Episode 5 Santer

Hello and welcome to another episode of Santer.

On this week's programme, Captain Jim Moore allows us

up into his attic to see his wonderful collection of model boats.

How many have you in total, Jim?

There's 130 altogether and I made about 100.

Willie Hill puts Bobby Acheson and Andy Cornett through their paces

on the fife and drum.

-I know there's a week to go and I'll...

-A week to go now, Bobby,

-so you'll be two hours every night from now to next week.

-Is that right?

Mark Wilson crosses from Canada into the United States on his musical journey.

And it's here that eventually the Cape Breton fiddle style, moving south,

would meet with the bluegrass fiddle style, moving north,

and mix with the Scots and Irish fiddle styles that were still arriving.

And Wilson Burgess visits a World War II exhibition in Bushmills.

A World War II jeep in a street in Bushmills?

There must be a reason for that.

But before all that, Diana Culbertson's back with us

after the great reaction she got the last time she appeared on Santer.

This time, she's singing the Dougie MacLean song, Caledonia.

# I don't know if you can see the changes that have come over me

# In these last few days I've been afraid

# That I might drift away

# So I've been telling old stories, singing songs

# That made me think about where I came from

# That's the reason why I seem

# So far away today

# Oh and let me tell you that I love you

# That I think about you all the time

# Caledonia, you're calling me And now I'm going home

# If I should become a stranger, know that it would make me more than sad

# Caledonia's been everything I've ever had

# Now I have moved And I've kept on moving

# Proved the points that I needed proving

# Lost the friends that I needed losing

# Found others on the way

# I have tried And I've kept on trying

# Stalling dreams, there's no denying

# I've travelled hard with my conscience flying

# Somewhere in the wind

# Oh and let me tell you that I love you

# That I think about you all the time

# Caledonia, you're calling me And now I'm going home.

# If I should become a stranger, know that it would make me more than sad

# Caledonia's been everything I've ever had

# Well, instead of thinking my way is clear

# And I know what I will do tomorrow

# When the hands are shaking And the kisses flow

# Then I will disappear

# Oh and let me tell you that I love you

# That I think about you all the time

# Caledonia, you're calling me And now I'm going home

# If I should become a stranger, know that it would make me more than sad

# Caledonia's been everything

# I've ever had

# If I should become a stranger, know that it would make me more than sad

# Caledonia's been everything I've ever had

# Caledonia's been everything

# I've ever had. #

Andy Cornett's the drummer with the group, Stonewall,

and up to very recently, he had never played a Lambeg drum.

Bobby Acheson plays the whistle in his group, The Grousebeaters,

but he had never played the fife.

Music teacher and band conductor, Willie Hill, has taken up

the challenge to prepare Andy and Bobby for a recording of Lillibolero

with last year's World Champion Flute Band, Kellswater of Ballymena.

The boys have been practising hard but the recording date is looming.

Right, boys? The pressure's on. A week to go before we start recording here.

Let's hear you.

I was convinced when I turned up this afternoon,

this is not going to work.

We've never played together at all

and I thought, "My goodness, what have we let ourselves in for?"

And to be fair to Andy and Bobby, both of them,

they've obviously worked hard.

I've been practising away on my own, obviously, what I've got to learn.

I know Bobby's been practising away on his own with his fife.

Hopefully, we'll be able to pull it off.

I haven't been practising much.

Willie left the fife down to me a few weeks ago and, as you know,

Willie was sort of helping me with the tuition there.

And it's been lying on the kitchen table there every week

and I've been passing by and passing by

and I said, "Goodness, I better pick that fife up."

I haven't been doing really a great job,

but I'll have to pick up a bit and start practising, hopefully.

She's ropey. That would be the best way of saying it.

The only bit we need to watch, Bobby, is just in there.

I really haven't been trying this, as you know.

-I know there's a week to go and I'll...

-A week to go now, Bobby,

so you'll be at two hours every night from now to next week.

-Is that right?

-Oh, at least, at least.

And you have to work at this bit here. All right, Andy?

Will we give her one more go? We'll cross our fingers and hope for the best.

See if you get faster, too, Bobby? There's going to be a row!

Will you step on my toe, Willie?

Or I'll hit you a dig in the gub, as they say.

Bobby is panicking me.

He likes when I play along with him, but once I sort of stop playing,

Bobby sort of draws back into himself

and you're saying, "Bobby, come on, you can do this, you can do this."

In the normal fifing tradition anyway,

you'd always have two or three fifers playing together.

Andy's made a right good shape at that now.

The only thing is, try to get rid of the "jig-time" feel to it.

Yeah. Basically I'm doing a bit of syncopation, just like I would

with the pipe band drumming, and it's just trying to get

that out of my head and doing it more of a straight...

Just think of the straight quavers, you know - deedle-ee-dum, dum, dum, dum, dum-dum, dum-dum.

Andy's found the rhythm - I mean he's worked at it.

But as soon as the fifes started and we had a wee go earlier on,

he sort of lost the plot a wee bit.

This will be a major achievement for both of them.

They won't have played with that sort of standard of a band ever before.

The Kellswater will be expecting us to be playing at their standard.

I think they'll be grand. There may be a couple of wee wrong notes or missed beats,

but we're not professionals, we're just doing it for a bit of craic.

I wonder how Andy and Bobby will fare

when they meet up with Kellswater to record the track.

Join us next week to find out.

Oh, it's the Ulster Orchestra ringing Bobby here!

LAUGHTER

Portavogie has had a proud association with the sea,

and fishing in particular, down through the years.

One of the most well-known retired seamen from the area is Captain Jim Moore,

and I was privileged enough to get to see his fabulous collection of model boats.

Right, follow me!

Oh, my goodness, Jim!

This covers my Merchant Navy days, all these boats.

I never saw as many boats - how many have you in total, Jim?

There's 130 altogether and I made about 100.

-You have built every one of these?

-Every one that you're looking at.

I love this here.

These are steam-boats - they're like emitting so much smoke.

When I started building, we used to have a poodle

and when we washed it, then I had to get its hair brushed and all.

-And we started and made it into smoke.

-Good idea.

Jim, whenever we came up here, you were telling me

that back in your day, every wee fellow really was a fisherman.

There was no other job, like.

No such a thing as working in Belfast or Newtownards or anything like that.

It was the fishing - so I started on 26th July, 1947

and then I joined the Merchant Navy in early '51.

So, then, of course, you became Captain Moore,

and that must have been a very proud moment for you.

I sat for my first certificate in 1956.

I've been a crew of 52 ships in my time.

I was nearly 70 years at sea.

One of the nicest ports I've been to was the Italian ports.

Now when I hear Italian music, it takes me back again

to the days when I was young and I walked the streets

and you saw the beautiful senoritas with their long black hair.

Jim, you have been all round the world in all these different ports -

how do they compare to Portavogie, or is Portavogie the best?

Well, Portavogie's home.

The nicest port I've been in is St Petersburg in Russia.

I read a lot, so I'm well versed on Russian history,

but also Norway and Italy are really beautiful countries.

-But what makes them more special than Portavogie?

-Nothing.

-It's nice to see... It's nice to see them.

-It's nice to be somewhere else.

-It's nicer to come home.

-That's right.

My musical journey, which started in Donegal,

brought me across the Atlantic and into Nova Scotia,

but I've left Canada now and I'm heading south

through the United States.

I'm just about to enter the port city of Boston.

Between 1714 and 1720,

54 ships carrying Ulster-Scots settlers from towns like Londonderry,

Coleraine, Aghadowey and Macosquin, would arrive into Boston harbour.

And they would establish a flourishing

and influential Scots-Irish community in both Massachusetts and Maine.

And it's here that eventually, the Cape Breton fiddle style, moving south,

would meet with the bluegrass fiddle style, moving north,

and mix with the Scots and Irish fiddle styles that were still arriving.

Boston became a melting-pot for lots of different styles of music,

and that's still the case today.

Kimberley Fraser plays in the Cape Breton style -

which, of course, originated in Scotland -

but she regularly plays with musicians from other genres.

We have a Cape Breton musician, an Irish musician,

a bluegrass musician and an Ulster-Scot musician -

so that's probably not the first time that has happened in Boston, either?

No. Well, of course, the city is such a melting pot of music.

Oisin McAuley is from the band, Danu, well-known band,

and Mark Simos, in addition to being a great Irish accompanist,

he's a great fiddle player as well, playing old-time music.

And what was it like, adding somebody else in

-from across the other side of the Atlantic?

-Absolutely great.

Percussion is not something that I'm quite used to playing with

in Cape Breton - it's primarily the piano -

so to have that element of the percussion is always great.

Kimberley, you're a modern-day Cape Bretoner that has

moved down into Boston, but you're not the first one to do that?

For sure. In the 50s and the 60s, there were lots of Cape Breton fiddlers living here.

Then, of course, there were always Cape Bretoners passing through to play dances.

There was a huge network and the Canadian-American Club in Watertown,

that was, I think, the hub and it still is, actually.

There's still monthly Cape Breton dances that go on there,

so there is a really big Cape Breton scene here.

I initially moved to Boston to go to Berklee College of Music

to start just kind of looking at some different styles

of fiddle-playing.

And now I teach a lot in the Boston area,

primarily in the Cape Breton fiddle style.

What age did you start playing?

I was six years old playing the fiddle, yeah.

So you've only been playing for a few years, then?

Oh, you're very kind!

So for you, as a Cape Breton fiddler, you have now moved south

and you've met up with different styles of fiddle-playing.

There's a lot of Irish music in Boston,

so I'm definitely influenced by the repertoire.

I love Irish music - not so much the style.

I think I'm pretty entrenched in my own Cape Breton style.

I don't know if I could ever be any other type of fiddle player.

But the Irish repertoire for sure. I love to incorporate that.

There's also, of course, a lot of American fiddle styles

prevalent in Boston - old-time music, Bluegrass music.

So would it be fair to say that Boston is a melting-pot

-for lots of different styles?

-Absolutely.

On next week's Santer, Mark will be driving north out of Boston,

heading for Londonderry, on the last leg of his musical journey.

I'll tell you, did you ever hear of a thing called a rab-hog?

Well, I'll tell you what a rab-hog is.

We had a person one time came up to the village

and he married a lass from the village

and he was telling us all about this strange animal that he encountered.

We thought it was drink talking.

So he and the brother went down to this person's farm.

I'll not tell you where it is

because he doesn't take kindly to people poking over his land.

But this thing's called a rab-hog.

Now, it happened up round the top of Knocklayde

and it was where a rabbit and a hedgehog mated.

And this was a strange animal.

It had two long legs on this side, two short legs on that side

and, you see, that was for running round the mountain, you see.

Because the mountain was like that - and it had to run square.

So it had the long legs and the short legs, so it was stable.

Well, it went all round the bar anyway

till they had to catch one of these things.

But they couldn't catch it.

The old farmer said he caught one away after the war.

But he said the way he did it was he went in front of it and he spun it.

In other words, he turned it back to front and then, you see,

the wee short legs were down and the big long legs were up.

And it couped over and he dived on it.

But he said that was the only way you could catch them.

So if ever you're down round those glens at the back of Knocklayde,

take a look. You see if you catch one?

Take it to the pub, because the bounty's still there

and that's why you have to catch it.

You have to find it.

Aye, and I suppose you'll have to look for the pub, as well.

Though there are some of you will maybe know the path to it rightly.

Good luck to youse.

I'm Sarah

and this is Sam. He's 13, too.

I've had him for about a year and a half.

I'm not actually quite sure what breed he is.

He's really good.

He doesn't spook at anything.

This is Roxy.

Her and Sam aren't that very good friends.

She leads Sam and he doesn't really like it!

We're getting ready for a show in Coleraine - a Working Hunters' Show.

I haven't done it before so this is the first time.

The RDA Arena in Coleraine is the venue for a round of the Working

Hunter League that young Sarah will be entering for the first time.

But for another young rider, Wendy Anderson,

these jumps are more familiar.

You get to this jump here and then you would go out around...

No! Around that way and then over this one.

Show jumping would be just like

a normal straight pole.

And then in Working Hunters, you would have

some bushes, like the Bumblebees,

the Chickens and the Trees and all that.

It makes it more spookier.

What have you basically jumped highest?

The highest is a metre. What's your highest?

Mine is a one metre, five and I haven't jumped it in a long time.

I'm a wee bit excited, but nervous.

'I'm very annoyed.

'He never usually would do that.'

I've been show-jumping but I've never did this before.

He's never did it before.

I've never worn a jacket or a net in my hair, so it's all new.

It's different.

TANNOY: 'Special prize to Sarah and Sam, her first day at a Working Hunter Show. Well done.'

APPLAUSE

-Will you come back?

-Yeah, hopefully.

Yeah, I was like, "No, no, I don't want to go back"

because I was the same as you, I fell off at my first Working Hunter.

And it is scary, isn't it?

Sarah's day might be over, but Wendy has more rounds to jump,

watched for the very first time by her great uncle John.

-You've never seen me jump before?

-No, I have not.

-OK.

You'd be nearly as handy getting round on that as a car or a tractor.

We have been riding for about five and a half years.

I call him Scooby but his name isn't Scooby Doom, it's Scooby Don't,

because he always does things he doesn't want to do...

No, no, no, no!

Stop that!

Well done, congratulations, and here's your rosette.

Congratulations.

Thank you.

Next time I'm back, you'll probably see me on a horse!

A World War Two jeep.

Boys, isn't this fabulous altogether?

And this is of great interest to me

because I have a great interest in World War Two or anything

associated with it, because my own father was in the World War Two.

But a World War Two jeep in a street in Bushmills?

There must be a reason for that!

And of course there is, because behind me here,

in the Hamill Memorial Hall, there's an exhibition on

called Bushmills At War.

We started off five years ago

and we only had a couple of tables of stuff.

The local people came in and they thought it was brilliant.

And they'd say, "Look I've got an old tin box out in my garden",

or "I've got such and such in my shed. Would you like it for your exhibition?"

-And that's how it started.

-So you get a lot of community support?

A lot of community support.

People are very proud that their loved ones, who gave their lives in the war.

This particular helmet belongs to the Bevin Boys

and not a lot of people know about them,

but it was people who joined the army.

If your number ended in nine, you had to go down the pits

and work down the mine.

Aye, well I'm old enough to remember something about that.

I'm not well tuned into it but I mind something about the Bevin Boys.

That's the explanation, is it?

Yes, and they stayed down the mine until the end of the war.

Glenda, you've told me something I didn't know before. Great.

What fascinated you about this sort of stuff?

Well, whenever I was quite young, on a Sunday afternoon,

I would go down and visit my great grandmother, Katy McAllister. She was from Rathlin Island.

And she would take out an old battered suitcase

and inside it she had photographs, letters, postcards.

And she told me about her only son, Jim.

-This is Jim here - Jim McAllister.

-So Jim was in the navy?

He was in the navy and he joined the submarines and in 1941,

while out on an exercise off Nova Scotia,

the submarine he was in was rammed by a Canadian ship, by mistake.

They thought it was a U-boat.

So she would take out his photograph

and the telegram that she'd received from the War Office

to say that he had been killed in action and show me these photographs.

Glenda, there's a great World War Two jeep out there

at the front of the door. Where did that come from?

That belongs to a man, Vince Cooke from Staffordshire.

I met Vince in 2003.

It was the 59th anniversary of the D-Day Landings.

We have become good friends and he comes every year

and brings the jeep with him - and he drives up and down the town with the siren going.

SIREN WAILS

Glenda's interest in World War Two grew so much

she decided to look into the background of all the war dead

from her area, starting with those named on the memorial in Bushmills.

She has since visited the final resting place of them all.

To me, the research is not just going to the graveyard,

not just finding out how they died.

I like to get a photograph of the individual,

find out what school he went to, what his hobbies were,

you know, that type of thing. Find out about his previous life.

But you travel, I mean, it's not just the Flanders Fields you go to?

-No.

-You travel further afield even than that?

Yes, I've been to the River Kwai

and El Alamein, where I met a couple from the South of England

and I went with them to Burma for the last three years,

because we have a soldier there, James Andrew McCaughan,

and I had the book all researched and about to go to press,

but I hadn't been to his grave.

And I really, really wanted to go, because I could say that

I'd been to all their graves and placed a poppy cross.

Fair play to you, Glenda. I think it's a wonderful job altogether.

It's whenever you go to the family

and they see their loved one commemorated,

they're overjoyed with it.

Well, that's near enough it for this week's Santer.

We're going to leave you now with a dance performance

from the Michelle Johnston Dance School

and music from some very talented young musicians. Cheerio.

BAGPIPES PLAY

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd