The poet, William Soutar, author of The Diaries of a Dying Man, was born in Perth on this day in 1898.

After changing from studying medicine to literature, Soutar's first volume of poetry, Gleanings of an Undergraduate, was published in 1923, within a year of his graduation from Edinburgh University.

Soutar suffered from a gradual immobilising illness, ankylosing spondilitis, and from November 1930 he was permanently confined to bed. He spent his bed-bound days composing poetry, escaping through his imagination, and holding court to his many visitors and fellow writers, dressed in jacket and bow tie. Soutar died from tuberculosis in October 1943, at the age of 45. The house where he lived and composed his poetry, the "Soutar Hoose" in Perth, is now home to a writer in residence.

Sir Alexander MacKenzie, the Scottish composer and conductor, died in 1935. Mackenzie conducted the British premieres of Tchaikovsky's Sixth Symphony, and Borodin's Second Symphony. His noted choral works included the cantata, The Bride, the opera, Colomba, and the oratorio, The Rose of Sharon.

Today's recipe: serve some brain food this exam season. The oily fish in this kedgeree should give the little grey cells a boost.