Chapter 07 (1946 – 1949) - (Pages 66 - 73) - Master David Anderson Shand
In the band’s first full-time year, 1946, they made their first records in London, staying overnight with George’s sister Bella. At that time the recordings, made in soft wax, could not immediately be played back. And the length had to be just right ; but there never was any trouble over quality or length. Nor did they tie up the recording studios while the engineers called for remakes of doubtful performances. Their first batch of six records, twelve sides, was easily achieved in one day, while in an adjoining studio another engineer was congratulating himself on having finally managed to get one record out of another (not Scots) group.
Eventually they were to be recording as many as twenty-four sides comfortably in one day.
They were equally at home in the BBC studios.
True, when the Assistant Music Director Ronnie Calder first heard of them in ’46 his reaction was “Who’s Jimmy Shand?” They gained his considerable respect from the very first broadcast of theirs which he handled.
Sitting in his beautiful National Trust house wonderfully situated on the shore of the Forth at Kirkcaldy, Ronnie recalled –
“What a master of timing Jimmy was! Broadcasts were live then, and it was always a great pleasure looking after one of his programmes for you knew he would get everything right and always finish tidily in musical fashion. And absolutely unflappable ; a rock in an emergency.
“One Saturday afternoon a Scottish Country Dance Band was involved in a crash on the way to Glasgow to do a Saturday night half-hour. Jimmy and his band stepped in at the last minute and substituted perfectly without any time for preparation.
“Never any troubles due to temperament ; nothing was too much to ask of them…..When General Overseas wanted a programme to go out at 9.30am Jimmy and the band were there. They must have been up at the crack of dawn to make sure of arriving in time, for it was the depths of winter with black ice on the roads. Yet I have seldom been aware of such a feeling of immense vitality as I got from their playing that morning.
“Their dependability was a great comfort to production staff. Artistes in general are the most unpunctual of people. Not Jimmy ; oh, maybe it often meant exceeding the speed limit to make it – but make it he would, you could depend on that.
“As a matter of fact though there was one particular occasion……”
This was in 1947 when Jimmy was persuaded against his will to take a holiday with the family (he has never liked holidays other than at home).
At Bridge of Allan he broke his ankle playing cricket with eleven year-old son Erskine, which meant a lay-off of thirteen weeks – and he had even less time for going on holiday after that!
He was able to keep a date for a Scottish dance music session with the BBC.
“Go ahead and see which studio we’re in,” he said to George McKelvey when they arrived at Queen Margaret Drive in Glasgow.
The look of astonishment this civil request brought from Ronnie was hastily conveyed to Jim – with the news fast following that they were supposed to be at the Edinburgh studios!
Ron rose to the occasion. A female artiste was turned out of a studio bitterly muttering it must be great to be one of Ronnie’spals.
A link-up was established with Edinburgh, and as a final flourish the whole thing was recorded in London.
When the BBC started bring in the New Year with the band from Dundee’s City Square, Ronnie would go back to Sutherland Street to celebrate – “And there would seem to be hundreds of folk in the little living-room, yet always room for more…….Mrs Shand seldom got a minute to herself for looking after the company – and always a seemingly inexhaustible reserve of boiled ham.”
Jimmy had returned from Orkney at the beginning of 1946 because he knew the weather would never suit the wife and bairns ; plural.
His second son, David, was born 28th August, 1945.
A fortnight before this Jimmy and Anne had been visiting relations over in Fife. They were driving from East Wemyss to Colinsburgh and had gone through Upper Largo when Jimmy let a covered army vehicle pass which had been running too close behind for his peace of mind………
They rounded Drumeldrie bend – and there was the lorry ob its side, Polish soldiers lying all over the road. It was a left-hand drive ; an officer was wedged on top of the driver in front. Jim hauled the officer clear then the driver, whose nose was spectacularly split. Leaving the badly upset Anne in the care of a woman at a nearly cottage he drove the injured corporal a mile to the doctor. Blood continued to pour from his nose ; yet, no stains sullied the car’s upholstery thanks to the corporal carefully catching every drop in his beret.
More than twenty-five years afterwards Anne confided “I’ve often wondered since, what effect did that hae on David…….”
No alterable effect, surely : David was born mentally handicapped.
Like most parents in such a situation they did not come to terms with this for some time.
First-born Erskine was thriving. A composition was named after him, Master Erskine Shand. He spent a great deal of time careering about in Lochee Park, just across the main road from Sutherland Street. Dad always had to hunt for him when it was time for his music lesson.
He started the piano when about six. He was learning to play all right “but he just can’t be bothered with the music,” said Miss Brown. “He picks up and plays the exercises by ear all the time.”
“Mhhmmm…..Well, that’ll no’ dae, will it?” deadpan from the man who until then had never played any other way ; “What d’yw think then?”
“Suppose you bring his back when he’s about eight….”
This was done, and he actually began to do quite well – but not in Jim’s hearing.
Evening in the Shand living-room shortly before a pupils’ exhibition :
“Na, na, lauddie, ye’re no’ gettin’ the thing at a’ ; ye havena’ been practisin’. Anne, ye should have seen that he…”
“He has so been practisin’! An’ he can play real guid….”
“Well he’s certainly no’ guid enough tae play at their concert if that’s the best he can dae!”
“It’s wi’ you an’ the way ye stand ower him. He can so play guid – an’ he WILL play at the concert!” And he did, without letting teacher or parents down.
Erskine was about ten when Jim have him his first accordion, a miniature piano-type which he couldn’t much help him with. Then Billy Grogan became his tutor on a Continental button.
1947, the year of the broken ankle, the mix-up over broadcasting locale, was also the year of the Great Blizzard. Expecting to head back to Dundee immediately after fulfilling an engagement at Innerwick, and having only the clothes they were wearing, the sudden onset of the white-out marooned the band in the local hotel for four days and nights. Still, their advent certainly provided unexpected entertainment of a high order for six guests also snowed up.
They played in the New Year for the BBC as they were to continue to do for more than twenty years ; then completely filled their diaries in. From now on success would come thick and fast for Jimmy Shand and his Band. They would range exceedingly far and wide…….Theatres, great public halls and ballrooms, castles and even palaces would welcome them. The doors of the Hall of Fame were opened wide and the world would dance in after them………
David was two-and-a-half now ; he was only beginning to walk….
Johnny Knight had followed Peggy Edwards as pianist with Jimmy Shand, but gave up when they went full time. And part-time had become rather full latterly –
“Many’s a time I’ve played from 7pm to 4am then off to start a day’s work at 7am”
Harry Forbes, a baker, took over for a spell, then Norrie Whitelaw joined the band in 1947.
Norrie Whitelaw hadn’t wanted to ‘go to the piano.’ He felt it was real injustice that his mother had to be offered a piano at a price within the price range of a working class family - £3 – when he was at the right age for learning.
But, there was the piano ; there was the excellent teacher of pianoforte Mrs Frank Young conveniently just around the top of the street ; and somehow they would manage the fees.
“It’s never HER has to learn music or anything!” schoolboy Norrie complained. But little sister Lizzie was not considered old enough.
“An’ how should HE get out playin’ while I have to stay in an’ practice an’ practice!”
But brother Tommy was considered a bit too old.
Poor in-between Norrie it seemed was just right.
Not often did his attempts to evade practice sessions succeed, Mum saw to that…..
“Norrie! NORRIE!” would seek him out in the back greens, in the closes, up the worn garret stairs of Lochee Road, St. Mary’s Street and round about, causing his reluctant withdrawal from boisterous chase or kickabout……And ah, the poignancy of having to leave the gaming for cigarette cards, nip out the illicit Woodbine in some seldom-frequented tenement passage for sissy doh-rae-me-ing!
Yet, as expertise gradually took over despite resistance, interest began to grow, and the practising he still never wanted to come in to became bearable, finally pleasurable.
He started work as a hammer boy in the foundry ; and soon he was hammering out foxtrots and waltzes in various small halls, often enough being with a drummer the entire band at sixpenny – sometimes even fourpenny – hops. There were very many small halls in Dundee in the ‘twenties and ‘thirties ; a few names for nostalgia’s sake ; the Western, the Weavers, the Shinners, Progie (Progressive), St. Salvador’s, St. David’s, St. Patrick’s, the Rechabites……
He graduated as a blacksmith, and to more ambitious musical combos like Dunc Clayton’s Band, and then John Patterson’s resident group at the Forfar Palais.
Actually, apart from the sometimes longish journeys, piano playing later on the teuchter circuit was often enough less than demanding. This was on account of a fair proportion of the instruments being, if not unplayable, at least better not played if the harmonious Shand sound was not to be flawed.
Nor did Norrie double on any other instrument. What did he do then after firmly lowering the piano lid on a tentative chord that had sounded like an armful of iron railings flung into a quarry?
Why, he joined the company on the floor in the dances!
And if it was to be a longish night he would seek out somewhere to have a snooze.
Norrie was to remain with Jimmy until 1960.
If ever there was music for dancing to! And there could have been few more enthusiastic dancers to the band than Tom Elliot.
A tank-driver in the First World War, Tom was already in his fifties when he met Jimmy soon after the Second War. An ex-champion gymnast, he believed in keeping himself fit – and who needed parallel bars now? Looking back at the age of 67 in 1956 he said to Alan Dunsmore of the People’s Journal.
“It’s Jimmy Shand who’s kept me fit ; his music’s like a medicine. When Jimmy’s playing I can dance 22 dances a night without feeling tired.
“I’m a physical drill man, and I know the explanation. It’s a question of timing. Some bands play just that bit too slow, and for every movement you’ve to hang back for a fraction of a second.
“That hanging back is tiring.
“Others may be a fraction fast and you tire just the same. Jimmy’s music is a tireless music because its tempo is perfect.”
Tom became celebrated early on as MC at Scottish Country Dancing, but didn’t limit his participation to the announcing. He cajoled the shy, instructed the doubtful, led off and generally spread enthusiasm.
And he WAS enthusiastic.
In 1951 at the age of 62 he’s MC’d 120 dances in eight months.
Between 1939 and 1960, when he was 71! – he MC’d easily 90% of Scots dance sessions in Dundee.
Had he been a musician it is more than likely he would have suited Jimmy for the band ; yet he often enough did go with them.
When Heather Mixture was launched on radio he wasn’t there though.
“How did it go?” he asked George McKelvey when he met him at the football match a few days after the first programme.
“It didn’t – at least no’ very well.”
Oh, the band were playing up to their celebrated standard, trouble was the studio audience. It had been hoped they would dance, thus giving more atmosphere : only half a dozen couples out of about 500 had taken to the floor. What had been needed was –
“You, Tom.”
“Eh?”
“Jimmy was to be comin’ round to see you ; see if ye’d come on the next show.”
Would he not!
In all he was present at 226 out of 230 ‘Heather Mixture’ broadcasts, leading, involving, exhorting. No excuse if the audience were unfamiliar with the dance, Tom was right in there demonstrating.
“And at other times,” he recalled, “if I thought things were going rather slowly I’d help to liven the party up with a few ‘hoochs’.”
Who more deserved to have a dance named after them than Tom?
With, of course, music composed by Jimmy Shand – Elliot’s Fancy.
In the early ‘fifties Dr. Sandy Tulloch often got together a group (George McKelvey’s brother James on piano, Dave Ireland with his fiddle, and Owney McCabe and John White on drums and bass when free) to play at Rockwell School with Tom as MC…..”He fairly kept things, going, never seemed to tire, and with Mrs Elliot would dance every set on the programme without fail.” (Tom died in 1974).
In 1947 Sandy had gone to work in Glasgow, was appointed visiting eye specialist to Argyll and the Inner Hebrides, and ‘met many enthusiasts and played a great deal, especially round about Oban, where we formed a quartet which came to be known as the ‘Taynault Occasionals’. He also teamed up with other players in Glasgow and played for various Scottish Country Dance Society branches whenever he could manage it.
About 1949 Jimmy got in touch with him and said he was thinking about designing a new special accordion, and could they talk about it after one of his broadcasts?
The new instrument was to be much larger than the original, with a wider range of treble keys, full bass side, with couplers on both treble and bass. The cost was to be astronomical for the time – almost £200 – but I decided that I would get one if it could be arranged, and in1951 the new instruments arrived, the first models of the Shand Morino. Everything was up to expectations except the ‘answering’ of the bass. The tone was magnificent but we both sensed a slight ‘lag’ in response to the bellows action.
I think it was perhaps that the original Shand Special had been such a remarkable instrument. We must have got used to it, however, as we have played this model ever since and many more have been made and supplied for button key enthusiasts since these first two models were delivered. My faithful old Scandalli found a home with the Hawthorn Accordion Band and, I hope, gave good service.
It was about this time that Jimmy, Ian Powrie and Jim Cameron came out to Scotstoun for supper after one of the broadcasts. Ian always remembers that night because of the number of salmon sandwiches he managed to put away. Jimmy was ‘off duty’ and feeling relaxed, and off we went into a ‘Continental’ session ; great fun, and we played on for quite some time. Jim Cameron was sitting with his fiddle on his knee and eventually said “Fit aboot playin’ something we can a’ play?”, and away we went into some of the strathspeys that made him such a distinctive player.
It was at Scotstoun after a broadcast that Jimmy had a private word with Sandy Tulloch.
“Maybe it’s just because Erskine was sae quick at pickin’ things up that maks it seem that David is, well a bit slow. I tell Anne that nae doot he’ll catch up – a’ bairns are no’ the same…..Sandy, I want yer opinion, straight…….”
“To be frank, Jim, I’ve been wondering when you’d bring the subject round…….” His explanation was sympathetic, but cautious ; and, “best to see your own doctor. Now you’ll do that Jim?”
Dr Kirkland, who had been at the birth of both sons told Jimmy and Anne that as long as parents loved a child that was the main thing ; and a great deal could be done to help.
Doubts had now become certainties ; yet, in a strange way it was a considerable relief finally to have faced up to the facts.
They wanted and loved David, and he would stay with them.
Eventually they were to be recording as many as twenty-four sides comfortably in one day.
They were equally at home in the BBC studios.
True, when the Assistant Music Director Ronnie Calder first heard of them in ’46 his reaction was “Who’s Jimmy Shand?” They gained his considerable respect from the very first broadcast of theirs which he handled.
Sitting in his beautiful National Trust house wonderfully situated on the shore of the Forth at Kirkcaldy, Ronnie recalled –
“What a master of timing Jimmy was! Broadcasts were live then, and it was always a great pleasure looking after one of his programmes for you knew he would get everything right and always finish tidily in musical fashion. And absolutely unflappable ; a rock in an emergency.
“One Saturday afternoon a Scottish Country Dance Band was involved in a crash on the way to Glasgow to do a Saturday night half-hour. Jimmy and his band stepped in at the last minute and substituted perfectly without any time for preparation.
“Never any troubles due to temperament ; nothing was too much to ask of them…..When General Overseas wanted a programme to go out at 9.30am Jimmy and the band were there. They must have been up at the crack of dawn to make sure of arriving in time, for it was the depths of winter with black ice on the roads. Yet I have seldom been aware of such a feeling of immense vitality as I got from their playing that morning.
“Their dependability was a great comfort to production staff. Artistes in general are the most unpunctual of people. Not Jimmy ; oh, maybe it often meant exceeding the speed limit to make it – but make it he would, you could depend on that.
“As a matter of fact though there was one particular occasion……”
This was in 1947 when Jimmy was persuaded against his will to take a holiday with the family (he has never liked holidays other than at home).
At Bridge of Allan he broke his ankle playing cricket with eleven year-old son Erskine, which meant a lay-off of thirteen weeks – and he had even less time for going on holiday after that!
He was able to keep a date for a Scottish dance music session with the BBC.
“Go ahead and see which studio we’re in,” he said to George McKelvey when they arrived at Queen Margaret Drive in Glasgow.
The look of astonishment this civil request brought from Ronnie was hastily conveyed to Jim – with the news fast following that they were supposed to be at the Edinburgh studios!
Ron rose to the occasion. A female artiste was turned out of a studio bitterly muttering it must be great to be one of Ronnie’spals.
A link-up was established with Edinburgh, and as a final flourish the whole thing was recorded in London.
When the BBC started bring in the New Year with the band from Dundee’s City Square, Ronnie would go back to Sutherland Street to celebrate – “And there would seem to be hundreds of folk in the little living-room, yet always room for more…….Mrs Shand seldom got a minute to herself for looking after the company – and always a seemingly inexhaustible reserve of boiled ham.”
Jimmy had returned from Orkney at the beginning of 1946 because he knew the weather would never suit the wife and bairns ; plural.
His second son, David, was born 28th August, 1945.
A fortnight before this Jimmy and Anne had been visiting relations over in Fife. They were driving from East Wemyss to Colinsburgh and had gone through Upper Largo when Jimmy let a covered army vehicle pass which had been running too close behind for his peace of mind………
They rounded Drumeldrie bend – and there was the lorry ob its side, Polish soldiers lying all over the road. It was a left-hand drive ; an officer was wedged on top of the driver in front. Jim hauled the officer clear then the driver, whose nose was spectacularly split. Leaving the badly upset Anne in the care of a woman at a nearly cottage he drove the injured corporal a mile to the doctor. Blood continued to pour from his nose ; yet, no stains sullied the car’s upholstery thanks to the corporal carefully catching every drop in his beret.
More than twenty-five years afterwards Anne confided “I’ve often wondered since, what effect did that hae on David…….”
No alterable effect, surely : David was born mentally handicapped.
Like most parents in such a situation they did not come to terms with this for some time.
First-born Erskine was thriving. A composition was named after him, Master Erskine Shand. He spent a great deal of time careering about in Lochee Park, just across the main road from Sutherland Street. Dad always had to hunt for him when it was time for his music lesson.
He started the piano when about six. He was learning to play all right “but he just can’t be bothered with the music,” said Miss Brown. “He picks up and plays the exercises by ear all the time.”
“Mhhmmm…..Well, that’ll no’ dae, will it?” deadpan from the man who until then had never played any other way ; “What d’yw think then?”
“Suppose you bring his back when he’s about eight….”
This was done, and he actually began to do quite well – but not in Jim’s hearing.
Evening in the Shand living-room shortly before a pupils’ exhibition :
“Na, na, lauddie, ye’re no’ gettin’ the thing at a’ ; ye havena’ been practisin’. Anne, ye should have seen that he…”
“He has so been practisin’! An’ he can play real guid….”
“Well he’s certainly no’ guid enough tae play at their concert if that’s the best he can dae!”
“It’s wi’ you an’ the way ye stand ower him. He can so play guid – an’ he WILL play at the concert!” And he did, without letting teacher or parents down.
Erskine was about ten when Jim have him his first accordion, a miniature piano-type which he couldn’t much help him with. Then Billy Grogan became his tutor on a Continental button.
1947, the year of the broken ankle, the mix-up over broadcasting locale, was also the year of the Great Blizzard. Expecting to head back to Dundee immediately after fulfilling an engagement at Innerwick, and having only the clothes they were wearing, the sudden onset of the white-out marooned the band in the local hotel for four days and nights. Still, their advent certainly provided unexpected entertainment of a high order for six guests also snowed up.
They played in the New Year for the BBC as they were to continue to do for more than twenty years ; then completely filled their diaries in. From now on success would come thick and fast for Jimmy Shand and his Band. They would range exceedingly far and wide…….Theatres, great public halls and ballrooms, castles and even palaces would welcome them. The doors of the Hall of Fame were opened wide and the world would dance in after them………
David was two-and-a-half now ; he was only beginning to walk….
Johnny Knight had followed Peggy Edwards as pianist with Jimmy Shand, but gave up when they went full time. And part-time had become rather full latterly –
“Many’s a time I’ve played from 7pm to 4am then off to start a day’s work at 7am”
Harry Forbes, a baker, took over for a spell, then Norrie Whitelaw joined the band in 1947.
Norrie Whitelaw hadn’t wanted to ‘go to the piano.’ He felt it was real injustice that his mother had to be offered a piano at a price within the price range of a working class family - £3 – when he was at the right age for learning.
But, there was the piano ; there was the excellent teacher of pianoforte Mrs Frank Young conveniently just around the top of the street ; and somehow they would manage the fees.
“It’s never HER has to learn music or anything!” schoolboy Norrie complained. But little sister Lizzie was not considered old enough.
“An’ how should HE get out playin’ while I have to stay in an’ practice an’ practice!”
But brother Tommy was considered a bit too old.
Poor in-between Norrie it seemed was just right.
Not often did his attempts to evade practice sessions succeed, Mum saw to that…..
“Norrie! NORRIE!” would seek him out in the back greens, in the closes, up the worn garret stairs of Lochee Road, St. Mary’s Street and round about, causing his reluctant withdrawal from boisterous chase or kickabout……And ah, the poignancy of having to leave the gaming for cigarette cards, nip out the illicit Woodbine in some seldom-frequented tenement passage for sissy doh-rae-me-ing!
Yet, as expertise gradually took over despite resistance, interest began to grow, and the practising he still never wanted to come in to became bearable, finally pleasurable.
He started work as a hammer boy in the foundry ; and soon he was hammering out foxtrots and waltzes in various small halls, often enough being with a drummer the entire band at sixpenny – sometimes even fourpenny – hops. There were very many small halls in Dundee in the ‘twenties and ‘thirties ; a few names for nostalgia’s sake ; the Western, the Weavers, the Shinners, Progie (Progressive), St. Salvador’s, St. David’s, St. Patrick’s, the Rechabites……
He graduated as a blacksmith, and to more ambitious musical combos like Dunc Clayton’s Band, and then John Patterson’s resident group at the Forfar Palais.
Actually, apart from the sometimes longish journeys, piano playing later on the teuchter circuit was often enough less than demanding. This was on account of a fair proportion of the instruments being, if not unplayable, at least better not played if the harmonious Shand sound was not to be flawed.
Nor did Norrie double on any other instrument. What did he do then after firmly lowering the piano lid on a tentative chord that had sounded like an armful of iron railings flung into a quarry?
Why, he joined the company on the floor in the dances!
And if it was to be a longish night he would seek out somewhere to have a snooze.
Norrie was to remain with Jimmy until 1960.
If ever there was music for dancing to! And there could have been few more enthusiastic dancers to the band than Tom Elliot.
A tank-driver in the First World War, Tom was already in his fifties when he met Jimmy soon after the Second War. An ex-champion gymnast, he believed in keeping himself fit – and who needed parallel bars now? Looking back at the age of 67 in 1956 he said to Alan Dunsmore of the People’s Journal.
“It’s Jimmy Shand who’s kept me fit ; his music’s like a medicine. When Jimmy’s playing I can dance 22 dances a night without feeling tired.
“I’m a physical drill man, and I know the explanation. It’s a question of timing. Some bands play just that bit too slow, and for every movement you’ve to hang back for a fraction of a second.
“That hanging back is tiring.
“Others may be a fraction fast and you tire just the same. Jimmy’s music is a tireless music because its tempo is perfect.”
Tom became celebrated early on as MC at Scottish Country Dancing, but didn’t limit his participation to the announcing. He cajoled the shy, instructed the doubtful, led off and generally spread enthusiasm.
And he WAS enthusiastic.
In 1951 at the age of 62 he’s MC’d 120 dances in eight months.
Between 1939 and 1960, when he was 71! – he MC’d easily 90% of Scots dance sessions in Dundee.
Had he been a musician it is more than likely he would have suited Jimmy for the band ; yet he often enough did go with them.
When Heather Mixture was launched on radio he wasn’t there though.
“How did it go?” he asked George McKelvey when he met him at the football match a few days after the first programme.
“It didn’t – at least no’ very well.”
Oh, the band were playing up to their celebrated standard, trouble was the studio audience. It had been hoped they would dance, thus giving more atmosphere : only half a dozen couples out of about 500 had taken to the floor. What had been needed was –
“You, Tom.”
“Eh?”
“Jimmy was to be comin’ round to see you ; see if ye’d come on the next show.”
Would he not!
In all he was present at 226 out of 230 ‘Heather Mixture’ broadcasts, leading, involving, exhorting. No excuse if the audience were unfamiliar with the dance, Tom was right in there demonstrating.
“And at other times,” he recalled, “if I thought things were going rather slowly I’d help to liven the party up with a few ‘hoochs’.”
Who more deserved to have a dance named after them than Tom?
With, of course, music composed by Jimmy Shand – Elliot’s Fancy.
In the early ‘fifties Dr. Sandy Tulloch often got together a group (George McKelvey’s brother James on piano, Dave Ireland with his fiddle, and Owney McCabe and John White on drums and bass when free) to play at Rockwell School with Tom as MC…..”He fairly kept things, going, never seemed to tire, and with Mrs Elliot would dance every set on the programme without fail.” (Tom died in 1974).
In 1947 Sandy had gone to work in Glasgow, was appointed visiting eye specialist to Argyll and the Inner Hebrides, and ‘met many enthusiasts and played a great deal, especially round about Oban, where we formed a quartet which came to be known as the ‘Taynault Occasionals’. He also teamed up with other players in Glasgow and played for various Scottish Country Dance Society branches whenever he could manage it.
About 1949 Jimmy got in touch with him and said he was thinking about designing a new special accordion, and could they talk about it after one of his broadcasts?
The new instrument was to be much larger than the original, with a wider range of treble keys, full bass side, with couplers on both treble and bass. The cost was to be astronomical for the time – almost £200 – but I decided that I would get one if it could be arranged, and in1951 the new instruments arrived, the first models of the Shand Morino. Everything was up to expectations except the ‘answering’ of the bass. The tone was magnificent but we both sensed a slight ‘lag’ in response to the bellows action.
I think it was perhaps that the original Shand Special had been such a remarkable instrument. We must have got used to it, however, as we have played this model ever since and many more have been made and supplied for button key enthusiasts since these first two models were delivered. My faithful old Scandalli found a home with the Hawthorn Accordion Band and, I hope, gave good service.
It was about this time that Jimmy, Ian Powrie and Jim Cameron came out to Scotstoun for supper after one of the broadcasts. Ian always remembers that night because of the number of salmon sandwiches he managed to put away. Jimmy was ‘off duty’ and feeling relaxed, and off we went into a ‘Continental’ session ; great fun, and we played on for quite some time. Jim Cameron was sitting with his fiddle on his knee and eventually said “Fit aboot playin’ something we can a’ play?”, and away we went into some of the strathspeys that made him such a distinctive player.
It was at Scotstoun after a broadcast that Jimmy had a private word with Sandy Tulloch.
“Maybe it’s just because Erskine was sae quick at pickin’ things up that maks it seem that David is, well a bit slow. I tell Anne that nae doot he’ll catch up – a’ bairns are no’ the same…..Sandy, I want yer opinion, straight…….”
“To be frank, Jim, I’ve been wondering when you’d bring the subject round…….” His explanation was sympathetic, but cautious ; and, “best to see your own doctor. Now you’ll do that Jim?”
Dr Kirkland, who had been at the birth of both sons told Jimmy and Anne that as long as parents loved a child that was the main thing ; and a great deal could be done to help.
Doubts had now become certainties ; yet, in a strange way it was a considerable relief finally to have faced up to the facts.
They wanted and loved David, and he would stay with them.