Postscript (Pages 161 - 166)
During the writing of this book, Jimmy, retired though he claimed to be, appeared to me to be a pretty busy man.
Often enough I would phone to arrange a meeting to learn that he was away to play at a hospital, or to ‘gie the auld folk a tune’ at some club. Nor were these charitable performances limited to a few miles round about.
Also in this period he made a couple of LPs; one as guest with the Wick Scottish Dance Band, the other with Ian Powrie while on a visit home from Perth, Australia.
Jimmy has always been a close froend of the Powries since way back when father Will was star melodeonist on Beltona records before he had made his own first record.
Fiddler Ian, who had his own very successful Scottish Country Dance Band before he emigrated (after which accordionist Jimmy Blue took over) got together with Jimmy Shand to make the appropriately titled selection ‘When Auld Freends Meet’ with the assistance of Pam Brough on piano, Dave Barclay on bass, and drummer Arthur Easson.
‘To Be Opened By Jimmy Shand….’ many a poster and newspaper notice proudly advises of Sale of Work, Garden Fete, etc.
He is forced to turn down many such requests for his services – not because he is trying to spare himself, but because it would leave less time for charitable playing.
It would appear that he certainly has not given enough thought to sparing himself in his ‘retirement’. And, just the same as in the more hectic professional days, nature sooner or later calls a halt; which reminds me to –
“Mind ye’ve gie’n my doctors a mention, Dave. Withoot them I couldna hae stayed sae lang on the road as I did…..”
Jimmy is indebted to Dundee Doctors Kirland, Rorie and Wisw; in Auchtermuchty and Ladybank to Doctors Catto, Cardno and Wightman.
In March 1975 jaundice was diagnosed.
At Bridge of Earn Hospital in August he had his gall-bladder removed.
Only a few days before he went into hospital Mrs Isobel Binnie, ‘Wee Isa’ of the Denham bairns when he went to live with the family on coming to work in Forbes’ Music Shop in Dundee in the ‘thirties, had to go into Ninewells Hospital. Jimmy was one of her first visitors.
On his next visit might he bring his ‘box’? And of course the Ward Sister agreed.
He p[layed for an hour in Ward 16 into which patients from other Wards were wheeled; and I cannot do better than to (once again) quote his long-standing journalist friend Alan Dunsmore, this time from the piece he had on the front page of the People’s Journal of October 4th, 1975.
“As reel tumbled out on the heels of strathspey, the domestic staff began to dance at the end of the ward.
A husband who called to visit his wife couldn’t believe his eyes. Her progress back to health had been slow. Now she was sitting up doing a sort of Highland hand-jive.
One woman went over and shook Jimmy’s hand. “I’ve wanted to do this for years,” she said. He spent more than 10 minutes signing get-well cards. Jimmy has now retired from show-business. But the magic of his ‘dunt’ persists.”
(In case you don’t know what ‘dunt’ means, Alan writes “It is maestro Jimmy Shand’s own description of his accordion beat – something that no other country dance player has managed completely to copy.”)
Then it is Jimmy’s turn for surgery.
“You would give them a tune at Bridge of Earn?” I asked.
“Oh aye – we had a bit o’ a sing-sang the nicht afore my operation. Then,later, in bed this new tune came tae me. It was complete afore I fell asleep; a pipe march.”
“Have you given it a title?”
“Oh aye – I gave it a name right away; Jimmy Shand’s Compliments to Mr. A. J. M. Mathieson – the surgeon wha was tae operate on me next day.”
And of course the operation was a success.
Jimmy’s accordion is a substantial affair, and playing was forbidden him for a time after the operation. But’ as always, after no matter how long a spell off, when he did strap it on again all the magic was there ready to be released by his fingertips.
This is a thing about him that other accordionists find most astonishing. A perfectionist from the very start and right throughout his career, yet –
“Jimmy never practices,” perfectionist of the piano-keyed instrument Louis Carbrelli told me. “He never has done. Even after a long lay-off he’ll pick up the accordion ‘cold’ and play as brilliantly as ever. Me, now – if I let a week go by without practising I notice the difference.”
(Louis must be practising, for it is the opinion of the knowledgeable who have heard him recently that he is undoubtedly among the world’s greatest exponents. James, brother of George McKelvey and himself an excellent player, remarked after a session with Louis that when he came home he felt like making a bonfire of his ‘box!’)
Chances are, had you passed Braidleys recently, you might have glimpsed the man who left mining and labouring to become a star back doing labouring work; probably keeping the cement-mixer going.
Wife Ann also has had health problems, and both of them feel the need for a more compact house – so Jimmy is lending a hand at the building of a bungalow in front of the ‘big hoose’.
He recalled when they moved into Braidleys in 1957…..
“A helluva nicht o’ rain. An’ Ann wasn’t in the happiest o’ moods on account o’ the way the hoose had been neglected – maist o’ the rooms badly needed painted and papered.
“Well we had a Labrador then ca’ed Shane, an’ immediately we arrived he vanished tae inspect his new surroundin’s. An’ he took an instant likin’ tae the place….He turned up later lickin’ aff his chops the blood o’ some o’ a dozen or so hens he’d done for at a neighbourin’ ferm! Cost me a few quid, that did.”
People have asked “Is Jimmy as dour as ever?”
I know that what he said in 1958 in a Sunday Post interview is still valid – “Even though I dinna smile when I’m playin’ anywhere doesna mean I’m no’ happy. Inside I’m happy, an’ I just can’t force a smile. But believe me I enjoy a joke an’ can smile.
At the same time perhaps a little qualification of the above may be permitted…..
Willie Smith of Winter’s, the publisher, was briefing the photographer and myself with regard to his idea for the book jacket…..
“We want Jimmy and his box and the kilt to stand out against a neutral background, you see? Right; and of course he’ll need to be smiling naturally—“
Naturally.
We drove over to Auchtermuchty and drank coffee and munched chocolate biscuits while Jimmy got dressed up.
Jackie Cooper, the dancer, who was on a visit to Braidleys, and I stood by as the photographer set up his equipment and posed Jim.
Now, all was ready. A couple of frames were exposed. But we needed a smile. Jackie and I had one when the photographer innocently suggested “if you could open the bellows a bit more” not knowing the maestro to be the leading exponent of the minimal unsqueezing of the squeeze-box technique.
“He’s no’ smilin’”, confided the photographer. He shot another couple of frames.
Idea! “Let’s tell jokes”, I said to the other two, while Jim idly rendered superb snatches of this and that, musically doodling.
So Jackie Cooper, the photographer and I, cracked funnies – and they got funnier all the time. Eventually the three of us were holding our sides, bordering on the falling-about stage.
Let me say that I’m sure the fourth member of the group, Jim, enjoyed the cracks as much as we did – only he wasn’t showing it too well. However, wiping tears of merriment from his eyes, the photographer kept on trying, and in the long run he captured a fleeting visible appreciation from Jim; and I wish I could remember that particular joke.
The tonic and restorative powers of the Shand sound have not gone unrecorded, yet it was only by chance that I heard of what is perhaps the most amazing evidence….
In the early ‘60’s Marjory, a young nurse from Carlisle, was badly injured in a road accident. For days she lay close to death in hospital, in a coma from which nothing would bring her round it seemed.
But a nurse who knew her knew also that she was one of Jimmy’s greatest fans. This nurse played the accordion, and perhaps if she were to play the girl’s favourite tune…..And it was to the lilt of the Bluebell Polka that the eyelids gave the first flickering signs of returning consciousness. So now a stronger dose of the ‘medicine’ was prescribed; the doctors sent for a record-player and Jimmy’s recording of the tune. A couple of days later she had opened her eyes for the first time, smiled at the lichtsome air so delicately released from Jimmy’s magic touch.
She was not able to walk when she left hospital. Then she was taken to a ball in the district at which the band played, and introduced to the man whose ‘absent healing’ had already benefited her.
“Next time we play here I want tae see ye walk, mind,” he told her.
And on the band’s next engagement there -
“I’d just finished playing the Bluebell Polka, and then I looked doon………I’ll never forget it, never. It was heart-grippin’, eerier even; the lassie bravely puttin’ one foot before the anither, slowly crossin’ the floor tae greet me.”
It was the dramatic first real signs of the complete recovery which followed; and on a later visit she danced the Bluebell Polka with Jimmy.
(Incidentally, he is not the composer, but he has been playing that tune since he was a laddie getting a shot of his father’s melodeon).
Much further away but as near to his heart is the time when he played to spastic children in a hospital in New Zealand, after which the matron told him how valuable he had found his records – especially the Polka – in the children’s exercises; the gay rhythm, the immaculate beat greatly encouraged them to do their best.
It was also after the book was ready for printing that I got to hear about Roy Magna.
Living in Chiselhurst in 1953 he used to go English and Square dancing with a pal who one day excitedly gave him news of a terrific band he’d just heard over the loudspeakers at Bromley Football ground. He’s enquired and learned it was Jimmy Shand.
Roy’s pal, Ken Spiers, was so enthusiastic that Roy thereupon went out and purchased the first two of what was to become a very large collection of Shand records.
Within a year he had bought a piano accordion “but never made anything of it. Then after seeing Jim on TV in ‘The Kilt is My Delight’ decided I must have a button box and learn to play’.
National Service intervened then, but he built up his record collection. Out in 1958 he bought a second-hand shand Morino – “only to find that in South-East England there was no-one who could teach me to play such an intricate instrument. Nor could Jimmy tell me of anyone when I wrote to him….” But he invited Roy to meet him on his next engagement in London, and gave him four hours instruction at his hotel after this; and further guidance followed on subsequent engagements.
Then in 1962 Roy decided he “would like to live in Scotland to enable me to hear more Scottish Dance music.” This meant giving up a business and coming north at a time of high unemployment; and Jimmy advised him to think very seriously before making the move.
But he did come to Scotland, and got a job as a salesman; and he lives in Markinch.
Finally, a couple of brief tributes which have just come to hand.
Jim Crawford, Scottish Country Dance Band leader, who has known Jimmy since 1932, writes – “nearly every time the wife and I visited him at Sutherland Street there were musicians sitting on the stairs like crows on a dyke, with Jimmy at the bottom putting them through their paces, giving advice and encouragement. Some of these lads became well-known players and bandleaders. I feel that without Jimmy Shand Scottish Dance Music would never have reached the high standard and the popularity it has today, and Scottish Country Dancing would never have gained the interest of the ordinary people. We all hope that Jimmy is spared for a long time to entertain us all.”
Home from a holiday from South Africa, Dugald Jenkins, who led the successful Heather Dance Band told me how Jim had helped and inspired him since he was a laddie of fifteen, and had put a lot of engagements his way. Duguld won the Jimmy shand Shield at the Perth Accordion Festival in 1953. Duguld was last to compete, successfully he believes because he took the advice of Jimmy (who wasn’t adjudicating) to “jist play tae yersel”. Years later, in 1972, the nostalgia that had impelled Dugald to phone Braidleys to wish the Shands a Happy New Year was considerably deepened when the maestro responded with a selection on the box.
There is a letter from Hugh G. Johnston of Dalbeattie, who used to book the band and compere at functions all over the south of Scotland and north of England. Making his first booking by phone “I then asked him if he would confirm this in writing, and he replied ‘Lauddie, my word is my bond!’”
Hugh organised his Retiral Concert in Dalbeattie Town Hall “where once again it was a Full House at both performances with fans traveling from Stranraer in the west and from Berwick in the east and many parts of north England…..Through his many records the name of Jimmy Shand will remain in the Top Ten for evermore”.
Often enough I would phone to arrange a meeting to learn that he was away to play at a hospital, or to ‘gie the auld folk a tune’ at some club. Nor were these charitable performances limited to a few miles round about.
Also in this period he made a couple of LPs; one as guest with the Wick Scottish Dance Band, the other with Ian Powrie while on a visit home from Perth, Australia.
Jimmy has always been a close froend of the Powries since way back when father Will was star melodeonist on Beltona records before he had made his own first record.
Fiddler Ian, who had his own very successful Scottish Country Dance Band before he emigrated (after which accordionist Jimmy Blue took over) got together with Jimmy Shand to make the appropriately titled selection ‘When Auld Freends Meet’ with the assistance of Pam Brough on piano, Dave Barclay on bass, and drummer Arthur Easson.
‘To Be Opened By Jimmy Shand….’ many a poster and newspaper notice proudly advises of Sale of Work, Garden Fete, etc.
He is forced to turn down many such requests for his services – not because he is trying to spare himself, but because it would leave less time for charitable playing.
It would appear that he certainly has not given enough thought to sparing himself in his ‘retirement’. And, just the same as in the more hectic professional days, nature sooner or later calls a halt; which reminds me to –
“Mind ye’ve gie’n my doctors a mention, Dave. Withoot them I couldna hae stayed sae lang on the road as I did…..”
Jimmy is indebted to Dundee Doctors Kirland, Rorie and Wisw; in Auchtermuchty and Ladybank to Doctors Catto, Cardno and Wightman.
In March 1975 jaundice was diagnosed.
At Bridge of Earn Hospital in August he had his gall-bladder removed.
Only a few days before he went into hospital Mrs Isobel Binnie, ‘Wee Isa’ of the Denham bairns when he went to live with the family on coming to work in Forbes’ Music Shop in Dundee in the ‘thirties, had to go into Ninewells Hospital. Jimmy was one of her first visitors.
On his next visit might he bring his ‘box’? And of course the Ward Sister agreed.
He p[layed for an hour in Ward 16 into which patients from other Wards were wheeled; and I cannot do better than to (once again) quote his long-standing journalist friend Alan Dunsmore, this time from the piece he had on the front page of the People’s Journal of October 4th, 1975.
“As reel tumbled out on the heels of strathspey, the domestic staff began to dance at the end of the ward.
A husband who called to visit his wife couldn’t believe his eyes. Her progress back to health had been slow. Now she was sitting up doing a sort of Highland hand-jive.
One woman went over and shook Jimmy’s hand. “I’ve wanted to do this for years,” she said. He spent more than 10 minutes signing get-well cards. Jimmy has now retired from show-business. But the magic of his ‘dunt’ persists.”
(In case you don’t know what ‘dunt’ means, Alan writes “It is maestro Jimmy Shand’s own description of his accordion beat – something that no other country dance player has managed completely to copy.”)
Then it is Jimmy’s turn for surgery.
“You would give them a tune at Bridge of Earn?” I asked.
“Oh aye – we had a bit o’ a sing-sang the nicht afore my operation. Then,later, in bed this new tune came tae me. It was complete afore I fell asleep; a pipe march.”
“Have you given it a title?”
“Oh aye – I gave it a name right away; Jimmy Shand’s Compliments to Mr. A. J. M. Mathieson – the surgeon wha was tae operate on me next day.”
And of course the operation was a success.
Jimmy’s accordion is a substantial affair, and playing was forbidden him for a time after the operation. But’ as always, after no matter how long a spell off, when he did strap it on again all the magic was there ready to be released by his fingertips.
This is a thing about him that other accordionists find most astonishing. A perfectionist from the very start and right throughout his career, yet –
“Jimmy never practices,” perfectionist of the piano-keyed instrument Louis Carbrelli told me. “He never has done. Even after a long lay-off he’ll pick up the accordion ‘cold’ and play as brilliantly as ever. Me, now – if I let a week go by without practising I notice the difference.”
(Louis must be practising, for it is the opinion of the knowledgeable who have heard him recently that he is undoubtedly among the world’s greatest exponents. James, brother of George McKelvey and himself an excellent player, remarked after a session with Louis that when he came home he felt like making a bonfire of his ‘box!’)
Chances are, had you passed Braidleys recently, you might have glimpsed the man who left mining and labouring to become a star back doing labouring work; probably keeping the cement-mixer going.
Wife Ann also has had health problems, and both of them feel the need for a more compact house – so Jimmy is lending a hand at the building of a bungalow in front of the ‘big hoose’.
He recalled when they moved into Braidleys in 1957…..
“A helluva nicht o’ rain. An’ Ann wasn’t in the happiest o’ moods on account o’ the way the hoose had been neglected – maist o’ the rooms badly needed painted and papered.
“Well we had a Labrador then ca’ed Shane, an’ immediately we arrived he vanished tae inspect his new surroundin’s. An’ he took an instant likin’ tae the place….He turned up later lickin’ aff his chops the blood o’ some o’ a dozen or so hens he’d done for at a neighbourin’ ferm! Cost me a few quid, that did.”
People have asked “Is Jimmy as dour as ever?”
I know that what he said in 1958 in a Sunday Post interview is still valid – “Even though I dinna smile when I’m playin’ anywhere doesna mean I’m no’ happy. Inside I’m happy, an’ I just can’t force a smile. But believe me I enjoy a joke an’ can smile.
At the same time perhaps a little qualification of the above may be permitted…..
Willie Smith of Winter’s, the publisher, was briefing the photographer and myself with regard to his idea for the book jacket…..
“We want Jimmy and his box and the kilt to stand out against a neutral background, you see? Right; and of course he’ll need to be smiling naturally—“
Naturally.
We drove over to Auchtermuchty and drank coffee and munched chocolate biscuits while Jimmy got dressed up.
Jackie Cooper, the dancer, who was on a visit to Braidleys, and I stood by as the photographer set up his equipment and posed Jim.
Now, all was ready. A couple of frames were exposed. But we needed a smile. Jackie and I had one when the photographer innocently suggested “if you could open the bellows a bit more” not knowing the maestro to be the leading exponent of the minimal unsqueezing of the squeeze-box technique.
“He’s no’ smilin’”, confided the photographer. He shot another couple of frames.
Idea! “Let’s tell jokes”, I said to the other two, while Jim idly rendered superb snatches of this and that, musically doodling.
So Jackie Cooper, the photographer and I, cracked funnies – and they got funnier all the time. Eventually the three of us were holding our sides, bordering on the falling-about stage.
Let me say that I’m sure the fourth member of the group, Jim, enjoyed the cracks as much as we did – only he wasn’t showing it too well. However, wiping tears of merriment from his eyes, the photographer kept on trying, and in the long run he captured a fleeting visible appreciation from Jim; and I wish I could remember that particular joke.
The tonic and restorative powers of the Shand sound have not gone unrecorded, yet it was only by chance that I heard of what is perhaps the most amazing evidence….
In the early ‘60’s Marjory, a young nurse from Carlisle, was badly injured in a road accident. For days she lay close to death in hospital, in a coma from which nothing would bring her round it seemed.
But a nurse who knew her knew also that she was one of Jimmy’s greatest fans. This nurse played the accordion, and perhaps if she were to play the girl’s favourite tune…..And it was to the lilt of the Bluebell Polka that the eyelids gave the first flickering signs of returning consciousness. So now a stronger dose of the ‘medicine’ was prescribed; the doctors sent for a record-player and Jimmy’s recording of the tune. A couple of days later she had opened her eyes for the first time, smiled at the lichtsome air so delicately released from Jimmy’s magic touch.
She was not able to walk when she left hospital. Then she was taken to a ball in the district at which the band played, and introduced to the man whose ‘absent healing’ had already benefited her.
“Next time we play here I want tae see ye walk, mind,” he told her.
And on the band’s next engagement there -
“I’d just finished playing the Bluebell Polka, and then I looked doon………I’ll never forget it, never. It was heart-grippin’, eerier even; the lassie bravely puttin’ one foot before the anither, slowly crossin’ the floor tae greet me.”
It was the dramatic first real signs of the complete recovery which followed; and on a later visit she danced the Bluebell Polka with Jimmy.
(Incidentally, he is not the composer, but he has been playing that tune since he was a laddie getting a shot of his father’s melodeon).
Much further away but as near to his heart is the time when he played to spastic children in a hospital in New Zealand, after which the matron told him how valuable he had found his records – especially the Polka – in the children’s exercises; the gay rhythm, the immaculate beat greatly encouraged them to do their best.
It was also after the book was ready for printing that I got to hear about Roy Magna.
Living in Chiselhurst in 1953 he used to go English and Square dancing with a pal who one day excitedly gave him news of a terrific band he’d just heard over the loudspeakers at Bromley Football ground. He’s enquired and learned it was Jimmy Shand.
Roy’s pal, Ken Spiers, was so enthusiastic that Roy thereupon went out and purchased the first two of what was to become a very large collection of Shand records.
Within a year he had bought a piano accordion “but never made anything of it. Then after seeing Jim on TV in ‘The Kilt is My Delight’ decided I must have a button box and learn to play’.
National Service intervened then, but he built up his record collection. Out in 1958 he bought a second-hand shand Morino – “only to find that in South-East England there was no-one who could teach me to play such an intricate instrument. Nor could Jimmy tell me of anyone when I wrote to him….” But he invited Roy to meet him on his next engagement in London, and gave him four hours instruction at his hotel after this; and further guidance followed on subsequent engagements.
Then in 1962 Roy decided he “would like to live in Scotland to enable me to hear more Scottish Dance music.” This meant giving up a business and coming north at a time of high unemployment; and Jimmy advised him to think very seriously before making the move.
But he did come to Scotland, and got a job as a salesman; and he lives in Markinch.
Finally, a couple of brief tributes which have just come to hand.
Jim Crawford, Scottish Country Dance Band leader, who has known Jimmy since 1932, writes – “nearly every time the wife and I visited him at Sutherland Street there were musicians sitting on the stairs like crows on a dyke, with Jimmy at the bottom putting them through their paces, giving advice and encouragement. Some of these lads became well-known players and bandleaders. I feel that without Jimmy Shand Scottish Dance Music would never have reached the high standard and the popularity it has today, and Scottish Country Dancing would never have gained the interest of the ordinary people. We all hope that Jimmy is spared for a long time to entertain us all.”
Home from a holiday from South Africa, Dugald Jenkins, who led the successful Heather Dance Band told me how Jim had helped and inspired him since he was a laddie of fifteen, and had put a lot of engagements his way. Duguld won the Jimmy shand Shield at the Perth Accordion Festival in 1953. Duguld was last to compete, successfully he believes because he took the advice of Jimmy (who wasn’t adjudicating) to “jist play tae yersel”. Years later, in 1972, the nostalgia that had impelled Dugald to phone Braidleys to wish the Shands a Happy New Year was considerably deepened when the maestro responded with a selection on the box.
There is a letter from Hugh G. Johnston of Dalbeattie, who used to book the band and compere at functions all over the south of Scotland and north of England. Making his first booking by phone “I then asked him if he would confirm this in writing, and he replied ‘Lauddie, my word is my bond!’”
Hugh organised his Retiral Concert in Dalbeattie Town Hall “where once again it was a Full House at both performances with fans traveling from Stranraer in the west and from Berwick in the east and many parts of north England…..Through his many records the name of Jimmy Shand will remain in the Top Ten for evermore”.