The Elphinstone Institute has beenawarded funding by the BritishAcademy to produce an edition of

James T. R. Ritchie’s collection of children’slore and language – ‘The Bumbee Bell’.

Ritchie (1908-1998) was a maths andscience teacher at Norton Park School,between Leith and Edinburgh. He begandocumenting his pupils’ play traditions fromthe 1950s. His work led to radio broadcastsand, with fellow-teachers from the school,the pioneering film, The Singing Street(1951), featuring the children’sdemonstrations of their games and songs.Two books followed, The Singing Street(1964) and The Golden City (1965),containing a wide range of children’s songs,games, beliefs, customs, football chants andgraffiti.

Ritchie’s third book, ‘The Bumbee Bell’(referring to the playground bell), neverreached publication. It contains a host ofvivid examples of children’s lore, languageand games. These include Valentine’s Dayrhymes, skipping songs, and descriptions ofpeevers and bools. As part of the one-yearproject, Dr Julia Bishop will edit themanuscript and research into Ritchie’sbiography. The resulting edition will featurean introduction which considers thecollection in relation to Ritchie’s life and

L A N G U A G E • T R A D I T I O N • H I S T O R Y

Who’s Who at the ElphinstoneDr Ian Russell, Director, Ethnology, oral traditions, including music, drama and speechDr Colin Milton, Associate Director, Scottish literature and folklore, especially of the North EastDr Thomas A. McKean, Archives and Research, Oral tradition, songs and ballads, Gaelic traditionStanley Robertson, Heritage Lottery Fund Keyworker, Scottish Travellers ProjectDr Julia C. Bishop, AHRB Research Fellow, Carpenter Collection, biographies and social world of NE singersRoddy Mackenzie, M.Phil student researching the contemporary use of healing wellsSiobhan Tolland, Ph.D. student researching ‘Mary Brooksbank of Dundee’Sara Reith, Research Assistant, Scottish Travellers ProjectAlison Sharman, SecretaryHonorary Research FellowsDr Mary Anne Alburger, Traditional music and song, fiddle making, 18th century cultureDr Caroline Macafee, Scots Language, Scottish National Dictionary AssociationProfessor Bill Nicolaisen, Ethnology, folk narrative, name studies, Scottish place namesResearch AssociatesSheena Blackhall, Creative writing in ScotsDr Katherine Campbell, Scots fiddle, instrumental and song traditionsEvelyn Hood, Scottish traditions of danceDr David Northcroft, Education in the North EastLes Wheeler, Scots language, educationPostscript: If you have any information, comments or suggestions of relevance to the work of the Institute, do not hesitateto contact us. The Institute relies on outside financial support to make many of its activities possible. If you would like to help us in this way and/or become a Friend of the Elphinstone Institute, please contact the Secretary.

The Elphinstone Institute, University of Aberdeen, 24 High Street, Aberdeen AB24 3EB Scotland, UKTel: 01224 272996 Fax: 01224 272728 Email: elphinstone@abdn.ac.uk

L A N G U A G E • T R A D I T I O N • H I S T O R Y

E L P H I N S T O N E I N S T I T U T E

UNIVERSITY OF ABERDEEN SPRING 2005

Researching, recording, and promoting the cultural traditions of North and North-East Scotland

Dates for your DiaryPublic LecturesTuesdays, 7.30-9.00pm Admission £2.00 includes refreshmentsMarischal Museum, Marischal College, Aberdeen 22 February 2005Dr Fiona MacLean, Glasgow Caledonian University, ‘Wha’slike us? National Identity and Heritage in Scotland’22 March 2005Dr Valentina Bold, University of Glasgow, Crichton CampusDumfries, ‘Frank Miller: Scotland’s Forgotten Collector’26 April 2005Stanley Robertson, Elphinstone Institute, University ofAberdeen, ‘The Scottish Travellers Project’24 May 2005Dr John Corbett, Department of English Language, Universityof Glasgow, ‘Language On-Line: Introducing the ScottishCorpus of Texts and Speech’Other EventsFriday 11 March 2005‘A Boorach an’ a Barrie Nicht’: A Celebration of the Oral andCultural Traditions of Scottish Travellers, Stanley Robertson andfriends, Marischal College,10.00am – 10.00pm23 - 24 April 2005The Traditional Storytelling Weekend22 – 24 July 2005The Traditional Singing Weekend at Cullerlie

Elphinstone Public Lectures

Pho

togr

aph:

Ray

mon

d To

wns

end

The James Madison Carpenter Team hasbeen awarded a further AHRB ResourceEnhancement grant to catalogue the

Dictaphone cylinder recordings of traditionalsong, music and drama made by James Carpenterin 1928–35. There are 179 cylinders, each aroundten minutes long and featuring as many as adozen performances, making at total of nearly 30hours of audio material.

Ranging from a rare recording of a traditionalmummers’ play to sea shanties, from fiddle tuneswith their dance songs to ballads and bothysongs, the cylinders give a unique snapshot oftradition in the early thirties. Among thehighlights are the singing of Bell Duncan, one ofCarpenter’s most remarkable contributors, andWillie Mathieson, the farm servant later recorded

times, and comparesRitchie’s work to that ofother collectors inScotland and that of thecontemporary children’sfolklore researchers,Peter and Iona Opie.

A recent CDcompilation from theAlan Lomax Collectionreleased on RounderRecords (82161-1795-2)– Singing in the Streets:Scottish Children’sSongs, with notes byEwan MacVicar – notonly includes children’ssongs from Norton ParkSchool, Edinburgh, but also Aberdeenchildren from Cedar Place. Both groups wererecorded in 1951 (see photograph).

As part of the Institute’s ongoing project,‘The Oral and Cultural Traditions of ScottishTravellers’, a CD compilation will shortly bereleased of children’s songs, rhymes, andstories by Stanley Robertson – Rum ScumScoosh! Songs and Stories from an AberdeenChildhood. The album will feature dozens ofexamples of the games and songs with whichStanley grew up in the 1940s and 50s,together with a selection of the stories which

he was told. He often draws on these storiesin his work with schools and great favouritesincluded here are ‘Nippit Fit Clipped Fit’,‘Washadish’, ‘Twa Humpies’, and thechilling ‘Wee Aipolies and Oranges’. Fromlocal songs, such as ‘We’re awa’ tae the TorryRocks’ and ‘The Timmer Market Song’, toothers full of the fun of language, such as‘Pipe Fu the Hashie Gavals’ (in Travellers’cant) to ‘A Doo Fella, A Doo Fella’ (apunning jingle), the collection will be ofwide interest to all those who value theimportance of childhood and play.

Childlore comes to the foreFrom ‘The Bumbee Bell’ to ‘Rum Scum Scoosh!’

Children from Norton Park School at play,‘Monday is my working day’ reproducedfrom The Singing Street, by James T. R. Ritchie, Plate 3.

North-East Voices Brought to Life: Work Begins on the James Madison Carpenter Audio Recordings

as an old man by Hamish Henderson. For the North-East, these recordings fill a gap between the Greig-

Duncan collection (1904–14) and the 1950s recordings of theSchool of Scottish Studies. They are among the earliest, andcertainly the most extensive, audio recordings from this part of theworld.

Folklorists and enthusiasts have long been aware of the cylinders’existence, but they have been inaccessible due to their fragility.Now digitised by the Library of Congress as part of the Save OurSounds project, the audio material will takes its place in the OnlineCatalogue (http://hrionline.ac.uk/carpenter/) and in the criticaledition now being prepared by the team for completion in 2008.

The work is painstaking—some of the recordings are in verypoor condition—but very rewarding as the voices whose namesand materials we’ve been working with over the last five yearsnow come to life. Eventually, we hope that the recordings can bedigitally restored to accompany the final publication.

There is no question that theInstitute’s Boaties Project based inPeterhead has proved a huge

success. Six talented young craftworkersfrom the North-East, who completed theirmodel boat-making apprenticeship, wererewarded for their efforts at a specialpresentation at the Sea Cadet Corp HQ inPeterhead on the 8th December. Theyoungsters, all aged between 13 and 16-years-old, took part in a seven-weektraining scheme at Peterhead MaritimeHeritage Centre during the summerholidays.

The Boaties Craft Residency was the firstevent of its kind organised by the Instituteand attracted visitors from all over the UKand beyond. The residency showcased thetalent of a team of highly skilled model-makers from the local area, including JohnBuchan, Jim Reid, Ali Law, and SamWesley Allan, coordinated by former skipper, Stephen Ritchie.

The Boaties Apprenticeship attracted six junior apprentices from the Peterhead area - David Hogarth, Heather Locke, Philip Stephen,Peter Fowlie, Peter Buchan, and Stuart Ritchie, pictured above. A further seven senior apprentices, aged between 30 and 70 alsocompleted their boats. The junior apprentices were presented with a toolbox, complete with all the tools they will need to continue withtheir model boat making, a £100 cheque, and a commemorative certificate by Dr Ian Russell. He said: “This is a great achievement forthe apprentices. They have worked very hard indeed and acquired a unique craft skill that is part of their local heritage. They can bejustifiably proud of their excellent models.”

‘Boaties’ are a model-making skill that dates back at least 150 years in North-East Scotland, centred on Boddam. The models are basedon the traditional Scottish fishing boat known as the ‘fifie’ and sail without rudder, motor, or remote control; trimming the boat and settingthe sails in a way appropriate to the conditions requires great skill from the maker/owner. They are made in various sizes of hull from 1ft6ins to 4ft, but boats as large as 6ft have been made in the past. Most of the models built as part of the residency are 3-foot. The aim of the workshops was to raise awareness of the fascinating craft of model sailing boat building, as well as to introducechildren and young people to the skill of their construction.The Boaties project was supported by Aberdeenshire Arts and Heritage, and the Scottish Arts Council. Other sponsors include:Buchanness Model Yachting Club, Friends of the Elphinstone Institute, Willowbank Adult Training Centre at Peterhead, Robertson RoadResource Centre at Fraserburgh, Banff and Buchan College, Peterhead Bay Authority, Shell UK, Jackson Trawls, Peterhead CommonGood Fund, Peterhead Network Development Group, Davidson’s Ship Painters at Peterhead, Paul Williamson at Peterhead, Peterhead &District Round Table, Squaremen at Stonehaven.

Boaties Presentation

Presentation to the Young Apprentices for the Boaties Project at Peterhead’s Sea Cadets HQ

Dictaphone Type A Model 7a

L A N G U A G E • T R A D I T I O N • H I S T O R YL A N G U A G E • T R A D I T I O N • H I S T O R Y

From theDirector

Stanley’s School Visits

After five yearsstudying away fromhome I thought it

might be old hat, but as Iheaded to Vancouver airportin the early hours ofSeptember 16 my nerveswere high. I had been toScotland on a number ofoccasions to visit relativesand do the ‘tourist circuit’,but this time would bedifferent; this time I washeading to Aberdeen, and foran entire year at that. In myprevious travels, I had nevermade it up to the North-East, and from the reports Ihad from friends and relatives, I should expect cold,wet and grey. Not too encouraging, but I keptreminding myself that I had made it through twoyears in Newfoundland, where winter lasts fromOctober to May - and it surely couldn’t be colderthan that.

I arrived in Aberdeen on a sunny afternoon, andwas amazed by the beauty of the ‘Granite City’.Aberdeen University campus was an even greaterpleasure to see (I still get excited walking along thecobbled High Street). The age of the buildings – theChapel was built between 1500 and 1507 - and theirseeming resistance to wear and tear is baffling to me– where I come from, wooden houses from the1920s are preserved as ‘Heritage Homes’, and thelocal museum’s exhibit only goes back to the 1890s.

I had no idea what to expect the first day of the

One of the most enjoyable aspects ofthe work I am engaged in as theKeyworker for the Traveller’s Project

at the Elphinstone Institute is sharing myculture with the children in the schools. Ihave visited more than a hundred schoolswithin the city of Aberdeen and in the county.

When I go to the schools, I try to make eachchild aware of the rich culture of theTravelling People through the media ofstories and ballads. Furthermore I also teachchildren of primary 5, 6, and 7 how todevelop effective styles of writing and helpthem to find their personal creative ‘muses’. Ishare with them the experiences andtechniques by which I was taught, as a youngTraveller, to read, write, and remember.

Very few of the old Travellers in thegenerations before mine could read and write,but they had a form of literacy second to

none. These people taught me to getright inside the rubric of the matterand, using the power of the psychic,to tune in to natural settings.

It gives me great pleasure to getgood results from the children.

‘What is the river saying to you,’or ‘What language does the windspeak?’ Sometimes I get them to goinside a box with their minds andlet them create and explore themagic of their journey. The resultsare amazing. Some of the children

send me back the most beautiful, inspiringstories with visually stunning images. I haveamassed hundreds of these stories and filedthem in my office.

With the younger children I tell old tales andplay my electric pipes. Occasionally I sing aballad or spend time on Robert Burns’s work. I also teach street songs and old-fashionedgames to the children. The children seem tolike my visits and when I revisit a school I am cheered by the pupils. It gives me greatencouragement in the work of the TravellersProject.

My work with the Elphinstone Institute hasgiven the opportunity for a younger and wider audience to appreciate the culturehanded down by the Travellers through theiroral traditions.

Stanley Robertson,Keyworker, Travellers Project

course. With the historic roleof the university, I almostexpected to see professorswalking the grounds in capsand gowns. What a relief,when I found my way to theElphinstone Institute, to seethe smiling and invitingfaces of the staff. The groupof students enrolled in theMLitt, though slightlytentative at first, and despiteour vastly different culturalbackgrounds, soon becamecomfortable with our newsurroundings, and able to fit

ourselves into the small Elphinstone ‘family’. Thecourse prospectus promised a year of intellectualstimulation and cultural enrichment, which I waseager to explore.

With the encouragement of Dr Russell and DrMcKean, I was introduced to the flourishingtraditional music scene in the city, and armed withmy fiddle, I found myself overwhelmed withsessions, dance classes, and even Gaelic lessons.Within weeks, I was part of a local ceilidh band – I had established my niche. As the autumn termprogressed, I realized that though the courseprovides a thorough academic background to theculture and traditions of Scotland and the North-East, it is through my own immersion in the livingand thriving traditions of the region that I willtruly understand the ‘ethnology and folklore’ ofNorth-East Scotland.

First ImpressionsCarley Williams reflects on studying for the MLitt

Carley Williams

Stanley Robertson

As always it is a very busy term withsome interesting and exciting timesahead. First of all, we are moving

premises. Sadly we have to leave our ‘weehoosie’ on the High Street and take upresidence in a ground floor suite in thenewly-refurbished MacRobert Building,where we will join education and musiccolleagues. (This is the nine storey buildingadjacent to King Street.) The move istimetabled for June/July. We will keep ourtelephone numbers and e-mail addresses.However, our postal address will change to:The Elphinstone Institute, MacRobertBuilding, University of Aberdeen, 581 KingStreet, Aberdeen AB24 5UA. Once installed,we hope you will not be put off from visitingus. We would love to see you. We will beorganising an Open Evening at the start ofthe new academic year in autumn 2005.

The Friends of the Elphinstone Institutehave put in place plans for another BalladBus, following the great success of the lastone. The date will be announced shortly. Weare very grateful to First Bus for theirsupport of this event.

We are holding a special day, - ‘A Boorachan’ a Barrie Nicht’ – to mark the climax ofour Travellers’ project – ‘The Oral andCultural Traditions of Scottish Travellers’,on Friday 11 March 2005. It will be acelebration with most of the contributionsfrom members of the Travelling community,including a showing of Tim Neat’s classicfilm, ‘The Summer Walkers’. The events ofthe day will be followed by an evening ofsong, music and stories introduced byStanley Robertson. Please contact theInstitute for details or to book a place.

Stanley’s time as the Keyworker for theTravellers’ Project sadly comes to an end inApril, when the HLF grant finishes.However, it is planned to take forward thisimportant aspect of our work through theGeorge Reid PhD Studentship and otherinitiatives including CD publications and awebsite. Congratulations are due to SaraReith who was awarded the studentship.

In 2001 we really pushed the boat outwhen we held an international festival andconference under the title ‘The NorthAtlantic Fiddle Convention’ (NAFCo). It wasa huge success and the clamour to repeat theevent, especially from North American andScandinavian friends, has never stopped. In2006, from 26-30 July, we are hostingNAFCo 2 in partnership with the Aberdeen-based Scottish Culture and TraditionsAssociation (SCaT). At the moment, we arejust starting discussions to ensure that wehave the necessary support we will need tomake it a success. We will keep youinformed of our progress. Don’t forget topencil these dates in your diary.

Storytelling is an art that crossescontinents and cultures. To theTraditional Storytelling Weekend at

Banchory, we welcome among our guestsPeter Chand from Wolverhampton, whosetraditions are drawn from the Punjab inIndia. Stanley Robertson met Peter at lastyear’s Whitby Folk Week and took to himimmediately: ‘He’s a genuine man wi akeen sense o humour, and I was reallyimpressed wi his storytelling’.

Peter is joined by England’s best lovedstoryteller, Taffy Thomas from Grasmere inthe Lake District. His skill, experience, andknowledge of tales is highly respected, andhas been built up over many years. In hisyounger days, Taffy was a street performerand puppeteer (fire eating, tumbling,sleight of hand, and a marvellous ‘gift ofthe gab’) in ‘The Fabulous SalamiBrothers’ and ‘The Magic Lantern’. Hiswork in schools has been prolific, where heappears with his extraordinary ‘tale-coat’,a ceremonial garment designed to inspire

and honour the teller.Our other three guests – the ‘home team’

– are all members of Scotland’s TravellingPeople who have done so much to keeptraditional stories and ballads alive. SheilaStewart of the famous ‘Stewarts of Blair’,learned her stories from her father Alec,her Aunt Agnes, and from her Granny (herhusband, Alec’s father, the famed ‘JockStewart’ of the song, was also noted for hisstorytelling). Stanley’s stories are alsofrom a number of family sources,including his famous aunt, JeannieRobertson. The Stewarts of Fetterangus arerepresented by Elizabeth Stewart, whojoins us for the Saturday evening. She is anoutstanding singer of her family’s ballads,but will also be entertaining us with herwonderful traditional piano playing.

Together with workshops, storyrounds,and a talk, there will be plenty ofopportunity to mix and mingle, join in andlisten, in what promises to be a veryspecial weekend.

From Blair to Bhangra

Sandy Cheyne’s Rogues Gallery from 2004. Names to faces?

STORYTELLING AT THE WOODEND BARN, 23-24 APRIL 2005

Peter Chand

Sheila Stewart

Sandy Cheyne (the well knowncartoonist behind the drawings ofCouncillor Swick in the Leopard)

brought his pencil and sketchpad to the 2004weekend, and a selection of his portraits areshown above. I wonder how many of ourreaders could fit a name to a face? Well, hereare the names: Brian Dawson fromLincolnshire, Jeff Wesley fromNorthamptonshire, Breda McKinney fromBelfast, Jimmy McBride from Donegal, andGeordie MacIntyre (a Glaswegian) fromDunblane, but not necessarily in that order. Ifyou want to see the rest and find out who’swho, you’ll find them all on our websitehttp://www.abdn.ac.uk/elphinstone

This year (22-24 July) our guests includethe inimitable John Campbell and LenGraham, both from Mullaghbawn in County

Armagh. John andLen featured in the2002 StorytellingWeekend atWoodend Barn andwere an absolutedelight. John, withMick Quinn, arerecognised as Ireland’s foremost storytellers,but more to the point, John, like Len, is alsoa great singer in his own right and a fine‘lilter’ (lilting is the Irish version of ‘diddlin’or mouth music). John is also a skilful playerof a favourite North-East instrument, ‘theTrump’ (Jew’s Harp). Len was born inCounty Armagh to a family steeped intraditional music, song, and dance. He hasbeen cultivating the song tradition of hisnative Ulster all his life, and is recognised

internationally as a truly outstandingtraditional singer. Not only will the two ofthem be entertaining us in song, as only theyknow how, but also giving us their insightinto the lives of two great ‘Plooman Poets’,Robbie Burns and Paddy (Patrick) Kavanagh.

Our other guests include Bob Lewis fromSussex, Peta Webb from London and SarahJane Greive from Orkney, who are joined byGordon Easton, Scott Gardiner, KatherineCampbell, Kathleen Robertson, and Ian Pirie,all from the North-East.

‘Such a Parcel of Rogues’The Traditional Singing Weekend at Cullerlie

Len Graham and John Campbell

Sketches by Sandy Cheyne