There was me, planning to write this first blog about the mindboggling experience of spending five summer weeks stuck in the downstairs lounge of the Royal Oak, presenting 37 shows in a row – what a wonderful summer school that is, how it allows me to indulge in some fine music and song. After all, if you commit yourself to be there for 37 nights, you better enjoy the music. Wouldn’t want to be a martyr to the cause….

Pity about the first week when the Fringe, by moving its whole shebang forward a week, kind of abandoned us (no box office, no entry in the brochure for week one of our extravaganza – ah well)… 

So that was the plan, to write about some of the observations that pass through your beery mind while enjoying all those shows, but then I thought it would be more appropriate to use this first blog to pay tribute to two fine singers who enriched the folk scene for decades and who both passed away in July. 

Well, at least that change of tack has given me the opportunity to open my first blog with a Robert Burns quote…. it was his 250th birthday last January, after all.

‘Eh’m Fae Dundee’ - Jim Reid (1934-2009)

Jim Reid who – belatedly in 2005 – was proclaimed Folk Singer of the Year at the Scots Trad Awards (“Nae afore time,” was his sardonic comment) died on 6 July, aged 75.

Noo Stornoway’s no whar eh’m fae Lochmaddy nor Portree

When the bale o’ jait fa’s oot ma mooth ye’ll ken eh’m fae Dundee.

(‘Eh’m Fae Dundee’)

I was born in the city at the mouth of the Tay

When the big ships came in to the harbour each day

And the smell of the jute filled the air

And the noise of the looms everywhere.

(‘And We Didn’t Know’)

A Dundonian through and through, Jim was one of the finest interpreters of North-Eastern songs, of songs from beyond the river Tay. He composed some very fine songs and tunes (‘The Spark Amang the Heather’, ‘Stravaigin’’, ‘Freewheelin’ Now’), but one of his greatest achievements was putting the poems of Violet Jacob to music. Had he done nothing else than writing the tune for ‘Norland Wind’ (The Wild Geese), that alone would have secured him a place in Scottish folk history. 

He made this emigrant’s song about longing for the Angus homeland a folk song classic:

“And far abune the Angus straths I saw the wild geese flee

A lang, lang skein o’ beatin’ wings wi’ their heids toward the sea.

And aye their cryin’ voices trailed ahint them on the air.”

O wind hae mercy haud yer wheesht for a daurna listen mair.

It was the influence of Seamus Ennis, the Irish piper and folk collector, that got Jim started on Scottish traditional song and music. With the Shifters he popularised Mary Brooksbank’s ‘Oh Dear Me’ (The Jute Mill Song), but it was with the Foundry Bar Band that Jim Reid gained legendary status. For years, they were a mainstay at Clubs and Festivals. 

Jim Reid – the voice of Angus

Jim sang, played guitar and mouth organ, and had a particular affinity with the traditional songs of the Travellers which he picked up from the Stewarts of Blairgowrie, which also brought him close to Hamish Henderson.

Jim’s singing was hugely influential for a host of younger folk singers, particularly Jim Malcolm and Steve Byrne. I remember a fine gig we put on at Edinburgh Folk Club with the two Jims. And in the early 2000s Jim Reid gave audiences during Festival Folk at the Oak the time of their lives – unforgettable! 

In his latter years, Jim’s health declined. But before that, he recorded ‘Yont the Tay’ for Greentrax, a wonderful last hurrah of an album, and he also left us ‘The Better o’ a Sang’, his book of songs, tunes and life stories. It was always a pleasure to have Jim as a Club guest – he was, as Ian Green said, “a lovely man”. Billy Kay found the mot juste when he introduced Jim’s book: “Mary Brooksbank is richt, we’re aw the better o’ a sang, especially gin it’s sung by a maister like Jim Reid.”

The People’s Poet - Bob Bertram (1928-2009)

That we’re all “the better o’ a sang” is also true of Bob Bertram’s singing. It was a pleasure to see him rediscovering Edinburgh Folk Club and to see how he enjoyed singing a few songs at the Pleasance.

A Southside character if ever there was one, Bob succumbed to a short but serious illness on 22 July. Last year, on 9 July, he had celebrated his 80th birthday at Edinburgh Folk Club, regaling us with some of his topical and satirical songs.

Bob Bertram in full flow at the Pleasance Cabaret Bar (Photo: Allan McMillan)

Though born in Melbourne, Bob was a proud Scot. His mother was from Lanarkshire, his father from Edinburgh. The family returned to Scotland in 1931 when Bob was three years old. A year later, the family moved to Niddrie Mains on the Southside.

Bob left school when he was fourteen, and in 1946 he was conscripted into the Army, trained at Fort George, and was later sent to Lagos, Nigeria. On his return in 1948 he joined Thos Scott & Co, a wholesale ironmongery in the Grassmarket, where he worked until age 55, when he joined the Scottish Office until retirement age.

In the 1960s he got sucked in by the burgeoning Scottish folk revival, cutting his teeth at the evening sessions in the Waverley Bar. 

Twas once when oot walking I glanced at the news,

The poster sid ‘Welcome to Ballads and Blues’.

So I joined in the singin’ and tappin’ o’ shoes,

Thought a lot o’ the ballads but mair o’ the booze.

The great Scottish folklorist Hamish Henderson hailed him in 1964 as a ‘folk poet’ – by then he had already written umpteen poems, songs and ditties, some, as Hamish observed, “mere ephemeral squibs about current affairs”, but also others which “look as if they might prove more durable.” As an example, he printed ‘The Buckie Wife’, a song about childhood memories of Newhaven fishwives coming up to town to sell their wares:

Fine buckies, fine buckies

Noo that was her cry.

Fresh mussels the day-o,

Oh please come and buy

Bob actually acknowledged the help of Hamish Henderson with that particular ballad. When Hamish died in 2002, Bob wrote a moving poem about his funeral.

Other of his songs celebrate folkies whose company he enjoyed – Jimmy Greenan who, as Bob had it, “ lived on pies and bridies but still had enough wind tae blaw his tin whistle,” and Wee Wattie Wright (with whom he formed Edinburgh Ceilidh Folk): 

We’ve a box and we’ve a whistle, we’ve a banjo strumming free.

Here’s Bobbie and Wee Wattie, and hat’s Jimmy, one, two, three.

We’ll play you reels and jig tunes and sing sae merrily,

Sae welcome, all ye laddies, tae the Edinburgh  Ceilidh Three.

In the past few years Bob Bertram became again a regular at Edinburgh Folk Club. He enjoyed his music, and he enjoyed singing a few songs on a Wednesday night – songs about his memories of growing up in Edinburgh, songs about watering holes (for whom he had a penchant), humorous sketches and, of course, political comment (he was a lifelong believer in Scottish self-government) and topical lampoons – be it about the BSE crisis, the Royals (one of his favoured targets) or budget day, when, year on year, ever more taxes are heaped on booze and fags.

Last December, Norma Allan saw to it that a selection of Bob’s ‘Songs and Poems’ were published in book form, and he was delighted that the first print run sold like hot cakes. David Hardy recorded many of Bob’s songs to be archived at the School of Scottish Studies. Edinburgh Folk Club is planning to use some of the recordings made at the Pleasance for an ‘In Memoriam’ CD – so that his many friends can remember him the way he surely would like to be remembered, as the people’s poet and singer. 

So let us all be joyful, tae hell with strife and care,

Life’s too short tae sit and greet, so let us hae a tear,

Wi’ rattlin’, rovin’ Irish songs and ballads o’ the sea,

And raise yer glasses one more time and sing alang wi’ me.

So goodnight, all ye people, we hope tonight’s been fun,

Be sure and crawl on hame noo, lads, and mind and dinna run.

For beer and girls and music, at times they aw mix well,

But early in the morning, your heids will drum like hell!

We would have hoped that he could have celebrated a good many more birthdays with us. But Bob Bertram died, on 22 July, a fortnight after his 81st birthday. During his final days in hospital he was bright to the last, and planned his funeral, next to his father’s grave in Cramond Kirkyard,  and the wake at Jeannie Dean’s Tryst. We will miss the sparkle that he brought to Edinburgh Folk Club.