Born Thomas Alexander Robertson at Westerwick at the southern tip of the parish of Sandsting, his mother's home.
A shy boy who adjusted with difficulty to the rough and tumble of school, he was nonetheless able both at physical and intellectual pursuits, and in time he excelled.
He took his MA at the University of Edinburgh and was offered the possibility of postgraduate work at Oxford, which he turned down for financial reasons, instead becoming a teacher at the Lerwick Central School and carer to his ailing mother.
In 1953, he married Martha (‘Pat’), daughter of the Reverend Robert Andrew, Church of Scotland minister in Walls for over 40 years, a girl he had known in childhood.
In 1945, Vagaland was instrumental in the founding of the Shetland Folk Society and he was an office-bearer from its inception until his death after a long illness, in Lerwick on 30 December 1973.