Episode 1 Santer

Hello, and welcome tae a new series o' Santer.

In our first programme back,

Leslie Morrow realises an ambition he has houl for a long while,

to dae up a forge at the end o' his loanen.

The plans were in here. They werenae on paper,

but they stuck wi' me. I showed where the bricks went.

Mark Wilson's in Donegal

on a musical journey that'll tak him to Canada.

One of the places this style of music appears in a similar form

is Cape Breton in Nova Scotia.

The first time I experienced it was mind-blowing altogether.

Frank McLernon makes a boul of pinada

while Paula McIntyre gives the dish a modern twist.

I've got a bit of vanilla in it and a teabag.

And young Zoe Abraham reports frae the Cowal Games

where her sister Lauren competes in the Pipe Major competition.

Whenever my sister's off practising, I eat chips.

But afore all that, what about a weethin of Bluegrass

frae The Down And Outs?

BLUEGRASS MUSIC

# I thought I had seen pretty girls in my time

# That was before I met you

# I never saw one that I wanted for mine

# That was before I met you

-(ALL)

-# I thought I was swinging the world by the tail

# Thought I could never be blue

# I thought I'd been kissed and I thought I'd been loved

# That was before I met you

# I wanted to ramble and always be free

# That was before I met you

# I said that no woman would ever own me

# That was before I met you

# I thought I was swinging the world by the tail

# Thought I could never be blue

# I thought I'd been kissed and I thought I'd been loved

# That was before I met you

# They say I must reap just what I have sown

# Darling, I hope it's not true

# For once I made plans about living alone

# That was before I met you

# I thought I was swinging the world by the tail

# Thought I could never be blue

# I thought I'd been kissed and I thought I'd been loved

# That was before I met you

# Yes, that was before I met you. #

Behind me, here's a wee shed

I purchased a couple o' years ago.

It originally was built

as a blacksmith's shop in 1938.

It ran for so many years and then it ceased to function.

It lay derelict for a wee while.

I've since bought the wee shed now

and I hope to return it to its former glory.

I've some fellows here today to gie me a hand, get it cleared out.

I'm used to coming here, sliding back them doors

and this place was just full of stuff.

There'd be a tractor sitting here

and another half-a-tractor behind it

and the walls would be built up,

so it's nice now to see all this stuff moving.

The furnace here you see behind me,

A couple of mates came up and we got stuck intae it last Friday morning.

I gathered the brick and everything.

The plans were in here. They werenae on paper

but the guys stuck wi' me and I showed them where every brick went

and they built frae eight o'clock in the morning till nine on Friday night.

Then, once I start replacing everything back in,

there's benches, there'll be tools,

and I look forward to lighting a match some night

and getting the place up and running.

Believe it or no', in among this pile of stuff

there's maybe another tractor in there.

It'd take a wee while to put her together,

but some dark night when I've nothing else to do,

I'll maybe go hoking through this and see what I can do.

There's a wee man helping me here today, that's Gerard.

Gerard's a good, hard worker.

All right, Gerard?

All right.

We're ridding the shed out today

and it'll be very, very hard.

You can see the outline of the original windows that would've been in this building.

There would be two on the wee building on this side.

There's the other window there.

These windows, I'm going tae knock these out

and reinstate the windows

as close to the original as I can get.

At the other end of the wee shed, there would've been a door here

where the blacksmith could walk out and in this wee door

rather than opening the double doors at each end.

See that stuff in the trailer? I dinnae where I'm going to start.

Go to the scrap, then.

-Get some money.

-Cash her in?

-Aye!

-No, I don't think so.

About 200.

200? I wouldn't like to be taking scrap to sell to you, boy.

It's worth mair than 200.

500?

Aye, that's getting mair like it. I like the sound of that.

Somewhere around 4th November 1938

would have been about the time

leases and stuff were signed for him to commence.

I'm hoping in a couple of months to hae the place nearly ready

so that I can hae a night in it around that time.

We'll catch up wi' Leslie again later on in the programme

to see what way that restoration turned oot.

Now I mind as a wee'un getting ponada as a treat,

and what a treat that was.

If you're not just sure what ponada is, never worry.

I called in at the Tearooms in Dervock a wee while ago

and Frank McLernon was making a boul

and then chef Paula McIntyre gin it a modern twist.

Right, what I'm going to do,

I'm going to show youse how to make ponada.

Now, did you ever eat ponada?

-No.

-Aye.

-You ate it?

I know there's a whole lot of folk will be listening

and looking at each other wi' a grin on their face saying, "We ate ponada tae!"

-Were you toul if you ate the crusts, you'd get curly hair?

-Oh, aye.

But we always kept the crusts till last, cos that was the tastiest bit.

Now we need a taste o' hot milk.

Now a whole lot of folk made this with tay,

-which I suppose you could.

-I've always heard of it made that way.

We'd have got it made with tay in the winter,

mair whenever you were coul.

And that's the breid in and now the sugar.

And that's your ponada, as basic as that.

-Is that done? You don't have to soak it?

-Oh, no.

You have to wait till your breid's soft.

-Everybody likes things different, Anne.

-Aye.

I mean, look at your lipstick and look at mine!

-So there you are, Anne. You hae a taste.

-OK.

-Does that not peel back the years?

-Takes you way back.

-Gie her a wee bit.

-Do you want a bit of the crust?

Aye, I'll take a wee bit of the crust.

Right, OK, you ready?

That's the straight crust. That's the end we calt the pipe.

Oh, that's not too bad. Isn't it lovely?

Well, Frank, I did like your ponada, actually,

I didn't think I was going to but...

This is a sort of a more modern version.

-This is, I'm going to make a tea-bread.

-Right.

So tea-bread, tea and bread.

The tea in this instance comes in,

I've soaked this fruit in hot tea.

-So if you'd a pot of black tea left?

-Black tea,

bring it to the boil, bit of fruit,

bit of sugar. Pour it over the fruit

and that's the first stage of it. The next part of it

is to crack an egg into just a wee drop of milk here

and then just mix that up.

So the egg's going in there, and a wee bit of milk to loosen it up,

-and that goes in there.

-That'll bind it a bit, as well?

-That's it.

So I've put a few nuts in mine.

-What nuts are these?

-These are just chopped, mixed nuts.

There's almonds, hazelnuts.

You cannae be allergic to nuts in oor village cos it's full of them!

Tip the flour in.

There's nothing complicated about this, sure there's not?

It looks good.

Wait and taste it!

Wait till you taste it, aye.

-Are you finished with this here?

-Yes, are you going to lick it?

He's got to taste it, has he?

-Well?

-Hi, that's nice!

You can always tell from a cake what it'll be like.

-Could you not wait till it's cooked?

-No.

We were talking about no waste earlier, Anne.

-Frank's just taking that...

-You'll not even have a boul left!

Spoon or naething, it'll all be away.

Go on, I dare you. Good for you. Yay! Good for you!

I'm going to make a baked custard. This is cream.

I've got a wee bit of vanilla in it

and then there's a teabag.

That's what I cannae believe, a teabag.

I can understand the vanilla but what will the teabag do to it?

It'll give it a tea-y sort of flavour.

-It's a sort of Aghadowey custom.

-I've never had baked tea!

Well, you're going to have baked tea, now, right?

It's like... another thing with the ponada, you had tea

and that's what I was thinking, tea. But to make the custard,

egg yolks, I've got some sugar here.

You just whisk these up together.

So when you've got it whisked like that,

I'll pour over the cream,

so just pour that in.

The French would call this, like a creme brulee

after they burn the top of it, you know, the custard.

The Ulster-Scots would just call it tay-custard.

-Tay custard.

-Baked custard.

That's what it is, burnt cream.

-Then you're just pouring your custard into...

-The wee bouls.

Into the wee bouls, yes.

And that's it. Put a bit of hot water in the bottom of that

and you bake them for about 40 minutes.

If I cut into the cake, see it's like a boil cake?

-Oh aye, it's like a fruit cake.

-Then take a wee bite of your custard.

-He's going to butter it with his.

-You butter it too.

Mmm.

-Noo I'm in heaven.

-Well, Frank,

what do you think about this agin the ponada?

-Would you gie up the ponada?

-No, I wouldnae gie up the ponada, Anne,

but I'd be greedy, I'd be wanting both.

I would hae this on a Sunday and the ponada the rest o' the week.

Percussionist Mark Wilson has been a regular contributor tae Santer

wi' his journeys of the musical kind

and this series is nae different.

In previous series of Santer, I took musical journeys

following the Ulster-Scots and their ancestors

on their journeys of love, loss and leaving.

And now I'm taking another such journey,

one that'll take me through Nova Scotia, down through Canada

and as far as Boston in the USA.

But I'm starting that journey here in Ulster

on the shores of Donegal.

The violin or fiddle is synonymous with Ulster-Scots music.

It travelled over from the west coast of Scotland

into County Antrim, County Londonderry and County Donegal

and it's in that county that it's most vibrant and alive today.

One of the centres of that vibrancy of the Ulster fiddle style

is here in Gweedore.

It's an absolutely beautiful piece of the world,

Ciaran, isn't it? Gorgeous.

You're a Donegal man,

although you're not living all the time in Donegal,

-you travel all over the world.

-Yeah.

But you're from Donegal. That's where your music's from?

That's where the music's from, the music we take around the world.

We're very lucky to be able to do that with the band.

The style of fiddle-playing you do do is very much an Ulster style.

In fact, I met guys in Scotland, down in the Mull of Kintyre,

who said that their style was very similar to the Donegal style.

Oh well, I think it's the other way round, really.

I think we got it from Scotland.

-Right!

-Yeah, it's a very close...

It's the same thing really, I suppose.

Donegal, being so cut off from the rest of Ireland as well,

in terms of the music.

Our music is so much more different

to that from Clare or Kerry or any other part of the country.

Our music is much more...

I suppose aggressive is one way of describing it, because of the bow.

-Right?

-We make much more use of the bow hand.

-Aha.

So like, in Clare, you would have...

GENTLE TUNE

Something nice and gentle like that.

Whereas in Donegal...

FASTER, MORE STACCATO

So it's much more up and down.

-There's a bit more kick and more life to that?

-Absolutely.

Of course, the fiddle style you have here,

the Ulster fiddle style, as people refer to it in Donegal,

is very similar to the Antrim style of fiddle

-and Antrim style of whistle-playing?

-It would be, yeah, very similar.

That Antrim fiddle-style, Ciaran,

it's very, very like the Scottish style.

It's very sort of dot-and-cut or "Scotch snap" is what they say

-and that comes out in the Highland...

-Exactly.

..Highland tunes you have here in Donegal?

You can trace that right from Donegal, right through Antrim

and then Scotland is the next stop.

One of the places that this style of music appears again

in a very similar form is Cape Breton in Nova Scotia.

Cape Breton? I've been there a few times and it's just amazing.

The first time I experienced that was mind-blowing altogether.

-You can understand the proximity between Donegal and Scotland.

-Yes.

But to travel across the world to the eastern seaboard of Canada

and see and hear the relationship of what's going on, you know,

-it's amazing.

-But as you say, if you strip it all back, it's the music

that's gone back and forth between Scotland and the north of Ireland for hundreds of years.

One of the tunes that you play

is actually a tune written in Cape Breton for yourself?

That's right. It was after my first trip over there

that two of the best fiddle players from Cape Breton,

sadly both no longer with us,

Gerry Holland and Dougie McDonald,

wrote this tune in my name, in my honour.

It was a total honour at the time and still is,

to have somebody of those calibre of musicians write a tune for you,

so yeah, Ciaran Tourish's Reel.

And so that fiddle music

that came from the west coast of Scotland to Ulster,

some of it stayed with the people who stayed.

But also people travelled on,

and those people left from ports throughout Ulster,

from here in Donegal, but a lot of them from Londonderry.

And they sailed to North America, to places like Nova Scotia,

and that's where I'm off to next.

We'll be followin' Mark on this musical journey

as he takes off o'er the Atlantic to Cape Breton

and then south through Nova Scotia

afore goin' intae the United States tae Boston and Londonderry.

The Cowal Games are houl every year in Dunoon, Scotland.

Among many Ulster folk that travel o'er regularly for the competition

are the Abraham family frae County Armagh.

My name's Zoe Abraham

and we've come from Richill.

We've came for the Cowal Games.

Lauren's my sister and she's competing as a drum major.

She's practising and she's doing a lot of throws there.

That's called the helicopter, what she just done,

the sort of spin at the top.

And then she does finger-spins

and then she does some side-throws and then normal throws, just up.

I think she's really good.

My dad's out there polishing her shoes cos they have to be shiny.

My mummy's getting her dressed

and she's trying to get all the fluff off her jacket now.

If you don't have it right, you'll get a fault

and then the fault will go to your overall score

and then it'll maybe mark you down.

My mum has to crawl around the floor

doing my sister's socks and laces and shoes and all.

I think she's ready now.

We're going up for Dress, to get judged on her dress

and then they'll be competing after that.

He's checking her hat

and the hat has to be in perfect angle.

See, he's being very fussy.

He's checking her socks now and her laces.

He's checking her kilt, so that's it finished.

And then later on, she'll be doing her run.

Always glad when Dress is over.

It's the most stressful part, for me anyway.

Whenever my sister's off practising, I eat chips!

She's done well this year.

I think maybe she's done 13 this year.

She won about five or six of them.

This is her eighth year competing.

She practises in windy weather

or rainy or sunny, just to get used to it.

Depends what type of day it'll be at the competitions.

She's about to do her main run now.

She doesn't really like anybody standing at the end.

It sort of puts her off.

So you have to stand at the side most of the time.

So I hope she does well.

Quick, march!

That was really good, I think.

This is the finale.

They're marching past.

They'll soon find out the results

and they find out if they've done well or not.

Lauren Abraham!

And Lauren certainly did do very weel,

winning one of the maist-sought-after Pipe Major titles

o' the saison, that o' the Cowal Champion.

Earlier on in the programme,

we seen Leslie Morrow starting to restore an oul forge

at the end o' his loanen.

We're back with Leslie noo. This time, it's twarthy months later.

Colin, it's good to hae you doing this cos you're the spade-maker

at the famous Patterson's Spade Mill at Templepatrick.

Well, blacksmithing's a wee bit different from the spade-making

but it's basically the same, and I have an interest in blacksmithing

so I've went and trained with different boys.

Right, Colin, we'll get this thing fired up. This is its maiden voyage.

How long has it been since a fire was lit in her?

Well, I cannae ascertain the date.

I think it quait functioning in, I think, the early '60s.

The farmer that had it took it over and he ripped this all oot

and he built up all the windows and built up the doors.

The windows are back in the original position.

They just were blocked up.

Also, just behind me here you'll see

there was an original door there as well, a wee pedestrian door,

so I put that back the way it should be as well.

The place was originally built

to keep a blacksmith in the countryside

and that was a man by the name of James O'Boyle.

That's what you needed in the country.

He made all the tools for other tradesmen.

He made it happen and they kept him in the countryside,

and just to show you, there's the man there.

That's James O'Boyle.

Now I've nae links to the man at all

but a real character and wan of the best blacksmiths in the countryside.

They're original,

that's original,

and the cart shaft here for pumping the bellows is all original as well.

And there's even wear on the inside of this shaft

which helped me whenever I went to put this place together

because the wear there is seen.

And it was caused by that being

rubbing up and down the corner of the chimney breast.

So that gave me an indication of exactly where the furnace

or the forge was. Just when we're on that point,

see the way the handle just sticks about there,

and then away it went? I wonder would it stick there again?

The handle sticks on that brick. I don't know why.

But about three weeks ago,

I came in here in the dark on my way out to work,

and the wee door wasn't on, obviously, the opening was there.

It was very stormy and I thought,

"I'll lose the roof off this place. I'll go and boord up the door."

I came down in the van,

stopped with the lights at the end of the building.

I came in here groping away in the dark

and I lifted a bit of plywood,

set it up against the door,

and I lifted a piece of wood frae over there,

propped it agin the wood to keep it there,

and when I turned to lift another piece of wood,

that was going up into the air.

And the bottom half of the bellows was dropping.

The hair raise between my shoulder blades.

It stood straight to the back of my ears.

It must have been about 11 o'clock that day before I settled down.

I couldnae figure out why the bellows moved.

But I've discovered it's because they're catching on the brick.

Thank goodness that's the explanation.

I thought the blacksmith was back

although he would be very welcome.

I'm looking forward to the first big bit o' red-hot steel

coming up out o' here.

You done a bit o' professional training, then, for it?

-I did a bit, yeah.

-I'm just going tae do it

the way my granda would've learnt the fiddle, by ear.

And I hope I dinnae burn my ear!

-Well, you take that now.

-My turn!

I haen't even my glasses on but it'll no' matter. Right.

You just hammer that square

and what you're going to do is draw that out.

If the truth be toul, in the last two months

I hae talked nothing but blacksmith's shop.

The wife's scunnered listening about the blacksmith's shop.

I'm delighted it's up and running. Later, the wife will be down

with a lot of other people, hopefully.

I'm going tae mark the occasion, maybe do a bit of storytelling,

bit of poetry, bit of a yarn.

The poet tells of a smith

Who lived beneath a chestnut tree

This smith owed naught to any man

An honest blacksmith he.

No poet ever wrote of me

But all the world should know

The story of the blacksmith's fate

The blacksmith of Drumcrow.

In '14, when war broke out

I went to fight abroad

I fought for three things dear to me

My country, king and God

When blessed peace came back at last

With victory over the foe

No happier man in Ireland was aye

The blacksmith of Drumcrow.

I did the work my father did

In the little blacksmith's shop

And though ex-soldiers often drink

I never touched a drop.

A demolition order came

The source of all my woe

And homeless, homeless then was I

The blacksmith of Drumcrow.

In God's good book we read of one

Who gave the country bread

Yet in the whole wide world

He had nowhere to lay his head.

And that is what happened

As all the world should know

Please God, a brighter fate awaits

The blacksmith of Dumcrow.

Well, heth, it's great to be back

and we hope you'll stay wi' us for the rest o' the series.

We'll finish off this programme

wi' a singer that's just been voted Scottish Folk Singer of the Year,

Rod Patterson, with Willie Wastle.

# Willie Wastle dwalt on Tweed

# The place they cried it Linkumdoddie

# Willie was a wabster guid

# Could stown a clue wi' onybody

# He had a wife was dour and din

# Tinkler Maidgie was her mither

# Sic a wife as Willie's wife

# I wudnae gie a button for her

# She has an ee, she has but yin

# The cat has twa, the very colour

# Five rusty teeth, forbye a stump

# Her clapper-tongue wad deave a miller

# A whiskin' beard about her mou

# Her nose and chin they threaten ither

# Sic a wife as Willie's wife

# I wad nae gie a button for her

# She's bow-hough'd She's hem-shin'd

# Ae limpin' leg a hand-breed shorter

# Twisted left an' twisted richt

# Tae balance fair in ilka quarter

# She has a hump upon her breest

# The nibor o't upon her shouther

# Sic a wife as Willie's wife

# I wad na gie a button for her

# Auld baudrans by the ingle sits

# An wi' her loof her face a-washin

# Willie's wife she's nae sae trig

# She dights her grunzie wi' a hushion

# Her walie nieves like midden-creels

# Her face wad foul the Logan Water

# Sic a wife as Willie's wife

# I wudnae gie a button for her

# I wudnae gie a button for her

# I wudnae gie a button for her. #

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd