Welcome....
..... to the Box and Fiddle Archive where you can find:
I hope you enjoy your visit to the Box and Fiddle Archive. If you're looking for information on any musical personalities check under Musician Biographies, Roll of Honour (Obituaries) and also NAAFC Awards Archive and within that NAAFC Honours for separate articles written when individuals became our Guests of Honour.
Over four winters ( 2011/12 to 2015/16) I managed to archive the main articles from 1977 to 2003. I took the winter of 16/17 off to tackle something else but was back in harness for 17/18 when I added Sept 2003 - August 2016. Nothing done during the winter of 18/19 but 19/20 winter months saw September 2016 - February 2020 added. Winter 20/21 sees me on the home straight from March 2020 to November 2020 when Covid19 stopped us in our tracks. We resumed in January 2022
If you wrote an article which I haven't included please e-mail it to Pia and she'll forward it to me to be added.
Please let me know of any names, dates or details missing from The Roll of Honour.
Now added :-
2022 January to December
Regards Charlie Todd N.A.A.F.C. Archivist 28th December 2022
On the morning of May 11, 1857, the telegraph master, Charles Todd, who had left Delhi to check the lines which had been cut by the mutineers was murdered by them. However, his two assistants, William Brendish and J W Pilkington, remained at the office till 2 pm, having received no message from the military which had been relying heavily on help from Meerut. Meanwhile, the signallers had been providing updates to the "Amballah" office of the events in Delhi. At three in the afternoon, Pilkington returned to the office with a military officer from the Flagstaff Tower where the telegraph officials had retreated to dispatch a "very meagre official telegram to Amballah". The last dispatch sent to Ambala said that the telegraph officer who had left from Delhi in the morning had been murdered. It ended with "we are off".
HISTORY of The Highland Society of London
The Highland Society of London is a charity, which exists to promote and support the traditions and culture of the Highlands of Scotland, whilst maintaining a Membership of individuals to support the Society’s activities. The trustees of the Society form the Committee of Management, which meets four times per year to administer the Society’s affairs. The Membership of the Society meets twice per year to discuss the activities of the Society in General Court and to elect the Committee of Management; each General Court is followed by a dinner, and the Society also arranges a cocktail party each May.
The Highland Society of London was originally formed on 28th May 1778, when twenty-five Highland gentlemen met at the Spring Garden Coffee House in London, in order to form a Society that “might prove beneficial to that part of the Kingdom”. The first President was Lt-General Simon Fraser of Lovat and the Society was subsequently incorporated by Act of Parliament in 1816. Since 1965, the Society has been registered as a charity with the Charity Commission of England and Wales, number 244472. Her Majesty The Queen is Chief of the Society and the current President is Duncan Byatt.
For over two hundred years, the Society has been influential in matters relating to the Highlands and Islands of Scotland. In 1782, the Society procured the repeal of the Disarming Act (passed after the Rising of 1745 and which, amongst other things, prohibited the wearing of Highland Dress); and from 1784, secured the restoration of forfeited Highland Estates. The Society was also instrumental in setting up the forerunner of the British Fisheries Society in 1786, leading to the founding of fishing villages at Ullapool, Tobermory and others. In 1815, the Society established the Royal Caledonian Asylum (now Royal Caledonian Schools), to educate needy children of Highland descent living in London. In 1859, the Society took a prominent part in forming the London Scottish Rifle Volunteers; and in 1902, successfully opposed an attempt to abolish the Kilt as the field dress of Highland Regiments. The Society’s subsidiary charity, the Baroness Von Wilczek (née Mackenzie) charity, founded in 1911 to help Scottish Regiment war widows in need and whose funds were finally exhausted in 2014, has now been wound up; its remaining obligations are being met from a separate fund within the Society.
During this time, the Society gathered a large collection of Gaelic manuscripts and other historical artefacts. Many of these manuscripts (including copies of the Poems of Ossian, published in Gaelic by the Society in 1807) are available to view at the National Library of Scotland, in Edinburgh; and the Society’s unique collection of ancient tartans is on view at the National Museum of Scotland, also in Edinburgh. There are other items on display at the Caledonian Club in London and at the The Museum of the Isles at the Clan Donald Centre, at Armadale on Skye.
The current focus of the Society is to support traditions and culture particular to the Highlands and Islands. The Society awards the prestigious Gold Medal for the best player of Piobaireachd at each of the Argyllshire Gathering and the Northern Meeting, annually; and awards prizes at various other Piping competitions. Each year the Society also gives an art prize through the Royal Scottish Academy; Gaelic singing prizes at the Royal National Mod; Highland Dancing prizes at the Glenfinnan Games; and has recently instituted an essay prize with the University of the Highlands and Islands. In addition, the Society makes financial grants to a number of related charities and organisations that promote and support Highland traditions and culture, and Members are encouraged to contact the Committee of Management with suggestions for suitable beneficiaries. The Society is funded through Life Membership fees, income on its investments and charitable donations.
The Rules and Bye-laws of the Society were recently changed to admit ladies as Members. Rule 16 currently states that: “Persons qualified for being proposed Members are natives of the Highlands of Scotland, Descendants or Spouses of Highlanders, Proprietors of Land in the Highlands, Individuals who have done signal service to that part of The Kingdom, or Officers serving or who have served in Highland Corps.” Candidates for Membership must be proposed and seconded by two existing Members (neither of whom is the candidate’s parent) for approval by the Membership at a General Court. There is a Life Membership fee due on joining (currently £250), but no annual subscription; although Members wishing to make ongoing donations can do so via the Society’s Justgiving site.
The Society’s regular activities in London include the General Court and Annual Dinner in March, celebrating General Sir Ralph Abercromby and all Scotsmen who have fallen in defence of their country, with the focus of the evening on the piping of the Society’s Honorary Piper; the Spring Cocktail Party in May, generally held in conjunction with members of the Northern Meeting and the Argyllshire Gathering; and a second General Court and Dinner in either November or December, followed by a selection of Highland music and entertainment. Members are encouraged to attend these events, and to bring guests. The Highland Ball takes place at the beginning of March each year, under the auspices of the Highland Society of London.
An excellent article from September 2005
Is Anybody Out There?
by Finlay Forbes
Six years ago I wrote to the B&F complaining about the poor radio and even poorer television coverage of Scottish Dance music in the B&F tradition. Six years on, the coverage has certainly not improved but this lack of progress may be due more to resigned acceptance by lovers of our traditional dance music than to embedded resistance on the part of media moguls. There is little doubt that the paucity of exposure on today’s media is due to some highly successful lobbying in the past by the corduroy breeks and beards brigade that dominated the diluted folk music in the sixties and seventies. Bank then, anything that failed to comply with this self-appointed clique’s narrow and largely baseless definition of what they regarded a genuine folk music was written off as ‘Heather and Haggis’ and therefore totally unfit for human consumption. ‘Heather and Haggis’ was, and still is, a mindless denigration but its mindlessness somehow struck a chord with our ‘thought police’ and media types who at the time, were so seduced by the superficiality of the case that they failed to discern the Neanderthal speciousness of it all. But, as one of the icons of the sixties folk movement said, “The times they are a-changing”. Dumbing down of the mass media has reached the point where normally placid people are beginning to take exception to being short-changed on intellectual content and programme quality to the point where they are starting to complain. Now may be a good time for those of us who lobe the ‘B&F’ tradition to exert some pressure. In the past, the corduroy clad strummers aided to some extent by The School of Scottish Studies were largely unchallenged in their claims to the high ground of authenticity.
At the time, too many of us accepted the ‘Heather and Haggis’ argument without question, but even if it was valid then, which is doubtful, is it still valid decades later? Heather is not exactly an uncommon plant around Scotland and haggis is a highly nutritious commodity so where’s the problem? Broadcasting controllers and their retinue of robotic sidekicks try to tell us that the folk scene is where the true spirit of the Scots tradition is to be found and that the old style of Scottish Country Dance Band has had its day. But does that argument really stand up to scrutiny? Does the true Scots tradition really lie in the bland ersatz concoctions of public house ploughmen and campus coal miners that pass for folk music these days? Is this really the only or even the best that Scotland has to offer the world in the name of traditional music?
I happen to have a deep and passionate love for Scottish folk songs and the Scots language that so many of them preserve. I grew up with the bothy ballads and have spent many an idyllic hour or three in smoky pubs listening to traditional songs. I only mention this to make it clear that I am not in the business of denigrating our national song heritage or questioning its artistic merits. What I am questioning is whether the ‘folkies’ really have the right to claim the high moral ground of traditional authenticity (or authentic tradition even!) After all, the current folk tradition so prized by the media has its roots in attempts by middle-class intellectuals to identify with the sons and daughters of honest toil without necessarily becoming too involved in the latter commodity. Even in its heyday, it was always something of an affection and like most affections, needed some kind of imaginary cause to justify itself and divert and unwelcome challenges to its validity. In Scotland, that cause was the destruction of ‘Heather and Haggis’. Nobody ever bothered to define ‘Heather and Haggis’. It was simply a blanket derogation applied to anything that didn’t fit in with the new folk movement’s idea of Scottish music. In fact, most of what these ego driven guardians of tradition found acceptable has little to do with Scotland as it was then and even less to do with Scotland as it is now. The image that they cooked up was even more absurd than the one that it sought to replace. The Corries fought the ’45 Rebellion all over again. They did it very well but in doing so they added not one whit of relevance to the Jacobite cause. Hamish Henderson wrote songs, albeit very good ones, about wars that had passed and industries that were either dead or moribund. Three chord wonders with guitars sang lustily in bad Doric about draught horses and feeing markets. Others sang in marginally better Doric about pit heids and shipyards. Is this stuff any more representative of 21st century Scotland than tunes designed to accompany dances that people still perform? As far as I am aware, the tractor reached even the remotest parts of Aberdeenshire around 40 years ago. Feeing markets are pretty rare now and the tragic demise of deep pit coal mining is one of the sadder features of modern Scottish life. I am not saying that these songs aren’t good or worth singing. Personally, I think they are great and should be sung right lustily and often. What I question is their ability to reflect Scotland as it really is instead of Scotland as it might once have been. At least the late Sir Jimmy Shand, one of the supposed emblems of heather and haggis, was a real miner. I suspect that most of the people who extol the virtues of miners in song have never been near a coal pit in their lives. The whole thing is as much an exercise in fake imagery as Down in the Glen and My Ain Folk ever were. The only difference is that the media controllers are still in thrall to the false image. ‘Clydesidery’ and ‘Mince and Middens’ are alive, well and continuing to create an image of Scotland that has all the reality of ‘Brigadoon’.
Having said all that, it would make more sense for the separate strands of Scottish musical culture to come together for mutual preservation rather than slug it out destructively over who is right and who is wrong. We should value our diversity rather than squabble over largely imaginary claims of artistic and cultural purity. The much maligned ‘White Heather Club’ managed to accommodate such diverse acts as Andy Stewart, Joe Gordon, Jimmy Shand, The Brand Sisters, Robert Wilson and a youthful Sydney Devine on one bill. Surely it is not beyond the wit of our great nation to come up with a more modern format that could do the same thing for our current stars in all fields. There is certainly no shortage of talent.
Maybe we need to be a bit more aggressive in marketing our music. The threat of ‘Heather and Haggis’ has made us far too apologetic about what we have to offer. ‘Our kind of music’ is both genuinely Scottish and artistically valid and certainly more palatable than the matchlessly nauseating but growing phenomenon of dyed in the wool Scottish folkies pretending to be Americans. Surely a set of reels by Ian Muir is as culturally relevant as a song about ‘Bonnie Price Charlie’. At least the dance tunes, apart from being of superb quality, are honest and unpretentious. A song romanticising a bungling, brainless political opportunist who wrecked Highlanders’ lives with his grandiose impracticality is neither of those things. The skills of our top musicians deserve better coverage and higher rewards than they are getting at the moment but they are unlikely to get them unless all of us believe in the artistic value of our music.
Perhaps the problem with getting a television slot lies in the limited visual appeal of the traditional box and fiddle band. Mercifully, they don’t do banal, hip wiggling dance sequences or indulge in any of the other extra musical antics that seem indispensable to modern manufactured mass entertainment. Close ups of flying fingers and jinking elbows would have limited appeal to a mass audience but this could be overcome with a few imaginative dance sequences based on but not hidebound by traditional forms. The recent run of ‘B&F’ programmes was marvelous, but it was on too late, was shown only in Grampian and STV areas and didn’t really touch on the enjoyment that many of us have every week, dancing to our great bands.
Scottish Country Dancing, the mainstay of most of our bands, is not all that telegenic. Over the years it has assumed a rather frumpy and snooty image. Even the best teams look stilted and constrained. It needs some fresh thought in ingenious choreography to turn it in to quality modern visual entertainment but that is hardly mission impossible. Look at what ‘Riverdance’ managed to make out of Irish dancing. Scotland’s dancing tradition is at least as good and could prove to be as spectacular. Is there anybody out there?
- Biographies of Musicians past and present
- Archive Box and Fiddle Club Reports
- Interesting Pipe Music Articles
- Articles previously published in Box and Fiddle
- Photographs
- Books - including Jimmy Shand
- N.A.A.F.C. Awards information
- N.A.A.F.C. Festival Results and Photos
I hope you enjoy your visit to the Box and Fiddle Archive. If you're looking for information on any musical personalities check under Musician Biographies, Roll of Honour (Obituaries) and also NAAFC Awards Archive and within that NAAFC Honours for separate articles written when individuals became our Guests of Honour.
Over four winters ( 2011/12 to 2015/16) I managed to archive the main articles from 1977 to 2003. I took the winter of 16/17 off to tackle something else but was back in harness for 17/18 when I added Sept 2003 - August 2016. Nothing done during the winter of 18/19 but 19/20 winter months saw September 2016 - February 2020 added. Winter 20/21 sees me on the home straight from March 2020 to November 2020 when Covid19 stopped us in our tracks. We resumed in January 2022
If you wrote an article which I haven't included please e-mail it to Pia and she'll forward it to me to be added.
Please let me know of any names, dates or details missing from The Roll of Honour.
Now added :-
2022 January to December
Regards Charlie Todd N.A.A.F.C. Archivist 28th December 2022
On the morning of May 11, 1857, the telegraph master, Charles Todd, who had left Delhi to check the lines which had been cut by the mutineers was murdered by them. However, his two assistants, William Brendish and J W Pilkington, remained at the office till 2 pm, having received no message from the military which had been relying heavily on help from Meerut. Meanwhile, the signallers had been providing updates to the "Amballah" office of the events in Delhi. At three in the afternoon, Pilkington returned to the office with a military officer from the Flagstaff Tower where the telegraph officials had retreated to dispatch a "very meagre official telegram to Amballah". The last dispatch sent to Ambala said that the telegraph officer who had left from Delhi in the morning had been murdered. It ended with "we are off".
HISTORY of The Highland Society of London
The Highland Society of London is a charity, which exists to promote and support the traditions and culture of the Highlands of Scotland, whilst maintaining a Membership of individuals to support the Society’s activities. The trustees of the Society form the Committee of Management, which meets four times per year to administer the Society’s affairs. The Membership of the Society meets twice per year to discuss the activities of the Society in General Court and to elect the Committee of Management; each General Court is followed by a dinner, and the Society also arranges a cocktail party each May.
The Highland Society of London was originally formed on 28th May 1778, when twenty-five Highland gentlemen met at the Spring Garden Coffee House in London, in order to form a Society that “might prove beneficial to that part of the Kingdom”. The first President was Lt-General Simon Fraser of Lovat and the Society was subsequently incorporated by Act of Parliament in 1816. Since 1965, the Society has been registered as a charity with the Charity Commission of England and Wales, number 244472. Her Majesty The Queen is Chief of the Society and the current President is Duncan Byatt.
For over two hundred years, the Society has been influential in matters relating to the Highlands and Islands of Scotland. In 1782, the Society procured the repeal of the Disarming Act (passed after the Rising of 1745 and which, amongst other things, prohibited the wearing of Highland Dress); and from 1784, secured the restoration of forfeited Highland Estates. The Society was also instrumental in setting up the forerunner of the British Fisheries Society in 1786, leading to the founding of fishing villages at Ullapool, Tobermory and others. In 1815, the Society established the Royal Caledonian Asylum (now Royal Caledonian Schools), to educate needy children of Highland descent living in London. In 1859, the Society took a prominent part in forming the London Scottish Rifle Volunteers; and in 1902, successfully opposed an attempt to abolish the Kilt as the field dress of Highland Regiments. The Society’s subsidiary charity, the Baroness Von Wilczek (née Mackenzie) charity, founded in 1911 to help Scottish Regiment war widows in need and whose funds were finally exhausted in 2014, has now been wound up; its remaining obligations are being met from a separate fund within the Society.
During this time, the Society gathered a large collection of Gaelic manuscripts and other historical artefacts. Many of these manuscripts (including copies of the Poems of Ossian, published in Gaelic by the Society in 1807) are available to view at the National Library of Scotland, in Edinburgh; and the Society’s unique collection of ancient tartans is on view at the National Museum of Scotland, also in Edinburgh. There are other items on display at the Caledonian Club in London and at the The Museum of the Isles at the Clan Donald Centre, at Armadale on Skye.
The current focus of the Society is to support traditions and culture particular to the Highlands and Islands. The Society awards the prestigious Gold Medal for the best player of Piobaireachd at each of the Argyllshire Gathering and the Northern Meeting, annually; and awards prizes at various other Piping competitions. Each year the Society also gives an art prize through the Royal Scottish Academy; Gaelic singing prizes at the Royal National Mod; Highland Dancing prizes at the Glenfinnan Games; and has recently instituted an essay prize with the University of the Highlands and Islands. In addition, the Society makes financial grants to a number of related charities and organisations that promote and support Highland traditions and culture, and Members are encouraged to contact the Committee of Management with suggestions for suitable beneficiaries. The Society is funded through Life Membership fees, income on its investments and charitable donations.
The Rules and Bye-laws of the Society were recently changed to admit ladies as Members. Rule 16 currently states that: “Persons qualified for being proposed Members are natives of the Highlands of Scotland, Descendants or Spouses of Highlanders, Proprietors of Land in the Highlands, Individuals who have done signal service to that part of The Kingdom, or Officers serving or who have served in Highland Corps.” Candidates for Membership must be proposed and seconded by two existing Members (neither of whom is the candidate’s parent) for approval by the Membership at a General Court. There is a Life Membership fee due on joining (currently £250), but no annual subscription; although Members wishing to make ongoing donations can do so via the Society’s Justgiving site.
The Society’s regular activities in London include the General Court and Annual Dinner in March, celebrating General Sir Ralph Abercromby and all Scotsmen who have fallen in defence of their country, with the focus of the evening on the piping of the Society’s Honorary Piper; the Spring Cocktail Party in May, generally held in conjunction with members of the Northern Meeting and the Argyllshire Gathering; and a second General Court and Dinner in either November or December, followed by a selection of Highland music and entertainment. Members are encouraged to attend these events, and to bring guests. The Highland Ball takes place at the beginning of March each year, under the auspices of the Highland Society of London.
An excellent article from September 2005
Is Anybody Out There?
by Finlay Forbes
Six years ago I wrote to the B&F complaining about the poor radio and even poorer television coverage of Scottish Dance music in the B&F tradition. Six years on, the coverage has certainly not improved but this lack of progress may be due more to resigned acceptance by lovers of our traditional dance music than to embedded resistance on the part of media moguls. There is little doubt that the paucity of exposure on today’s media is due to some highly successful lobbying in the past by the corduroy breeks and beards brigade that dominated the diluted folk music in the sixties and seventies. Bank then, anything that failed to comply with this self-appointed clique’s narrow and largely baseless definition of what they regarded a genuine folk music was written off as ‘Heather and Haggis’ and therefore totally unfit for human consumption. ‘Heather and Haggis’ was, and still is, a mindless denigration but its mindlessness somehow struck a chord with our ‘thought police’ and media types who at the time, were so seduced by the superficiality of the case that they failed to discern the Neanderthal speciousness of it all. But, as one of the icons of the sixties folk movement said, “The times they are a-changing”. Dumbing down of the mass media has reached the point where normally placid people are beginning to take exception to being short-changed on intellectual content and programme quality to the point where they are starting to complain. Now may be a good time for those of us who lobe the ‘B&F’ tradition to exert some pressure. In the past, the corduroy clad strummers aided to some extent by The School of Scottish Studies were largely unchallenged in their claims to the high ground of authenticity.
At the time, too many of us accepted the ‘Heather and Haggis’ argument without question, but even if it was valid then, which is doubtful, is it still valid decades later? Heather is not exactly an uncommon plant around Scotland and haggis is a highly nutritious commodity so where’s the problem? Broadcasting controllers and their retinue of robotic sidekicks try to tell us that the folk scene is where the true spirit of the Scots tradition is to be found and that the old style of Scottish Country Dance Band has had its day. But does that argument really stand up to scrutiny? Does the true Scots tradition really lie in the bland ersatz concoctions of public house ploughmen and campus coal miners that pass for folk music these days? Is this really the only or even the best that Scotland has to offer the world in the name of traditional music?
I happen to have a deep and passionate love for Scottish folk songs and the Scots language that so many of them preserve. I grew up with the bothy ballads and have spent many an idyllic hour or three in smoky pubs listening to traditional songs. I only mention this to make it clear that I am not in the business of denigrating our national song heritage or questioning its artistic merits. What I am questioning is whether the ‘folkies’ really have the right to claim the high moral ground of traditional authenticity (or authentic tradition even!) After all, the current folk tradition so prized by the media has its roots in attempts by middle-class intellectuals to identify with the sons and daughters of honest toil without necessarily becoming too involved in the latter commodity. Even in its heyday, it was always something of an affection and like most affections, needed some kind of imaginary cause to justify itself and divert and unwelcome challenges to its validity. In Scotland, that cause was the destruction of ‘Heather and Haggis’. Nobody ever bothered to define ‘Heather and Haggis’. It was simply a blanket derogation applied to anything that didn’t fit in with the new folk movement’s idea of Scottish music. In fact, most of what these ego driven guardians of tradition found acceptable has little to do with Scotland as it was then and even less to do with Scotland as it is now. The image that they cooked up was even more absurd than the one that it sought to replace. The Corries fought the ’45 Rebellion all over again. They did it very well but in doing so they added not one whit of relevance to the Jacobite cause. Hamish Henderson wrote songs, albeit very good ones, about wars that had passed and industries that were either dead or moribund. Three chord wonders with guitars sang lustily in bad Doric about draught horses and feeing markets. Others sang in marginally better Doric about pit heids and shipyards. Is this stuff any more representative of 21st century Scotland than tunes designed to accompany dances that people still perform? As far as I am aware, the tractor reached even the remotest parts of Aberdeenshire around 40 years ago. Feeing markets are pretty rare now and the tragic demise of deep pit coal mining is one of the sadder features of modern Scottish life. I am not saying that these songs aren’t good or worth singing. Personally, I think they are great and should be sung right lustily and often. What I question is their ability to reflect Scotland as it really is instead of Scotland as it might once have been. At least the late Sir Jimmy Shand, one of the supposed emblems of heather and haggis, was a real miner. I suspect that most of the people who extol the virtues of miners in song have never been near a coal pit in their lives. The whole thing is as much an exercise in fake imagery as Down in the Glen and My Ain Folk ever were. The only difference is that the media controllers are still in thrall to the false image. ‘Clydesidery’ and ‘Mince and Middens’ are alive, well and continuing to create an image of Scotland that has all the reality of ‘Brigadoon’.
Having said all that, it would make more sense for the separate strands of Scottish musical culture to come together for mutual preservation rather than slug it out destructively over who is right and who is wrong. We should value our diversity rather than squabble over largely imaginary claims of artistic and cultural purity. The much maligned ‘White Heather Club’ managed to accommodate such diverse acts as Andy Stewart, Joe Gordon, Jimmy Shand, The Brand Sisters, Robert Wilson and a youthful Sydney Devine on one bill. Surely it is not beyond the wit of our great nation to come up with a more modern format that could do the same thing for our current stars in all fields. There is certainly no shortage of talent.
Maybe we need to be a bit more aggressive in marketing our music. The threat of ‘Heather and Haggis’ has made us far too apologetic about what we have to offer. ‘Our kind of music’ is both genuinely Scottish and artistically valid and certainly more palatable than the matchlessly nauseating but growing phenomenon of dyed in the wool Scottish folkies pretending to be Americans. Surely a set of reels by Ian Muir is as culturally relevant as a song about ‘Bonnie Price Charlie’. At least the dance tunes, apart from being of superb quality, are honest and unpretentious. A song romanticising a bungling, brainless political opportunist who wrecked Highlanders’ lives with his grandiose impracticality is neither of those things. The skills of our top musicians deserve better coverage and higher rewards than they are getting at the moment but they are unlikely to get them unless all of us believe in the artistic value of our music.
Perhaps the problem with getting a television slot lies in the limited visual appeal of the traditional box and fiddle band. Mercifully, they don’t do banal, hip wiggling dance sequences or indulge in any of the other extra musical antics that seem indispensable to modern manufactured mass entertainment. Close ups of flying fingers and jinking elbows would have limited appeal to a mass audience but this could be overcome with a few imaginative dance sequences based on but not hidebound by traditional forms. The recent run of ‘B&F’ programmes was marvelous, but it was on too late, was shown only in Grampian and STV areas and didn’t really touch on the enjoyment that many of us have every week, dancing to our great bands.
Scottish Country Dancing, the mainstay of most of our bands, is not all that telegenic. Over the years it has assumed a rather frumpy and snooty image. Even the best teams look stilted and constrained. It needs some fresh thought in ingenious choreography to turn it in to quality modern visual entertainment but that is hardly mission impossible. Look at what ‘Riverdance’ managed to make out of Irish dancing. Scotland’s dancing tradition is at least as good and could prove to be as spectacular. Is there anybody out there?
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