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NEFA
1994.043.01 Transcription
P: Jane Turriff
T: MacPherson's Rant
FL: ...gallows tree
S: With spoons. [Joined partway.] Sings the 'bring to me my
sword' verse.
NEFA
1994.043.02 Transcription
P: Jane Turriff
T: Many songs
S: She knows an affa lot of songs. Many of them are fading,
but she has them all written out on cards and in a bag somewhere.
NEFA
1994.043.03 Transcription
P: Jane Turriff
T: Makes songs
S: The song she made for Leahandrai [granddaughter] is to an
old-fashioned air. She can sit down and just play a song like that.
She was describing the song to Leahandrai, making verses. [Clocks
in the background.] She likes sad songs.
NEFA
1994.043.04 Transcription
P: Jane Turriff
T: The Mill o Tifty's Annie
FL: At Mill o Tifty lived a man, in the neighbourhood o Fyvie
S: Sixteen verses of the song. [A few coughs between some verses
and some repeats (ca. 4).] [Interjects that Andra goes away now,
between 12 & 13.] That's a very sad song and a true one. Annie's
gravestone is still there in Fyvie. JT has been in the castle with
Arthur Argo and another lad. They showed her the burn and the other
places. There is a statue of him on Fyvie castle. She sung that
song well there and was on the wireless. She was on a film too:
Buchan on Buchan was one. She has not seen it and would like to.
Billy [son] likes it the best of all her films. JT and her son think
she is too old fashioned. She is old fashioned. They did not have
TVs etc., just songs and stories.
NEFA
1994.043.05 Transcription
P: Clive Powell and Jane Turriff
T: Clive Powell's mother
FL:
Have you seen ower tonight bonnie bird?
S: [Loud clocks as mike is too far from Clive.] You do not hear
people singing as much as they used to. Two verses of a song. It
is a happier world if you sing.
NEFA
1994.043.06 Transcription
P: Jane Turriff
T: House work and music
S: Singing is a happy life. Her only pleasure after all the
house work was to play music. They had an old piano and the occasional
record. Her mother used to join in and was happy when she began
singing. Her mother used to say she was a happy person. She gets
on fine with people who like her singing.
NEFA
1994.043.07 Transcription
P: Murray Smythe
T: Born and raised; life outline
S: Born in Adelaide South Australia, moved to midmar, Drumoak,
then to Lonmay where they had a croft near the hill of Mormond.
There would be ceilidhs there in the bothy. Finished school there.
Then took a farm at Pitcaple near Huntly. Moved to West Africa for
eight years. Came back ran pub in Montrose, three years. General
merchants in Caithness for 20 years. Always wanted to come back
here.
NEFA
1994.043.08 Transcription
P: Murray Smythe
T: Father
S: Father's father was a head gardener, ended up at a hotel
in Echt. Always liked Dee-side.
NEFA
1994.043.09 Transcription
P: Murray Smythe
T: Feein fairs
S: There were still feein fairs in his youth. He used to go.
The farmers and workers congregated at these feeing markets, heard
by word of mouth that someone needed workers. They would approach
the farmers, offer services as first second horseman, etc. over
a glass of beer. Fee lasted six months and the worker would receive
arles, half a crown, to seal the bargain. Then you packed up and
moved. If you got on you might stay on for years. Some farmers were
OK, but others were rough and mean. The words of Drumdelgie are
apt. [Recites verse.]
NEFA
1994.043.10 Transcription
P: Murray Smythe
T: Married men on the farm
S: The married men tended to stay longer. Younger ones were
sometimes restless, sometimes they would move up a rank as they
moved farms. [End of Side A.]
NEFA
1994.043.11 Transcription
P: Murray Smythe
T: Father again
S: Father was mat the same place all his life, all the time
that family were in it. He did four or five years in another area
altogether.
NEFA
1994.043.12 Transcription
P: Murray Smythe
T: Bothies and chaamers
S: All bothies where MS lived. [Wife comes with tea.] Mostly,
the men were in chaamers, i.e. they ate in the farm kitchen with
the rest. This is Buchan area. Slept and made their social life
in the chaamers. Canno't remember the men cooking anything on their
own, though maybe a cup of tea, a slice of bread, etc. before bed.
NEFA
1994.043.13 Transcription
P: Murray Smythe
T: Breakfast at 6
S: Breakfast about 6. Oatmeal brose, tea, scones, bread and
jam and whatever homebakes. Dinner (lunch now): a three course meal
with meat, potatoes and a vegetable and nine tines out of ten, tapioca
pudding or semolina. Evening: Oatmeal porridge or peasemeal brose,
then an egg or maybe bacon or sausage. As much tea and bread as
you liked.
NEFA
1994.043.14 Transcription
P: Murray Smythe
T: A bowl of brose
S: On the bigger farms you would get fed out of a big bowl (ten
inches) for two. You would draw a line in the bowl and then both
eat out of it. The fastest eater got the most. MS has eaten that
way a lot.
NEFA
1994.043.15 Transcription
P: Murray Smythe
T: Stingy farmers
S: Some farms were notorious for cheapest of the cheap. Brose
in the morning. Potatoes and milk for the midday meal. In the evening
maybe brose or porridge maybe bread. Mostly better than that.
NEFA
1994.043.16 Transcription
P: Murray Smythe
T: MS never fee'd
S: Never actually fee'd. Father was disabled. Used to leave
Drumoak School, pickup the plough and horses on the way home, plough
till dark and then do homework, clean the cows, cut hay and corn
with scythe. Grandfather and -mother helped with that. Mother was
not too healthy
NEFA
1994.043.17 Transcription
P: Murray Smythe
T: Ploughing
S: Skidded the plough through the fields on the sole plate.
The farmer would tell him when the horses would be available and
MS helped them when they needed it. There was a bit of exchange
like that, but not many so young. Many others worked at home of
course.
NEFA
1994.043.18 Transcription
P: Murray Smythe
T: Entertainments
S: When they moved to Lonmay, there was a family of Sherrins
on a nearby farm, Whiteside. James was married, Sandy wasna and
he stayed in the chaamer. Don Davidson was the horseman. Young Sandy
(James' son) played melodeon. Sandy played too. They would have
a ceilidh in the big old farm kitchen. It seemed to be the gathering
place on a Saturday night. He heard some of the well known bothy
ballads there. Sometimes they would make up songs about things that
happened that day.
NEFA
1994.043.19 Transcription
P: Murray Smythe
T: Old Sandy Sherrin
S: Used to show at the fairs, etc. They used to put the chains
in a jute sack with oil and shake it back and forth. Old Sandy had
a song to go along with this.
NEFA
1994.043.20 Transcription
P: Murray Smythe
T: Evening ceilidhs
S: Sometimes all singing, sometimes all musical. Never saw any
dancing. Perhaps because it was nearly all male. Only the wife and
Jim Sherrin's wife and Jimmie Lawrence's sister. Delgarno and Jock
'BiGod', Alec Laird. Anywhere from a few to sixteen. Everyong there
that wanted to made up a song. Someone would start up words or a
tune and the others would join in with a tune or words.
NEFA
1994.043.21 Transcription
P: Murray Smythe
T: Making bothy ballads
S: MS thinks this is how the original bothy ballads were made.
If he had been born thirty years earlier, he would have been in
the thick of it. Whitebog was one of the last farms that still had
the gatherings when he was young.
NEFA
1994.043.22 Transcription
P: Murray Smythe
T: The Sherrins
S: The Sherrins were very much in demand as dance musicians.
MS went to dances when he was sixteen. Before that it was all with
parental accompaniment.
NEFA
1994.043.23 Transcription
P: Murray Smythe
T: Concerts and dances
S: There would be a concert and then a dance. Near Lonmay there
were some tinkers. They stayed in Fetterangus. They were Stewarts.
Never seen such a musical family. Any musical instrument you gave
her she would play it: trumpet, violin, piano, accordion. Her brother
was a bit of a tap dancer and played double bass. She, Jean Stewart,
played on radio. They were a poor family and made good with their
music. Anybody with a bit of a talent for singing would give a song
at these affairs.
NEFA
1994.043.24 Transcription
P: Murray Smythe
T: New bothy songs
S: Sometimes the new bothy songs would be only a couple of verses
long, sometimes bad. MS's father used to make poems. He would just
dash them off. He published a wee book. Any event would lead to
a song.
NEFA
1994.043.25 Transcription
P: Murray Smythe
T: Whistling ploughmen
S: Ploughmen would whistle a lot but not sing. Maybe as athey
were walking back to the house, they would sing, but usually it
was whistling. Not necessarily a recognised tune, but anything at
all. You might hear about somebody being greedy or something like
that and [make a song about them].
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