Finale to a Port program on BBC Alba. Hazel & Jennifer Wrigley ,Liz Carroll, Julie Fowlis and friends play a set of tunes starting with Miss Sarah Mcfadyen ( Jennifer Wrigley ) in the historic Skaill House in Orkney.
I wish I still lived in Orkney. Well, Yorkshire is full of vikings ---- so i am happy here. I DOUBT IF YOU REMEMBER ME, but I do not forget you, and I pray that this crazy world is not closing down your wonderful work in Kirkwall.
Interesting reel. Good to see that the team that entertained us with "The Song of the Eel" could switch things up. Never seen the Bodhran played bare handed before. Magnificent
MAY MORNING by Cowling pinnacle 1999 AD We danced up by the pinnacle to welcome summer in. We tramped through bog in freezing fog, the cliff edge for to win. We joined the chorus of the dawn, with curlew’s wittering cry, above the golden lights of town, and traffic, which went by far down below the sodden moors. Before the morning light had warmed us all I played my fiddle and, with colours bright, there danced once more, in clogs, like Morris men of old who had to black their faces, lest the Puritans were told of all the wild exuberance of which they disapproved for Mary’s dowry had been given to men who were not moved by joys of Heaven. And so they danced a dubious pagan rite, to show how we despise their gold, their prudishness to spite, to show tradition lingers on, that yet some men still prove that something they don’t understand can still inspire their love. I played our Lady’s Anthem, though I think that no-one heard, or knew what I was doing, nor would understand a word of what I wished to tell them of the maypoles on the green, when England once was merry, and our Lady was her Queen. Historic reasons for our tryst, on that first day of May, were quite forgot, yet in the mist, I heard our Lady pray. I think she wept that whole month through (it certainly was wet) that Yorkshire’s men she loved so well her Queenship could forget. Yet for herself she did not weep, but for the world of men. She prayed that her own England would be merry once again. Two orbs one gold on silver, with the pinnacle between, we saw, as over eighteen years would not again be seen. And there, among the streaming clouds, far down below we saw the sun drenched pattern of green fields on Cowling valley's floor
I wonder if you remember playing second fiddle in the orchestra sharing a desk with me ----- i am still in touch with one of your mother's friends. i have just been listening to you plaything Stronsay Weaver ---- I left a comment and then i lost you ---- i just said you were playing too fast to dance to ---- same again ------ NOW I CANNOT FIND OUT HOW TO SEND THE POEM I WROTE WHEN I PLAYED TOO FAST FOR SOME YORKSHIRE CLOG DANCERS ON MAY MORNING 1999, I AM USING CAPITALS BECAUSE THE NEW LAY-OUT ON GOOGLE IS TOO FAR FROM WHERE I LIVE IN AN OAK-TREE CHAIR --- THE PRINT IS TOO SMALL
