The things you learn about when teaching Scots Songs!
Last night I was teaching one of three Scots Song sessions at SC&T Youth – 16 amazing singers aged 6 to 11 – and I learned that there is PAPER made out of ELEPHANT POO!
This was all in the context of learning about “The Bonnie Ship The Diamond” of course – Elephant Poo Paper is much more sustainable than the whaling industry was. We like whales, and we like elephants and now we all like Elephant Poo Paper – apparently it feels like silk! 🙂
It might be the weekend, but I’m busy busy busy planning upcoming projects!
First of all, I’ve been preparing my plan of action for the next 6 weeks with my Promise Group. We’re creating a story, working with hand puppets, making shadow puppets and filming it all before showing the film to their grown ups and the rest of the school at the end of the term!
I’ve also been planning ABC visits to care homes across the North East with funding Doric Books have received from Hands Up For Trad! The sessions will be based around Work, School and Home and will aa be in Doric – the Activities, the Blethers and the Community Singing. Three of the visits will be with Sheena Blackhall, so I’m really looking forward to that!
I’m delighted I’ve still got two visits to local schools funded by The Doric Board – working with the rhymes of Annie Shirer, a project thought up by Ewan McVicar – you can find out more about that here – https://annieshirerrhymes.co.uk/
And I’m chuffed to be covering three weeks of Scots Song with SC&T Youth – the songs have been chosen and the fun warm ups are being sung around the house!
I’m also planning the rest of the term’s stories and activities for the GREC Language Cafe. These are free weekly sessions for New Scots, those seeking immigrant status and abdy else learning English as a new language. Each session has a theme and there are often visitors who talk about what they do and what services they provide. My job is to tell a story and come up with ice breaker questions and activities for the Cafeistas. The cafe meets weekly (during school term time) at the Arts Centre on Thursdays between 11 and 3pm. Find out more here – https://grec.co.uk/language-support/
Oh! And the Guiding organisation in the UK has created some new interest badges for Rainbows, Brownies, Guides and Rangers. Including… the Brownies’ FOLKLORE BADGE! So I’ve had fun planning some stories and activities for that.
Aye, I’ve been a busy quine!
I’ve been having a brilliant time in schools the past two weeks teaching Scots Song with SC&T Youth ! The Scottish Traditional Taster Sessions have so far been in Muirfield Primary and Ferryhill Primary with Primary 5, 6 and 7 pupils learning Guitar, Clarsach and Penny Whistle as well as a “Class song” which they sing accompanied by another primary on their instruments and two songs which they sing unaccompanied but along with the other participating classes.
At the end of the week all 3 classes perform their instrumental pieces, class songs and joint songs in front of the rest of the school and teachers – and the two schools I’ve been involved in have totally nailed their performances!
The class songs this year were –
Mary Mac, The Fisherman’s Lassie and The Bonnie Ship The Diamond. Both Mary Mac and the Bonnie Ship were new songs to the repertoire this year and have gone down very well with the pupils!
The joints songs have been the classics Barnyards of Delgaty and The Wellyboot Song.
Convincing P7s that Bothy Ballads are the coolest thing on earth must go down as one of my biggest achievements of 2025!
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! 😀
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!)
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 
Well that was a fun week for the SC&T Youth tutors at St Peter’s Primary School in Aberdeen!
P4, 5 and 6 pupils learned clasarch, guitar, whistle, and Scots song every morning, with a concert on Friday where they were able to show off the tunes and songs they’d learned to the rest of the school and their teachers. P4 and 5 instruments would accompany the P6 singers, for example.
Here’s a photo of P6 enjoying a video of Joe Aitken singing the Barnyards of Delgaty – they were all singing along within a couple of choruses! I was especially impressed with their pronunciation of all the Doric words which were new to almost all the pupils.
One of the P6 girls drew this amazing portrait of me! – I love it when pupils do that! There are some amazing details in there – I’m particularly loving the duck earrings!
I’m really looking forward to next week when we’ll be sharing songs and tunes with the pupils of Riverbank Primary School.
This week, and for a further four weeks, I get to do something a little different!
Rather than storytelling, I’m going to be working as a tutor with SC&T Youth (the tuition for bairns and young adults through Scottish Culture and Traditions). I’ll be teaching a different song to Primaries 3, 4 and 5 (this week it’s Ps 4, 5 and 6) and one song they’ll all sing together. Meanwhile the other wonderful tutors will be teaching them accompaniment on clasarch, guitar and whistle as well as some trad tunes.
This week we’ve been at St Peter’s Primary – and the snow hasn’t dampened the pupils enthusiasm for learning! Here’s a photo taken on Don St yesterday. A beautiful part of town affa bonny in the snaa.
The Primary 4 pupils are learning one of our old favourites –
The P4s are learning our old favourite, The Fisherman’s Lassie. Noo I wis rummaging aboot tae find a video tae show you of someone singing it – totally forgetting that I recorded a wee video of it at Fraserburgh Lighthouse Museum back in… 2016! Which seems an eternity ago 
Here’s my version The Fisherman’s Lassie – more on the song tomorrow if I get a chance to post again 
Pauline Cordiner - Scottish Storyteller 