Episode 4 Santer

Hello there, and welcome once again where we have a very busy show for you this week on Santer.

On this week's programme, Bobby Acheson and

Andy Cornett learn how to play the fife and drum.

-Have you ever seen one of these before?

-You're making me nervous.

-What would you be nervous for?

Mark Wilson arrives in Halifax on his musical journey in Nova Scotia.

And you can just imagine them arriving after

thousands of miles of a journey from Ireland, through this mist and fog.

Michelle Johnston competes at the World Highland Dance Championships in Dunoon.

I was the first dancer ever to qualify for the finals

of the World Championship, from Northern Ireland.

And Leslie Morrow brings us

more extracts from the wonderful film, Us Boys.

He thinks he's the only boy farming in County Antrim.

There were no farmers like him, they were all dressed to kill.

I'm the only man that's farming this country - all that whole glen up there.

But before all that, we're going to the lovely setting of Portpatrick

for music from Fred and Deirdre Morrison.

PIPES PLAY

Andy Cornett's a drummer with the group Stonewall,

but he has never played a Lambeg Drum.

Bobby Acheson plays the whistle in his group,

The Grousebeaters, but he has never played the fife.

Music teacher and band conductor Willie Hill

is the man to teach them how.

But the heat is on because Andy and Bobby have only two or three weeks

to get to a standard good enough to play along with last year's

World Champion Flute Band, Kellswater of Ballymena - and record Lillibolero.

No pressure, then.

HE PLAYS A SIMPLE TUNE

I played in Cairncastle Band - it's 20 years since I played -

and I was in it for, I suppose, about 30 years, roughly.

I joined it when I was seven.

But I never was really that good so maybe my musical skills now will improve.

-Have you seen one of these before?

-I think I have, aye.

I doubt if I could fill this, could I?

Oh, I don't know now. Oh, we're away - we're flying, yeah.

-Up a bit.

-That's D.

-That's D, aye, all down is D.

-Dee-dee-dee-dee-dee...

-You're making me nervous.

Not at all, what would you be nervous for?

'A fife is quite a difficult instrument to play. People say'

it's quite primitive but it is very difficult.

It's due to the density of the wood.

'This is African blackwood, a very dense wood and hard to fill. If you haven't played for,'

say, 20 years, the problem initially is the breathing.

-That's pipe band man playing.

-Aye, exactly.

I play the drum-kit, djemba, various percussion -

but I've never actually played a full-size Lambeg.

The first wee part just goes...

-Not quite right.

-No?

'When I was younger, my uncle gave me a five gallon oil drum'

which I had round my neck, playing with two branches off an apple tree

- but this will be quite different.

-How do you find this, Andy?

-Difficult.

People coming from a single-headed drum like this here are always

drumming in that one wee space. With this, your arms

are going to be almost two feet apart.

-Are you happy enough there?

-Yes, no problem. As long as you're holding it, I'll be happy.

-Do you want me to hold it?

-No, it's OK.

-Give it a go?

-Give it a go.

-Do you think I can do this?

-You'll be able to do it without any bother.

-Every time you go wrong, I'll hit you with these!

-'Willie's a character, brilliant.'

I think Willie and me will get on like a house on fire.

We could be taking the place by storm, fifing, Willie and me.

I didn't think it was going to be easy

and I think that even more so now - but I'll get the music and have

a good listen to it and hopefully we'll be able to pull it off.

To see how Andy and Bobby get on, make sure to watch next week's programme.

If you get faster, too, Bobby, there's going to be a row!

I'm now driving along the West Coast of Cape Breton Island

on my musical journey which started in Donegal,

brought me across the Atlantic to Sydney and then to Mabou.

But now I'm about to leave Cape Breton

by crossing the Kanso Causeway.

Having crossed the Causeway, I'm now in mainland Canada but to

a Cape Bretoner, Canada is merely an island off the coast of Cape Breton.

But whichever way you look at it,

I'm heading west through Nova Scotia to Halifax.

Like Sydney, Halifax Nova Scotia would become one of the major

ports of entry for the Ulster-Scots on their journey to the New Land.

Strabane-born Alexander McNutt, in 1761, would arrange for

300 colonists of Ulster-Scots to arrive aboard the Hopewell and the Nancy.

And you can just imagine them

arriving after thousands of miles of a journey from Ireland,

through this mist and fog, in the middle of October.

The Ulster-Scots who were landing here were coming for

a new life in this new land.

They were leaving behind Ireland forever.

So, of course, they were going to bring their fiddles,

their stories, their ballads and, of course, their songs.

# No poetry

# No fire

# No tellin' you're tired

# No litter

# No gold

# No growing old... #

Brenley MacEachern and Lisa MacIsaac - they sound like names from my part of the world.

Isle of Eigg, actually.

That's where the MacEachern clan descended from -

the Isle of Eigg, many, many years ago.

As did the McIsaacs.

# Cryin' your eyes out

# It's all about cryin' your eyes out

# Cry on me now

# Cry on me now. #

If we went to a Madison Violet concert, what style of music would we hear?

Well, we're singer-songwriters so it's definitely roots-based.

Everything's based around our harmonies so it's harmonies

and story-telling.

So balladry and story-telling.

Now, that's very similar to the Lowland Scots and their music

of sort of, the 1400s and 1500s.

So what are your roots in that music?

I don't remember anything

but hearing traditional Scottish-Irish fiddle with a piano

- and that's all I knew until I was about 16.

And when I hear songs, I can hear reels going over them.

I can find places to put, you know, Irish or Scottish tunes underneath.

So it's sort of where my background comes from.

It makes its way in there

and periodically we'll throw the odd reel, now and then, into our show.

# It's not a bad world, brother

# It's not a bad world

# Cryin' your eyes out... #

Where your fathers and your names came from - that's still incredibly important to you, is it?

It is. It's not something we hang on, you know,

because we feel like we need to.

It just feels right.

The audiences that we play for come up to us and say

that they've enjoyed the storytelling

and getting to know us, as much as they've enjoyed the songs, so.

And that definitely comes from our roots.

And I feel that having those roots kind of just lends to

the sound that we make today.

# Now that you're gone

# I hope you get a chance

# To sit down with God

# I hope you get a chance

# To question the man in cloth. #

And you were also playing

in Northern Ireland and you were playing quite close to my home town?

-Belfast and Rathfriland, yeah - the Bronte Centre.

-I know it well.

-The Bronte Club and The Black Box.

-In Belfast?

Yeah, that's where it was. It was amazing.

First time there and it was just such good energy in the room.

And everything that we gave out to the audience, they gave back ten-fold.

So you'd be on for coming back to Northern Ireland again?

-For sure.

-Back to the Black Box, the Bronte Centre

-and maybe a few other places that we could maybe get you into?

-I hope so, yeah.

# Cry on me now

# Cry on me now. #

The layout of Bellaghy town itself isn't really that much different

to what it was in Plantation days. as you can see.

It's exactly the same, Anne,

with a little bit of change in the building materials.

The houses are very different from those that were brought in because the initial houses

were destroyed - but they kept the streetscape very much as it was

and the Vintners' Company had planned it that way.

And then typically for an Ulster Plantation village, as we climb

this hill here - this is deliberate, in that this gives the bawn here at the end of the street,

a view down over Main Street for defensive purposes.

Look at the bawn itself, Alister - this doesn't really look like it?

The outer curtain wall is there. You can see that pretty clearly.

And there's a sense of defensiveness, of having like arms around you.

You have an 18th century barracks,

you have a Georgian house, really - but you have the original tower,

which you can see through the space here and from the road.

And, of course, the bawn was built by Sir Baptist Jones,

quite late in the day, 1618 on behalf of the Vintners' Company,

who really set this up as a business.

So the town was originally Bellaghy but the settlers named it Vintnerstown?

It was called Vintnerstown, just as the Salters were

here at Salterstown

and the Drapers were here at Draperstown.

And building a bawn wasn't just a nice option -

building a bawn was obligatory as part of the Plantation process.

A lot of folk came here, a lot of settlers during the Plantation.

But as well as that, a lot of folk left at a time too?

That's right - many went to America.

And there's one particular group we know about that

went from Bellaghy and ended up in Whitewater, Wisconsin.

And they took monogrammed silver and linen tablecloths

and they took fine bone china - and this is what they wrapped it in,

to keep it intact - sphagnum moss, yeah.

-They didn't break a single piece.

-How do you know they didn't break any?

Letters home. Letters home from America saying,

"All the china survived, thanks to being packed in the moss."

Well, there were a brave few bawns about, Alister -

but a lot of them really have seen their days.

This one has survived, how did that happen?

Because people continued to find a use for the building.

In the 18th century, redcoats had a barracks here.

And then in recent times, more recent times,

it's been a doctor's surgery.

And it was always able in some route to serve the community?

Absolutely - it always was a key part.

And even today, you know, as a museum for Seamus Heaney's notebooks

and his work, it has that function as well.

We have more music for you now from Malachy Duffin.

# A dinnae gie a hoot

# Dinnae gie a haet

# A dinnae gie a hoot, man

# A dinnae gie a haet

# A dinnae gie a hoot, ye dinnae taak ma leid

# Ye'r fu o greed, o saft in tha heid

# Ye clipe on me or if ye'r no ma soart

# Ye'r a bit o a gype or ye'r gye an mean

# Or tha folk aa say yer slate's far fae clean

# Ye'r drivin' me scatty or ye'r kickin up a stour

# A dinnae gie a hoot

# Dinnae gie a haet

# A dinnae gie a hoot

# Cos a'm never bate

# A dinnae gie a hoot cos a'll chucky yat

# Tha ainly way roon is tae chucky yat

# A dinnae gie a hoot, man

# A dinnae gie a haet

# A dinnae gie a hoot if ye'r craain' on yer duchle

# Oh a moonlicht nicht ye like a wee cafuffle

# Ye haenae got a haet aboot the hoose

# Ye'r colloguin or santerin on aboot the weather

# Greetin' cos ye haenae onie siller

# Gien oot cos ye haetae go without

# A dinnae gie a hoot

# Dinnae gie a haet

# A dinnae gie a hoot

# Cos a'm never bate

# A dinnae gie a hoot cos a'll chucky yat

# Tha ainly way roon is tae chucky yat

# A dinnae gie a hoot, man

# A dinnae gie a haet. #

I hope you've all been enjoying the good footage from the film Us Boys

that Leslie Morrow has brought us over the last two or three weeks.

He has his final selection of clips for us all now.

This is a film about two uncles of mine - my Uncle Stewart and Uncle Ernie,

a pair of characters in their own right.

There's a comic bit there - that bit there, running about here

with a bit of string tied onto a ewe and trying to get a suck.

Stewart was the boy for all that carry on.

Stewart has kind of disappeared

out of the film at this stage because

he went into a home for a wee while and Ernie missed him.

He thinks he's the only boy farming in County Antrim.

There were no farmers like him,

they were all running about dressed to kill.

He could sing now if you got him at peace at night,

lying at the fire just - or lying beside the stove.

And the next thing he'll just throw out a wee song to you.

# I will be lonely, I will be blue

# But I'll never be lonely

# When I am with you

# Though I miss you

# Having a wonderful time

# Just remember, darling

# Remember you're mine. #

That old bottle just lies at the side of the sink

and he'll lift it and fill it with water.

Now there's a wee bit that would get you there.

That's Stewart. Stewart passed away.

So he's not in the home any more. That's the end of Stewart.

All right, Stewart.

There was a time whenever you came here when you were a lot smaller,

isn't that right, Adrian?

Oh aye. The first day I brought him up home, I think he was probably about three

or four days old, in a wee basket, and it wasn't any bigger than that.

Ernie lifted you up in the basket and went,

"Bit of weight in that wee cub."

Do you remember, Stewart, we had to come up in the morning

-and I went up to the bedroom?

-See if he was still alive!

When we looked in at the bedroom door, what was the first thing we saw?

-His boots hanging out of the bottom of the bed!

-Aye! He went to bed with his boots and all on,

and the big yellow laces on them. And the cap down over his face.

Me and Stewart had to go in, in the mornings there,

and see if he was still hanging in there.

A mighty bit of TV to have -

you pull it out now and you have a look at it and it's definitely good to see it 15 years later.

It'll still be available in another 15 years and even more.

And it captures a bit of history for anybody to pull out,

even for years, and gives you a bit of insight into your whole

background and I hope our boys look after it and watch it and learn

whatever they can learn by seeing the way these pair of boys operated.

I'm Michelle Johnston from Belfast - over to compete in

the Highland Dancing, which is the World Championships

at Dunoon.

We all have our own wee patchwork areas for warming-up on -

nice and spongy, rather than dancing on the concrete.

You have to fight for your place and wait until

somebody's running away before you can jump in and find somewhere.

To dance here, you have to be a premier dancer which means

that you have to have won a few competitions throughout your career.

I'm the only girl from Northern Ireland this year competing,

but hopefully in future years we'll get more girls over

and expand the dancing in Northern Ireland.

Most of the dancers are from Scotland, but there is

quite a good variety from New Zealand

and Canada would be where the strongest dancers are mainly from.

Dancing at home - it's very much in its early years, you know.

It hasn't been around for very long in Northern Ireland,

which is quite surprising.

So I was the first dancer ever to qualify for the finals

of the World Championships from Northern Ireland.

There's over 50 dancers in each heat

and the top ten then qualify to dance in the finals for tomorrow.

Unfortunately I didn't make it to the final this year -

but I have made it in previous years.

It'll take time to build up the dancing in Northern Ireland and really push the girls over here.

Hopefully all of those dancers will learn from the dancers in Scotland

and we can only push ourselves further

if we're dancing against the best all the time.

This year seems to be the boys' year at Dunoon.

Last year it was a boy, a few years previous, it was a boy.

But there are five adult boys in the final.

Michelle was right with her prediction on the boys

- as David Walton from Forfar became the World Champion at Dunoon.

Earlier on in the programme, Mark Wilson was in Halifax

looking into the musical connections between Ulster and Canada.

But there's another connection between Halifax and Ulster -

the Titanic.

And with this being the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the ship,

we thought we'd end this week's programme with

a tribute poem written and recited by Willy Laverty

and introduced to us now by Mark back in Canada.

Fairview Cemetery in Halifax, Nova Scotia, has

a plot of 120 graves of souls lost during the foundering of the SS Titanic,

100 years ago - the largest number of such graves anywhere in the world.

Two of those buried here were Ulstermen - William McQuillan,

who was a fireman, and James McGrady, who was a First Class Salon Steward.

His was the last body to be recovered - he was from Crossgar.

My freen, what made ye stumble on

This humble grave in Fairview lawn?

Are ye lookin' for somebody long since gone

Or do ye find this tale romantic?

Or maybe ye just want to know What happened all them years ago

The night the Titanic went below

In the icy North Atlantic.

At 16 year, my sap still rising

I left Crossgar for the far horizon

I found my path when I clapped my eyes on Belfast docks aa heavin'

I knowed I'd fun my way in life - Nae hoose for me, nae wean nor wife

Nae sojer's musket, drum nor fife - The sea would be my livin'

Ten years a sailor and then I heard

A big new ship soon leavin' the yard

Was lookin' for men with a sailor's card

I took off at a fair auld kilter

When I won my berth, I fairly glowed To yin and aa, man who showed

That boat was built by boys I knowed

And I came from where they built her

The tenth of April came at last The passengers were berthin' fast

We lined the rail and watched them past - their eyes aflame wi' wonder

The gangway pulled back from the quay

The ropes cast off and we were free

The Titanic edged her way to sea - Her horn roared out like thunder

Four days in on a moonless night - No stars were out for guiding light

The First Class Lounge was warm and bright

And they danced to the music playing

And then we felt her start to slow -

And the passengers soon looked to know

So I took off for down below

To see what they were doing

This was the ship that cudnae sink -

That's what they've got us all to think

But I seen thon water, black as ink

And I changed my way of thinking

I seen the way thon water flowed

Ten years a sailor, so I knowed

This thing would only end, yin road

The Titanic was surely sinking

In vain I stood - no searchlight swept

Beside me a heart-broke lassie wept

I took her hand and together we leapt

Into that ice-cauld water

The shock o hittin' broke her grip - I felt her hand from my hand slip

The last wee lass to leave that ship - I pray the lifeboats got her

My freen, you're squarin' up to leave

Whatever grief you feel for me

I'm lying here and not at sea - You could say my fate was kinder

12 hundred mair they cudnae save

They left this world alow a wave

They're lying now in a watery grave With no headstone for reminder.

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd