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.
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
Karen McAulay, Musicologist 