Jim Barrie (24/06/1939 - 07/01/16) - Eulogy
Written and Delivered by Freeland Barbour
Do you remember those phone calls? Did you ever get them? I’m sure many of you must have done. The phone would go and you’d answer it and from the other end would come a cheerful and instantly recognisable voice, with one word – LIVE!. And you knew that the Barrie boy was on the go and you knew too that the next little while would be interesting and entertaining, and somehow the sun would come out and life would get a little better. And that was Jim’s effect, on everyone he met. And it didn’t matter who they were, he could relate to anyone, and he was always up for any ploy that might present itself. On an early occasion with The Wallochmor Ceilidh Band we were visiting Shetland and went in to the studios of BBC Radio Shetland to record an interview. Now, as it transpired, the interviewer Mary Blance was completely new to radio and didn’t know how to do the interview, so Jim gallantly rose to the occasion and interviewed his band colleagues for her, and then he pretty much interviewed himself, and some time afterwards I heard from Mary that they’d been inundated with calls from Shetlanders wanting to know who this new presenter was that the BBC had got hold of and when could they hear him again because he was ‘really good’.
Those were hectic days for all of us and you had to be on your toes and Jim certainly was, especially when it came to the possibility of a bargain. Sometimes it worked - we were up in Keith on one occasion during the folk festival and, in the bar of the Station Hotel I think, Jim had been chatting to a man who was wearing a rather fine tweed hat and Jim had been passing compliments on it. The hat man, seeing Jim’s fiddle case, had said that he would give Jim the hat if he would play ‘The hen’s march ower the midden’, thinking I imagine that Jim wouldn’t be able to. Quick as a flash out came the fiddle, the march was duly played, and the hat then placed on the Barrie head. And sometimes it didn’t work – he once let on to us that he’d driven round Edinburgh three times looking for cheap petrol, didn’t find any, and ran out just as he got back home.
If you didn’t know Jim’s music then let me tell you that he was one of the best of fiddle players. He loved jazz but Scottish dance music was his real home. Everyone in the Scottish dance band world knew him from his time with the Bobby Jack band (that furnished him with a hideous Macleod tartan jacket), the Derek Lawrence band, The Wallochmor, and The Occasionals. With The Wallochmor he more than held his own against 4 band colleagues who tended to make a lot of noise and who were rather prone to carrying out all sorts of depradations on him while he was playing fiddle solos. We used to perform at the fiddle and accordion clubs across the land and Jim’s favoured footwear for these occasions, even in the depths of winter, was open-toed sandals. In the middle of a solo his sandals might be removed by his colleagues, and also his socks which were then thrown into the audience, who of course grabbed them as precious souvenirs. And he did things himself – on one occasion he even managed a fiddle solo while climbing a step ladder. And through all this he never missed a beat. You have to be good to do that. You’ll hear him playing as we leave today, and indeed the 2nd tune in the first set is his own composition, ‘The Letham Piggery’. You can judge for yourselves.
In travelling the land as we did you meet so many different people and the Wallochmor had probably rather more than its fair share of ‘characters’ shall we say who used to turn up at the concerts and dances. One such was a gentleman from Stranraer I think who would greet you with a warm handshake accompanied by fierce swearing – How are you doing you great big blah blah blah – that was just his way of being friendly. Now Jim happened to be walking along Princes Street one day and spied this man from Stranraer coming towards him. Ha ha thought Jim, I’ll get in there first, so he went over and shook him by the hand whilst uttering a string of expletives. He was a bit surprised when his greeting wasn’t returned quite as warmly as he’d been expecting. Anyway they had a short chat and parted company, and just as he was walking away Jim realised to his horror that it wasn’t the man from Stranraer at all. It was his new assistant from the dental hospital.
Jim, thank you. Thank you from all of us. Thank you for your friendship, for your love of life, for your enthusiasm, for your music, and thank you most of all for your own unique self. There’s a word you used to use, and you used it a lot. You never used it about yourself of course, but we can, and we will, because you were, and always will be, quite simply – FANtastic.
Thank you.
Those were hectic days for all of us and you had to be on your toes and Jim certainly was, especially when it came to the possibility of a bargain. Sometimes it worked - we were up in Keith on one occasion during the folk festival and, in the bar of the Station Hotel I think, Jim had been chatting to a man who was wearing a rather fine tweed hat and Jim had been passing compliments on it. The hat man, seeing Jim’s fiddle case, had said that he would give Jim the hat if he would play ‘The hen’s march ower the midden’, thinking I imagine that Jim wouldn’t be able to. Quick as a flash out came the fiddle, the march was duly played, and the hat then placed on the Barrie head. And sometimes it didn’t work – he once let on to us that he’d driven round Edinburgh three times looking for cheap petrol, didn’t find any, and ran out just as he got back home.
If you didn’t know Jim’s music then let me tell you that he was one of the best of fiddle players. He loved jazz but Scottish dance music was his real home. Everyone in the Scottish dance band world knew him from his time with the Bobby Jack band (that furnished him with a hideous Macleod tartan jacket), the Derek Lawrence band, The Wallochmor, and The Occasionals. With The Wallochmor he more than held his own against 4 band colleagues who tended to make a lot of noise and who were rather prone to carrying out all sorts of depradations on him while he was playing fiddle solos. We used to perform at the fiddle and accordion clubs across the land and Jim’s favoured footwear for these occasions, even in the depths of winter, was open-toed sandals. In the middle of a solo his sandals might be removed by his colleagues, and also his socks which were then thrown into the audience, who of course grabbed them as precious souvenirs. And he did things himself – on one occasion he even managed a fiddle solo while climbing a step ladder. And through all this he never missed a beat. You have to be good to do that. You’ll hear him playing as we leave today, and indeed the 2nd tune in the first set is his own composition, ‘The Letham Piggery’. You can judge for yourselves.
In travelling the land as we did you meet so many different people and the Wallochmor had probably rather more than its fair share of ‘characters’ shall we say who used to turn up at the concerts and dances. One such was a gentleman from Stranraer I think who would greet you with a warm handshake accompanied by fierce swearing – How are you doing you great big blah blah blah – that was just his way of being friendly. Now Jim happened to be walking along Princes Street one day and spied this man from Stranraer coming towards him. Ha ha thought Jim, I’ll get in there first, so he went over and shook him by the hand whilst uttering a string of expletives. He was a bit surprised when his greeting wasn’t returned quite as warmly as he’d been expecting. Anyway they had a short chat and parted company, and just as he was walking away Jim realised to his horror that it wasn’t the man from Stranraer at all. It was his new assistant from the dental hospital.
Jim, thank you. Thank you from all of us. Thank you for your friendship, for your love of life, for your enthusiasm, for your music, and thank you most of all for your own unique self. There’s a word you used to use, and you used it a lot. You never used it about yourself of course, but we can, and we will, because you were, and always will be, quite simply – FANtastic.
Thank you.