Falling into the Category of ‘Did I Need to Know That’?

Posted on by Dr Karen E McAulay

On Friday afternoon, a tiny germ of a thought struck me. It was about a book to which I had previously given no thought whatsoever.  It is unrelated to Scottish song, or even Scottish culture. It was published by a Scottish publisher.

100, 245, 260 …

(Forgive the little library codes! I haven’t forgotten where I came from.)

But I can’t see a title without wondering about the author, so I idly looked them up on my journey home from Edinburgh.

Well!

Here we have someone who …

  • Had LRAM piano and was a Dalcroze graduate
  • Trained primary school teachers in eurythmics
  • Gave classes for kids in a city studio
  • Helped choose music for the Royal Scottish Country Dance Society
  • Once or twice arranged music for same (but was never apparently on any committees –  you can spend hours looking at RSCDS digital archives, and I have!)

Did I trace their birth and death dates,  where they grew up, and where their parents married? Yes, I’m afraid I did!

MT? Definitely.

(Another clue for my former colleagues!)

All this falls into the scholarly equivalent of ‘pretty but pointless’, on the face of it, since it has nothing to do with a Scottish song book series for schools.  But the book itself might have a tangential link to my present research  – more anon – and gives me food for thought in another direction.

I have just talked myself into another eBay purchase  …

Image by OpenClipart-Vectors from Pixabay

Avoiding Dancing (until Research Took me There …)

Posted on by Dr Karen E McAulay

You probably have to be Glaswegian to know this old chestnut:-

‘Heh, does this tram go to the Palais?’

‘Naw – it cannae dance!’

Well, the tram has my sympathy, as I can’t either. ‘Himself’ and I each have two left feet, when it comes to tripping the light fantastic.  Indeed, his mother used to wonder how someone so musical could be such a hopeless dancer. On the other hand, I realised I disliked the activity as a small child at a party for preschoolers, when a well-intentioned parent tried to make me dance the Twist.  I remember the discomfort and embarrassment to this day.

Image by Luda Kot from Pixabay

We must have been terrible disappointments.  After all, dancing was in the Fyfe’s blood:

  • Great Grandfather, a stonemason, played bass up in Fyvie for winter dances
  • My Grandpa-in-law went to dance classes in Turriff as a boy
  • Mother-in-law was Miss Milligan’s first dance pianist at Jordanhill Teacher Training College, before Jean Milligan even set up the Scottish Country Dancing Society.  Later, after a lifetime accompanying Scottish country dance in Newcastle, she got a certificate of recognition from RSCDS at the St Andrews Summer School.

Meanwhile, my own Mum was a PE teacher like Miss Milligan, taught country dancing at a school in Whitstable, and even got my father to play for her on occasions.

I myself had a Saturday job as a ballet class piano accompanist. It felt a comfortable place to be.

So, it feels as though fate has caught up with me, when recent research into a dance accompanist led me to explore early digitised committee minutes on the RSCDS website (thanks, folks – this was really useful!).  In Glasgow’s Mitchell Library yesterday, I learned some more, from a book I only discovered at the weekend.  I thought the secondhand copy that I found online looked too expensive, but I am reassessing this opinion!

And here I am on a bus to Edinburgh in the pouring rain. I am hoping to see two rare books of reels and strathspeys connected with this one particular pianist who, it appears, was nothing if not a force of nature.  A renowned accompanist, I read that when she and her band had to share the dances with other non country dance bands, they really didn’t know quite how to deal with her – they hadn’t encountered anyone like her!

It’s such a damp and dismal day, that I really hope the National Library of Scotland books are just stuffed with interesting paratext, to make the outing worth the effort!

Image by Michael Drummond from Pixabay