GAEL Turnbull was an original: imaginative, forthright and a passionate lover of poetry. He wrote predominantly
modernist poems, founded the Migrant Press, which introduced many American poets to this country, and also practised
as a medical doctor on both sides of the Atlantic. He lived for many years in America and Canada, as well as in England
and Scotland, and greatly enjoyed exploring new cultures, traditions and experiences with an inquiring relish.

Turnbull’s father’s family had long connections with Berwick-on-Tweed (the family were hereditary freemen of the city),
and he was in fact born in Tollcross, but the year after his birth the family emigrated to Canada. It was the first of many
resettlements that took place in his life. After school in Winnipeg, Turnbull read Natural Sciences at Christ’s College,
Cambridge and then studied medicine at the University of Pennsylvania whence he graduated in 1951. The year before he
had had his first poems published in various magazines including the Edinburgh Review.

For the next decade this jovial and passionate man lived in America and in Canada where he worked to publish French
and English poets in Quebec. In 1957 he was back in Malvern founding the Migrant Press, which championed modernist
poets on both sides of the Atlantic. He formed a close working relationship with the poet Roy Fisher, and Migrant
became a definite force in discovering and publishing new writers.

In 1989, with his second wife, Iles Norman, he moved back to Edinburgh and lived in Strathearn Place. She researched
the history of the Scottish glass industry and he continued to write. It was in the Eighties that he became fascinated by
what he called Kinetic sculptures. These were visual devices with a very personal energy and which he described as
"dynamism as opposed to static".

In 1997, after Transmutations, a collection of imaginative prose poems, appeared, he first "showed" at the Botanic
Gardens in Glasgow an "arrangement". The "site-specific" compilation comprised a large collection of phrases and words
round Kibble Palace in the Gardens, and Turnbull wrote of the visual experience: "it is the viewer/reader who must move.
Starting and stopping as they choose to do." For many years Turnbull was an enthusiastic member of the Edinburgh
Fringe. Each summer, in all weather, he displayed and gave recitations on the Royal Mile. Turnbull was a born performer.
On the High Street, he often appeared in slacks and shirt- sleeves and (typical of the man) wearing a black silk top hat
which added a certain colour and majesty to his one-man show. Turnbull also held kinetic experiences also in St
Andrews, London and Paris.

Turnbull’s poetry was characterised by his wide range of technical resources - emanating from his love of the Border
Ballads - and his spirit of invention. The Edinburgh Poem (2001) in many ways sums up his work. It is an affectionate and
amusing satire of the city and its folk. It celebrates his birthplace with, at times, an ironic air, (on occasions he encouraged
interaction with an audience) but underneath there was always a genuine love and affection.

Turnbull died while giving poetry readings in the West Country and Herefordshire.

He married Jonnie Draper in 1952. That marriage was dissolved in 1983, and that year he married Jill Iles Norman. His
second wife and three daughters by his first marriage survive him.