Silver & Gold Leng Medal Memories, Update no.1

Posted on by Dr Karen E McAulay
A classroom in Wandsworth, London, 1906 - the year that John Leng died

I’ve heard from many kind people who remember their involvement with the Leng Medal song competitions in Dundee, and now I’m starting to organise myself to speak to (or chat online, or email) everyone who has been in touch and expressed a willingness to share their memories with me.  If you’re one of those people, and you’ve expressed a preference to share your memories via one form of communication or another, I have noted this for future reference. You’ll be hearing from me soon! But if this blog post is the first you’ve heard of my research project, then you can find out more about it here, and you can get in touch with me here. It’s not too late!)

I hoped to hear from a lot of folk, and I certainly did!  So I’m contacting a few people at a time, to make it easier to organise my time.  If I can, I plan to focus on a decade or so at a time – though this idea may end up being rather loosely interpreted!

I’ve just started emailing people who indicated that they could chat online, inviting them to select a day and time.  I’ve allocated half an hour, so that we don’t feel rushed.  But if anyone fears their memories won’t take that long to share – there’s no need to worry – any anecdotes, however wee, will help fill out the story!

Microsoft Bookings

I very carefully set up my Microsoft Bookings page, and so far as I could tell, I did everything correctly. However, when I shared the link, I suspect I ticked a box that should not have been ticked. Anyway, I’ve unticked the box and shared the link again. I only confess this in case anyone received an email from me but couldn’t make the link work! I’ve re-sent the email and hopefully all is now well. Every day’s a school day, as they say.

‘Two notes’

One person has revealed that they sang two notes before the teacher told them to sit back down!

I think I may have mentioned before – I work part-time, so progress will be slow but steady! I’m very much looking forward to hearing more about this remarkably long-lived and successful competition!

Karen McAulay

Faded old sepia photo of solemn children (Edwardian?) in a classroom
The ghosts of children long, long past – provenance unknown

Confession: these photos are from my own ephemera collection. They have absolutely no connection with Dundee, but just serve as a reminder of the days when Sir John Leng’s competition was initiated. The photo at the top of this blog was taken in Wandsworth in 1906, the year of Leng’s death. These little tots probably weren’t being taught Scots songs by their elegant teacher. On the other hand, the children at the foot of this blog post look exactly the age that early Leng Prize competitors must have been! This postcard comes with no caption whatsoever.

Links

Shipment for a Semi-Retired Researcher

Posted on by Dr Karen E McAulay

There’s no such thing as a typical semi-retired researcher! But my mail this week pretty much sums up my current preoccupations:  a tripod for the Zoom 5 Handy Recorder (research) and assorted double-ended knitting needles (semi-retirement sock project)! I now have all the tech I need, both for my oral history interviews, and for learning how to knit socks.

Researchwise, I’ve designated this week, The Last Week of Procrastination. I need to  get started on my interviews – no more ‘I must just …’ prevarication. Florence Nightingale’s ‘invalid’ of last week is not technically an invalid this week; I do know how my various technical options work – why, I even have a wee tripod to help me look the part! – all that remains is to start scheduling. (This is proving easier said than done, but I’m working on it …)

Who’d have thought a tripod was such dangerous tech?!

Retirement-wise, though,  I’m not quite sure where the sock-knitting fixation came from. My feet feel the cold, true. And I need something else to do other than embroidery, at times when I find myself ‘relaxing’ in front of the TV. (Let’s just park those inverted commas for now.)

Sheer Bloody-Minded Determination

But I’ve been driving myself crazy with this knitting malarky! If only I had an amenable granny sitting beside me telling me what to do next. As it is, I’ve downloaded instructions off the internet, bought a couple of books, and sworn quite a bit  … I absolutely hate being beaten by a circular needle and a variable quantity of double-ended needles.  (Manipulating these is worse than trying to hold bagpipes.*)  I can’t admit defeat to a 4-ply woollen sock, for heaven’s sake.  I’m meant to be intelligent. As my late mother said about cookery, surely anyone who can read instructions can do this thing? 

If nothing else, it’s proof that I don’t give up easily.  In the grand scheme of things,  I made a second attempt at a PhD. On this micro level, I will work out how to knit socks.

I finally (at the fourth attempt) turned a heel, and arrived at something resembling a sock. If it’s on my foot, it’s a sock, right? Even if Kitchener Stitch is a form of torture, and the sock foot is really only just long enough.

The other one of the pair will be better. And quicker.  I’m getting there.  The BBC recently showcased research proving knitting to be good for one’s mental health.  Relaxing.  Well …

Okay, it’s a ‘neat’ fit!

*Postscript. I did give up on the bagpipes. Learning whilst completing the second PhD was really not a good idea!

Who is this Woman Researching the Dundee Leng Medal Competition? Introducing Dr Karen McAulay

Posted on by Dr Karen E McAulay

If you’ve found a link to my brief questionnaire on Facebook, and wondered who I am and what I’m up to, then maybe I should introduce myself properly?

So … McAulay is my name, but as soon as you speak to me, you’ll realise I’m not Scottish.  I’m the only member of our household that isn’t! However, I’ve lived in Glasgow since 1988 – more than half my life. 

I do have a connection with Dundee through the Friends of Wighton – I’m Honorary Librarian of the Friends of Wighton, who promote the Wighton Collection in the Central Library. It’s a very old, historical collection of Scottish music publications, and I’m just available in an advisory capacity – I’m not in any way employed by the city of Dundee. I do enjoy this connection with Dundee, though. I have often consulted the old music books since before I even started my PhD, so I appreciate their significance. I’ve written about them, and about Andrew Wighton, who was their original collector.

Since I started my career in a public library – in South Shields on Tyneside, as a music librarian – I rather like having this loosely continued connection with public libraries, too.

I do have another link with Dundee, through my writing.   I’ve written both fiction and non-fiction, and the fiction was for D. C. Thomson’s The People’s Friend, during my earlier years in Glasgow.  But since getting started on my research, I’ve only really written about music and social history (and occasionally, libraries!).

I’m a research fellow at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland in Glasgow. For most of my career, I was a music librarian at the Conservatoire, but I did a mid-career doctorate at the University of Glasgow, and a few years after getting my PhD, I started being seconded to the Conservatoire’s research department – basically, I split my time between the library and a research desk elsewhere.

Nowadays, I’m just doing the research part of my role – I retired from the library.

My research has always been into Scottish printed music of one kind or another – songs, fiddle music, old music in libraries, publishers who published Scottish music or Scottish publishers who published music.

My most recent research has been into Thomas Nelson’s, the Edinburgh publishers.  They published a set of four Scots Song books for school use, and one of the editors was in charge of music in Dundee schools – so not surprisingly, these books were used a fair bit! Anyway, that’s how I got interested in the Leng Scots Song prizes.  I’m keen to know what competitors remember of their experiences, and if they continued singing Scottish songs later in life.

I’ve had a great response so far. I’ll start having chats with people soon.  But if you would still like to get in touch, it’s not too late. Please just visit this link!

https://tinyurl.com/LengMemories

Athenaeum Award Research Project: Silver and Gold Leng Medal Memories

Posted on by Dr Karen E McAulay
Microsoft Forms icon. Cartoon person sitting holding a notebook or tablet.

And I’ve started. I’m inching towards the part of the project where I start interviewing people, to see what they remember about this long-running Dundee schools singing competition. I’ve created a Microsoft mini-questionnaire so that people can contact me, and a poster for displaying or sharing. I’ve shared news of my oral history research project via Facebook, Bluesky and Linked in. And folk are getting in touch! I am really excited to say that in less than a week, I’ve already been contacted by quite a lot of people. Best of all, they’re already sharing memories of the Leng Scots Song competition that are exactly the kind of thing I was hoping to hear about – which goes to show that I’ve plainly come up with a really good topic to investigate (if I might be so bold as to say!)

Here’s the link to the questionnaire:- https://tinyurl.com/LengMemories

This research is being funded by an Athenaeum Award from the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland.

I Met Her, Take my Word for it

Posted on by Dr Karen E McAulay

‘You’ll be home for lunch’, He said. It was halfway between a query and a command. ‘You have four hours …’ (Actually, that came down to three, once I got to the library. Two, allowing for a coffee and my return journey … )

The Authoress

Nonetheless, I held in my hands the two very poetry books that the author (‘authoress’, in those days) had donated to the city library service back in 1881, not that long after they moved from Lanark to Glasgow.  I’ll never know if she handed them in personally, but I think it’s reasonable to assume that she handled those copies at some point. 

I can’t show you them.  (I signed a library form, which said that I couldn’t share my photos on the internet.) But you can picture two small volumes, one dark green and one purple, a little over six inches tall, with gold-edged leaves, and a little gold-embossed lyre on the front cover of each. Slightly different in design, but very similar.

A bit like this unrelated, non-library book

These books are by the mother of one of the women I wrote about in my recent RMA Research Chronicle article.*  Only one has been digitized, but I wanted to see them both. I was enchanted to find she had written a poem about ‘my’ heroine, Rose, when Rose was just a small child.  It was worth the trip for that in itself.  Not that it really added any hard facts to her biography, but still a lovely thing to find.

Anyway, there we were.  Me, Mary Ann’s books, and a poem about wee Rose (amongst lots more poetry – I’m not writing here about everything I found!) – so yes, I think I can safely say I came as close as is possible to ‘meeting’ Mary Ann today. But as I said, you’ll just have to take my word for it.

I handed the books back – it was a bit of a wrench, but hey, that’s what happens in a library – and the curtains of time softly closed behind me, leaving Mary Ann in 1881, and myself here in 2026.  I may be back – she and I could have more to talk about!

Book Image by Ruslan Sikunov from Pixabay

Clock Image by StockSnap from Pixabay

* Article, ‘Women Pursuing Musical Careers: Finding Opportunities in Late 19th- and Early 20th-Century Scottish Music Publishing Circles’, Royal Musical Association Research Chronicle , Volume 56, April 2025 [this date is correct], pp. 97 – 118

The Road and the Miles to Dundee (Cappuccino Concert Today, Research Later)

Posted on by Dr Karen E McAulay

Today takes me to a Cappuccino Concert in the Wighton Heritage Centre at Dundee Central Library.

As Honorary Friends of Wighton Librarian, I like to show my face as often as I can, especially when the concert sounds exciting!

But I hope that whilst I’m there,  I’ll also be able to chat to friends about my new research project – Silver and Gold Leng Medal Memories. You may recall that I blogged about the project a couple of days ago.

My research is made possible with the support of an Athenaeum Award from the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland.

Already, several people have been in touch, and I’ll be responding next week.  I can’t wait to hear everyone’s stories, and it’s clear there are hundreds of people out there who participated in this competition!

Would you like to help me?  If so, I’d be very grateful if you could fill in a very short questionnaire, and I’ll get back in touch as soon as I can to arrange an interview with anyone who has a story to tell!

PLEASE CLICK HERE FOR LINK TO SHORT QUESTIONNAIRE

Image by joesoap1952 from Pixabay

Silver and Gold: Leng Medal Memories

Posted on by Dr Karen E McAulay
A Silver Leng Medal for Scots song singing

Do you have schooldays memories of taking part in the Dundee-based Leng Medal Scots song singing competitions?  Perhaps you were a proud prize-winner of a Silver or Gold Leng Medal? 

Maybe you didn’t actually win, but the memories are still vivid? You might remember the song you chose, or which song book you sang from? Or you helped someone else polish up their performance?

Maybe you’ve never stopped singing Scottish songs?

Newspaper engraving of Sir John Leng (Illustrated London News, Saturday 10 June 1983)
Sir John Leng: Dundee benefactor

I’m on the staff of the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland as a postdoctoral research fellow, researching Scottish music.  Whilst investigating an old Scottish song book aimed at school pupils in the post-war era, I became fascinated by the initiative of Sir John Leng (1828-1906), who endowed the singing prize 125 years ago. He died 120 years ago, but his singing competition is still live and kicking all these years later.  Encouraging kids to sing Scottish songs was obviously a good thing!

Would you like to help me?  If so, I’d be very grateful if you could fill in a very short questionnaire, and I’ll get back in touch as soon as I can to arrange an interview with anyone who has a story to tell!

I decided to find out more, and I’m embarking on a project to talk to as many Leng medallists, entrants, teachers or adjudicators as possible.  The Sir John Leng Trust endorses this research, and is looking forward to hearing what I uncover. 

My research is made possible with the support of an Athenaeum Award from the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland.

PLEASE CLICK HERE FOR LINK TO SHORT QUESTIONNAIRE

Admit Defeat? Not if I can Help it!

Posted on by Dr Karen E McAulay

A Woman with Opinions, and a Man who Resigned more than Once

Whilst waiting to get started with my next project, I’ve been doing a bit more research into individuals who only had a marginal role in my previous projects, but looked interesting in their own right, too.

But if I have one quality which is sometimes a failing, it’s my refusal to accept that sometimes the information is simply not there to be found.  My librarianship background is somewhat to blame. If I can’t find something, it feels tantamount to an admission of defeat. And I don’t like being beaten.

Like Believing in Fairies

I’ve been on a wild goose chase this afternoon, though.  I knew the poetry collections I was seeking were rare. It was totally improbable that I would walk into a couple of secondhand bookshops and find either of them. Yes, they were published in Scotland  – 150 years ago.   The poet (‘poetess’ or ‘authoress’ in her own day) comes across as an interesting woman with informed opinions about women’s status, and since she was the mother of one of ‘my’ woman composers, I thought she merited more attention.  However, there was no trace of her this afternoon.  Luckily, I have tracked down library copies, so all is not lost. I will get to see them – I just won’t have my own copies!

Even the consolatory coffee was a bit of a damp squib.  I had the choice of standing and waiting in a haphazard queue, or going elsewhere to squeeze into a seat between people who really needed the space my seat was occupying. Oh, well. I had an outing.  And I  managed not to spill my coffee when I got bumped by the customers on either side!

However, I’ve had more luck at home, with my other quest. 

‘Beyond a few slender facts [ … ], virtually no information about him seems to have survived.’

So said the authors of a book celebrating the 150th anniversary of our institution,  a few years ago.

Of course, we have more information at our fingertips these days, so I’ve been trying to build up more of a profile of the Athenaeum Principal who only stayed in post for two years.  I now know a lot more about him – though not yet the reason for his resignation.  He was well qualified, a good pianist, and was the organist for several churches in England, Scotland and overseas.

Resigned as Principal, Resigned as Organist …

His resignation from the Athenaeum wasn’t the only time he resigned from a post. Indeed, one church went into a little more detail, saying he lacked tact. Their choir had already reportedly a hard time with his predecessor, though – maybe the choir itself was tricky!

I haven’t ruled out discovering more. But I am rather gratified by what I have found so far!

A Windy, Wet Window of Opportunity

Posted on by Dr Karen E McAulay
Interior of coffee shop (before the coffee and cake arrived!)

I received an invitation in connection with my next research project. It was irresistible in research terms – and I needed no excuse to be out of Testosterone Towers and away from the redecorating project. 

Early rising

I found the east coast much windier and wetter city than the west. (Windproof brolly, my foot! I rocked the fashionable drowned rat look instead.) It was darkish when I arrived around 9.38, and is darkish now at 12.20. 

I’m still entangled in ethical approval procedures, so this was an observational experience rather than ‘data gathering’. Worthwhile, nonetheless, and a reminder to myself that what I’m researching involves, and involved, real people in real time.

Yes, I did stop off in my favourite coffee shop on my way back to the station.  (Wouldn’t you?)

And now I need to type up some ‘first impressions’, in the most general sense.

The Highs and Lows of 2025

Posted on by Dr Karen E McAulay

As I’ve mentioned before, I have mixed feelings about this kind of thing. Outwardly, it smacks uncomfortably of, ‘Look at all my Achievements!!!’  Inwardly, I ask myself if I’ve done enough. Could I have tried harder? (I was brought up with, ‘So long as you know you’ve done your best’, but the unspoken suggestion was often that maybe I could and should have tried harder still!)

Sunshine

In a year of highs and lows, this really has been a rollercoaster.  I joyously welcomed the publication of my second Routledge monograph. I was also delighted to accept a visiting Fellowship at IASH (the Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities, at the University of Edinburgh), where I explored the Thomas Nelson archives – with more ideas arising out of this.

  • A Social History of Amateur Music-Making and Scottish National Identity: Scotland’s Printed Music, 1880-1951 (Routledge, 2025)

I saw three articles published, gave a paper at a conference in Surrey, and have another two articles and a contributed book chapter in the pipeline.

  • Article, ‘Heart-Moving Stories’ illustrated by Magic Lantern’, The Magic Lantern no.45, December 2025, pp. 11-12 (ISSN 2057-3723)
  • ‘Sir John Macgregor Murray: Preserver of Highland Culture, Music and Song’. Folk Music Journal vol. 13 (2025) no.1, pp.50-63.
  • ‘The ‘Scottish Soprano’ and the ‘Voice of Scotland’: the Importance of Nationality to Flora Woodman and Robert Wilson’, History Scotland Vol.25 no.1 (Spring 2025), 74-81 (accessible online via public library e-magazine apps, or you may be able to order a paper copy online.)
  • Conference paper,  ‘Comparing the Career Trajectories of Two Scottish Singers: Flora Woodman and Robert Wilson’, at the University of Surrey: Actors, Singers and Celebrity Cultures across the Centuries, Thursday 12 to Saturday 14 June 2025,  organised under the aegis of the University’s Theatrical Voice Research Centre.

I also finished supervising and assessing some Honours students’ research projects – an enjoyable new experience.  Having been an ‘Alt-Ac’ since gaining my doctorate in 2009, I had acquired a PGCert and FHEA, but teaching opportunities outside libraryland were infrequent. Being semi-retired certainly opens up new possibilities, and I’m happy to consider other opportunities.

And I have been awarded an Athenaeum Award from my home institution, the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, for an oral history project in Dundee. That will begin as soon as the  ethical approval process has been completed.

Clouds

However, as well as the professional highs, were the personal lows. In the middle of the year, we lost my mum at the age of 94, and this was far from the only upheaval on the family front. It has not been an easy year.

It would be inaccurate to say that I’m glad to see the back of 2025, because there has been much to celebrate. But, whilst I do hope that 2026 might be less of a bumpy ride, I realise that some things are beyond my control.  ‘Trying hard enough’ isn’t always sufficient guarantee, and some things will be difficult no matter what I do.  Shall we say that I hope the good outweighs the less good?!