ISSUE 34 - SPRING 2017

B L E T H E R S 'S NATIONAL NETWORKS FOR TRADITIONAL ARTS AND CULTURE

SCOTTISH TRADITIONAL TRADITIONAL STORYTELLING MUSIC DANCE FORUM OF FORUM (SSF) FORUM (TMF) SCOTLAND (TDSF)

Supporting and Scotland's network of Celebrating the celebrating the traditional traditional music diversity of traditional art of storytelling and the organisations - putting dance and other diverse network of traditional music at the related traditional and storytellers across heart of Scotland's social dance forms in Scotland today culture Scotland

A living flow of song, music, dance, story and wordplay Space for conviviality and collective energy open to all Creative practice inspired by shared memory and experience A wellspring for community identities and personal growth

www.tracscotland.org Scottish Storytelling Centre, 43-45 High Street, EH1 1SR THE PEOPLE'S PARISH OUR PLACE, OUR STORY The People's Parish is a new initiative from TRACS to support communities to shape and share the story of their own place.

The aim is to inspire and The project was launched in March support creative 2017 with an event piloting some of neighbourhood projects in the developing free community resources. This included exploring each of Scotland's 871 civil old parish maps with Laragh parishes, connecting local Quinney from Library stories, traditions and cultural of Scotland and creative re-mapping memory with the diverse with artist Kate Downey and David voices of Scotland today, Francis. Ethnologist, folklorist and bound together by a sense of traditional singer Chris Wright from Local Voices spoke about the place. The civil parish is the importance of building community "We need to use Scotland starting point because it through the sharing of local culture reflects this human-scale such as song and story, and imaginatively, to reassess relationship with local place. ethnologists Mairi McFadyen and Ella and repossess it Leith chaired a discussion on the The inspiration for this initiative ecological 'Lifelines' that thread imaginatively; to suggest that came from the old Statistical communities of place together. many Scotlands might exist Account of Scotland, which began over two hundred years ago at the These starter resources are within its geographical close of the 18th century. In the available to download on the bounds" 21st century, the story of our places resource website: should be told not by a few www.peoplesparish.scot James Robertson professionals or central institutions, but by the people who live and work in each individual parish, on their own terms. THE PEOPLE'S PARISH AIMS We hope the result will be a  to involve all of Scotland's 871 parishes democratic 'creative account' of  to bring together local activists and organisations Scotland, reflecting the distinct local  to encourage participation in community life voices, culture and creativity of our places today. The resulting work will  to inspire new forms of mapping be archived and made available for  to gather and give voice to songs, stories, dances, traditions, visuals, future generations, while the histories and fictions process of creating and producing  to facilitate digital representation of local culture and access to it the work will have many positive  to create a resource for generations to come. outcomes for the communities undertaking it.

We are currently assembling ideas for supporting communities to carry out this work, connecting with local resources and an emerging national network of field-workers and community artists. If you are interested in initiating a local participatory creative project in your local area and would like more information, support or training, please contact us: David Francis [email protected] www.peoplesparish.scot

2 www.tracscotland.org GENDER IN FOLK AND TRADITIONAL MUSIC , BBC Radio 2 Folk Award Musician of the Year 2017 and Instrumentalist of the Year 2016, has been outspoken in her concerns about the role of gender in traditional music in Scotland. A Facebook post in November 2016 provoked a debate across the traditional music scene, leading to the formation of 'The Bit Collective' - a space for people who are interested in exploring these issues to come together. She reflects below.

www.rachelnewtonmusic.com

I wrote a Facebook post back in Despite the support I received in the and contributing to the conversation November 2016 after voting in the lead up on social media and from with thoughts of their own on how to Scots Trad Music Awards and being friends, I was extremely nervous make progress towards gender struck by the ratio of men to women about hosting the talk, having never equality and dealing with gender issues in certain categories, particularly the done anything like it before and in the trad scene. category 'Live Act of the Year,' but wondering what support there really Since the event at , was for such an event in real life also 'Instrumentalist' and 'Composer.' and all the conversations and articles (away from social media). I was so It got me thinking about the roles that have emerged since, I've had women are expected to play in pleased with the turn out and the fact that there were so many people some time to digest it all. I met up traditional/ and why it is that with and Mikaela so many of the headlining festival interested in what we had to say and wanting to join in the conversation. Atkins who were also on the panel to bands are all male. I wanted to find have a debrief and to discuss what out why it's the case that when we There is so much discussion around happens next. The panel were brilliant see a woman performing on a high women in the arts and gender and I hope to meet up with them all profile platform, it's usually as a singer equality across all platforms at the again to work on future talks and who is nearly always accompanied by moment - including at this year’s Trad plans. We hope to put on more an all-male band. The response to my Talk - and from my point of view it's events in the future for people to post showed me that I wasn't the important that the trad music scene share their thoughts and we are about only person asking these questions gets involved and doesn't shy away to launch the beginnings of a new and so I set about planning a from joining the conversation. collective of people looking to conduct get-together for those of us research and make plans to identify Since bringing up the issue, I've always interested in such issues to discuss it and address the issues raised so far. been keen to keep the conversation all further and in more detail than 'The Bit Collective' had their first as inclusive as possible and am aware gathering in in April of this social media can allow. Celtic that it's so easy for some to feel like Connections agreed to host the talk year. We look forward to continuing they're coming under attack. This this conversation into the future. 'Exploring Music and Gender' at this really isn't my intention and I was year's festival, based on the fact that heartened to see a good number of Rachel Newton their theme this year was to men in the audience, mostly keeping @rachel_newton_ ‘celebrate women in music’. an open mind to what we had to say @BITcollective1

www.tracscotland.org 3 IN MEMORY: LAWRENCE TULLOCH 1942-2017

This year we lost storyteller Lawrence Tulloch. In the words of his dear friend, storyteller Tom Muir, 'a light in the north has gone out.' Many fine tributes have been shared which are testament to Lawrence's kindness, warmth and talents as a tradition bearer.

Lawrence Tulloch was a tradition bearer in its true meaning; he carried with him the stories of Shetland and passed them on to a new generation. His stories came from his father, Tom Tulloch, who in turn inherited them from his mother, and so on down the years. I had the great privilege to travel with him, telling stories in many countries. We were storm tossed in a force nine gale off the Faroes, told The first time I had the good fortune What a wonderful way he had of our tales in a Viking longhouse in to meet Lawrence was on the Isle of telling stories, many of which he had northern Sweden, ran workshops for Skye at George McPhersons home in heard on Yell from his father Tom. His new storytellers in Slovenia and even Glendale. I had never really heard a books were written just the way he entertained members of the royal Shetland accent before and had to spoke too and I shall treasure them. family of Lichtenstein in their 14th lean in keenly as he told a story whilst His encouragement to me in my early century castle in Austria. Lawrence's I tuned my ears into the musicality of days of becoming a storyteller were love of stories was infectious and he his rich voice. He was telling a very precious. The world is a richer was always ready to spend time comical tale about a Bear with a place for having him in it and talking and sharing his treasure trove glistening twinkle in his eye, which left storytelling has lost a shining star. of tales with anyone who was people in the room roaring with interested. I have lost a brother and Anne Pitcher the world has lost a precious soul. laughter and swaying in their chairs. For Lawrence was undoubtedly the Lawrence Tulloch will live on in his I am saddened to hear of the death of Master of the comic tale. He was an stories, as his stories live on because Lawrence. He was a true gentleman instantly kind and warm friend, an of him. of storytelling and I was privileged to honourable man, hugely witty, Tom Muir share stories with him both on and intelligent, a life rich in experience like off the stage. I grieve the loss of a a great tapestry, and from birth raised Lawrence Tulloch brought a very rare friend but cherish the memories we in a life seeped in the traditional arts shared. kindness and humour into the world. which he championed with every I have many treasured memories of breath like his father before him. George Macpherson Lawrence: in Shetland he showed me trowie mounds and told me how Lawrence Tulloch, the late great Treasure Island was secretly Muckle Master and much-loved friend. Flugga, and many a night at Orkney Marion Kenny Storytelling Festival, in the company of his dear friend Tom Muir, continued until the early hours filled with un- It was with great sadness that I repeatable stories. He inspired and heard of Lawrence's passing. I met encouraged me, as a storyteller but him at several Scottish Storytelling also as a friend - I am immensely Festivals and he was just a sheer happy to have shared time with him, delight of a man to be with. He was and his words and laughter will stay such a kind and gentle person with with me for life. a lovely warm sense of humour and Erin Farley a smile that lit up his face.

4 www.tracscotland.org PADDY BORT: 1954 -2017 FAREWELL WELCOME STRANGER Earlier this year the folk world lost Eberhard 'Paddy' Bort. He was a founder member of the renowned Wee Folk Club at the Royal Oak and, at the time of his death, had been chairman for 16 years of the long-established Edinburgh Folk Club. In 2002 he established the annual ‘Carrying Stream Festival’ in memory of his hero, the poet and folklorist Hamish Henderson. His friend Steve Byrne shares his memories below.

I've known Paddy since I was 18 years He authored and edited numerous old; Paddy and I came to Edinburgh volumes on Scottish and European within a year of each other in the mid- politics and was widely respected in his 1990s. As such he was very much part field; some of the earliest books of his of my own personal landscape that I have were from the late 90s on Photo by Allan McMillan musically and socially and today I am in Borders and Borderlands in Europe total shock at the loss of someone and the intricacies of the Schengen who had such an influence in my early Some of my happiest memories are agreement. It is particularly tragic at this the days of the Royal Oak plays back days as a young musician, starting up point in European history that we lose when I had time enough to spend as a the ladder and beginning to travel someone of his expertise. regular in that real howff that was the across Europe. He was, in essence, the ultimate Oak in the late 90s, where Paddy's Paddy was in a sense the archetypal love of Irish literature came to the fore European. 'welcome stranger' who came to - not least the works of Flann O'Brien. Scotland from his native Germany to Over the past 15 years or so, Paddy I particularly enjoyed times with him in shine a bright light on our cultural was also hugely instrumental in securing the Phoenix in Lauffen where he was riches that we have often been the legacy of Hamish Henderson, on great form, relaxed and very much backwards in coming forwards about. through setting up The Carrying 'daheim'. A confirmed Hibernophile and Stream Festival, as well as involvement There's plenty I've missed out - as he Scotophile, hundreds of us in the folk with the Hamish Henderson Archive has done so much for so many of us, scene have had floor spots and gigs at Trust, and edited numerous vital and for Scotland, und für Europa. The all stages of our careers from Paddy, publications on Hamish with Gonzalo saddest part is not having been able to benefitting from his drive and Mazzei and Grace Note Publications. tell him just how grateful we are. Auf enthusiasm. He was kind enough to be, in the wiedersehen, und herzlichen Dank, He gave their first floor spots, context of one of those volumes, my mein Freund. including one which got us our record first publisher, so to speak. Steve Byrne @arbroathsinger deal with Greentrax Recordings Ltd, and booked our first ever big city gig. He spent hours with me discussing the topic of my undergraduate dissertation FREEDOM COME ALL YE, HAMISH HENDERSON on the phenomenon of Scottish and Irish traditional music's popularity in All ihr, die ihr an Freiheit glaubt, German-speaking areas; he himself Hört nicht hin, wenn die Krähen nach dem Weltuntergang krächzen. was very much bitten by the bug, and In euren Häusern können alle Kinder Adams took Malinky and countless others to Suppe, Brot und ein Zuhause finden. play on his home turf, the Phoenix in Lauffen am Neckar. Wenn MacLean Freunde in Glasgow trifft Und Rosen und Kirschbäume blühen Flitting between his office at High School Yards, the Royal Oak and his Und ein schwarzer Junge aus Südafrika flat in Nicolson St, Paddy never Die Galgen der Bourgeoisie fällt. stopped. By day, he was a renowned academic at the University of So come all ye at hame wi' Freedom, Edinburgh, bringing hundreds if not Never heed whit the hoodies croak for doom. thousands of students to Scotland to study the path of devolution. Working In your hoose a' the bairns o' Adam with Nordic Horizons, the Jimmy Reid Can find breid, barley-bree and painted room. Foundation and the Scottish Fabians When MacLean meets wi's freens in Springburn amongst others, he championed the A' the roses and geans will turn tae bloom, cause of local democracy, inspired by And a black boy frae yont Nyanga the democratic traditions of local representation in his home area in Dings the fell gallows o' the burghers doon. Baden-Württemberg.

www.tracscotland.org 5 THE SMALL FESTIVAL WITH THE BIG HEART ORKNEY STORYTELLING FESTIVAL 2016

HEART: No other word expresses the warm hearth-glow of the Orkney Storytelling Festival. To me, the stones of the Italian Chapel, the affection in which it is held by the people of Orkney, symbolise that heart-warmth. It is a warmth that has continued like a bloodstream down the years from the time the Italian prisoners of the second World War created it, transforming a brick and corrugated iron Nissen hut into a place of luminous artistic beauty, transforming even a bully beef tin into an object of delicate, functional beauty: a shining, suspended, filigree lamp.

But to begin at the beginning. I flew which without the story and history of freshness and wit into the company as into Kirkwall Airport on Wednesday everyone living, unborn and dead well as her storytelling, and Bothy morning in the small propeller-driven participators were no more than 'bits Band singer, Scott Gardner, with a aircraft, itself a reminder of former of paper blown in the cold wind,' twinkle in the eye frae the lands o' times when Orkney was the epicentre expresses the deep, inner conviction Doric, contributed his beautiful ballads. of wartime focus, in the so-called 'false and creed of the Scottish and Orkney The festival programme lists 'highlights' war' of 1939, not in any way 'false' to storytelling tradition. A further boon as 'storytelling joust to the island of Orcadians, crammed with thousands of was that my companion in this old Flotta, a session in the ever-popular war personnel, and the target of lethal stone, waterside hoose in the heart of Betty's Reading Room, a children's German U-boat and air attacks. Stromness, was Fran O'Boyle, an Irish workshop at the Kirkwall Library, and Celtic-cousin storyteller. Things could I was met, welcomed and chauffeured open-hearth events.' The truth is, hardly be better, but in Orkney, they by Fran, the festival's organising partner, there was no such thing as a 'lowlight'. could. to my lodgings in Stromness. The entire visit was incandescent, and Fran is Orcadian by osmosis, breathing Dinner was at the home of Tom Muir stories glowed and stretched and telling the history of the landscape and his serene wife, Rhonda, host and seamlessly into the tapestry of our as we go. The first delight, of many to hostess without parallel. Their door is journey through the land and the come, was to find myself lodged in the always open - no locks, no knocking, history - the past told with the same very house where George Mackay just 'come in.' This became the social, sense of proximity as the present, Brown was born. I was climbing the ceilidh, eating, drinking, dining hub. making a living truth of George Mackay same stairway he had walked, looked Here we met the third guest Brown's assertion that people, past, out on the old stone wall he had seen, storyteller, the exuberant, bright- present, and to come, are part of the leading by the narrow noose down the spirited Brazilian, Anna Maria Lines. fabric, whether in the deep past of stone slipway to the sea and out to the Everyone was a storyteller. Fran's myth and legend, the nearer past of cargo and fishing boats and the wide husband, Andy, was an authority on the second World War, or the world beyond. George, of course, the and an enthusiastic recounter of the wonder-tales of people's lives today. very choice and master-spirit of dramatic stories of WWII, gave them The heartbeat of stories in Orkney is storytelling, shenachie, custodian of life in the almost ubiquitous Orkney palpable. Orkney's history and people, and war sites. Erin Farley infused her On Friday, a wild, windy day, Fran's 'Stromness Graveyard' talk eloquently resurrected the dead, while over the wall gannets plunged in the froth of the sea and the island of Hoy was a ghost in the smirr of mist. Two particular heartbeats still pulse vividly in my memory. Craig and Jane Mollison took us, as if into a fairy time, welcoming us into 'Betty's Reading Room', a cottage kept as a memorial to their avid-reader friend, Betty. Craig, Jane and Betty had fallen in love with Orkney, and the three decided to find a place to live there. As they were about to set out to follow this dream, Betty unexpectedly died during a minor operation.

6 www.tracscotland.org Reflecting on these timeless days and nights of the festival, what echoes and re-echoes is the ordinary extraordinariness of it all. Fran's poetry of practicality made every event seemingly effortless, but concealed her immaculate and punctilious attention to detail. Tom's languid ease, making every stone, rune and monument talk, and his wife Rhonda's creation of candle/lamp cosiness, all made this profoundly welcoming and loving. Another heart was left in Orkney. Tom Muir, in his deceptively undramatic way, took us into the Italian Chapel and told us that only a few years ago this moving story came to his attention through the son of the blacksmith, Giuseppe Palumbi. The two decided to find a place to Eloquent of his sentiments and hopes Giuseppe had fallen in love with an commemorate their friend and to live. at the time of the war are two baby Orkney girl, and when he left she They found the ideal cottage in the cherubim, one carrying the shield of asked him to take her photograph countryside to convert into a reading his Italian village, tellingly depicting a with him to show his wife, room for folk to rest, and read, and to boat moving through a tempest into because, she said, his wife would write. When they asked the farmer good weather, the other shows a see in his face the truth. He owner if they could buy it, Johnny cherub sheathing a sword. showed his wife the picture, she snatched it, threw it into the fire, Tulloch, the farmer, said it was not for When the sword of WWII was and did not speak to him for three sale, but asked why they wanted it. sheathed, the peaceful and loving weeks. "Lucky man!", observed the When they told him, he said "I won't relationship continued between the whimsical Tom, but the next sell it, I'll give it to you," and so he did, Orcadians and the former prisoners, moment he pointed to the floor in and it is now a jewel of the festival. their families and descendents, and in front of the altar: Giuseppe left a Craig has the appearance of a benign 1960, Chioccetti, on a visit to Orkney, letter for his Orkney love saying Gandalf, his wife, Jane, of a beautiful, left a letter. In it, these words: weathered gypsy. The heart-moving that he had left a gift for her in the conclusion of our visit was Craig's "Your kindness and wonderful chapel. Anna, Fran and I dried our keyboard accompaniment of Jane's hospitality I shall remember moist eyes, for what Tom pointed rendition of two haunting songs. always, and my children shall at, inlaid on the floor, was a small, metal heart. The warmth of the visit was not learn from me to love you. I diminished by our being taken through thank you in the name of all my David Campbell an almost hidden door into the companions of Camp 60. In www.orkneystorytellingfestival.co.uk paradise of a small bar, glittering with leaving, I leave part of my heart." countless bottles of fine and rare malt whisky. Anna was installed with Gandalf behind the bar of golden nectar, and yet, beyond the inspiring spirit of whisky, was an unexpected and deeply moving story that the ever- understated Tom Muir told in the now legendary Italian Chapel. The two Italian prisoners, and main architects of its effulgence, were the artist Domenico Chioccetti and the blacksmith Giuseppe Palumbi. Chioccetti's masterpiece is the altar, the painting 'Madonna and Child', based upon a holy picture carried with them throughout the war.

www.tracscotland.org 7 NATHANIEL GOW AND THE EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY SCOTTISH DANCE BAND

In December 2016, Scottish early music group Concerto Caledonia launched 'Nathaniel Gow's Dance Band: Ceilidh Nights,' a four-month long series exploring the musical world of a dance band from the 1780s.

Concerto Caledonia - Nathaniel Gow's Dance Band (© Mikah Smillie 2015)

Taking place in Glasgow venues Oran underlying harmonic frameworks, (www.hms.scot), and the Concerto Mor and The Glad Café, the series has especially within repertoire of the Caledonia album 'Nathaniel Gow's brought together some of Scotland's 'Golden Age' of Scots music, in Dance Band', released in February finest traditional and early music the late eighteenth and early 2016. performers. nineteenth centuries. The Ceilidh Nights series has offered The project combines old and new The Bass Culture team were us a chance to focus on dancing in far elements to reimagine the 18th- interested the range of practices of more detail, and to experiment with century dance night. We incorporate dance bands in the late eighteenth different styles and instrumental the format, the informal and social century, in particular exploring combinations in the band. aspects of a modern Scottish ceilidh, historical accompaniments to tunes. We have worked with historical dance but the band performs completely Luckily, there is a wide range of expert Steve Player to interpret the acoustically on period instruments, evidence of practice from the time, dance instructions from old collections, with music and country dance particularly within printed collections of as well as traditional and ceilidh dance instructions taken from 18th-century Scottish dance music, including experts such as Mairi Campbell and Scottish collections. hundreds of volumes published David Munn, looking at the best ways between 1757 and 1850. These of presenting these to a modern BASS CULTURE volumes offer a real insight into audience. Spreading a series of historical practice, not only presenting The project first emerged out of the performances over four months and tunes, but including accompaniments research initiative Bass Culture in two venues has also been a great way in the form of bass lines, and in several Scottish Musical Traditions. Led by to develop new audiences, with collections, dance instructions. Two of researchers at the Universities of attendees ranging from seasoned dance the outputs of the Bass Culture project Glasgow, Cambridge and the Royal experts, to individuals who had never included the an online database and Conservatoire of Scotland, this been to a ceilidh before: at our first digitisation of many of these volumes explored the ways in which traditional event, an Italian visitor had first arrived at Historical music is built not only from tunes, but in Scotland some two hours previously!

8 www.tracscotland.org NIEL AND NATHANIEL GOW The project is named after Nathaniel Gow, Scottish fiddler, composer, and publisher in the late-eighteen and early nineteenth-centuries. Nathaniel was the third son of Niel Gow, who has often been described as the founding father of Scottish fiddle music, not only for the composition of many tunes, but for his distinctive performing style, particularly the strength of his up-bow. Niel was also the founder of a musical dynasty, thanks to the success of his four fiddle-playing sons, most notably John (1764) and Nathaniel (1763), who had parallel careers in London and Edinburgh, as publishers, and leaders of the two most successful Scottish dance bands of their day. Nathaniel had mixed success as a businessman, but he clearly saw the opportunity of building on the Gow brand, publishing collections under the David Allan, The Highland Wedding at Blair Atholl (1780) name 'Niel Gow and Sons', such as The Beauties of Niel Gow (1819- 1822) and the four volumes of The Complete Repository (1799-1813). THE EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY SCOTTISH These collections were an important DANCE BAND step in transforming material from more ephemeral 18th-century The eighteenth-century Scottish dance Whilst the fiddle-cello duo was the collections into a distinct canon of band differed from its modern mainstay of dances, some bands tunes, deliberately simplifying and counterparts. As noted, repertoire included additional instruments: homogenising features such as rhythm included continental forms, but even collections by Abraham Mackintosh and ornamentation. 'local' forms such as the reel were and Isaac Cooper include two fiddle Whilst Nathaniel is remembered as an presented through the lens of 18th- parts, playing additional harmonies, or important figure in Scottish fiddle century style, with ornaments such as in unison. Some bands included full trills, appoggiaturas, and turns. In music, a considerable amount of his string sections and wind players: the addition, the idea of a 'set' of tunes output is centred around music and Edinburgh Assembly Rooms in the seems to have first developed in the dance which wouldn't be considered mid-eighteenth century included Scottish or even 'traditional' by today's late eighteenth century: in the 1780s, a single country dance was usually oboes alongside a string section, and standards. Dance bands and publishers accompanied by one tune of the same there are two records of Gow bands focussed on what was popular: name. in the early nineteenth century Strathspeys, Reels and other 'Scottish' including four and cello With the ascendancy of harmony forms had a continued to be in vogue alongside instruments such as french in the nineteenth century, but Scottish instruments such as the piano, accordion, and guitar, modern ears horn, tambourine and harp. Pipers are society also looked to London and also mentioned as being present at Paris for the new and fashionable have become accustomed to the dances alongside fiddlers - did the two forms, such as minuets, waltzes and sound of chords. The backbone of the ever play together for dancing? The cotillions. dance band of the 1780s was the fiddle and bass fiddle (i.e. cello), as Nathaniel Gow's Dance Band project In March 1817, Nathaniel Gow seen in David Allan's 1780 painting of offers an opportunity to experiment introduced the French Quadrille to Niel and Donald Gow (a piper also with these various different options. Scottish society in a ball held at the helps himself to a drink in the Edinburgh Assembly Rooms. Alongside background!). The many printed Aaron McGregor the ceilidh night series, Concerto collections from this period present @AaronMarkMcG Caledonia and the Nathaniel Gow's cello bass lines, most often consisting Dance Band project have been of two repeated notes in crotchets, Nathaniel Gow's Dance Band: working with dance experts Talitha with a cadence for each section. Mackenzie and Stuart Marsden on a These basses not only outline the Ceilidh Nights are supported by the series of performances and dances at harmonies, but offer a pulsing, driving National Lottery through Creative the Assembly Rooms celebrating the rhythm, in what Francis Collinson later Scotland's Open Project Fund. centenary of this event. described as an 'accented drone'.

www.tracscotland.org 9 CONNECTING THEMES

Traditional Music Forum director, David Francis, dipped in and out of this year's Celtic Connections, and found some connecting themes. Photo by Lucy Cash

Kim Carnie, one of the finalists in the can include tradition-rooted sadly felt in wandering through dead BBC Scotland Young Traditional performances based on the structures villages, past war memorials, and the Musician competition, prefaced her of the rock concert, the classical foundations of houses long since gone. performance by remarking that she recital, the jazz gig, and, yes, still find Harpist Fraya Thomsen's New Voices had been greatly influenced by the space for the informal exchange of the commission, 'Community and Stardust' West of Scotland ceilidh culture, and song circle or the session. burned with anger at the injustice of thereby put her finger on one of the the kinds of outcomes illustrated by great paradoxes of the annual The festival's 'New Voices' strand is a nod towards the classical music world Seán Gray's piece. Thomsen asks at explosion of music that is Celtic the outset 'why do we crave human Connections. with its language of commissions and 'pieces' and its dependence on the interaction?', a question brought into The music that fuels the combustion of written score. Seán Gray's 'The sharp relief by her own isolated creativity and performance that drives Hammering Tongue' combined upbringing in the Highlands. The the festival forward has its origins in elements of sampling and spoken opening of the piece seems to the small-scale setting and the intimate word with the familiar structures of meditate on the question with a exchange. But now, instead of taking traditional dance music in an elegy for contemplative combination of cello and marimba, muted flugelhorn and our seat by the fire, or round the the lost industries and the wordless voices, which elides into kitchen table we queue for a ticket, communities they sustained in his more familiar 'Celtic' territory, take our seat in a designated row, and native Ayrshire. Mechanical sounds accordion and fiddle moving into watch as the house lights go down and over repetitive figures and clattering time under a refrain of 'we are the stage lights come up on banks of drums suggested the factory where connected, we are extended' from the monitors, microphone stands and Gray served his time as an engineer. In singers. Thomsen's current practice is music stands, signifiers of performance this suite of six short pieces Gray in film music, this background reflected as a professional undertaking, a endeavoured to find the music in the in the many mood shifts and surprising commercial exchange. everyday, paying homage to the men juxtapositions within each individual who worked out their days in factory The festival is what it is, however, and part of the whole work. Reels are and pit, and found their leisure in the backed with dark, dissonant, is in large measure what many of us 'baund', the local silver band like the have wanted it to be as we argued for syncopated lines; Thomsen explores one in Dalmellington, 'a muckle great the percussive properties of her harp, the mainstream recognition and machine' in its own right. The Ayrshire and adds in plangent trumpet to a solo esteem of what we refer to as Scots of Rab Wilson's poems, and of passage at first more identifiably 'traditional music'. It is one of the Gray's own working and domestic life, tradition-based than much of the successes of Celtic Connections that it reinforces the sense of place, now music.

10 www.tracscotland.org The work is kaleidoscopic with be seen through a Jamaican lens, in Munro, who also made a link to a a lot of variety in the music, her powerful re-interpretation of 'The previous generation of feminists in folk but as the title, 'Community Slave's Lament' and 'Ye Jacobites by music with her reading of 'The Lament Name'. for the Working Class Hero's Wife', a and Stardust' suggests, the mordant criticism of the men who talk theme is the underlying unity That idea of a shared heritage was a good game on equality while failing of all disparities, individuals amply illustrated by the winner of last to practise it. The song first appeared year's Young Traditional Musician of the combining in community, the in a collection called 'My Song is My Year, Mohsen Amini, a Scot of Iranian Own', co-edited by Sandra Kerr, one fragmentation of the Big Bang parentage who learned his craft making up a universe. The of the panellists at a meeting called nurtured in the Irish music context of under the aegis of Celtic Connections piece is both a musical and the Comhaltas in Glasgow, and now a to discuss the issue of gender equality rhetorical triumph, a coherent byword for the kind of dynamic, in the scene. argument beautifully virtuosic, blisteringly paced performance he delivered in the hiatus Kerr noted that there are still multiple structured. between the competition and the barriers in the way of women of announcement of the judges' decision women who want to pursue a career Diversity was the order of the day in on this year's winner. Three singers, all in music on the same basis as men. one of the discussion strands that have female, pitted their performance skills One figure with a long though been a long-standing feature of the and repertoire against three interrupted career, who perhaps Celtic Connections programme. The instrumentalists, all male, with fiddler embodies the themes referred to thus session on an 'Inclusive National Charlie Stewart emerging with the far - place, heritage, equality - is Identity' asked how we should interact title. Shirley Collins, making a return to with new Scots on a daily basis. Rami Interestingly the contrast in the Young recording and performance at the age Ousta, of Bemis, the body which Trad line-up was indicative of a of 80, after decades sidelined by an mediates between the Scottish problem pointed out in the run-up to episode of dysphonia brought on government and Scotland's minorities, another competitive context, the 2016 perhaps by the undermining attitudes argued that any approach based on Scots Trad Music Awards. Their Live of some musicians in her former circle. ethnicity - for him only a description Band category aggregated 39 and not a classification - is doomed to musicians in total, of which only 3 Her performance ranged from her failure. Citizenship is the key and were women, leading to much online experiences as a young woman ethnicity does not trump citizenship, discussion about the representation of collecting old time and blues material which carries with it the responsibility women in the contemporary trad in the Southern US states in the 50s, to take part in the life of society scene, questions about masculine and to Morris dance to an eerie, stark and regardless of cultural heritage. Mairi feminine approaches to music (is there moving account of the ballad, 'The McFadyen, of Tracs, expanded on the such a thing?), and perhaps an Banks of Green Willow'. Underscored idea of heritage and citizenship, underlying complacency about the by an other-worldly soundscape of proposing a notion of heritage as extent to which the community fiddle, slide guitar and hurdy-gurdy and something shared, a process of practises the equality it flatters itself on illustrated by footage of the Padstow connection and meaning making rather embracing. 'Oss and silent figures with blazing than a closed category. In this it shares skulls, among other pagan gestures, some of the character of the traditional That there are stirrings of a welcome the performance had a distance and arts, which are underpinned by the militancy among young performers in strangeness about it that seemed a idea of hospitality, sharing and particular was perhaps illustrated in long way from the intimacy and participation. That concept of shared some of the choices that cropped up conviviality I've referred to as heritage was beautifully illustrated by in the Young Trad programmes: 'A characteristic of the 'ceilidh culture' the singer Brina, who gave us an Weary Wife' from Iona Fyfe, and Celtic Connections signifies. insight into how Robert Burns might 'What Can A Young Lassie' from Ella Here was a heritage that might be seen as closed and difficult to enter into and share. Occult almost. It was only when Collins and her supporting cast launched into the old Copper Family sing-along 'Thousands or More' that some of the eldritch chill departed and a sense of communal warmth returned. David Francis @DauvitF [email protected]

www.tracscotland.org 11 OUT OF HARM

"Self-harm is when somebody intentionally harms or injures them self. This is often a way of coping with or expressing feelings and emotions that become overwhelming and overpowering to the individual" - Mental Health Foundation Photo from http://wendywoolfson.blogspot.co.uk

The rate at which children and young who may be concerned about a Believe it or not, the sessions were people are self-harming has increased young person, to feel more confident fun; the group quickly trusted each and almost nobody is talking about it. about talking to them. The other and found they could share In February this year, the Conversation Guide is suitable for their common knowledge with a unimaginable happened when a friend anyone to use; families, friends, GP's broad range of their own experience. lost her 17 year old grandson to and other health or care That, combined with their professionals. personalities provided a lot of suicide. He was also someone who laughter and fun. self-harmed and I had been hugely Self-harm is highly stigmatised and inspired by the courageous way in regarded as a taboo subject. There is At the end of the eight weeks the which he shared his experiences a great deal of fear and ignorance that group shared their work at two public through a blog http://autistic- surrounds it with many people not events as part of the Scottish Mental teenager.blogspot.co.uk/2016/11/self- knowing about the different types of Health Arts and Film Festival. These harm-and-me.html self-harm and responding to it in events were carefully coordinated to unhelpful ways. Young people don't ensure the group were well Self-harm doesn't mean someone is want to tell anyone they're self- supported and the audience would suicidal, but it is certainly indicative of harming because they're scared the know what to expect. Consideration mental health problems that need to adult they tell will be angry at them, was taken for audience and group be addressed. Someone who self- tell them to stop, ask to see the self- members to avoid being triggered by harms is more commonly doing their harm and miss the point completely. any of the content. Their best to stay alive and it's their way of photographic work was professionally coping and staying in control. Sam's We launched the project Out Of printed, exhibited at the open events family gave him all the love and Harm last year, supported and funded and gifted to them at the end. support they could but tragically he by conFAB and other partners just couldn't hold on. including a group of young people I remain exceptionally grateful to who had experience of self-harm. confab for having the vision to The storytelling project Out of Harm support this project and the young aims to begin to address this problem We ran a series of eight therapeutic people for their courage and trust. by firstly providing a safe space for storytelling workshops, creating a We look forward to presenting the young people to explore their safe, autonomous space for a group work at the Storytelling for Health experience of self-harm and express it of young people aged 17 to 25 to conference in June and continuing to through story. Secondly, the project is explore the topic of self-harm. further develop this work. working to provide a Toolkit for adults Photographer Lisa Craig supported to find a way to begin to talk to young the group to share their stories The Toolkit, which contains a people about their self-harm and through working with images, as a Conversation Guide, launches in guide them to adequate and method for reflecting on their feelings March in Ardrossan youth centre, and appropriate support. and to help them express their story is the culmination of the work visually. completed by artist Josie Vallely and We have developed a Conversation Guide which provides a language, the During workshops, we told traditional Therapeutic Storyteller Wendy actual words, which need to come tales, shared real life experience, Woolfson. out of your mouth to be able to heard poetry, created new stories Wendy Woolfson support a young person who and explored feelings and [email protected] discloses self-harm or for an adult experiences. The group learned basic storytelling skills, some history of the If you are affected by the content of oral tradition, story structure and by this article or want to learn more the end of the course had created about self-harm, the following handmade books containing their website is a good resource: own story. Their photography was www.youngminds.org.uk reflective and creative with Lisa having To find out more about Wendy's coached them on different aspects of work you can visit her website: photography and encouraged them to use their smart phones in-between http://wendywoolfson.blogspot.co.uk sessions to explore this further. www.facebook.com/outofharm

12 www.tracscotland.org THE STORY OF THE BLUE BUTTERFLY THE POWER OF STORYTELLING WITH THE ELDERLY

For several years now I have been working with the Life Stories Group, telling stories to frail elderly and dementia sufferers in care homes, the Scottish Storytelling Centre and Edinburgh's Festival Theatre. The Colinton Care Home in Edinburgh has been a constant in my life for over two years now. I go into the home regularly and they are very faithful attenders at every event we put on. Photo Bea Ferguson

A few months ago, during a session at house to reappear with a large crate Jan had made giant cushions which the Storytelling Centre, I asked if of drinks. The bottles were handed concealed small insects for the anyone else had a story to tell. round, tops removed and the children to find and the room was Wendy, a resident at Colinton Care contents poured quickly down their festooned with large blue butterflies. Home said she would tell one. I was throats. The genuine feeling of She then told the story to the amazed and spellbound by the story anxiety was palpable among the children and residents. It was she told; as was everyone else in the listeners, especially when the wonderful to see the faces of the audience. She told it so brilliantly that tribesman began to giggle and dance children and adults alike who we could all see that amazingly bright around. But then it was revealed that obviously all really loved the story. blue butterfly in the Malayan jungle it was only tonic water. They had Afterwards the children entertained being chased by the two-year-old never tasted it before and they loved everyone by singing their Christmas Wendy, her four-year-old sister and the feeling of the bubbles going up songs. A really enjoyable morning was her Grandmother who was on a visit their noses! had by all and a truly intergenerational from Britain. They chased so far into event. By chance, in the audience (because the jungle that they became lost - and she had arrived on the wrong day!) One of the great values of storytelling scared. Suddenly they spied two of was artist and apprentice storyteller, with residents of care homes is that the local tribesmen up a tree, but of Jan Bee Brown. She was also we can tell stories which evoke course they didn't speak their captivated by the story and set about memories. So often the elderly are language. Would they be friendly? devising an interactive version of it only seen as they are in the present The men climbed down, motioned using her skills with fabrics. She then and carers have little time to discover them to follow and led the frightened told it to a group of three and four their past histories. Stories are a grandmother and the two children to year olds and was keen that the wonderful way to connect and their village. There, the chief of the original teller should know. She reawaken the memories. So: imagine tribe instructed the villagers to make contacted me to ask if I knew who it how it must have felt to see one of three 'rafts' - mats woven from was and, again by chance, I did, and your own memories developed into grasses and long creepers. Then each also where I could find her. a wonderful interactive story and told of them was carefully placed onto a Predictably, Wendy was delighted to young children in front of you. It mat and pulled through the jungle when she heard and so we organised was a truly memorable occasion for until they reached home, much to a special performance with the help all who were there and was a vivid the relief of a very worried father. of the activity coordinators at the care demonstration of the power and Needless to say, a reward was home. possibilities of storytelling with the offered, but was refused. They didn't elderly. It's well worth giving it a go. need money or goods. However, Just before Christmas they arranged one of the servants knew what they for a local nursery to send some Bea Ferguson would like and disappeared into the children to the care home. [email protected]

www.tracscotland.org 13 WHERE YOU'RE MEANT TO BE: FILM REVIEW Storyteller Bob Pegg offers his thoughts and reflections on Paul Fegan's first feature documentary. Where You're Meant to be follows as he tours Scotland in 2014, performing his modern re-interpretations of old folk songs. Just before they hit the road, Moffat met Traveller, storyteller and balladeer Sheila Stewart: a 79-year-old force of nature, whose life – and unexpected death, in 2014 – upturned Moffat’s folk assumptions, and diverted the course of Fegan’s film.

2014, and Aidan Moffat is on tour The unreliable tour van - shown in Somewhere along this journey, while with a small, acoustic band and a one sequence being towed by a "exploring the roots of my country," camera crew. Aidan is a Bairn. tractor - motors on single track roads Aidan encounters Sheila Stewart - Back in the 90s, when he was one through heathery glens. singer, storyteller and raconteuse, half of , he established scion of the revered Stewarts of Blair In the gloaming, and deeper into the himself as a singer and songwriter family of Traveller entertainers, and a night, the lights of cars, buildings, street celebrated for his command of the fierce defender of the traditions of lamps hurtle by, as the band heads bawdy, boozy demotic. those she calls her 'forebearers.' He's towards another gig. The camera set new lyrics to the tune of Sheila's He's planning to present a programme lingers on scenarios and vignettes that 'The Parting Glass' - Kind friends and inspired by Scottish folk songs, in make up a fragmented vision of companions, come join me in rhyme venues ranging from a hall in Ness, on Scotland now: a Skye man, heart- is her opening invitation. He wants to the Isle of Lewis, to Glasgow's famous broken by the death of his wife after a run them by her, see what she thinks. Barrowland ballroom. Mostly the marriage of 58 years; bothy balladeers Filmed through the windscreen of a songs he'll be performing are either at a cafe table, lustily giving it laldy; two car, with Sheila at the wheel, Aidan original, or re-framings of older, rurally warring Loch Ness monster tries out a verse. rooted material, with new lyrics that enthusiasts briefly reconciled; a bam- reflect life in the city today. Now the sirens are wailing, dancer, booted and kilted, sashaying the taxi rank grows menacingly across the grass during a The film rolls along in the style of a There's another wee ned with road movie. chilly outdoor performance beside the ruins of an old church. another bust nose…

14 www.tracscotland.org Sheila is having none of it. "You've landscapes, as well as the diversity of Transience is at the heart of Where taken the context and blootered it!" its audiences: from the dedicated You're Meant to Be: fleeting archive Aidan tries to suggest that putting new drinkers of Ness (the gig is advertised clips show the campfires and tents of words to an existing tune is an as 'Free entry! Free whisky!'), to the the old Traveller way of life, now gone acceptable thing to do. "I've never warmth of the Barrowland, and the forever; like musicians on the road, a heard o' that," snaps Sheila, even unbuttoned abandon of the hall in skein of geese heads north or south to a place from which inevitably they will though the tune of The Parting Glass is Drumnadrochit. Aidan Moffat's lyrics soon return; in a couple of decades also used for the folk club standard are skilful, often rude and sometimes The Greenland Whale Fisheries, and the youthful, skinny Aidan Moffat has poignant. The cracking little band of transformed into a bearded patriarch; her mother Belle borrowed the fiddle, guitar and assorted keyboards melody of Nicky Tams for her own Sheila Stewart, sits, granite faced and also provides a soundtrack which really alone, on a bench in a cemetery - she celebrated composition The Berry enriches the film, in an extended, draws on the last embers of her Fields o' Blair. Later she accuses him of plangent arrangement of 'Bonny cigarette, then tosses it away. At the disrespecting the songs. "I was Glenshee'. end of the film, as the credits begin, a disgusted… he needs to listen more." younger Sheila, with the look of an Aidan is stung and dismayed by her In his sometimes gloomy, often droll Italian movie star from the 1950s, sings the final verse of a night visiting song. A reproaches. Throughout the film, in voice-over, Aidan asks himself dead lover, returned from the grave live footage, voice-over, and his questions about the relationship between tradition and innovation for a nocturnal assignation, is called commentary for the DVD's extras, he back to the clay: questions both Sheila's intractability and which are relevant to those of us - the validity of what he himself is trying singers, storytellers, musicians, dancers The cocks are crowing, love, to do, in re-imagining the old songs. - who choose to re-interpret material I must be going His frustration increases when he finds that has been passed down from an old recording of Sheila admitting, earlier times. Best of all, Sheila Stewart The cocks are crowing, love, pronouncing even, that over time is shown, in spite of - or perhaps I must away change in song texts is inevitable. assisted by - her thrawn-ness, as one The cocks are crowing, love, of the last of the great, old-style I must be going In what would otherwise be just an Scottish Traveller performers, whose For we are both servants, enjoyable, amiably eccentric tour diary, singing embodies that from-the-gut Sheila Stewart is a dark presence, and must obey quality that Lorca, writing of Spanish haunting Paul Fegan's documentary. flamenco, called duende, and which Haunting it literally, if there are such Bob Pegg she herself called the conyach. things as ghosts (and what, anyway, www.bobpegg.com are the people in photos and films but revenants?), for she died unexpectedly, before the film was completed. Dressed, as was her habit, in black, she commands every scene she appears in. One stark sequence has her giving a guided tour of the grave slabs in the family plot, recalling the 'torture and punishment' she went through to learn 'the ballads.' In her kitchen at home she deftly skins a rabbit while singing the uneasily equivocal song about marital abuse, Mickey's Warning. And - a scene which could have come straight from a Hollywood biopic - at the climax of the tour, before a packed Barrowland audience, Sheila steals the show one last time, taking to the stage to cap Aidan's Parting Glass with her own, in an a cappella performance - "This is the original version!" The crowd sings along, and applauds to the rafters at its conclusion. Aidan kisses her on the cheek, and it looks like a reconciliation of sorts; or at least a truce. Sheila Stewart I enjoyed watching Where You're Photo by Ian McKenzie, School Meant to Be a lot. It celebrates the of Scottish Studies Archives diversity of Scotland's urban and rural

www.tracscotland.org 15 SUPPER WITH ROBERT BURNS BOOK BLETHERS by David Campbell, with recipes compiled by Diane Cater SPRING INTO FOCUS David Campbell, 2017 No ISBN Twenty years ago David Campbell and this creative team provide rich pioneered a new format for celebrating wisdom and first class stories, with lots AULD SANGS FOR BAIRNS & Robert Burns- poems, songs, stories of advice on how to use and value WEE WEANS and food but no speeches. Now, with them. It is pleasing to see Scottish by John Thor and Annie Ewing characteristic generosity he shares the storytellers to the fore here as well. 21st century Scots, Welkin Books, script and structure for all to use in Magic Torch is an Inverclyde based arts 2017 Supper with Robert Burns. Diane Cater co-operative working with local stories. ISBN 97819100075067 provides accompaniment in the shape One of their products is comic books of traditional recipes. It's a broth of a that draw on storytelling and then DUMFRIES AND GALLOWAY nicht. stimulate more amongst community FOLKTALES Another kind of compendium is groups and schools. Recent hits include by Tony Bonning, Illustrated by Jo provided by Auld Sangs for Bairns & The Stowaways a tragic seafaring tale by Jackson Bonning Wee Weans by John Thor and Annie John Donald re-worked with The History Press, 2016 Ewing. Scots nursery rhymes and Ardgowan Primary School, and Achi ISBN 9780750968409 bairnsangs are handsomely treated with Baba- Gallipoli 1915, part of a WWI words, music and guitar chords. This is project, illustrated by Andy Lee. FIFE FOLK TALES a fine contribution to a growing body of Congratulations to Paul Bristow and his by Sheila Kinninmonth, Illustrated by Scots song resources for today. May team for these fresh takes on important Jonathan Dowling The History Press, 2107 they be well used amongst young and stories, and to the Heritage Lottery ISBN 9780750967532 old alike. Fund for their support. It is a real pleasure to see Tony If evidence were needed that the art of SCOTTISH FOLKTALES FOR Bonning in print with his Dumfries and storytelling is vigorous and well, then CHILDREN Galloway Folktales. No-one knows this look no further than Waypoints- by Judy Paterson, Illustrated by Sally territory better and he has done that Seascapes and Stories of Scotland's Daly huge region proud with themed West Coast, which boasts a beautiful The History Press, 2107 groupings, specific geographic locations, cover by Christine Morrison. Alongside ISBN: 9780750981996 and rich local speech. The apt fine stories and life writing, Ian teases illustrations are by Jo Jackson Bonning. out his pervasive metaphor of DANCING WITH TREES: ECO- The History Press regional Folk tales navigating- coasts and stories. This is a TALES OF THE BRITISH ISLES series also continues to flourish with finely tuned book that is unimaginable by Allison Galbraith and Alette the addition of Sheila Kinninmonth's Fife Willis, Illustrated by Tess Wyatt Folk Tales. It is packed with without a lifetime of voyaging imagination. Attenders at this year's The History Press, 2017 supernatural lore, local legend, ISBN 9780750978873 personal experience of Fife, and line Storytelling development Day in Perth caught the live version, along with a drawings by Jonathan Dowling. This is a THE STOWAWAYS fine achievement by Sheila for Fife, duly lovely tribute in story to Lawrence Tulloch. by John Donald, and Achi Baba- saluted in a forward by Senga Munro. Gallipoli 1915, Illustrated by Andy History Press is also presently launching Last but not least, Renita Boyle is in full Lee. Scottish Folktales for Children by Judy enthusiastic flight in Tell It Together, Magic Torch Comics, 2017 and Paterson, illustrated by Sally Daly. The which contains fifty sharply crafted 2015 emphasis here is on a tight selection of versions of Bible stories for shared NO ISBN and classic fairy tales, beautifully rendered telling- for all ages. Every tale becomes ISBN 9780953906550 by Judy, who is another of Fife's finest. a mini-drama, while Renita's You feel that many years of love and introduction is a pithy summary on WAYPOINTS-SEASCAPES AND hard work have gone into this volume. what makes for good storytelling. Fair STORIES OF SCOTLAND'S Dancing With Trees: Eco-Tales of the to say perhaps that Story 20 's refrain WEST COAST British Isles is another History Press 'Raise the Walls' should, like many by Ian Stephen production, devised this time by Allison sacred stories, not be taken out of Adlard Coles nautical, Bloomsbury, Galbraith and Alette Willis, with context. 2017 illustrations by Tess Wyatt. Nothing ISBN 9781472939630 could be more important today than Donald Smith re-connecting with our environment, [email protected] TELL IT TOGETHER by Renita Boyle BRF, 2017 ISBN 9780857464996

16 www.tracscotland.org