When I’m Calling You

As well as playing, my remit is to call the dances for the benefit of those who don’t know what to do. This can be very rewarding when you see the absolute beginners of five minutes ago holding their own in the real dance. This is fine unless they should be holding someone else’s, but it all adds to the excitement, colour and pageantry of the evening.

A recent wedding in Blair Castle had all of these factors. The bride and groom were married at The Whim, the folly situated high above the Castle. When it came to the time to produce the rings, the best man didn’t reach into his waistcoat pocket for them but blew a whistle and they were flown specially from the Castle to the surprised couple by an owl, which alighted on a padded glove on the best man’s arm. Then, out of the surrounding trees, where they had been hidden, emerged a pipe band to serenade the newly-weds.

The reception was special for the members of the band also, when we launched into the closing dance, the Orcadian Strip the Willow. One of the tunes we use is The Atholl Highlanders and it was a moment to remember as we realised that the magnificent ballroom in which we were playing was where that tune began its long life.

On another occasion, I was asked by visitors if it was “all right to drink the water in this country”. Having reassured the group that it was fine, though perhaps slightly better when mixed with whisky, I asked their spokesman which part of the world they were from. “Peterborough” was the answer. I blame the schools.

A visit to Craiglockhart in Edinburgh was another highlight. I’m always in awe of living history and we duly arrived at the mansion house, now part of Napier University, where the War Poets Siegfried Sassoon and Wilfred Owen had convalesced during the First World War.

Unfortunately, the gig had been rescheduled to the other part of the University in an equally imposing building which had once been Edinburgh’s lunatic asylum. No comment, please.

Time Telescope

Finally, in last month’s issue I told the story of how Robert Louis Stevenson’s novel Kidnapped emerged in the same year as Al Jolson was born - 1886 - and how this, to me, was a time telescope bridging the years, in this case from the Jacobite risings to the birth of popular (ie pop) music. I mention this fact in my show This is Scotland … and You’re Welcome To It! and after one performance at Castle Menzies, a lady from Burton-on-Trent waited behind to tell me her story.

On the day man landed on the moon, 20 July 1969, she had been talking to her great-grandmother about this feat. Her great-grandmother told her of her early days, near Oxford Street in London, at the end of the nineteenth century when cars had to have men with red flags precede them. She had become friends with an older man who turned out to be one of Charles Dickens’ sons, and who told her he remembered talking to his father about an event which was still the topic of conversation at the time - the French Revolution - which had ended only some thirteen years before Dickens was born! That’s some time telescope, is it not?

But heads will roll unless I get this to the publishers on time. More next month.