Music, Poetry

The Stream Flows On with Janet Henderson

Carrying Stream Festival/Fèill Sruth an Eòlais 2026

(Sat 14 Nov: 3pm)

Hamish Henderson experienced poetry, storytelling, music and song as an eternally life-affirming and nourishing flow of creative energy from which all may freely draw and into which all may generously contribute. He would no doubt have been delighted therefore to discover that his daughter, Janet, is now making her own contribution to the Carrying Stream with a recently published collection of poetry entitled Still Swimming.

In this relaxed and informal event, Janet will introduce the book and discuss the path that has led her back to poetry, exploring her father’s influence on her work and reading a selection of her poems both published and unpublished. While poetry was her father’s “first love”, Janet contends that latterly it was through song that he found the most satisfying and authentic connection with his fellow man. Following in his footsteps once more, Janet will close the session by singing several of her father’s songs and several of her own compositions, inviting the music to work its unique magic. Join Janet and friends upstairs in the Storytelling Court after the performance for book signing and conversation.

Janet Henderson is the younger daughter of Hamish Henderson. Encouraged by her father, she was a keen writer of poetry in her teens, but then took a lengthy “sabbatical”, working for 15 years as a lawyer in London before moving to Provence with her husband in 2003. Since then she has raised a family, created a history tour company and trained as a yoga and meditation teacher. Since 2016 she has been writing lyrical meditations infused with the energies of nature and the beauty of the countryside that surrounds her, and in 2020 she finally returned to poetry. She has recently published her first collection of poetry, Still Swimming. In 2025 she noticed that some of her poems were quietly asking for a musical accompaniment, thus she has now turned her hand to songwriting. Her main focus for the time being is her songs, and she is looking to record an album in 2027.

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This autumn, explore the changing world of the traditional arts and the legacy of the great Scottish folklorist, songwriter and activist Hamish Henderson. Audiences, writers and traditional artists of all kinds will come together as part of the Carrying Stream Festival 2026 for gatherings, talks, sessions, workshops and performances.

The ethos of the festival is to celebrate and encourage the Carrying Stream; the organic route by which music, song, spoken word and all manner of culture, is passed on from person to person and from generation to generation. The Festival originated with the Edinburgh Folk Club and SSC is delighted to be part of its revival this year along with friends and partners across Edinburgh.

• Poetry
• £0.00
• 14 November 2026
• 120 minutes
• 15:00
• Scottish Storytelling Centre
• Netherbow Theatre
• 12+