Kay thought that many people would not have heard 'how the language sounds' in major Scots literature such as Barbour's Brus, R.L.
Stevenson's Thrawn Janet, works by MacDiarmid and Burns or the Border Ballads covered in his book: a sound version, he said, would 'fill a big gap' in people's 'knowledge and appreciation of a great tradition'.
[4] Kay's popular radio series, Odyssey, broadcast by BBC Radio Scotland in 1979, was a ground-breaking work of oral history which captured the diverse experiences of men and women across Scotland, including migrants from Donegal, Kintyre fishermen, Lithuanians in Lanarkshire, Dundee jute workers, Shetland whalers, Tiree emigrants to Canada, and servicemen seeking to exercise their land rights on returning to Knoydart after the Second World War.
The following year, Odyssey: Voices from Scotland’s Recent Past, a collection of material drawn from the first series, was published by Polygon Books.
[2] A production based on the book was presented by the Saltire Society on the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in August 1985, in which Kay was supported by the singer Rod Paterson and musicians Jim Sutherland and Derek Hoy.