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

Ethical Approval: a Must

Posted on by Dr Karen E McAulay
Scrabble letters spelling Projects, Jobs, Done

My next research project requires ethical approval – interviewing real live people rather than writing about people long since departed.  And it’s imperative that I get my submission in on time, since the next meeting of our ethics committee is early next year.  

I’ve been working on it for weeks. (Admittedly, I’m a part-time research fellow, so I technically have only 10.5 hours a week to get my research activities done. Yes, we all know that the reality is different!) Anyway, yesterday was my own deadline: it just happened to be the last day we’re open before Christmas, and the morning after my last working day this year.

Efficiency (and Thoroughness)

There’s only one way to fill in a form efficiently, and that’s to make sure every question is answered satisfactorily. To this end, I go through and make myself a list of the information I must provide. Over the past few weeks,  I assembled the info. Attachments were created and labelled. And here’s where Tuesday (not a ‘work’ day) and Thursday came unstuck. I wanted to have a particular collection of old newspaper excerpts to share as an interview prompt.  Finding and listing them was easy enough. Formatting the document in Word, though? With clips of the excerpts? It took hours!

Have I Forgotten Anything?

Finally satisfied, I turned back to the form. And there – I swear they weren’t there when I initially saved it! – were a couple more questions with grey-shaded boxes requiring answers. And attachments.  What a good thing I double-checked. ✔️

It’s done. Phew! Details of whom I hope to interview, what I’ll be asking, and how I’ll save and use the gathered information, are all itemised.

And … breathe!

I submitted it. Ensured everyone involved could access it. At last, I can stop thinking about it until after Christmas!

Now, where’s the domestic to-do list (all the stuff I need to do, because no-one else will think about it) …?

Christmas cheer!

Image by Daniel Schmieder from Pixabay