Friday Afternoon, and I’m Feeling Mischievous

Posted on by Dr Karen E McAulay
image by Nitish Gupta from Pixabay - woman holding LinkedIn sign

Headhunted!

I’ve had a series of phone-calls from a recruitment agency – or should I say, ‘recruitment agency’ called IQVIA today. This is apparently because I am looking for clinical manager roles. I can see one tiny problem. No, more than one!

AM I?

I’m semi-retired, and geographically tied to where I am. I can’t relocate.  And whether or not I would take on more work is hardly the question, because I haven’t activated LinkedIn’s looking-for-work function. Quite apart from the elephant in the room – that job title.

They were Persistent!

I ignored the first call. Told the second and third that I hadn’t asked them to contact me. Finally, I asked the fourth caller – Amelia – why she thought I was suited for a role as clinical manager, and she said it was because of my LinkedIn profile.

Have I ever intimated that I have medical qualifications? I have not. I told Amelia very firmly to remove me from their database because I am utterly unqualified for a clinical manager role. (I’m not even entirely sure what a clinical manager does!)

However, if I get any more calls, I can’t promise that I won’t enjoy myself stringing them along and wasting a bit of their time. I’ll share my age and qualifications. I’ll tell them about my specialisms, and bring them up to date with my latest research. It’ll be most amusing – well, to me, at any rate.

After all, my insights into the history of Scottish music publishing might be exactly what is needed to cure someone’s duodenal ulcer …

On This Day in Past Summers

Posted on by Dr Karen E McAulay

WordPress has a habit of reminding me what I posted ‘on this day’ in previous years. Today’s reminder has been quite interesting!

2019

… seems a long time ago! I was in Killin, speaking at the Clan Gregor Weekend. Sir John Macgregor Murray was an interesting historical figure whom I’d encountered in passing during my doctoral research. A decade later, I’d been invited to give a research paper about him at the Sorbonne, and it turned out that Clan Gregor was also interested in my research, so I gave an after-dinner talk there, too.

The paper eventually became a peer-reviewed article in vol.13 no.1 (2026),  pp.50-63 of the Folk Music Journal, ‘Sir John Macgregor Murray: Preserver of Highland Culture, Music and Song’.

2022

I gave a lightening paper at a HoPIN webinar. HoPIN is the History of the Printed Image Network, so my paper was probably rather unfamiliar territory for researchers more familiar with images than old sheet music.

2023

A Social History of Amateur Music-Making and Scottish National Identity: Scotland’s Printed Music, 1880-1951

I was revising my second monograph prior to submitting it to the publisher. And looking forward to taking up my Ketelbey Fellowship in the History Department at the University of St Andrews. (By the end of the fellowship, I’d be working on revisions to the book!)

2024

I had not long retired from librarianship, but now I identified as semi-retired. So for the research fellow part of me, it was full-steam-ahead on indexing the second monograph, and my ‘vacation’ was somewhat busy. I was also contemplating an emergency visit down to Norfolk – I can’t remember if I actually went that time, because there were several such crises, some resolving sooner than others.

2025

Again, my vacation was far from relaxing. I was back from a trip to Norfolk, and in Glasgow we were having a new bathroom fitted. Meanwhile, we knew that a family bereavement was very imminent. I got the sad news on the final day of the bathroom re-fit, with a houseful of plumbers and electricians around. The news and our domestic circumstances will always be combined in my memory!

2026

Down-time

It’s more like a vacation this year, I guess. It’s warm and sunny. The garden’s looking moderately tidy, and I’m not rushing to meet a deadline.  If I feel unsettled and vaguely guilty for my laziness … well, maybe I’m just out of practice!

Anyway, I know I’ll be busy enough when my holidays come to an end.

Holiday Reading: Old Boys in Top Hats

Posted on by Dr Karen E McAulay
Busy Lizzie plant on garden table, with cup of coffee

I’m still managing not to reply to work emails – I merely glance at my inbox and delete anything irrelevant – and I haven’t touched my interview transcriptions this month. From that point of view, I’m succeeding at this ‘having a holiday’ July. However, my eBay purchases arrived earlier this week, and I could hardly not look at those, could I?

Holiday Purchases!

Prospectus, 1913-14

The school prospectus for 1913-14 contained no mention of James Easson in its examination results. He’d have been 17 or 18 by then.  He was also absent from the ‘List of Distinctions gained by Former Pupils’ – but he wouldn’t have had time to get any before the Great War began. I already knew that he served in the war, was invalided out in 1917, and got his Royal Academy of Music certificates in 1918 and 1921.

Oh well, you win some, you lose some. I discovered that the school provided instrumental and vocal instruction – but the teachers’ names weren’t those of the men with whom Easson studied; maybe he had private tuition.

The other alumnus in whom I was mildly interested – the one at the Scottish publishers whom Easson and Wiseman had initially considered, before signing a contract with Nelsons – did appear in the prospectus. He had attained Second Class Honours in Rhetoric, English Language and Literature at Edinburgh University during 1912-13 and graduated with an M.A.

APER: Fifty Years of Progress 1898-1948

This guy also appeared in my other purchase – a jubilee publication celebrating the Association of Publishers’ Educational Representatives.

It was pleasing to spot a contribution from one of the older editors at Thomas Nelson’s, too. By 1948, he had retired to Cornwall – he’d been living there most of the time before retiral, anyway.

Unfortunately, although I read this book from cover to cover – and it was interesting, showing the important role that the educational representatives held, liaising between publisher and schools – it soon became evident that a lot of people, some of them reps, and others with different roles in education, had been commissioned to write a few pages to celebrate the organisation’s 50-year jubilee. By the end of it, I was in no doubt as to the nature of their role. I’d also noted that there were lists of members and important officials – but the book had no direct bearing on my own research. There were some amusing anecdotes, and I was reminded that Thomas Nelson’s educational representatives always wore top hats when they were out visiting schools. It distinguished them from ordinary travelling salesmen. 

Top hats in the 1890s (and still in 1948!)

As that retired editor joked, school staff were unlikely to refuse admission to a smartly-dressed gent in a top hat!

Not Research, exactly! The Organist Plays …

Posted on by Dr Karen E McAulay

I was playing through some of the songs in Song Gems (Scots) last night. My attention was taken by a song here entitled ‘Mary in Heaven’, set to a tune called ‘Mary’s Dream’. This is a Scottish song – nothing whatsoever to do with the Annunciation in the Biblical New Testament. Rather, it’s a song written by John Lowe in the late 18th century, in which a bereaved Scottish girl has a visitation from her dead fiance’s ghost; it was written for a real person whose fiance had died. You can look it up – there are numerous instances of it in old Scottish song books. Antiquarian John Glen’s collection, now in the National Library of Scotland – and digitised – holds plenty of copies.  As well as collecting and writing about Scottish songs, Glen was a friend of the compilers of Song Gems (Scots).

Johnson’s Scots Musical Museum ,Vol.1

It was in James Johnson’ Scots Musical Museum, and George Farquhar Graham included it in his Songs of Scotland, published by John Wood  (latterly by Bayley & Ferguson as The Popular Songs and Melodies of Scotland).

Suffice to say, I fell in love with this tune! It begins in the minor, goes into the relative major and back, and dallies with the submediant in the second half – it’s beautifully constructed.  But how could I use it? I worked out the meter, and after a bit of digging, found the words of an old hymn in the same meter, which were eminently suitable for an introit.  I’ve added sparing choral harmonies, and obviously it won’t have soloistic ornamention. But I’m still quite pleased with the results.

And so it shall come about that ‘Mary in Heaven’ will most acceptably be sung in a Presbyterian church …

Here’s Anita Rosati’s gorgeous April 2026 recording of ‘Mary’s Dream’:-

Blog post image by bzimm3 from Pixabay

The Lure of the Chase (and eBay Ecourages me)

Posted on by Dr Karen E McAulay
Auctioneer's gavel (picture from eBay)

Ah, holidays! The sun shines, whole empty days lie ahead of me, and what do I do?

As I said before, I enjoy more of my favourite creative activities, then I’m drawn back – again – to my research. Specifically, to James Easson, the Dundee music supervisor. He doesn’t seem to have had children, but I’ve spoken to a few people who do still remember him. As one of the compilers of the Nelson’s Scots Song Book series, I’m naturally interested in him as a person, and his career.

Knowing which school he attended, I had a little search on eBay again the other day. I found a school annual report from a year or two after he would probably have left. I looked with interest, because I absolutely love ephemera. (It could be in my genes – one of my uncles, a graphic artist, collected labels and tins, long before there was an internet, just because he loved their typefaces and designs.) Anyway, I examined the images carefully – they had been generously provided – made a couple of notes and moved on. It was too expensive for something which wasn’t likely to tell me anything about James Easson.

I had, however, favourited it. eBay duly reminded me that I’d looked at it. Did I want to look again?

I looked. It was still too expensive.

A couple of days later, eBay shrewdly suggested that I might be interested to know that the vendor was willing to sell it at a discount. Uh-oh! I looked at the images again. There were plenty, but the page numbers showed that there were plenty more that I couldn’t see. I could see the cost of private music lessons. What else was I not seeing? I couldn’t bear not to know!

The thing is, even if it has no mention whatsoever of James Easson – and I think it’s unlikely, because I’m guessing he might have left school before the age of 18 – it certainly will give me a profile of the school that he (and that other publisher’s senior editor, who is no part of the story at all) attended. What if there’s more about music? Or choirs, or orchestras? Or something else that I can’t predict?!

I hesitated. The bottom line is always, will I kick myself if I let this offer go by me? (I have a painting by Carlo Volti, for this very reason. I couldn’t not have it!) Finally, I bargained with myself. I’d make a lower offer. If it was declined, then I wouldn’t get it.

Really?! Why on earth did she get that?!

But it worked. I’m getting that school annual report! One day in the future – hopefully long in the future – my sons will be clearing through my effects, and one will say to the others, ‘Why on earth did she …. ?’

Well, dear reader – you know now!

I’m No Good at Holidays

Posted on by Dr Karen E McAulay

Unfortunately, semi-retirement and working-from-home mean that when I’m on holiday, nothing much changes except that I have even more time to spend not-working at home. And Scotland hasn’t even offered sunshine for me to tidy up the garden!

A week into my ‘holiday’, I’ve baked. I’ve knitted socks. I’ve booked a couple of days away. But eventually, bored with my own company – and an excess of companionable but essentially unsatisfying daytime TV – I crept back to my laptop. What could I do? Aha, there had been an interesting comment from one Nelson’s Scots Song Book compiler to his editor, that has been intriguing me for a while. It looks as though Nelson’s weren’t the compilers’ first choice. Clearly, a good vacation activity would be to find out more about the firm that they had initially considered.

So I did. Of course, I’ll never know if the other firm wasn’t interested, or if the compilers decided that for some reason, it wasn’t going to work out. But I now know who the managing director was, who the chief editor was, and what else they published that was remotely music- or Scottish-culture-related. Apart from a commissioned Burns song collection and a couple of dance books, I recognised two modern, contemporary names published by this other firm – but neither were Scottish, nor had anything to do with Scottish culture.

What use this is to me, I cannot fathom, because – as I’ve just said – Easson and Wiseman contracted to produce their series with Nelson!

My fingers twitched to acquire eBay copies of the somewhat unrelated titles that had piqued my interest, but truly, I can’t really justify it. I might just see if I can see copies in Glasgow’s Mitchell Library, although that begins to feel like a work-related wild goose chase, not a holiday treat. (I did order a contemporary book-trade commemorative volume that I thought might contain useful background material …)

‘Old School Tie’?

Back I returned to the managing director and chief editor. There was just one interesting lead left to follow. And … I  discovered that, believe it or not, James Easson and the chief editor had attended the same secondary school – a highly-esteemed, fee-paying Academy. (Much later, it became state-funded.)

With five years between them, I suspect they wouldn’t have known each other. Their families lived in completely opposite directions, so it’s hard to imagine their paths could have crossed much until adulthood.  All it tells me is that they both benefited from a thoroughly good education. One went on to attain music diplomas; the other, academic degrees.

I didn’t trace any musical threads in the chief editor’s timeline. I couldn’t find any interaction with Herbert Wiseman, either. Of course, just because I didn’t find anything, doesn’t mean there wasn’t some connection that I didn’t manage to turn up. But even I know when to concede that I’ve found nothing of interest!

Now what else can I do to amuse myself?

AI Hallucinations

Posted on by Dr Karen E McAulay
Scrabble letters spelling 'False Statement'. Also on the table, a gavel and a pen.

Why this matters:

I’m not a Luddite, and I fully appreciate that AI can do truly remarkable things – but I don’t entirely trust AI. It gets things wrong. It disrespects the concept of intellectual property. And it has the capacity to perpetuate fallacies – attributed and unattributed – on a scale which gives me misgivings for the work of future scholars.

To my horror, I found a tiny example of this today. I had trusted a Google AI summary. Yes, I know – it was reprehensible, and I should have known better. It was when I was writing my posting about ‘Durisdeer’.

Correct

Kenneth McKellar did indeed sing it – you saw the YouTube video that I shared.

Incorrect

Now then, a recording of a modern Scottish song by Kenneth McKellar was certainly used over the opening credits of a film in 1963. However, that modern Scottish song was not ‘Durisdeer’, which as we know, was a Victorian creation by Lady John Scott. Google’s AI summary put two and two together and made five. I was somewhat alarmed to discover that by repeating this fallacy, my blog post was now highlighted as an authoritative statement about it.

We can’t have this!

Near Durisdeer, by Chris Wimbush

https://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/197537

Two Songs, not One

I have now corrected my earlier posting about ‘Durisdeer’, ensuring that I have not perpetuated the hallucination connecting the man-and-the song, with the man-and-a-different-song-and-a film. As attractive and appealing as the hallucination was, it was just plain wrong.

Image: False statement by Nick Youngson CC BY-SA 3.0 Pix4free

NEWSFLASH! Print and Tourism (Peter Lang, 2026)

Posted on by Dr Karen E McAulay
book cover - Print and Tourism

Yes, I’m on holiday! So I’ll keep this brief, but I have to share this: the postie has just delivered my author’s copy of Print and Tourism: Travel-Related Publications from the Sixteenth to the Twentieth Century / ed. Catherine Armstrong and Elaine Jackson.

My contribution is Chapter 8, The Glories of Scotland in Picture and Song: Jumping on the Festival of Britain Bandwagon (pp.187 – 205). It enabled me to write more about this Mozart Allan publication than I was able to justify in last year’s monograph about Scottish music publishers. I’m very happy indeed to have this chapter in Vol.7 of the Printing History and Culture series.

Published Peter Lang, 2026

  • ISBN 9781-80374-2441 (print)
  • ISBN 9781-80374-246-6 (ePub)
  • DOI 10.3726/b20937

Reminiscence Therapy for the Not-Yet-Old! Silver and Gold Leng Medal Memories, Update No.6

Posted on by Dr Karen E McAulay
River Clyde

As a librarian, I would occasionally read articles about reminiscence therapy – when you assemble a collection of assorted ‘things from earlier days’, whether books or household objects, as conversation starters for groups of older people. I only worked in public libraries for three years, and I suspect it was before ‘reminiscence therapy’ was a thing; but later, I would read these articles with interest and think what a lovely idea it was. More recently, I’ve read about how people have strong, mostly positive memories of music they enjoyed in their twenties, when life was fresh and exciting and it felt as though they had the world at their feet.

I have never had the opportunity to organise any activities like this – though I did begin to realise last year, that people also seem to enjoy remembering their school music and singing lessons!

As I review my Leng Medal Memories interviews, watching the video recordings and correcting the transcriptions, I realise that my interviewees often thanked me for this opportunity to relive their memories of singing Scots songs for the Leng silver and gold Medal competitions. In turn, I feel privileged to be ‘there’ with them as they open a window into the past, allowing me a glimpse of the children that they were, and the memories that were still with them. I’ve been showed medals, certificates and prize books. We’ve looked at the little Nelson’s Scots Song Books that school children often used. We’ve talked about teachers they remember, songs that they chose or were encouraged to sing, and a whole range of emotions from fear and anxiety, to immense pride.

Annual Leave

I still have a few transcriptions to review, but I have annual leave coming up, so if I do anything with the transcriptions during that time, it will be with coffee and a biscuit beside me, and a determination not to squander my entire ‘holiday’ at my desk! If I don’t use my vacation allocation, I lose it, and that would never, ever do!

I can’t NOT blog for a whole month. Neither can I really blog ahead, setting timers for it to go live, apart from this present posting. I like to think that anyone returning to this blog will always find something new to read, but I never know what I’ll feel inspired to write about!

Anyway, this is my explanation, if there are fewer postings during the month of July: I’m trying to be on holiday!

My Leng Medal Memories research is funded by an Athenaeum Award from the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland.

Now in Paperback! A Social History of Amateur Music-Making and Scottish National Identity: Scotland’s Printed Music, 1880-1951

Posted on by Dr Karen E McAulay
A copy of A Social History of Amateur Music- Making and National Identity, on a piano music stand.

Forgive me for boasting, but this is exciting! I’ve just discovered that my second monograph came out in paperback on 21 May 2026, just over 18 months after the hardback and digital versions. This is really good news, because it makes it much, much more affordable for individual scholars.

Book Description

Late Victorian Scotland had a flourishing music publishing trade, evidenced by the survival of a plethora of vocal scores and dance tune books; and whether informing us what people actually sang and played at home, danced to, or enjoyed in choirs, or reminding us of the impact of emigration from Britain for both emigrants and their families left behind, examining this neglected repertoire provides an insight into Scottish musical culture and is a valuable addition to the broader social history of Scotland.

The decline of the music trade by the mid-twentieth century is attributable to various factors, some external, but others due to the conservative and perhaps somewhat parochial nature of the publishers’ output. What survives bears witness to the importance of domestic and amateur music-making in ordinary lives between 1880 and 1950. Much of the music is now little more than a historical artefact. Nonetheless, Karen E. McAulay shows that the nature of the music, the song and fiddle tune books’ contents, the paratext around the collections, its packaging, marketing and dissemination all document the social history of an era whose everyday music has often been dismissed as not significant or, indeed, properly ‘old’ enough to merit consideration.

The book will be valuable for academics as well as folk musicians and those interested in the social and musical history of Scotland and the British Isles.

ISBN

Paperback 9781032389219

Hardback 9781032389202

eBook 9781003347460