5. Community link 2

Celebrating Scotland's coasts and waters

Another community project I was involved in was Where The City Flows: Newhaven, a song for Scotland’s Year of Coasts and Waters 2020, for which I wrote the lyrics, with music by composer Dee Isaacs. This was a collaboration between the University of Edinburgh’s Music in the Community (MIC) department and Victoria Primary School, Newhaven. Dee is also a lecturer at the university, where she runs the MIC course.

The song celebrates Newhaven, a coastal area of Edinburgh on the Firth of Forth, which lies between Granton and Leith. Once a small fishing village, it has a rich history. As part of the research process for writing the song, I visited Newhaven’s Victoria Primary School, on Main Street, and the exhibition there, which contains many fascinating objects – a model of the warship The Great Michael, coloured glass fishing net floats, old photographs, and information about the locality.

My remit was to create a song of about 8-10 minutes in length for a choir of 160 school children and fifteen university students. My lyrics begin with an upbeat verse, in the rhythm of a Scottish dance: a 21^st century child, heading home after a long day at school in Newhaven, is enjoying the freedom of being out on the street. The pace slows down – it’s bedtime. The child reads a book about Newhaven, and nods off to sleep, dreaming of images from the past which appear in the book: children’s street games, colourful glass fishing net floats, an old woman mending nets, the song of whales (Newhaven was a whaling harbour), and finally The Great Michael, Scotland’s huge 16^th century royal war ship built in Newhaven, the biggest dry dock of the period – the only one which could accommodate ship-building on such an unprecedented scale. In the morning, the child wakes up, hearing the disturbing daily global news from the media, and decides to send out a message to the world.

Like many songs from Scotland’s coastal fishing areas, this song is in Scots, the language which can still be heard in the Newhaven part of Edinburgh. Words like willie-gou – a seagull, and gandigowster – a sudden gust of wind, or breenge – to rush in, and breel – to dash about, are deliciously vigorous, like salt on the tongue.

Composer Dee Isaacs and musician Victor Gama, along with the students of the University of Edinburgh’s MIC course, worked with the pupils of Victoria Primary School, creating their own musical instruments, to be played as part of two programmed performances in Edinburgh’s McEwan Hall. However, these were cancelled at the last minute due to coronavirus. Nevertheless, Dee at least managed to gain access to the McEwan Hall a couple of days before lockdown, enabling her to record a rehearsal of the song there, with her students. You can see Dee conducting the rehearsal on the following link:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D17XZZwJw1g

Dee is an English composer, and this was the first time she had engaged with the Scots language. She writes:

It was a real challenge for me to compose in Scots. What I have learned though is that the feel of the language on the tongue, the way that the words strongly dictate the rhythmic impetus of the music gives the piece its own momentum. Gerda’s words tell a story, a story about history, and a story that reminds us that we have a part to play now.

Newhaven

(honouring Greta Thunberg)

Heel-kickin hame frae a lang day at school,

lowpin ow’r the cobbles, like a wee whirlpool,

I breenge, I breel, and the willie-gous squeal,

gandigowsters blaw like a carlin’s reel!

Herrin fur tea, then I lay doon ma heid,

tak oot a book, and hae a bit read

aboot Newhaven, the toon whaur I bide,

the mercat, lichthoose, harbour, and tide;

the white horses ride, ma een are closin,

nod-nid-noddin, doverin, doverin,

the blue saut watter croonin, dronin,

I’m driftin, sweemin, showdin, floatin

in a dwam on braid waves o sleep,

boats drift by on the Firth sae deep.

I hear a lanely sang o whales like ghaists;

nets in the moonlicht wave like lace.

Newhaven, Newhaven, sing tae me,

ma hame, Newhaven, wi yer dancin sea!

Fishin floats glent and drift –

tirlin globes like planets i the lift;

an auld wumman bendin

ow’r the net-mendin:

ma great grand-mither –

her darg niver-endin;

bairns playin peevers, lauchin in the street,

but when they faa, skint knees mak them greet!

They’re stackin fish boxes tae mak play-huts,

Och – the clarty guff o deid fish guts!

Newhaven, Newhaven, sing tae me,

ma hame, Newhaven, wi yer dancin sea!

The tide rides in, and the tide rides oot,

sails they blaw and ships they hoot,

I’m nod-nid-noddin, doverin, doverin,

driftin, sweemin, showdin, floatin;

I see a braw ship – leamin, glisterin,

The Great Michael! – gowd decks skinklin,

a war ship built frae the forests o Fife,

its guns wud mak ye feart fur yer life!

Newhaven, Newhaven, sing tae me,

ma hame, Newhaven, wi yer dancin sea!

The Great Michael sails me intae the dawn,

ma tired een appen on a Newhaven morn;

news o faimilies drooned in the sea,

news o muckle men wha cannae agree;

news o wars, far, far awaa,

ile slicks spreidin on the oceans ow’r aa –

I dinnae want war, I want war tae cease,

a brave new warld that’s a haven o peace,

Newhaven, Newhaven, sing tae me,

ma hame, Newhaven, wi yer dancin sea!

Daurk the sky, and cauld the wund blaws

throu ma hert, like jaggit ice floes;

but I tak a bit paper, and I scrieve a note,

float it in a bottle, like a bonnie wee boat –

tae the warld a message: tak tent o the young,

mind on oor lives, and this sang we hae sung;

mak the warld a new haven – hear oor caa!

a braw new haven fur ane and aa.

Note: The Great Michael was a carrack (a war ship) of the Royal Scottish Navy, built by King James IV of Scotland from the oak forests of Fife. She was too large to be built at any existing Scottish dockyard, so was built in the new dock at Newhaven, and launched in 1512, the biggest and most heavily armed ship in Europe at the time. 

You can hear me reading the words of Newhaven on the excellent Scots language educational resource website, Scots Hoose. (Newhaven is the 4^th item on the page, when you scroll down): 

Poems - Scots in Schools - http://www.scotsinschools.co.uk/poems.html 

(Please copy and paste above link into your browser)

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