Half term concert at the school last night. It began, as is customary, with the pipes. Eight young pipers and their leader marched into a gloomy auditorium lit by a single light and full of atmospheric grey smoke, to play ‘MacPherson’s Lament’ in front of a screen on which was projected a lonely grey seascape. Very effective, but I was sneezing and wheezing because of the smoke. (For details on MacPherson, poor chap, and the dirty deed done to him, see note below)

It was a good, varied, programme and slickly presented with recorded music in the intervals for chair arranging, suitable images on the screen during the performance and a nice mix of classical, celtic and modern (-ish 'Octupuses Garden, Yellow Submarine, ones I could silently sing along to..) It all hung together beautifully. ‘Panis Angelicus’ sung by well-scrubbed eight year olds with sweet, clear voices and grave upturned faces is always a winner. A twelve year old girl with a voice to rival Charlotte Church sang ‘O Danny Boy’ - you’d have to be totally soulless not to be moved. The g’son, now a first string in the senior strings, loves his violin but loves rugby more and the rehearsal had clashed with rugby practice so he lost the plot a bit during the ‘Ode to Joy’ He had the wit to stop until he could start again and I don't think anyone but us noticed!

There are some amazingly talented children. The solo violinist comes from a musical family (enviable) and plays two other instruments. The piece he played even I could tell was complicated with finger plucking and sliding and loads of twiddly bits - I don't remember the title. He made it all look so easy.

The rock band did a number too late for me to ever have heard of (I stopped listening to pop music after 1973) The lyrics, such as they were, were sung by the next Lady Gaga. Glad I don’t teach her!!

The evening ended with the unfortunate choice (considering yesterday's news about the air base closing) of the jolly gospel song 'I'll Fly Away.' They sang it with gusto.


MacPherson's Lament. Composed by James MacPherson himself in Prison on the eve of his execution for cattle rustling. Born in 1675, the son of a gypsy woman and a highland laird. James, a fine fiddler, became the Leader of an unlawful gypsy gang plundering the North East of Scotland living off their spoils and sharing them out with the less fortunate. He was eventually caught in the town of Keith while being chased through the streets by the bailiffs where a woman threw a blanket out of a window trapping James. He was tried in Banff, found guilty and was sentenced to hang by the magistrates. On the day of his execution in Banff the magistrates knew there was a reprieve coming from Aberdeen and put the town clock forward by 20 minutes so James could be hanged before the specified time. On the gallows he played this tune then offered his fiddle to anyone in his clan who would play it at his wake. When no one came forward to take the fiddle, he broke it then threw it into the crowd. The broken fiddle now lies in a folk museum near Newtonmore. The Magistrates were punished for this and the town clock was kept 20 minutes behind the correct time for many years. Even to this day the town of Macduff has its west facing town clock covered so the people of Banff can't see the correct time!