discussed in this writer's biography, and summarised in the Footnote, strongly implies that he would at times have slept there.
After Ian left Rousay in May 1959, John continued living at Millburn and working with the road squad until later that year, when he decided he would either have to leave or never get away. He returned to Edinburgh for a couple of years, then moved to the Bristol area for a time and became known within the concrete poetry movement, of which Ian for several years was acknowledged internationally as a leading member. He edited an anthology, Mindplay (1971), but Ian declined to appear in it; among other reasons, he felt “outside and uninvolved in what is happening now”. In the London art scene, John participated with Gustav Metzger in DIAS, leading to some controversy, and worked for a time at the ICA. He later published several volumes on such topics as Celtic Mysteries: The Ancient Religion (1975) and latterly lived in Pembrokeshire, in a rural cottage he was pleased to note resembled a fisherman's.
John had begun his career in Ireland as a medical student, but having dropped out—in due course identifying himself (after Jack Kerouak's novel) as a "dharma bum"—he was well acquainted with the demands of the kind of labouring work he fell into in Rousay. One skill that it seems he acquired at Blossom, that stood him in good stead when he found a job in a Cornish tin mine, was in the use of dynamite.