Jane Duncan

Elizabeth Jane Cameron was born in Renton, West Dunbartonshire on 10 March 1910 and brought up in the Scottish Lowlands. Her father Duncan Cameron was a police officer in the Vale of Leven, eventually as a sergeant.{{Cite web|last=MacPherson|first=Hamish|date=7 March 2021|title=The forgotten Scots author who broke the mould with a seven-book advance|url=https://www.thenational.scot/news/19141627.jane-duncan-forgotten-author-broke-mould-seven-book-advance/|access-date=9 March 2021|work=The National|location=Scotland|page=11|language=en}} He had a brother, George. Her mother, Janet Cameron née Sandison died of influenza when Duncan was 10 years old, and her brother, John, was sent to live with their grandparents.CAMERON, Elizabeth Jane -LSB-JaneDuncan, JanetSandison-RSB-. (2018). In E. Ewan, R. Pipes, & J. Rendall, The new Biographical Dictionary of Scottish Women (2nd ed.). Edinburgh University Press. Credo Reference: https://ezproxy.monmouth.edu/login?url=https://search.credoreference.com/content/entry/edinburghsw/cameron_elizabeth_jane_jane_duncan_janet_sandison/0?institutionId=1520 Her younger sister, Catherine, had already died when Duncan was 4 years old. Her father brought her up and moved with his job, so Duncan attended Lenzie Academy in the area of Lenzie, East Dunbartonshire (thought to be one of the sources of 'Cairnton' of her novels), but much of her childhood was spent in the Highlands on the Black Isle in Easter Ross, on her grandparents' croft "The Colony" (said to be the "Reachfar" of her novels), where her brother John was (known locally as Jock).

Her father married Christina Maitland, known as Kirsty. Duncan did not relate well to her stepmother.

Duncan graduated M.A. in English from the University of Glasgow, including French, Moral Philosophy and Scottish History in her studies. During the Great Depression, when she left university at the age of 20, she had to take various jobs, as a nursemaid, a companion or as a secretary and later as a model. She enlisted as World War II began to serve as a Flight Officer (Intelligence), WAAF alongside the choreographer Frederick Ashton. Her first posting was the Operations Room then promoted to an officer in Photographic Intelligence, officially at RAF Medenham, but possibly was a part of the top secret Bletchley Park codebreakers.

After the war, she returned to secretarial work at James Cuthbert's engineering works in Biggar. There Duncan met her lover, Alexander (Sandy) Clapperton, who was married to a Catholic woman and could not divorce. But in 1949, both went to live in Jamaica for ten years (she also changed her surname to Clapperton). Sandy became chief engineer at Hampden Estates, the biggest sugar plantation on the island. Duncan then began her career as an author, although the juvenile works she had begun earlier had been burned. Her first novel, My Friend Muriel was to a literary agent, during Sandy's terminal illness with heart disease, presumably in the hope of an income. Sandy was able to know that she had a seven-book deal with Macmillan, by his 48th birthday, although he died a few months later.

As a young 'widow', Duncan then returned to Scotland, to Jemimaville, near "The Colony", in 1958, to live with her uncle George, at Rose Cottage, where she wrote her later novels. She bought up the nearby ruined old store and the ruined church, as well as taking on Rose Cottage, eventually, and worked in the Cromarty 'Friendly Shop' (named Achcraggan in her books).

Her brother Jock Cameron and his children Seonaid, Neil, Donald and Ian lived in rural Aberdeenshire and Duncan visited them there. The youngest Ian had learning difficulties and Duncan helped the family accept him as well as assisting financially, so that her sister-in-law could keep all the children together and pay for help with housework. Duncan later wrote about the Camerons (including a character based on Ian) in her children's books.

Duncan died in Jemimaville of a heart attack, on 20 October 1976, shortly after finishing her final novel, and is buried in Kirkmichael cemetery, with the inscription with her real name in parentheses: "In memory of Jane Duncan (Elizabeth Jane Cameron). Author. Died October 1976. Age 66." The Scotsman ran an article feature on Duncan after her death, in which her niece, Seonaid, noted that despite feeling 'a bit in awe of her', when writers such as Ian Grimble and Eric Linklater visited, had found in her aunt a real life confidante.  Her nephew, Iain, recalled that their 'Auntie Bet' was ' a really clever woman" and

'Very strong. She was very pro women and pro women fighting as equals in a man's world. A pretty indomitable character. If she got patronised, she would really go for people.'{{Cite web|title=Jane Duncan may be out of print for 40 years but she is about to be heard again|url=https://www.scotsman.com/arts-and-culture/jane-duncan-may-be-out-print-40-years-she-about-be-heard-again-1720471|access-date=2021-03-09|website=scotsman.com|language=en}}

In 1959, Duncan became something of a publishing sensation when Macmillan Publishers announced that it would be publishing seven of her manuscripts, the first to be produced being My Friends the Miss Boyds. The nineteenth and last of the series, My Friends George and Tom, was published in 1976.

The biographical background to her writing is given in her Letter from Reachfar (1975), although also a selective view of her life.{{Cite book|last=Waterston|first=Elizabeth|url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/666902750|title=Rapt in plaid : Canadian literature and Scottish tradition|date=2001|publisher=University of Toronto Press|isbn=978-1-4426-7899-6|location=Toronto|page=255|oclc=666902750}}

The My Friends series is narrated by Janet Sandison (her mother's maiden name) and follows the character's life from the World War I period through to the 1960s, depicting the people she encounters and showing how her crofting upbringing influences her in the society she meets and geographical locations she finds herself in, and was heavily based on her own life.{{Cite web|date=2017-11-02|title='Reappraising Jane Duncan: Sexuality, Race and Colonialism in the My Friends Novels' by Rita Elizabeth Rippetoe|url=https://www.thebottleimp.org.uk/2017/11/reappraising-jane-duncan-sexuality-race-colonialism-friends-novels-rita-elizabeth-rippetoe/|access-date=2020-09-25|website=The Bottle Imp|language=en-GB}}

In the four-novel Jean Robertson sequence (1969–75), notionally written by Sandison (who herself becomes an author), the heroine and part-narrator moves from bleak beginnings in the town of "Lochfoot" (based on Balloch, West Dunbartonshire) to become a house-servant in the interwar period, influencing for good the lives of many around her.{{Citation needed|date=March 2021}}

The five-book "Camerons" series for children have a contemporary setting (being inspired by the author's niece and nephews, "The Hungry Generation") and are notable for including the main character young Iain who has learning difficulties (Down Syndrome), one of the first novels to do so .

Her Camerons on the Train was filmed as The Camerons (Children's Film Foundation, 1974).{{Cite web|title=Children's Film and Television Foundation - Film Catalogue - Z|url=http://www.cftf.org.uk/catalogue/z.html|access-date=2021-03-09|website=cftf.org.uk}}

To mark the centenary of Jane Duncan's birth, Millrace Books have re-published My Friends the Miss Boyds,{{Cite web |url=http://www.millracebooks.co.uk/books/my_friends_the_miss_boyds.html |title=My Friends the Miss Boyds — Millrace Books |access-date=26 June 2010 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110222160437/http://www.millracebooks.co.uk/books/my_friends_the_miss_boyds.html |archive-date=22 February 2011 |url-status=dead }} launched at Waterstone’s bookshop in Inverness on Thursday 24 June 2010.

Rita Elizabeth Rippetoe has written Reappraising Jane Duncan: Sexuality, Race and Colonialism in the My Friends Novels (2017).

As Jane Duncan:

My Friends the Miss Boyds

My Friend Muriel

My Friend Monica

My Friend Annie

My Friend Sandy

My Friend Martha's Aunt

My Friend Flora

My Friend Madame Zora

My Friend Rose

My Friend Cousin Emmie

My Friends the Mrs. Millers

My Friends from Cairnton

My Friend my Father

My Friends the MacLeans

My Friends the Hungry Generation

My Friend the Swallow

My Friend Sashie

My Friends the Misses Kindness

My Friends George and Tom

Autobiography:

Letter from Reachfar

Children's books:

Camerons on the Train

Camerons on the Hills

Camerons at the Castle

Camerons Calling

Camerons Ahoy!

Herself and Janet Reachfar (originally published as Brave Janet Reachfar)

Janet Reachfar and the Kelpie

Brave Janet Reachfar (reissued as Herself and Janet Reachfar)

Janet Reachfar and Chickabird

As Janet Sandison

Jean in the Morning

Jean at Noon

Jean in the Twilight

Jean Towards Another Day

• {{cite book|author=Hart, Francis Russell|title=The Scottish Novel: a critical survey|publisher=John Murray|location=London|year=1978|isbn=0-7195-3534-4}}
• {{cite book|author=Rippetoe, Rita Elizabeth|title=Reappraising Jane Duncan: Sexuality, Race and Colonialism in the My Friends Novels|publisher=McFarland|location=Jefferson, NC|year=2017|isbn=978-0-7864-9887-1}}

{{Portal |Children's literature}}

• Children's Film Foundation filmography
• Neil Miller Gunn

{{reflist}}

• [https://web.archive.org/web/20110222160437/http://www.millracebooks.co.uk/books/my_friends_the_miss_boyds.html My Friends the Miss Boyds reprinted by Millrace Books, UK]
• [http://www.kirkmichael.info/jane%20duncan/duncan.html Duncan at the Kirkmichael Trust]

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Category:1910 births

Category:1976 deaths

Category:Scottish children's writers

Category:Scottish women novelists

Category:Alumni of the University of Glasgow

Category:People from Renton, West Dunbartonshire

Category:People educated at Lenzie Academy

Category:20th-century Scottish novelists

Category:20th-century Scottish women writers

Category:20th-century Scottish women