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take more / More than a living, more than can be held in store / Emp- tying the sea like a river of gold / Leaving nothing to the next genera- tion at all”). But there’s that frustration when you look out to sea, and see four or five massive boats and just wish they could just go a mile further out. It’s absolutely fine that that was Lise’s response. But we also didn’t want to further demonise fishermen.”
“We decided that we were going to write a body of music that was inclusive of everybody, because for everybody here the sea is so important. I wrote the introductory lines (“We share meat, we share light, we share wind and weather / Come aboard. We’ll do more together”) to convey the message that we all have a vested interest. That was the emotional weight behind it at the beginning, but then losing Lise in the middle of it, changed everything dramatically.”
Lise died suddenly in August 2013, at the age of 42, after a brief battle with a ferocious brain tumour. The tragedy left Inge and the whole Fair Isle community in complete shock. “At first I just thought that was it! There was no way I could continue. Lisa was so massive to everybody. She taught music in the school, she played the organ in the church, she ran the choir, she edited the Fair Isle Times. She was a big part of everybody’s life!”
The Birds project, exploring the mimesis of birds in Gaelic song, is a further example). Ruth believed that the journey would bring Inge to a conclusion about what to do next, and indeed the overnight journey helped to galvanise her intent, bringing Da Fishing Hands to fruition as part of Cape Farewell’s Sea Change project.
I
“The journey home was quite remarkable. Charlie Simpson was one of the crew – a man with many, many strings to his bow and well-loved throughout Shetland! He came and invited me to take the wheel. I said, though I was used to peerie boats as a child, I’d never manœuvred a vessel of this size and he just said: ‘Tak da wheel, du’s fae Fair Isle, du’ll be fine!’”
“So, I guided her out of Kirkwall, and then took the shift in the
early hours. We couldn’t land on Fair Isle because the swell was too high. It was just a case of holding the boat off. I felt like Ahab him- self clutching on to the rigging. It was a really emotional thing. There I was in the middle of grieving, and all the time, I could see the lighthouse. I knew then that I had to write some music.”
“At home, I sat down with my Aunty Anne and she said she felt it was essential that I carried on, because I had the last of Lise’s work. I still didn’t know how I was going to do it but that was the decider!”
Lise had written four songs for the project, but no music. “I wanted to get Lise’s words out there in a way that I hoped was respectful. When I came back to working, I sat myself down and trawled through the interviews. It was really hard – I got lots of information and material, loads of little gems that people were say- ing – but all the way through I had Lise’s actual voice there. She was there with me, which at the time I thought was great. It helped me with the grieving process. Once I’d actually completed the writing, it just stopped. Then I had to let go. That was hard.”
The poignancy of Da Fishing Hands’ creation can be felt deep in the end result. Inge has crafted a piece of work bursting with poetry, community, ideas, love and purpose. Lise and Inge’s collected obser- vations have inspired some wonderful lyrics from both writers. “I directly lifted a couple of quotes from people and used them as they were. They were so beautiful and captured the imagery so perfect- ly.” In The Snowstorm, we hear Inge’s grandmother’s voice, recalling the flocks of kittiwakes: “You stipple the sky, like a snowstorm of angels / Deceiving my eye, you’ve left me before / Something’s gone, something’s lost, something’s broken.”
Da Fishing Hands’ debut performance took place on Fair Isle in May 2014; a moving affair: “Everyone on the isle loved Lise so it was emotional for everybody. I’ve watched people at Karine’s gigs, where people have been emotionally connected because her songs have brought them through a hard time, but I’ve never really had that with anything I’ve written. This whole thing was written not for me, but for the whole island.”
www.ingethomson.com F
nge feels she might never have continued with the project at all had she not been invited by Ruth Little to join a north isles boat expedition run by Cape Farewell, an organisation bringing together artists and scientists to build a vision for a sustainable future. (Hanna Tuulikki’s amazing Away With
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