Jimmy McBeath - A character to remember!

I had a phone call yesterday from the journalist George Boardman who is putting together an article for the Banffshire Journal on the great north-east bothy ballad singer and notably influential character Jimmy McBeath who died 30 years ago this January (6 January 1972).

JIMMY MacBEATH was born in the North-east of Scotland in Portsoy, Banffshire in 1894 and, like most of his generation, he began work as a farm servant at the age of 13. He was fee'd at Brandon's Fair (a local hiring fair) to a farm at Deskford and for his first six months as a halflin he received, over and above his keep, four pounds for his pay. For the second half of the year the pay was raised to the princely sum of five guineas. After some years of farm work, he began a life of travel which took him the length of Britaln from Shetland to the Channel Isles - and over to Ireland and Canada. In 1951 he was 'discovered' by Alan Lomax who was on one of his first collecting trlps to Scotland.

Jimmy's repertoire included a wide range of traditional songs of the area, but he was particularly famed for his renditions of comic songs and bothy ballads. The bothy ballad, with its direct sentiment, realistic humour and, on occasion, bitter irony, is to many the typical song of North-east Scotland. In his latter years Jimmy McBeath, who died in 1971, had become known as one of the country's finest bothy ballad singers. During the 1960s he was invited as a guest artiste to many of the Scottish folk clubs and I remember several magnificent nights in the Star Hotel in St Andrews - on one occasion when he was joint guest with the great Aberdeen ballad singer Jeannie Robertson and most of the resident singer/ organisers of the Aberdeen Folk Club. The photo is of Jimmy at Blairgowrie Festival in August 1968 when he was a guest along with Jeannie Robertson and his old tramping partner Davie Stewart.

In his younger days on the farms life was hard, the hours long, and the food and conditions often little better than that of the farm animals. Only the close-knit community life, the home-made entertainment, and the resilience of the human spirit made such an existence bearable. Jimmy remembered these times well:
"All hard, slavery work - up at five in the morning to sort your horse, and you didn't fasten your boots until after you got your breakfast. You went in at half past five and got a cog o meal and milk and bread, oatcakes and a cup o tea wi it. You had to carry on fae that, from six till twelve o'clock and started again at one. You stopped at six and came in and sorted your horse and then you went away to your tea at twenty minutes to seven at night."

The meanness of some of the farmers with both food and money made matters worse:
"Some farms were very tight wi the food - oh yes, very! Very tight wi the food! Some farms were very good wi the food again. But it was slavery days all the same. You workit the whole six months before you got any money at all. Oh they wouldn't work that way now, no, no."

To escape this drudgery, many joined up and Jimmy enlisted in the local regiment, the Gordon Highlanders, in time to serve in the trenches in World War I. His army career, some of it in the RAMC took him to England, Ireland and Egypt as well as France. During the depression he was obliged to go on the road where his singing talent, developed in farm bothies and army barrack rooms, stood him in good stead, supplementing the spasmodic wages of seasonal labour. Despite all his wanderings Jimmy remained a North-easter at heart, always returning to his native district.

In the summer of 1951 while on a collecting trip, Hamish Henderson, who had recently joined Edinburgh University's School of Scottish Studies, and Alan Lomax, the American folklorist, found Jimmy in Elgin and brought to our notice one of Britain's finest traditional singers and one of the major influences on the Scottish folk song revival.

One song that Jimmy introduced to the folk revival of the 1960s was that great song of the open road Tramps and Hawkers. The song was included in Peter Hall's biopic on Jimmy in a 1966 edition of Chapbook and Jimmy's own rendition of the song is on Jimmy McBeath: Wild Rover no More. The song has since been recorded by several singers and folk bands including Jim Reid's fine version with the Foundry Bar Band on Foundry Bar Band and a recent recording on a Battlefield Band album Battlefield Band: Across the Borders.


O come aa ye tramps and hawkers an gaitherers o blaw,
That tramps the country roon an roun come listen ane an aa;
I'll tell tae you a roving tale and sights that I hae seen,
Far up into the snowy north and sooth by Gretna Green.

I hiv seen the high Ben Nevis away towrin tae the moon,
I've been by Crieff and Callander an roon by bonnie Doon;
And by the Nethy's silvery tides an places ill tae ken,
Far up intae the snowy North lies Urquhart's fairy glen.

Oft times I've lauched untae masel fan trudgin on the road,
Wi a bag o blaw upon ma back, ma face as broon's a toad;
Wi lumps o cake an tattie scones an cheese an braxy ham,
Nae thinkin whaur I'm comin fae nor whaur I'm gaun tae gyang.

I'm happy in the summer time beneath the bright blue sky,
Nae thinkin in the morning at nicht whaur I'm tae lie;
In barns or byres or onywhere, or oot amang the hay,
And if the weather does permit I'm happy every day.

O Loch Katerine and Loch Lomond has aa been seen by me,
The Dee, the Don, the Dev'ron, that hurries intae the sea,
Dunrobin Castle by the way I nearly had forgot,
And aye the rickles o cairn marks the Hoose o John o Groats.

I'm often roun by Gallowa or doon aboot Stranraer,
My business leads me onywhaur sure I travel near an far,
I've got a rovin notion, there's nothin what I loss,
An aa my days my daily fare and what will pay my doss.

I think I'll go to Paddy's land, I'm makin up my mind,
For Scotland's greatly altered now, I canna raise the wynd;
But I will trust in Providence, if Providence will prove true,
And I will sing o Erin's Isle when I come back to you.

Jimmy was also famed for his singing of one of the finest of the 'serious' bothy ballads (in the Greig-Duncan Folk Song Collection: GD 408) - The Hairst o Rettie - a song that tells of the men bringing in the harvest on the farm of Rettie just along the coast from Jimmy's birthplace at Portsoy in Banffshire. This famous song tells of the change over from the scythe to the back delivery reaper which took place in a big way in the middle 1800s. Jock Duncan, who has recorded the song on his album Jock Duncan: Ye Shine Whar Ye Stan! remembers coming across Jimmy singing the song outside the beer tent at the Oldmeldrum games when it was revived after the war in 1947.

Jock: There wis Jimmy, ootside the beer tent an aa the boys wis roun him ready poised wi their beers in their hand listenin tae Jimmy. "Fit wad ye like tae hear," he says. "The Hairst o Rettie, Jimmy." He started tae sing and stuck at the second line. So I telt him, "Aye an twa three on the throne." An on he went. And then after he'd finished he cam over. "Fit wey ye ken that sang man?" "Well," says I, "I heard it from aul John Strachan . . . . . ."

I hiv seen the Hairst o Rettie lads
An twa three on the throne, [i.e. farms of that ilk
I've heard for sax or seiven weeks
The hairsters girn an groan;
A covie Willie Rae
Wi a monthie an a day,
Sends aa the jolly hairsters
Singin blythly doun the brae.

Oh a monthie and a day, ma lads,
The like wis niver seen,
It's beats for sticks the fastest strips
O Vicker's new machine;
A Speedwell she brings up the rear,
An the Victory clears the way,
An twenty acre daily yields
Laid doon tae Willie Rae.

For he'll drive them [i.e. the horses] roun an roun the parks
At such an awful rate,
An steer them canny oot an in
At monys a kittle gate;
He'll wile them saftly ower a stane [i.e. coax
An mony's a hidden hole,
And he'll come by nae mishanter [i.e. no mishap
Gin you leave him wi the pole. [i.e. in charge

Oh he'll whittle aff the corners,
Maks crookit bitties stracht,
And likes tae see that man and beast
Are equal in the draucht;
An aa the shavies neat and square [i.e. sheaves straight
An nae a sheaf agley, [i.e. none out of line
He will count wi ony dominie [i.e. any teacher
Fae the Deveron tae the Spey.

Oh he'll sharp their teeth tae gar them bite,
An tap them on the jaws,
An when he fins them dowly like, [i.e. blunt
He'll brawly ken the cause;
A boltie here, a pinnie there,
An keep them aye in tune,
He will shortly stop their wild career
An brings the slackest doon. [i.e. into gear

Oh he's nae made up wi mony words
Nor kent tae puff an lee,
He's just as keen a little chap
As ony you did see;
If ye're in search o hairvest wark
Upon a market day,
Oh tak my advice, be there in time
An look for Willie Rae.

Noo we hae got it in about
An aa wir rucks be ticht, [i.e. the corn ricks built
We'll gaither roun the festal board [i.e. the harvest feast
Tae spend a joyful nicht;
Wi Scottish songs and mutton broth
Tae charm all cares away,
We shall drink success tae Rettie,
An our bannster Annie McLean.

Before I close my hamely screed,
I canna weel forget,
The faithful dames that gairds the hoose,
And keeps the folk in meat;
Lang may they bile the kale
And steer the porritch weel,
May they never want or need for mair
Tae keep the timmer hale. [i.e. the body fed

Come aa ye sturdy Rettie blades,
A ringin cheer hurrah!
A band o better workin lads
A gaffer never saw;
They're aye sae willin for tae pairt
An eager for the fray,
It was them that made the boatie row,
'Twas steered by Willie Rae.

Jimmy had a wry sense of humour and a fund of bawdy stories and songs.Jimmy: A riddle!
The happiest days I
spent in my life
wis rowed in the airms o
anither man's wife.His version of John Anderson My Jo, that I recorded from him during a visit to St Andrews Folk Club in 1967, was even more graphically bawdy than the famous version in Robert Burns' Merry Muses of Caledonia. For a comparison of the two try the link John Anderson My Jo.

John Anderson my Jo, John,
When we were first acquaint,
Your stones gaed rattlin tae ma airse,
An yer cock gaed up ma cunt;
But noo ye're turnin auld John,
It wobbles too and fro,
And it twice gangs by for aince gangs in,
John Anderson my Jo.


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