The Banff and Buchan Collection

Jane Turriff, Mintlaw, 06/05/1994. Clive Powell is there too.

Murray Smythe, Aboyne, 06/05/1994

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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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