BOOK REVIEWS EWAN MCVICAR


ABC, My Grannie Caught A Flea Birlinn ISBN 978 1 84158 937 4


addition to the genre. If you want some more, then seek out Ewan’s 2007 volume Doh, Ray, Me, When Ah Wis Wee.


Highly recommended. Gordon Potter


SHEILA STEWART A Traveller’s Life – An


Autobiography Of Sheila Stewart Birlinn Ltd ISBN 978 184158 979 4


She tells the story of her life in the context of the tales and songs that accompanied her on her journey. This is a woman who has met a pope, a queen and an Indian Chief! How could there not be stories to tell?


Sheila finishes the book with a poem called It’s a Hard Life Being A Traveller, written in 1954 when she was 16, to celebrate a courtroom battle won over berry picking, which finishes with this verse.


But we’re always hit below the belt, No matter what we do,


But when it comes to judgement day, We’ll be the same as you.


Sheila is a traveller in every sense of the word. Please read this book because a life like this is worth knowing about.


Phil Thomas OUT NOW


Ewan McVicar is a weel-kent face in many guises around the folk scene as a singer, songwriter and storyteller, and recently he has stravaiged around the country from his Linlithgow base in order to collect the rhymes, chants and songs of the playground and the street. True, there may not seem to be quite so much of that in this era of electronic amusement, but the bairns are still “gien it laldy”, and Ewan has carried out considerable fieldwork research in this genre.


This is not just a listing of contemporary material, however, as it is rather a compendium and anthology which dips into the past couple of centuries, using as source material such gems as Robert Chambers’ 1842 Popular Rhymes Of Scotland and the magnificent Miscellanea Of The Rymour Club, which was progressively published between 1905 and 1927. Ewan adds just a few introductory lines to the various sections, leaving the reader to browse at will. Which is for the best, as this is a book for dipping into rather than reading from cover to cover (although you could quite easily while away a few hours doing so).


What becomes very evident is that, no matter how society changes, the subjects which fascinate and enthral bairns remain the same, as they try to make sense of the big world around them. So the songs are gloriously non- PC, often nonsensical, often adapting popular songs of their time, but always expressing the liveliness and vigour of young minds.


There is, naturally, a lot of Scots used here, as well as Shetlandic, rather than English, so non-native readers might be advised to have a good dictionary handy for this very useful


The Living Tradition - Page 42


Birlinn is a publisher based in Edinburgh which has been doing a commendable job in recent years of documenting the memories, stories and songs of the travelling communities which have now all but disappeared from these islands. In 2006, Sheila told the story of her mother, Belle Stewart, in Queen Amang The Heather, and this wonderful book follows the timeline on from Sheila’s birth in 1935 up to the present.


If there is one theme running through both works it must be that of continuity. This is ably demonstrated by the fact that Sheila chooses to begin her story two days before she was born and, towards the end, says “…I am not dead yet, and there may be more to come.” Let’s hope so, for this continued telling of the stories of the lives and living of the traveller families in plain, unadorned language spiced with occasional examples of cant (traveller language) is as important as it is enjoyable.


In these days when celebrities produce an autobiography (invariably ghostwritten) at the age of fifteen with little of worth to tell, a book like this is the real deal. Having had the pleasure of meeting Sheila a couple of years ago, I can tell you that you can hear her voice in the reading. No ghostwriters here, I think.


Sponsored by BIrnam CD


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