Indy Matters's video: Don Roberto - Laird of Gartmore Gaucho of the Pampas Part 3

Billy Kay celebrates the fabulous life of RB Cunninghame Graham, one of the most influential Scots of the 19th and 20th centuries. In this the second programme from his archive series from 1999, Billy focuses on Don Roberto's sojourns in South America - for as a young man he followed the Spanish side of his heritage to Paraguay and Argentina. In Argentina he is regarded as a national hero and the father of the gaucho - the man who rode on the Pampas then brought the glories of the South American cowboy to the outside world through his short stories. His legendary status is such that many in the Lake of Menteith area swear that gauchos have come to the Isle of Inchmahome to sing melancholic Spanish eulogies at his graveside. Without doubt his greatest South American legacy came from his portrayal of the gaucho. You feel he was never sure he should ever have left their world of "paja y cielo - grass and sky, and sky and grass, and then still more grass and still more sky" even though their world became more and more resticted as progress literally fenced them in towards the end of the 19th century. Graham's wanderings in South America also took him to Colombia and Brazil where he wrote his book A Brazilian Mystic while the desolate Jesuit ruins in Paraguay inspired him to write about Spanish brutality against the Indians in A Vanished Arcadia - which in turn gave rise to the wonderful feature film The Mission. ----- If you would like to follow up your interest in R.B. Cunninghame Graham, you can contact the Convener of the Cunninghame Graham Society, Gerry McGarvey here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/CunninghameGrahamSociety/ There is also a collection of Don Roberto memorabilia available to see at the Smith Art Gallery and Museum in Stirling: http://www.smithartgalleryandmuseum.co.uk/ For more information on Billy Kay visit www.billykay.scot