Dr Karen McAulay explores the history of Scottish music collecting, publishing and national identity from the 18th to 20th centuries. Research Fellow at Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, author of two Routledge monographs.
Never let it be said that I’ve ‘only’ published a monograph this year!
Now, in the Folk Music Journal Vol.12 no.5, pp.127-9, my review of a new edition of the Tolmie Collection, a significant Gaelic song anthology.
Kenna Campbell and Ainsley Hamill (eds). Stornoway: Acair Books, 2023. Illustrations. Bibliography. Index of titles in English and Gaelic. ISBN: 978-1-78907-109-2 (hbk). 978-1-78907-142-9 (spiral-bound). ww.acairbooks.com
I begin my review:-
Frances Tolmie (1840–1926) grew up and spent her final years on the Isle of Skye. She lived briefly in Edinburgh as a governess, later as a lady’s companion in the Lake District, and for a while in Oban on the Scottish mainland. Her collection preserved a rapidly dying repertoire of Skye women’s communal songs …
(Not yet readable online unless you’re a member of EFDSS, or your library has a subscription to the journal. It will appear in JSTOR in a couple of years from now.)
Facebook has just reminded me it’s 15 years since my doctoral graduation. Heavens, where did the time go?
Two Knees and a PhD
Summer 2009 was quite a summer! I submitted my thesis. He had two knee replacements, three months apart. He walked comfortably at my graduation ceremony.
Baking is not really one of my strengths!
Since then? Too much to enumerate. The thesis became a book. I contributed chapters to others’ essay collections. I published another book last month.
Why would a Librarian want a PhD?
Someone asked that, before I even started. I think I’ve demonstrated why.
Why would a Librarian want a PGCert?
Someone asked that, too. It seemed a good move at the time, and I have recently been doing a little teaching cover, proving that this wasn’t such a bad idea, either.
If one thing is certain, I wouldn’t now have a semi-retired existence as a postdoctoral research fellow, if I hadn’t found three old flute manuscripts in a cupboard that was being dismantled, a couple of years before I started the PhD.
I’ve been working on a very long article, for quite a few weeks. Finally, today, I reached the point where I’d compared my manuscript with the style guide, and worked out how to actually submit the piece. What with Web of Science and ORCID numbers, before I could even start completing the submission form, it was quite an undertaking. But – it’s done! Hooray!
And what popped into my mind, but the most unusual gift anyone has ever given me. When I was about eight years old, my paternal grandmother proudly presented me with …
… a mangle! (Was I meant to mangle my smalls, or my dolls’ clothes? Who knows.)
Anyway, I feel somewhat mangled after the effort of getting that manuscript ‘into the system’, so now I shall go and put the kettle on for yet more tea, before I tidy my desk and start thinking about the next idea for an article! The peer review process still fills me with apprehension – no-one likes the thought that someone else might demolish your efforts with a few well-chosen epithets – but I’ve done my best, so now I just have to wait and see!
This morning, I was talking to students about devising a structure for a research project – and scheduling the writing of it. Oh, I waxed lyrical. I explained how I scheduled my PhD chapters, and more recently, I scheduled my second book chapters, editing, indexing and so on. All perfectly true. It’s how I meet deadlines, ensuring I don’t overlook anything crucial. For me, this works; I do accept that not everyone likes to organise themselves this way, though.
But things have been a bit disarranged this autumn – I’ve actually been robbing myself of free time in my enthusiasm to do the scholarly things that I never felt I had enough time for before! This autumn, I had the book launch to look forward to, as well as some teaching (an unexpected bonus), and the writing of a substantial article. I had a couple of other writing ideas lined up for after I’d finished the aforementioned article, and I have been eagerly looking forward to my fellowship in Edinburgh next year – I don’t want to get started on that particular project until I have a desk in Edinburgh.
However, I’m just at the end of the substantial article, and now I need to check it meets the house style of the journal I’m hoping to submit it to. The other writing ideas? I think they’re likely to spill over into my RCS research existence in the days when I’m not in Edinburgh next year! (For a start, I haven’t delved quite deep enough to have a clear grasp of certain nuances.)
How did December creep up on me so sneakily?! Suddenly, semi-retired or not, I find I have the usual scramble to plan Christmas music, Christmas presents and all the usual seasonal silliness. If anyone sees a little semi-retirement just roaming around looking displaced, please turn it round gently and send it back to me. I’ll have to continue working on my time management skills – I think I’m guilty of allowing part-time commitments to overflow into time that isn’t actually meant to be work!
My new year’s resolution? Still to achieve work-life balance!
I really should have known better. I’m making a filial pilgrimage to Norfolk. I’d call it a flying visit, if it wasn’t for the fact you can no longer fly direct from Glasgow to Norwich.
I played the organ this morning, went home to homemade soup, then headed for Norwich by train. (It was a more appealing option than a long drive, mostly in the dark, and the prospect of icy roads later.)
So …
Glasgow to Edinburgh
Edinburgh to Peterborough (LNER buffet delivers tea and fruit cake to your seat! Kudos to LNER)
Peterborough to Ely
Ely to Norwich
22.22 reach hotel.
There was only one setback. You can’t get anything to eat or drink from Peterborough to Norwich, unless you pay a vending machine via Contactless. I took this to mean, ‘using your phone’ – which I’ve never done. (Only later did I wonder if card payment might also have worked…)
No buffet-car on the trains, and not really time to leave the platform in search of sustenance.
And so my Sunday dinner, at 22.22, was this:-
Better than nothing!
I had also apparently booked a hotel room with no breakfast. This has now been rectified!
I said this was a moral tale. It’s this: one should never, ever venture into East Anglia on a Sunday night without a sandwich in one’s handbag (and a drink in a flask)!
Paddington Bear and Queen Elizabeth could have told me that …
I thought folk might be interested to see a quick summary – NOT the whole talk – of the keynote I gave at the University of Birmingham yesterday. ‘Alt-Ac’ is Alternative Academia, or Alternative Academic. You’ll see what I mean …
A first for me, today: I was the keynote speaker for an Early Career Research Network event jointly organised with CALt-Ac at the University of Birmingham. That’s the College of Arts and Law’s network for people with ‘alternative academic’ roles, rather like mine when I was in the library 3.5 days a week, and seconded to research for 1.5. Not a full-time academic, in other words.
Yes, yes, you’re correct in pointing out that I’m not exactly ‘early-career’ myself! I was invited to share my own ‘Alt-Ac’ story, since it transpires that I have actually been an Alt-Ac since before the term was devised.
Everyone was very kind and appreciative; it’s been a lovely day. I heard interesting and informative contributions, and chatted to a number of people. There was a mix of subject-related presentations, and others which, as I did, shared their own way of making the alt-ac existence work for them.
The ‘Queen of Alt-Ac’ (not my words) declares herself happy (if abashed by the epithet), and is now being conveyed back to Glasgow in her carriage, Avanti West Coast.
My next post will share a summary of my talk. Are you ready …?!
This blog post is an edited excerpt from the research Exchange Talk I gave at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland on 11 November 2024.
Inside the song-book, The Glories of Scotland, the foreword was followed by a full-page signed photo of a popular Scottish singer and comedian, Alec Finlay. The University of Glasgow’s Scottish Theatre Archive, characterises the latter as, ‘The pocket Harry Lauder’, and ‘Scotland’s gentleman’, describing his comedy as, ‘delightful, couthie and kindly’.
His was an international variety act; significantly, he toured America in late 1950.
If he was known as the ‘pocket Harry Lauder’, it was for a logical reason: a colleague of mine pointed out that Finlay, who clearly modelled his act on the variety superstar, Harry Lauder, even went so far as dressing like him, ‘wiggly stick’ and all.
Harry Lauder, from Wikiwand.com
A song is linked to the signed photograph of Alec Finlay at the front of the book. The photo is captioned ‘Scotland’s own comedian’, with Finlay in typical pose, full Highland dress, wiggly stick, and a blurred Scottish vista behind him. Beneath the photo, and alongside his signature, is the name of a song, ‘Let Scotland flourish’, composed and sung by Alec Finlay.
Sure enough, opposite a picture of Edinburgh’s Princes Street supplied by the Scottish Tourist Board, page 71 bears the words of the chorus – not the music, just the lyrics!:-
‘Let Scotland flourish / In all the years to be / The land that I was born in / Will aye be dear to me / Caledonia I adore you / Tho’ I travel the wide world o’er / My home is where my heart lies / Scotland ever more.’
It’s there, ‘by kind permission of Alec Finlay’, and it was written and composed by Bill McDonnell and Alec Finlay. At the foot of the page, we read that the ‘complete words, music and Solfa are available for 2/- from all music-sellers.’ It was published by Mozart Allan – who also published The Glories of Scotland. The British cover appears at the top of this blog post. (There was another for the overseas edition. )
‘Let Scotland flourish’ is a typical Scottish waltz of the era. Finlay was a hit in America in 1950; and selling the song as a single piece of music would make commercial sense.
In the recording of the song, published by Scottish Clan Records in New York, Finlay sings in the broad Scottish brogue that contemporary American listeners would have expected to hear.
A quick post to mark a successful and very enjoyable evening. I gave my research exchange talk tonight at RCS. It was about a book of Scottish songs almost certainly published for the Festival of Britain in 1951. I talked about history, book history, music history, Scottish tourism and that all important catch-phrase for the Festival of Britain – ‘A Tonic for the Nation’. And then there was my book launch afterwards.
RCS wasn’t on Renfrew Street in 1951. We were the Royal Scottish Academy of Music at that point, in the old Athenaeum building (Nelson Mandela Place), but we had established a drama department in 1950 – the Glasgow College of Dramatic Art. (More about our history – click here.)
It’s fair to say that the book I talked about tonight – The Glories of Scotland, published by local publisher Mozart Allan – would not have been required repertoire for the talented students passing through our doors in 1951. It wasn’t aimed at high-performing classical artistes. (I doubt the library even had a copy in 1951, but there’s no way of finding out now. Anyway, we have recently acquired it!)
Nonetheless, the songbook does have a place in Glasgow’s history, in its own unique way.
Books relaxing after a night out!
After the exchange talk, we launched my book about amateur music making, Scottish national identity and Scottish music publishing. Professor Stephen Broad introduced it, and said some very kind words about it. There were friends and colleagues there whom I hadn’t seen for a while, so it was very sociable as well as celebratory.
Book launch: my ‘few words’ in response
My thanks go to everyone who contributed to make the evening so successful – Research Exchange colleagues, Library former colleagues, and the box office events team. I’m ‘dead chuffed’, as they say.
Looking forward to my Exchange Talk and Book Launch next Monday, I made a wee promotional video! Maybe I’ll see you there, if you’re in/around Glasgow.
Karen McAulay, Musicologist 