Iain Peterson
(1934 - 2006)
By Charlie Todd
One guest sharing the honours at this year’s AGM is none other than seafaring fiddler, piper and composer Iain Peterson. There can surely be no more pleasant setting to gather some facts about this well known figure than at the family home in Dollar, which lies in the lee of the Ochil Hills near Stirling. Iain was quite clear about one thing from the outset “you’re going to have your work cut out here” he told me. “Have you read Karyn’s article on John Carmichael? The man’s an icon”. Now I’ve heard John called many things in my time but never that. But no matter anyway, since I had already formulated a ‘cunning plan’. Music was very much a hobby for Iain, while his career as a sea captain holds much mystery for a native of land-locked Lanarkshire like me.
Iain was born, not on his beloved West Coast, but in Edinburgh’s port-town of Leith on 11th December 1934, as was brother Laurence three years later.
Iain was born, not on his beloved West Coast, but in Edinburgh’s port-town of Leith on 11th December 1934, as was brother Laurence three years later.
Dad, also Laurence, came originally from Shetland but as a seaman found Leith more convenient as a home base. Sadly the boys hardly had a chance to know their father who was killed in May 1940 when the MV Abbotsford was torpedoed by the German submarine U14 off Lowestoft on the Norfolk coast while making the crossing from Ghent to Grangemouth. Iain learned from a web-site recently that the captain of U14 was captured later in the war and spent time in the UK and Canadian POW camps before being repatriated to Germany, where he died in 1988. A further coincidence was that Iain, many years later, was offered was offered a post on the next ship to bear the name ‘Abbotsford’, but declined.
Iain’s dad was a renowned fiddler in Shetland but, as this was in the days before home recording was possible, he was never to hear his father’s playing. Willie Hunter’s father described him as the best he ever heard, while Tammy (Tom) Anderson named him ’The Star o’ Shetland’. He did however acquire two things of great significance, namely his father’s fiddle, which would be put to good use in years to come and which, of course, he still plays to this day, and a tune written for his dad by Tammy ‘Lowrie o’ Da Lea’, his dad’s house on Shetland being called South Lea (also remembered by a reel of that name by Iain himself).
Iain’s dad was a renowned fiddler in Shetland but, as this was in the days before home recording was possible, he was never to hear his father’s playing. Willie Hunter’s father described him as the best he ever heard, while Tammy (Tom) Anderson named him ’The Star o’ Shetland’. He did however acquire two things of great significance, namely his father’s fiddle, which would be put to good use in years to come and which, of course, he still plays to this day, and a tune written for his dad by Tammy ‘Lowrie o’ Da Lea’, his dad’s house on Shetland being called South Lea (also remembered by a reel of that name by Iain himself).
1940 Facing up to the sudden and dramatic change of circumstances mum, Catherine, decided to move back to her native Ardnamurchan, away over on the West Coast, and it was here that Iain and Laurence received their primary education at the local school. In more prosperous times the school had boasted a role of sixty pupils, but Iain and his brother now constituted half the school role and it closed in 1945. The Headmistress, Mrs Jamieson, was convinced that invasion was imminent and the classroom was perpetually in gloom because of the mesh designed to stop flying glass when the bombs started to fall. It was also very difficult to write on slates wearing a gas mask, which she regularly made them do, but if all else failed she retained a stock of food in the hills in readiness for the day the Germans landed.
1946 At twelve years of age Iain moved to Tobermory Junior Secondary for three years. Staying in digs he returned home only at the end of term – in fact it would be a great many years before he returned home every evening. Living in Tobermory enabled him to hear Bobby MacLeod playing in ‘the Mishnish’, and it was towards the end of his schooling there that he picked up his dad’s fiddle for the first time. He had a good ear and by screwing down the speed of the old wind-up gramophone and tuning his fiddle appropriately he could quickly learn new tunes. Accordionist Calum MacLean was a fellow classmate.
1949 Next came four years at the Keil School in Dumbarton, which had been set up by Clyde shipyard owner, Sir William McKinnon, to provide those extra years education after Junior Secondary for boys from the scattered West Coast communities. It catered almost exclusively for lads from Campbeltown to Stornoway, who once again boarded there. Iain remembers that lineout calls on the rugby field were in Gaelic, leaving the opposition bewildered. Iain has never had any formal tuition on the fiddle but, with regular practice, the improvement became noticeable. When back in Ardnamurchan he teamed up with box player Gilleasbuig (Archibald) McMillan, an association that would last till Gilleasbuig’s death five years ago, to play for local dances.
1954 As schooling at Keil drew to a close the question of a career arose. Neither mum nor an uncle, who was at sea, were keen on Iain following the family tradition but in the end that’s just what he did. Iain signed on as a deckhand with the Furness Withy Line. Sometimes called a ‘peggy’ (because in days of old the job was frequently carried out by a disabled seaman with a wooden peg-leg) his duties were to serve meals, tidy up the mess, wash down the deck and a hundred and one other things. For a year he was on the Manchester – Glasgow – Panama Canal – Vancouver run, shipping all sorts of cargo frequently including 100,000 cases of whisky – which brought its own problems with dockers and crew (but they were certainly never short of a dram on those voyages).
At that time each Port Authority maintained a ‘pool’, a register of seamen looking for a berth. Shipping Lines made their requirements known and applications were made. Seamen were required to sign ‘Articles’, which were generally for the duration of the voyage or two years. If still overseas after two years and three months the Shipping Line was obliged to repatriate you back to the UK.
1955 With a year at sea under his belt Iain took the next logical step, the Able Bodies Seaman’s Certificate, or ‘Ticket’ as it was referred to. This was basically a test of practical things that you needed to know aboard ship such as knot tying and general seamanship. Thereafter you required four years of sea-time before you took the next step. Taking into account shore-time this realistically took about five years, which Iain spend sailing worldwide.
1959 At last Iain was eligible to sit his Second Mate’s Certificate. This was entirely different from the A.B.S. and the start of some serious study. This one involved three months’ study at the Royal Technical College in Glasgow, covering topics such as chart work, navigation, meteorology, ship construction and ship stability, followed by a week of examinations. Seamen generally had to pay for these courses and periods of study out of their own pockets. Rarely would a Shipping Line foot even part of the bill. Iain passed but was so stony broke by then that he needed a job immediately and, clutching the pink slip which said he had passed (not the ‘ticket’ itself which would follow in due course), Iain walked along the corridor to the nearest ship owner’s office, Paddy Henderson’s, and signed up to sail the following Monday. The next fourteen months were spent aboard the Yoma and the Martaban (named after Burmese cities) sailing via the Suez Canal to Rangoon in Burma with general cargoes outbound and bran (cattle-feed) on the return leg. On these trips he was Third Mate who is responsible, amongst other things, for all the emergency and safety equipment on a ship – ensuring that everything is serviced, maintained and replaced on schedule.
1961 It was time to return to College for a First Mate’s Certificate. This time the topics included maintenance of the ship, loading, unloading and stability of the stip and management of the crew and again he duly passed.
Paddy Henderson was taken over by the Elder Dempster / Blue Funnel Line but there was still a job there so Iain spent the next two and a half years sailing to the West African Coast – or as he puts it “up every creek from Casablanca to Lobito in Angola”, - and it was literally every creek. Iain remembers that some of the bends in the rivers were so tight that the local River Pilot would ram the bow of the ship into the mangrove on the bank and let the current bring the stern of the vessel round. Temperatures were in the nineties and the ships were old-fashioned and not air conditioned. Bugs and parasites of every description were in abundance. Malaria and salt tablets were obligatory but even at that Iain suffered two serious bouts of malaria when he stopped the tablets too early. So you’ll gather from all this that Iain has no particularly fond memories of the West African Coast.
1963 will forever be remembered in the annals of family history as the year that Iain married Sheilis. They met at a village dance in Ardnamurchan, when Iain abandoned the stage and Gilleasbuig to ask a young lady who had caught his eye for the last dance. Although Sheilis spent a lot of time in Ardnamurchan, she split her time between there and Newcastle, where her parents had moved for work reasons.
1965 saw Iain returning to College for the last time to sit his ‘Foreign Going’ Master’s Certificate Exams and, after four months’ study, he duly passed. This time the topics included ship’s business and an in-depth study of the compass. Iain explained some of the complications of having a magnetic compass mounted at the centre of a floating steel island, but by now gyro-compasses were becoming more common on ships, as was automatic steering, which was soon to become an effective method of reducing crew numbers.
1966 With his ‘Master’s Ticket’ safely under his belt Iain returned to sea but still as a Second Mate (who has responsibility for all aspects of a ship’s navigation including maintenance of charts and navigational equipment). Speed of promotion varied considerably between various Lines and Blue Funnel certainly weren’t the best. He was already looking to the future and a job ashore as a Pilot on either the Clyde or the Forth but seagoing experience as a Ship’s Master was a prerequisite of these posts. Things took a step forward when he was approached by the H. Hogarth Line who offered him one trip as Second Mate, then promotion to First Mate (who deals with loading, stowage and unloading of the cargo, maintenance of the ship and management of the crew i.e. rotas and rosters etc) with a promise of a promotion to master in four years. Iain says I’ve not to mention that H. Hogarth were known as Hungry Hogarth by seamen around the globe, since their house flag had had the letters H.H. This was unjustified by the late sixties / early seventies when the complaint was too much food).
More consolidation in the shipping industry here as H. Hogarth merged with Lyle Shipping to become Scottish Ship Management who, in turn, ordered eighteen new ships from Norway. Iain did his Second Mate’s stint aboard Cape Howe, a 610ft bulk carrier, shipping iron ore around the globe – Canada, Norway, Casablanca, Liberia. Ironically at this time many companies were going into decline. While foreign governments subsidized their fleets’ fuel bills the UK did not. As little as 10% would have sufficed, but gradually Britain’s Merchant Fleet lost their competitive edge. Cargoes were now carried on foreign ships and on a number of ‘flags of convenience ships’ with poor standards of personnel and, in some cases, poor ships. To put the loss of ships and jobs in perspective – when Iain came ashore in 1974 there were about 10,000 ships under the Red Ensign – and now there are about 500.
As a point of general interest I asked Iain how ships are generally named. ‘Themes’ was the answer. S.S.M. ships’ names all began with ‘Baron’ or ‘Cape’. As we saw earlier Paddy Henderson’s fleet, which traded with Burma, was named after cities in that country. I’m reminded here of the famous story about Cunard. Their ships names always ended in ’ia’ Lucitania, Hibernia, Saxonia and dozens of others including the Carpathia which picked up many of the survivors of the Titanic disaster and which was the last ship to be torpedoed and sunk in World War 1. The Chairman of the Cunard Board of Directors was authorized to ask King George V if they could name their latest ship, then under construction at John Brown’s, Victoria. However when a suitable opportunity arose at their next meeting the Chairman phrased this simple request in a somewhat dramatic manner, asking to name the ship ‘after the greatest Queen who ever lived?”. The King misunderstood and responded, “I’ll ask Her Majesty when I return to the Palace”, and hence the Queen Mary came into being.
1967 Of course it was never all ‘plain sailing’ and it was as First Mate aboard the Baron Cawder that Iain experienced one heart stopping moment. They had taken aboard a cargo of newsprint (stowed in the holds) and dressed timber, which was piled twenty-one feet high on deck and secured with 7/8 inch diameter chains every three feet. Safe as houses you might think, and indeed all was fine until they were hit by a particularly massive wave off the Oregon coast in what could be termed ‘heavy weather’ conditions. This wave probably had the force of several bulldozers and suddenly everything started to happen at once. Chains started shearing and splitting and what was later calculated as five hundred tons of timber (about a quarter of the deck cargo) disappeared over the side. This caused a twelve degree list, sheared several of the ‘goosenecks’ along the edge of the deck, which vented the fuel tanks and threatened to let salt water into them and left chains trailing over the ship’s side which threatened to foul the ship’s propeller. Due to the list the main engine lost lub.oil pressure, which automatically stopped the main engine. The generator supplying electricity also cut out, which in turn cut all the lighting and the main engine leaving them wallowing temporarily at the mercy of wind and sea. Phew! – all this in a howling gale. Anyway, order was eventually restored and it took them four days to make their way to San Francisco, the nearest port of refuge, for a week of repairs and re-stowing the cargo (or at least what was left of it).
1968 Iain took another important step in his musical career. Somewhat frustrated by not being able to read music and with a desire to learn the pipes he killed two birds with one stone, so to speak, by enrolling at the Glasgow College of Piping. Under the tutorage of Tommy Pearston and Seamus MacNeill, Iain attended weekly for three three-month sessions, in between voyages. There was always plenty of time at sea to practice and it was the ideal way to pass the time on a four-hour watch. Additionally there was usually someone else aboard who played, and here Iain particularly remembers Donald Morrison of North Uist aboard the Cape Howe and Captain Alexander Fraser, Master of the Baron Cawdor who was an excellent piper. Iain found the ability to read music ‘inspirational’ and it enabled him both to learn new tunes more quickly and to correctly record his own compositions, which had been retained in his head up till now. Indeed it wasn’t long before he registered Shian Music (simply an amalgamation if Sheilis and Iain) and began publishing those compositions. He recalls that the first proof of his ‘First Collection of Bagpipe Music’ returned from the printer had seventy-six mistakes in it – and the second proof wasn’t much better with forty. After the book had appeared he had occasion to be in the company of P.M. ‘Wee’ Donald MacLeod and , telling the tale, said that it would probably be his last. “I said the same”, responded Donald, “and now Im at Number Six”.
1946 At twelve years of age Iain moved to Tobermory Junior Secondary for three years. Staying in digs he returned home only at the end of term – in fact it would be a great many years before he returned home every evening. Living in Tobermory enabled him to hear Bobby MacLeod playing in ‘the Mishnish’, and it was towards the end of his schooling there that he picked up his dad’s fiddle for the first time. He had a good ear and by screwing down the speed of the old wind-up gramophone and tuning his fiddle appropriately he could quickly learn new tunes. Accordionist Calum MacLean was a fellow classmate.
1949 Next came four years at the Keil School in Dumbarton, which had been set up by Clyde shipyard owner, Sir William McKinnon, to provide those extra years education after Junior Secondary for boys from the scattered West Coast communities. It catered almost exclusively for lads from Campbeltown to Stornoway, who once again boarded there. Iain remembers that lineout calls on the rugby field were in Gaelic, leaving the opposition bewildered. Iain has never had any formal tuition on the fiddle but, with regular practice, the improvement became noticeable. When back in Ardnamurchan he teamed up with box player Gilleasbuig (Archibald) McMillan, an association that would last till Gilleasbuig’s death five years ago, to play for local dances.
1954 As schooling at Keil drew to a close the question of a career arose. Neither mum nor an uncle, who was at sea, were keen on Iain following the family tradition but in the end that’s just what he did. Iain signed on as a deckhand with the Furness Withy Line. Sometimes called a ‘peggy’ (because in days of old the job was frequently carried out by a disabled seaman with a wooden peg-leg) his duties were to serve meals, tidy up the mess, wash down the deck and a hundred and one other things. For a year he was on the Manchester – Glasgow – Panama Canal – Vancouver run, shipping all sorts of cargo frequently including 100,000 cases of whisky – which brought its own problems with dockers and crew (but they were certainly never short of a dram on those voyages).
At that time each Port Authority maintained a ‘pool’, a register of seamen looking for a berth. Shipping Lines made their requirements known and applications were made. Seamen were required to sign ‘Articles’, which were generally for the duration of the voyage or two years. If still overseas after two years and three months the Shipping Line was obliged to repatriate you back to the UK.
1955 With a year at sea under his belt Iain took the next logical step, the Able Bodies Seaman’s Certificate, or ‘Ticket’ as it was referred to. This was basically a test of practical things that you needed to know aboard ship such as knot tying and general seamanship. Thereafter you required four years of sea-time before you took the next step. Taking into account shore-time this realistically took about five years, which Iain spend sailing worldwide.
1959 At last Iain was eligible to sit his Second Mate’s Certificate. This was entirely different from the A.B.S. and the start of some serious study. This one involved three months’ study at the Royal Technical College in Glasgow, covering topics such as chart work, navigation, meteorology, ship construction and ship stability, followed by a week of examinations. Seamen generally had to pay for these courses and periods of study out of their own pockets. Rarely would a Shipping Line foot even part of the bill. Iain passed but was so stony broke by then that he needed a job immediately and, clutching the pink slip which said he had passed (not the ‘ticket’ itself which would follow in due course), Iain walked along the corridor to the nearest ship owner’s office, Paddy Henderson’s, and signed up to sail the following Monday. The next fourteen months were spent aboard the Yoma and the Martaban (named after Burmese cities) sailing via the Suez Canal to Rangoon in Burma with general cargoes outbound and bran (cattle-feed) on the return leg. On these trips he was Third Mate who is responsible, amongst other things, for all the emergency and safety equipment on a ship – ensuring that everything is serviced, maintained and replaced on schedule.
1961 It was time to return to College for a First Mate’s Certificate. This time the topics included maintenance of the ship, loading, unloading and stability of the stip and management of the crew and again he duly passed.
Paddy Henderson was taken over by the Elder Dempster / Blue Funnel Line but there was still a job there so Iain spent the next two and a half years sailing to the West African Coast – or as he puts it “up every creek from Casablanca to Lobito in Angola”, - and it was literally every creek. Iain remembers that some of the bends in the rivers were so tight that the local River Pilot would ram the bow of the ship into the mangrove on the bank and let the current bring the stern of the vessel round. Temperatures were in the nineties and the ships were old-fashioned and not air conditioned. Bugs and parasites of every description were in abundance. Malaria and salt tablets were obligatory but even at that Iain suffered two serious bouts of malaria when he stopped the tablets too early. So you’ll gather from all this that Iain has no particularly fond memories of the West African Coast.
1963 will forever be remembered in the annals of family history as the year that Iain married Sheilis. They met at a village dance in Ardnamurchan, when Iain abandoned the stage and Gilleasbuig to ask a young lady who had caught his eye for the last dance. Although Sheilis spent a lot of time in Ardnamurchan, she split her time between there and Newcastle, where her parents had moved for work reasons.
1965 saw Iain returning to College for the last time to sit his ‘Foreign Going’ Master’s Certificate Exams and, after four months’ study, he duly passed. This time the topics included ship’s business and an in-depth study of the compass. Iain explained some of the complications of having a magnetic compass mounted at the centre of a floating steel island, but by now gyro-compasses were becoming more common on ships, as was automatic steering, which was soon to become an effective method of reducing crew numbers.
1966 With his ‘Master’s Ticket’ safely under his belt Iain returned to sea but still as a Second Mate (who has responsibility for all aspects of a ship’s navigation including maintenance of charts and navigational equipment). Speed of promotion varied considerably between various Lines and Blue Funnel certainly weren’t the best. He was already looking to the future and a job ashore as a Pilot on either the Clyde or the Forth but seagoing experience as a Ship’s Master was a prerequisite of these posts. Things took a step forward when he was approached by the H. Hogarth Line who offered him one trip as Second Mate, then promotion to First Mate (who deals with loading, stowage and unloading of the cargo, maintenance of the ship and management of the crew i.e. rotas and rosters etc) with a promise of a promotion to master in four years. Iain says I’ve not to mention that H. Hogarth were known as Hungry Hogarth by seamen around the globe, since their house flag had had the letters H.H. This was unjustified by the late sixties / early seventies when the complaint was too much food).
More consolidation in the shipping industry here as H. Hogarth merged with Lyle Shipping to become Scottish Ship Management who, in turn, ordered eighteen new ships from Norway. Iain did his Second Mate’s stint aboard Cape Howe, a 610ft bulk carrier, shipping iron ore around the globe – Canada, Norway, Casablanca, Liberia. Ironically at this time many companies were going into decline. While foreign governments subsidized their fleets’ fuel bills the UK did not. As little as 10% would have sufficed, but gradually Britain’s Merchant Fleet lost their competitive edge. Cargoes were now carried on foreign ships and on a number of ‘flags of convenience ships’ with poor standards of personnel and, in some cases, poor ships. To put the loss of ships and jobs in perspective – when Iain came ashore in 1974 there were about 10,000 ships under the Red Ensign – and now there are about 500.
As a point of general interest I asked Iain how ships are generally named. ‘Themes’ was the answer. S.S.M. ships’ names all began with ‘Baron’ or ‘Cape’. As we saw earlier Paddy Henderson’s fleet, which traded with Burma, was named after cities in that country. I’m reminded here of the famous story about Cunard. Their ships names always ended in ’ia’ Lucitania, Hibernia, Saxonia and dozens of others including the Carpathia which picked up many of the survivors of the Titanic disaster and which was the last ship to be torpedoed and sunk in World War 1. The Chairman of the Cunard Board of Directors was authorized to ask King George V if they could name their latest ship, then under construction at John Brown’s, Victoria. However when a suitable opportunity arose at their next meeting the Chairman phrased this simple request in a somewhat dramatic manner, asking to name the ship ‘after the greatest Queen who ever lived?”. The King misunderstood and responded, “I’ll ask Her Majesty when I return to the Palace”, and hence the Queen Mary came into being.
1967 Of course it was never all ‘plain sailing’ and it was as First Mate aboard the Baron Cawder that Iain experienced one heart stopping moment. They had taken aboard a cargo of newsprint (stowed in the holds) and dressed timber, which was piled twenty-one feet high on deck and secured with 7/8 inch diameter chains every three feet. Safe as houses you might think, and indeed all was fine until they were hit by a particularly massive wave off the Oregon coast in what could be termed ‘heavy weather’ conditions. This wave probably had the force of several bulldozers and suddenly everything started to happen at once. Chains started shearing and splitting and what was later calculated as five hundred tons of timber (about a quarter of the deck cargo) disappeared over the side. This caused a twelve degree list, sheared several of the ‘goosenecks’ along the edge of the deck, which vented the fuel tanks and threatened to let salt water into them and left chains trailing over the ship’s side which threatened to foul the ship’s propeller. Due to the list the main engine lost lub.oil pressure, which automatically stopped the main engine. The generator supplying electricity also cut out, which in turn cut all the lighting and the main engine leaving them wallowing temporarily at the mercy of wind and sea. Phew! – all this in a howling gale. Anyway, order was eventually restored and it took them four days to make their way to San Francisco, the nearest port of refuge, for a week of repairs and re-stowing the cargo (or at least what was left of it).
1968 Iain took another important step in his musical career. Somewhat frustrated by not being able to read music and with a desire to learn the pipes he killed two birds with one stone, so to speak, by enrolling at the Glasgow College of Piping. Under the tutorage of Tommy Pearston and Seamus MacNeill, Iain attended weekly for three three-month sessions, in between voyages. There was always plenty of time at sea to practice and it was the ideal way to pass the time on a four-hour watch. Additionally there was usually someone else aboard who played, and here Iain particularly remembers Donald Morrison of North Uist aboard the Cape Howe and Captain Alexander Fraser, Master of the Baron Cawdor who was an excellent piper. Iain found the ability to read music ‘inspirational’ and it enabled him both to learn new tunes more quickly and to correctly record his own compositions, which had been retained in his head up till now. Indeed it wasn’t long before he registered Shian Music (simply an amalgamation if Sheilis and Iain) and began publishing those compositions. He recalls that the first proof of his ‘First Collection of Bagpipe Music’ returned from the printer had seventy-six mistakes in it – and the second proof wasn’t much better with forty. After the book had appeared he had occasion to be in the company of P.M. ‘Wee’ Donald MacLeod and , telling the tale, said that it would probably be his last. “I said the same”, responded Donald, “and now Im at Number Six”.
1970 Newly promoted Captain Iain Peterson (“Master of all I surveyed”, joked Iain, meaning it was usually the deck of this own ship and a thousand square miles of empty ocean) took command of the Cape Race, a bulk carrier, transporting bauxite and alumina from the mines in Jamaica (where the outside temperature was eighty degrees) to the St Lawrence River in Quebec (with an outside temperature of minus twenty degrees). The Cape Race was also designed to deal with four feet of surface ice on the St Lawrence. After eighteen months of this and a few other ships Iain received word to travel to Norway and take command of a new ship, the Cape Grenville, together with her forty man crew. It sounds good but, as Iain points out, it was an awesome responsibility since everything from the main engine to the dishwasher was entirely untried and untested and the whole shooting match had to be worked up to a state of operational efficiency. The maiden voyage started in absolutely foul weather, with the ship achieving barely two knots and taking two full days to pass St Kilda.
As things settled into a routine Iain followed the time honoured custom for a new ship, of entertaining and being entertained at every port they entered – or to put it another way, “I was sick of the sight of lobster!” The Cape Grenville was principally involved in running phosphates from islands in the Pacific Ocean (Christmas Island, Ocean Island) to Australia and running very fine silicon sand, found only in Australia, to Japan for the Noritake China Factory – twenty thousand tons at a time which, as Iain puts it “should make a few tea sets”.
1972 It was while he was with this ship, berthed in Freemantle, that Iain took the opportunity to meet one of his all-time heroes for the first time. Consulting the local telephone directory he found the name he was after POWRIE Ian, 21 Dumbarton Road, Mount Lawley. Iain rang up, introduced himself and they met up soon afterwards at Ian and Leila’s home over a bottle of Lochan-ora , armed with fiddles and a Scott Skinner book. On a return visit to the ship Ian was astounded by its sheer size, again in excess of six hundred feet and displacing 30,000 tons, and took the opportunity to play the fiddle on deck (which included a premiere of Ian Powrie’s Compliments to Sir Thomas Wardle) – which brought the entire dock to a halt, as men ceased their labours to enjoy the wonderful sound. “I thought I would be for the high jump” jokes Iain, “there wasn’t a stroke of work being done in the entire dock”. It was on the next voyage to collect a cargo of phosphates from Christmas Island that Iain wrote Ian Powrie’s Magic Fiddle to mark the event and as a tribute to the man himself. They have been firm friends ever since.
1973 Iain left the Cape Grenville in Vancouver, the First Mate who held his Master’s Ticket being promoted on his recommendation, and joined his final ship the Baron Dunmore. It was a superb ship that ran like clockwork. If running in ballast, Number 3 Hold was flooded to provide a forty feet deep swimming pool, while football was played in Hold Number 4 if it was empty. They only had one ball and, on one occasion when it was inadvertently kicked overboard, they had to turn and stop the ship and lower a lifeboat to recover it (officially it was logged as a ‘lifeboat drill’)!
As things settled into a routine Iain followed the time honoured custom for a new ship, of entertaining and being entertained at every port they entered – or to put it another way, “I was sick of the sight of lobster!” The Cape Grenville was principally involved in running phosphates from islands in the Pacific Ocean (Christmas Island, Ocean Island) to Australia and running very fine silicon sand, found only in Australia, to Japan for the Noritake China Factory – twenty thousand tons at a time which, as Iain puts it “should make a few tea sets”.
1972 It was while he was with this ship, berthed in Freemantle, that Iain took the opportunity to meet one of his all-time heroes for the first time. Consulting the local telephone directory he found the name he was after POWRIE Ian, 21 Dumbarton Road, Mount Lawley. Iain rang up, introduced himself and they met up soon afterwards at Ian and Leila’s home over a bottle of Lochan-ora , armed with fiddles and a Scott Skinner book. On a return visit to the ship Ian was astounded by its sheer size, again in excess of six hundred feet and displacing 30,000 tons, and took the opportunity to play the fiddle on deck (which included a premiere of Ian Powrie’s Compliments to Sir Thomas Wardle) – which brought the entire dock to a halt, as men ceased their labours to enjoy the wonderful sound. “I thought I would be for the high jump” jokes Iain, “there wasn’t a stroke of work being done in the entire dock”. It was on the next voyage to collect a cargo of phosphates from Christmas Island that Iain wrote Ian Powrie’s Magic Fiddle to mark the event and as a tribute to the man himself. They have been firm friends ever since.
1973 Iain left the Cape Grenville in Vancouver, the First Mate who held his Master’s Ticket being promoted on his recommendation, and joined his final ship the Baron Dunmore. It was a superb ship that ran like clockwork. If running in ballast, Number 3 Hold was flooded to provide a forty feet deep swimming pool, while football was played in Hold Number 4 if it was empty. They only had one ball and, on one occasion when it was inadvertently kicked overboard, they had to turn and stop the ship and lower a lifeboat to recover it (officially it was logged as a ‘lifeboat drill’)!
1974 Iain left the Baron Dunmore and came ashore to the Forth River Pilotage. After Hull, the Forth is the busiest pilotage in the UK and at that time there were sixty-nine self-employed pilots. By 1992 there were forty and today there are perhaps thirty-five. The exact number is calculated by a formula. Any ship entering the First of Forth comes under the control of a Pilot although the Captain of a regular Coastal vessel can sit the exam himself. Other than these Coastal Traders, pilots must hold a Foreign Going Master’s Certificate and have had command of a vessel. Entrance was by a very strict exam, which required the candidate to memorise a wealth of detail on buoys, lights, depths etc. In a one hour oral exam candidates were bombarded with questions which have to be answered without referring to reference works. A sort of taxi driver of the ocean so to speak. Only when the candidate has satisfied his peers will he be licensed as a Forth River Pilot and even then he will start on the smaller vessels before graduating to the larger ones as he gains experience. Pilots each carried £50M in public liability calculated on a worst-case scenario i.e. a fully laden oil tanker hitting the Forth Rail Bridge and a fully laden train ending up “in the drink”. Fortunately the insurers haven’t had to pay out yet.
Iain passed eighteen happy years bringing ships safely into Grangemouth Harbour but this final stage of his sea-going career came to a very abrupt end on hogmanay 1992 when, dressed in uniform and just ready to leave the house, he suffered a slight stroke. Fortunately for all of us he made a full recovery, but it took him some time to come to terms with the doctor’s decision that he would never work again.
Like everyone else who has retired though, looking back Iain doesn’t know where he found the time to work. Even keeping in touch with the family is a full-time job. All four offspring attended the nearby world-renowned Dollar Academy before moving on to university. Indeed Iain’s theory for education is that if you’re good at a sport, good at an instrument, good at a language and articulate then you’ve got the capacity to go places. The achievement of the Peterson brood certainly back that theory up.
The eldest of the family is Judith (b.1967), an I.T nurse and a busy mother of three who will shortly be moving up to Forgandenny with husband Anthony who is leaving the Army and taking up a position as Bursar at Strathallan School. Next comes Andrew (b.1969) who is a Marketing Manager with Proctor and Gamble (the soap powder people) and is currently based in Kazakhstan (covering Siberia, Mongolia, Armenia, Georgia and all the other ‘stans’). As well as speaking fluent Russian and passable French and German, he plays the pipes very well and the fiddle, euphonium and piano passably. At Oxford he won the ‘Mace’ for debating, following on from such illustrious names as our own John Smith and Donald Dewar.
Then comes Gordon (b.1972) who is a Personnel and Management Consultant in Sydney, Australia. He was a very good athlete and Captained the Scotland Rugby Term at all stages from Schoolboy to Under-21 level in addition to winning the World Debating Championship in Dublin in 1991. And that finally brings us to Duncan (b.1975) who has recently sold up his successful tourist business in New York and is currently doing a Law Degree at Brooklyn Law School. He was voted most humorous speaker at the Debating Championships and celebrated by going a handstand in the kilt watched by the Irish Prime Minister. His mother was ‘not amused’.
All periodically return with wives and children to holiday at Iain and Sheila’s other home at Ardnamurchan, renewing their roots so to speak and for a full family get together the house at Dollar has a basement big enough to sleep the lot of them (but that’s another story).
Iain passed eighteen happy years bringing ships safely into Grangemouth Harbour but this final stage of his sea-going career came to a very abrupt end on hogmanay 1992 when, dressed in uniform and just ready to leave the house, he suffered a slight stroke. Fortunately for all of us he made a full recovery, but it took him some time to come to terms with the doctor’s decision that he would never work again.
Like everyone else who has retired though, looking back Iain doesn’t know where he found the time to work. Even keeping in touch with the family is a full-time job. All four offspring attended the nearby world-renowned Dollar Academy before moving on to university. Indeed Iain’s theory for education is that if you’re good at a sport, good at an instrument, good at a language and articulate then you’ve got the capacity to go places. The achievement of the Peterson brood certainly back that theory up.
The eldest of the family is Judith (b.1967), an I.T nurse and a busy mother of three who will shortly be moving up to Forgandenny with husband Anthony who is leaving the Army and taking up a position as Bursar at Strathallan School. Next comes Andrew (b.1969) who is a Marketing Manager with Proctor and Gamble (the soap powder people) and is currently based in Kazakhstan (covering Siberia, Mongolia, Armenia, Georgia and all the other ‘stans’). As well as speaking fluent Russian and passable French and German, he plays the pipes very well and the fiddle, euphonium and piano passably. At Oxford he won the ‘Mace’ for debating, following on from such illustrious names as our own John Smith and Donald Dewar.
Then comes Gordon (b.1972) who is a Personnel and Management Consultant in Sydney, Australia. He was a very good athlete and Captained the Scotland Rugby Term at all stages from Schoolboy to Under-21 level in addition to winning the World Debating Championship in Dublin in 1991. And that finally brings us to Duncan (b.1975) who has recently sold up his successful tourist business in New York and is currently doing a Law Degree at Brooklyn Law School. He was voted most humorous speaker at the Debating Championships and celebrated by going a handstand in the kilt watched by the Irish Prime Minister. His mother was ‘not amused’.
All periodically return with wives and children to holiday at Iain and Sheila’s other home at Ardnamurchan, renewing their roots so to speak and for a full family get together the house at Dollar has a basement big enough to sleep the lot of them (but that’s another story).
Over the last thirty years Iain has produced some sixteen volumes of music under the Shian label (which, if my calculation are correct, include 172 of Iain’s own compositions and 227 of other well known Scottish Dance Band leaders) and feels that may be the last. With the assistance of David Cunningham Jnr he is currently looking at the possibility of releasing a CD containing a recording made on reel-to-reel on 15th March 1984 of the Trio who guested at many Accordion and Fiddle Clubs back in the 1980’s, namely Donald Burns (accordion), Alf McConnachie (keyboard) and Iain on fiddle. Another impending project involves the re-publication of a book detailing the experiences of a seafaring man a century ago.
My sincere thanks to Iain and Sheilis for their hospitality on my visit to Dollar. Over the years Iain has been a regular attendee at our AGM, always contributing a constructive comment which reflects his whole attitude to Scottish music and life in general – if he can help he will. Ever courteous and unassuming, Iain has carried the values of the remote post-war community he was brought up in with him throughout a busy and responsible working life and passed them on to the next generation. As a composer, musician, publisher and ambassador of Scottish music he is undoubtedly a worthy recipient of the Association’s recognition.
Box and Fiddle
July 2004
Box and Fiddle
July 2004