A wonderful morning today at Greyhope Library with the bairns from Primary 1 at Greyhope School – parents, carers and wee brothers and sisters were invited to see the new library and enjoy some stories with myself and Fizzy the Fairy!
Well today was our last week in Aberdeen’s primary schools as tutors for SC&T Youth! Cornhill Primary School – thankyou for your amazing enthusiasm and wonderful singing!
Once again, pupils from three classes had 4 hours – only 4 hours! of tuition in penny whistle, clarsach, guitar and … Scots Song!
Despite my ever-worsening laryngitis, the pupils of P4, P4/5 and P5 learned to sing The Silver Darlings, The Fisherman’s Lassie and The Barnyards of Delgaty as well as learning all bout the history of the songs and how they describe life in the North East of Scotland. I’ve posted in greater detail about all of these songs in the past few weeks, but I’ve not yet posted about the songs the pupils have been learning for their grand finale!
It is of course Billy Connolly’s The Wellyboot Song – which probably doesn’t need much of an introduction! One of the teachers managed to find this recording of Billy singing it in 1976 -which I can share here cos there’s no swearing! 😀
Noo I’m aff tae nae spik for a wik! 😀
Some photos from the weekend where I had a fun time telling stories of Dragons and Monsters for Chinese New Year at Confucius Institute Aberdeen ‘s Spring Festival Family Fun Day! 🐲🐉
Just as you’ll be bored of photos of me yapping, the other two pics are of Wee Imp and friends who had a great afternoon dressing up for photos and doing crafts !
Well Spectra Festival 2024 is fast becoming a distant memory!
4 days of storytelling
16 hours of storytelling
Well over 1000 audience members (final numbers still to come in)
32 stories
5 bags of Irn Bru Jellybabies
2 annoying fairies
Numerous repeat visitors
And a wonderful, wonderful experience for Lindsey and I too!
Thankyou so much to the Spectra Festival team for having us along again – we loved our new location of the Cowdray Hall, our campfire and Granny’s Blankets! Thankyou to the Showsec security who did a marvellous job in all weathers, welcoming the crowds in. Thankyou of course to my storytelling partner in crime Lindsey Gibb who has joined me for her 3rd year as Guest Storyteller!
And Thankyou to all the listeners who made it all worthwhile every night!
Here are some photos 😀
(Thanks to Alice, Lynne and Adele for the kind permission to share their photos!)
Anither grand day today at Ashley Road Primary School! The P3, 4 and 5 pupils (2 classes of each!) are fair gettin on wi their class songs – The Fisherman’s Lassie, The Barnyards O Delgaty and The Silver Darlings which I spoke about yesterday. (They’re also learning a fourth song which everyone is to join in with, but more on that in another post!)
There are a few videos online, but I like this one the best – the recording is the original by Alastair McDonald and the film that has been put to the song shows old footage of the fishing fleets and the fish gutting lassies swiftly preparing the fish to be salted and packed into barrels. The pupils fair enjoyed watching it!
It’s another busy week ! This time starting off with the pupils of Ashley Road School who we Scat Youth tutors are visiting to teach penny whistle, guitar, clarsach and Scots song!
I’m teaching the P3s The Barnyards O Delgaty and the P5s the Fisherman’s Lassie (both of which I’ve spoken about in previous posts)… but the P4s are learning The Silver Darlings – a song about the herring boom in Scotland which peaked in 1907. “The Silver Darlings” is a fond nickname for the herring.
The song was written by Jim McLean, Bob Halfin and Andy Hulskrammer and later on this week I’ll share a video of a recording of it with Alastair McDonald. (Find a discussion of the song origins here on mudcat: https://mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=40414 )
The pupils are taught the meaning of the song they’re learning – as well as any unfamiliar Scots words. Many pupils in each school have families who came from farther afield, but no matter where they’re from, they’re all doing a grand job of learning and pronouncing the Scots and Doric!
The image I’ve chosen to illustrate this post is an etching by James McBey (1883-1959) from 1908. The title is “Herring Fleet, Aberdeen” – the etching has made its way across the pond where it is stored at The Boston Public Library Arts Department. James McBey was local to the area and may be familiar to those that visit Aberdeen Art Gallery where there’s a fantastic exhibition of his work. My daughter and I love the interactive display of how etchings were made! (Thoroughly recommended!)
Next week will be a busy one teaching Scots Song with SC&T Youth and Spectra Festival over the coming weekend. Then I get a wee break before our final week in Aberdeen primary schools with the SC&T Tutors – just enough of a break to brush up on my DRAGON TALES for the University of Aberdeen Spring Festival Family Fun Day. It is of course the Year of the Dragon and so I’ll be telling tales of dragons and monsters from around the world!
The Confucius Institute will be organising all sorts of activities (dragon stories included!) at the Elphinstone Hall on Sunday 18th February from 10am to 4pm.
Stories will be from 11am to 12pm and 1 to 2pm
https://www.abdn.ac.uk/events/19843
I’ve got some braw photies for you today from my week with SC&T Youth at Sunnybank School!
As I said in my post at the start of the week, the P6s were learning The Barnyards O Delgaty – quite the feat for those with non-Scots families, but they pronounced the Scots beautifully and I wis affa impressed wi their “knyot” in Meg MacPherson’s brose!
I posted a link to clarsach tutor Irene singing the song earlier this week, but here’s a link to Bothy Champion Joe Aitken’s performance at the Keith TMSA Festival in 2021 – back when we were still aa daen festivals fae oor livingrooms!
The Barnyards O Delgaty is sung about 22 minutes into Joe’s performance. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C4yqCYp2O0U
The photo below is of my Dad’s Uncle Willie – taken around 1920. I wanted to show the bairns what ploughing horses looked like, all yokit up. (Uncle Willie is clearly spruced up for this photo, wi his pocket watch and everything!)
The drawings are from a rather talented P6! First she drew one of Uncle Willie’s horses – long after the photo had been taken down off the board! And then she drew me and our cat Apollo 
(Apollo is looking mean because he clawed my arm in a moment of “I love you – I love attacking you!” leaving me with a rather obvious scratch, hehe 
)
I love when these visits inspire the kids in so many different ways 
Don’t forget Spectra Festival is next week!
Spectra is Aberdeen’s Festival of Lights and this year is returning for its 10th anniversary of the first Spectra in 2014.
Lindsey Storyteller and myself will be telling tales in the Cowdray Hall between 6 and 10pm each night – some inspired by the various artworks across the city. Come hear a tale of a stubborn princess wooed by the lords of the local industries – she’d rather ignore them and hang out wi the seagulls instead!
(Now I’m getting carried away and considering Greggsy Granite, Shuggie Shipbuilder, Farquar Fash and … I don’t know. The temptation to have a golfing tycoon is huge. HUGE!)
Fizzy and Fuzzy the Fairies will be back (oh no) with a new story of their own – all about the giant beastie that rolls the sun across the sky!
Another fun week with SC&T Youth ahead! This week we’re in Sunnybank School and one of the songs I’m teaching is The Barnyards Of Delgaty
We’ve just had one lesson so far, but the class that’s learning it was doing a grand job o the Doric – pronouncing kynot like natives and huppin and crackin at the right moments!
The Barnyards o Delgaty is a Bothy Ballad from the North East of Scotland – a song from the farming traditions over 100 years ago. The loons (boys and men) would be employed in the farm and would be housed in the bothy – where they’d sleep, cook and wash – or maybe in a chaumer – in which case they’d get their food cooked by the kitchy demes (quines or lassies that worked on the farm, often in the kitchen).
Their jobs would range from Orra Loon (the young lad that got all the odd jobs to do), to plooman (ploughing) or one of the top jobs – Heid Horseman (in charge of the horses who pulled the ploughs).
The songs were written about real farms and people and could be on various subjects “Our crew is the best!” “This farmer is an absolute rotter” “I’m in love with the farmer’s daughter” or even “That time the pig got drunk and caused chaos” – The Barnyards O Delgaty is one of the best known Bothies and tells of a lad who was promised a wonderful farm, but turned out to find it wis affa!
Wur Clasarch teacher Irene Watt has a grand video online which explains fit the song is aa aboot! Often these songs are sung unaccompanied, but Irene’s got nae jist a ukulele, but a friendly cuddy (horse) an aa!
I’ll post anither video the morn – by aene o oor local bothy loons!
Pauline Cordiner - Scottish Storyteller 