In 1951, MacDiarmid’s publisher, William MacLellan, introduced the poet to Thomas Tweedie, the owner of Brownsbank Farm. Thanks to the Tweedie family, the Grieves lived rent-free at Brownsbank for the rest of their lives.
When they first moved in, the cottage - a basic but an ben - had neither water nor electricity. Ten years later, the actor Alex McCrindle raised money from MacDiarmid’s friends to install electricity and water and build a lean-to kitchen and bathroom. The cottage, as it is now, retains many of its original artefacts: portraits, wallie dugs, memorabilia. MacDiarmid himself once observed, ‘This place is a growing shrine to my vanity’. Much of its charm derived from Valda’s flair for collecting esoteric items at jumble sales, not to mention her carpentry skills!