Episode 3 Santer

Fair faa ye to another busy programme of Santer.

This week, four chaps from Ballymena tell us

-all about their drumming group.

-We're basically four young lads

who feel that rhythm inside our body.

Will Cromie and Gibson Young

continue their tour of the Ards in Greyabbey.

As soon as somebody says, "I'm from Greyabbey,"

you say, "You're a Greba cra." They never get anything else, anywhere they go.

Paula McIntyre serves up a good feed at Ballyclare May Fair.

We're doing them with smoked salmon. It's smoked over oak chips, you see.

It's just very lightly smoked so it's like a hot smoke.

And Mark Wilson gets the length of Wigtown

on his musical journey across Scotland.

There's carvings of harps in Pictish stones

so we know that, right back then, it was being used.

It was the most important instrument

in Scottish history at a certain point in time.

But before all that, music from Scad the Beggar.

It's a quere good day here at Ballyclare May Fair,

and along with all these horses needing fed,

there's a powerful crowd of folk that need feeding.

So it's a good job there's a continental market

down at The Square.

Hello! Can I try a bowl of your Polish stew, please?

OK. A bowel... A bowl!

Mmmm...that's brave and nice.

This old Polish stew's not too bad, but you know me,

I prefer a good bit of Ulster-Scots scram myself.

What have you for us today, Paula?

-Well, Anne, I've got you salmon today and I've smoked it.

-Lovely.

So there's oak chips underneath there, do you see them in there?

So it's a hot smoked salmon.

So we're going to do that with potato pancakes.

-How are you cooking it?

-Just in the pan,

but with bacon. I'm doing potato pancakes

so I suppose like the Scotch pancakes, the drop scones.

It's not a fancy crepe that you'd get at the market here, you know.

Is it like fadge - you're adding potatoes?

No, it's not. The potatoes have got a bit of butter in here.

It's a good way of using up leftovers. And then an egg.

That'll lighten it up too. You know when you make pancakes, regular...

-No!

-No? THEY LAUGH

-I buy them!

-Well, you'll not be buying them now.

-Is that ordinary milk or butter milk?

-Ordinary milk.

Just give it a really good whisk up.

OK, so I'm going to do just nice sort of...

wee drop-sized bits.

-Can I have a go?

-Aye, go for it, there you are.

I remember trying to bake these when I was a child,

-but mine were triangular.

-That's pretty good.

-I've seen...

-What were you going to say, you've seen worse?!

That just delights me. LAUGHTER

Just take it underneath there and give it a wee flip over.

They puff up nicely, can you see?

Would you like to try a wee pancake?

Do you like good old Ulster-Scots cooking?

Do you know what's missing? A good smearing of butter.

-Beautiful.

-We're doing them with smoked salmon.

It's smoked over oak chips, you see.

It's very lightly smoked so it's like a hot smoke.

I'm going to finish it off in a pan.

It's essential you use dry cure bacon because

then you get oil out of it.

All you need in that is a wee poached egg and we'll be flying.

This is quite delicate so we'll just lift this off.

And this is wild garlic.

Cut into nice shreds like that, OK.

I cannae chop like that, Paula, it's too quick.

I had to lose a few fingers before I was able to as well!

Then you've got your lovely dulse. It's quite hard to cut that.

-Do you know, I eat a dulse piece?

-Do you?

A dulse sandwich, that is.

Aye. Oh, I knew what that was.

-Did you know? Did you get a piece?

-I remember taking a piece to school.

THEY LAUGH

I'm going to flake it up a wee bit.

This is a bit of sour cream, OK? It's just to liven it up a wee bit.

Just a dollop of that on top, there. There you are, Anne, OK?

Oh, lovely!

There's enough for everybody, but we'll start off with you, ladies.

Try a wee bit of that.

You're the hard workers here today at Ballyclare May Fair.

I hope that sticks to you!

-It is really nice.

-I'm going to try one now.

-It's a nice Ulster-Scots thing.

-Oh, yes.

It's pancakes made with potatoes, and it's not the sweet pancakes,

because it's like fadge.

-Fadge. A lot of people wouldn't know what fadge was, but I do.

-Good.

Now...

I tried your stew so I'm bringing you some of mine to try.

-Fantastic.

-Well, it wasn't me cooked it because I cannae cook,

but this is a good Ulster-Scots dish of salmon, bacon, wild garlic.

-Did you enjoy it?

-Yes, lovely.

-Good. We enjoyed your stew as well.

We'll be back to Ballyclare May Fair later in the programme.

Frank McLernon is a man

who just loves to collect stories about the country.

He's not bad at telling the odd one, too.

You know, you're talking there. I'll tell you a good one.

We were over fishing one day in Downhill

and we went over for a bottle of stout to the Downhill Hotel.

It's no longer there, unfortunately.

We got talking to this old fellow,

because everybody was worried about drink-driving.

He said, "I'll tell you a good one, boys."

He says, "A mate of mine was forever going home, full,

"on the donkey and cart.

"And the local constabulary was out to get him.

"Oh, they hated him, for he not only drank the stuff, he made it.

"So, Mickey was heading home with the donkey and cart, with a right bit of drink in him.

"And then these two neighbours came out, "Mickey, Mickey, Mickey!"

"What's wrong with you, boys?"

"Don't be going down there," he says,

"The police are waiting on you.

"They're in behind the bushes and they're in behind stones

"and whins and they're waiting on you, Mickey."

"What are they waiting on me for?"

"They intend to catch you drunk and charge you with the donkey and cart."

For, you know, you can be done

for being drunk in charge of a horse and cart,

or drunk in charge of a horse.

So the boy thought for a minute or two.

"Well," he says, "it's getting dusk".

So he got the neighbours to load the donkey into the back of the cart and Mickey got into the shaft

and he set off down the road.

And of course the donkey was braying and the cart-wheels were rattling

and the three constables jumped out. "Ha-ha, we got you now, Mickey!"

They looked and there was Mickey standing in the shaft.

Says he, "Officer," he says, "if you want a lift to Coleraine,"

he says, "you may wait on the next cart,

"for my passenger won't share".

And I can tell you now, they weren't overly happy.

He set off down the road with the donkey in the cart

and him in the shafts and left three very puzzled constables.

They never caught Mickey drunk in charge. No, nor they never got his still either.

During this series of Santer, Mark Wilson has been travelling

all over Scotland

taking a look at some origins of Ulster-Scots music.

This week his journey takes him to Wigtown.

Having started my journey

in Carlisle in England,

and travelled along the path that the exiled border reivers

would have taken, through Dumfries,

I'm now driving along the side of the Solway Firth,

heading for the coast.

I'm just about to come into the little town of Wigtown.

Wigtown is a small town

that assumes a very grand title,

that of Scotland's National Book Town.

And that's because almost every other shop is a bookshop.

And in this part of the world, where you have stories,

poems and ballads, you usually find a harp.

Ailie Robertson, we're here today in Wigtown, the literary and book capital of Scotland.

-That's right.

-Those poems and stories would originally

have been accompanied by music,

-and it would've been played on the instrument that you play.

-That's right.

One of the very first functions of the harp

was as an accompanying instrument for ballads and for poems,

by bards, and so that was probably the earliest use

of the harp in Scotland.

The harp is Scotland's oldest instrument.

We have evidence right back to the 8th century when there's carvings

of harps in Pictish stones

so we know that right back then, it was being used.

And there was a time when really the harp

was Scotland's national instrument,

it was the most important instrument in Scottish history

at a certain point in time.

And the harpers -

they preferred to be known as harpers rather than harpists -

they were really, really well thought of in society?

Yes. Today, the clairseach - the word for folk harp -

is thought of very much as part of the family of folk instruments.

It's used in sessions and in a lot of traditional music.

But back then in the 12th, 13th, 14th century,

it really wasn't thought of as a folk instrument at all.

And that's because it wasn't played in all parts of society.

It was really only the middle and upper classes

that ever had the chance to play the harp.

This meant you had to be very well educated to play,

and people who played were thought to be very intelligent

and thought themselves as superior to other instrumentalists.

I read one time that sometimes the clairseach

was actually given away with the pedal harp,

almost as a free incentive to buy the pedal harp,

almost like a practice harp.

That's right, and still there is some snobbery that the clairseach

is just for children -

you'll learn for a few years and then graduate onto the pedal harp.

And I play both, but I would certainly consider

the clairseach to be my favourite of the two.

It's what I do the majority of my work on. Increasingly,

more and more people are becoming professional clairseach players,

which is great.

Here, on especially the west coast of Scotland, there would have been

I suppose a transfer of music back and forwards

between the north of Ireland and the west coast of Scotland, and the harp music.

We're lucky that a huge wealth of music has been shared,

particularly the music of Northern Ireland

has very similar links with the music of the west of Scotland.

There's so many tunes in common and versions in common,

tune-types in common.

The Donegal Highlander is so similar to our Strathspeys, for instance.

We're fortunate that so much has been shared between the two countries.

There's lots of new music being written for the harp today,

which is great. One of the tunes that I wrote is a tune called Swerving for Bunnies.

-Swerving for Bunnies?!

-Yes!

It was written after an incident involving rabbit avoidance

and a roadside ditch on a tour.

I take it you had to swerve for the roadside ditch to avoid the bunnies?

Yes, we landed up in a big ditch

and had to get hauled out by a tractor so I thought that deserved a tune!

We'll be back with Mark next week as he keeps on with his musical

journey across Scotland, where his next stop will be in Portpatrick.

I'm sure you have been enjoying Liam Logan

and Gary Blair's talk on Ulster-Scots words.

This time, the word is 'big'.

We were talking, Liam, about the way some words have specific meanings

in Ulster-Scots that differ from English.

And some are shared meanings. I was thinking about the word 'big'.

Big is a good example. It reminds me of an expression,

"an arse that big, you could clod a britchin over it."

And that would have almost exactly the same meaning

in English as it would in Ulster-Scots.

Aye, I could nearly interpret that one myself.

And another meaning of the word would be "big in the arse"

which means a slightly different thing.

It doesn't mean you have a big arse.

-What does it mean then?

-It means you're clumsy.

I think the notion is that when you're moving about,

you have that much in the caboose...

-You knock all round you!

-You're throwing things about you, yes.

Well, when I was a young one, I remember my ma used to say,

if we were at home from school or if it was a wet day and all,

and we were carrying on badly, she would have shouted,

"If you don't behave, you'll have me in the big house."

Well, there's a whole range of big houses depending on what county

you lived in, because that's the way the service was organised.

So a County Antrim man, there was only one destination for us

-and that was Holywell.

-That was our big house.

But if you were up in Belfast, it would be, I suppose...

-Purdysburn?

-Purdysburn. And if you were in County Down,

I guess it would be Downpatrick.

So, in every county, the threatened mothers of every county had a big house to go to if it got too rough.

-You're going to have me in the big house!

-But then again, of course, traditionally and historically

in this country, the Ulster-Scots always talked about "the folk from the big house"

-or "they're big house folk."

-And you would have said, "They're big people."

And big people doesn't mean morbidly obese people.

It means people with a bit of social standing or maybe a wee bit of catter, a wee bit of money.

-We'll never have that worry, we'll never be in the big house.

-I don't think so.

-Any of them,

-no matter what it means!

-I don't know, but I hope so, Gary.

There's been many a band formed by children at secondary school.

Coming up now is one such band.

They're a group of young lads from Ballymena

and they call themselves The Lightning Drum Corps.

Well, we all go to Cambridge House Grammar School,

we're in fifth year and we've known ourselves since first year.

We were in the same class and we're really good mates.

We play in different bands and groups outside of school.

I'm in Kellswater Flute Band.

I'm in Pride of the Maine Flute Band, Galgorm.

-I'm in Ballee Flute Band, Ballymena.

-I'm not in a band.

Well, the routine that we're doing, it is very difficult.

People think all it is, is banging on a drum,

but it's completely different from that there, so it is.

We've put so much hard work and effort into doing that and it pays off.

Most of our mates like our drumming

and girls do tend to like coming and watching us.

It's enjoyable, so it is.

We're just basically four young lads

and we feel that rhythm inside our body.

Our first gig was our school Talent Show, followed by the Braid Arts Centre

for an Armed Forces Day concert run by the Royal British Legion.

And then, due to that concert, we got asked to play

at the Festival of Remembrance in the Waterfront Hall in Belfast.

The people we look up to are the Royal Marines Drum Corps

and Top Secret Drum Corps.

We try our best to try and keep as good as they are.

We just think if we were that, we would be superstars.

It is good playing with people you know and you can sort of rely on.

Nobody's going to let you down.

Everybody works together and happy days.

We practise quite a lot in school on a table

behind the Assembly Hall or in the music teacher's room at break time,

battering away with a pair of drumsticks on a bit of wood - sounds great.

Well, back here in Ballyclare May Fair, there's no shortage

of great characters, many of them could buy and sell you.

Would you buy a good donkey?

-How much are you selling it for?

-£500.

-Och, away on with you.

-But if you were a drunkard, it would be six.

-I haven't got 500.

-I don't want euro, now!

So Sam, why are you selling this pony?

Most of us have grown out of it.

-Just too big for it now?

-Aye.

So you have to be a wee person, then, to buy this?

Not generally, it would do you, if you want it.

-Would it not hold my weight?

-Oh, it would hold you all right!

-I'm bound to go home with a donkey or a pony or a horse today, I know that.

-Goodness gracious,

-you couldn't be in a better place. You could even go home with a man!

-Oh, no!

-Are you buying or selling?

-I'm selling.

-Are you selling, are you? Are you selling this horse?

-I'm selling this horse.

-What do you hope to get for her?

-1,200.

Och, you're joking me. £1,200? Goodness.

Why, do you not think I wouldn't get it?

-Are you here selling horses, too?

-I'd sell anything. I'd even sell you.

-Would you? You wouldn't get much, I don't think!

-I'm telling you, I'd even sell you.

And what do you do with all the money you get for these horses?

What? Money? Well, see that big woman, 28 stone, I'm married to...

She shakes me about like a Jack Russell!

Ards man, Will Cromie, can fairly tell a yarn.

He continues his journey round the peninsula with fellow Ards man and musician, Gibson Young.

This week, they're in Greyabbey.

-Boy, she's an impressive structure when you look at it, Gibson.

-It's stood the test of time, like.

By God, she's a big one, right enough.

Willie, did you ever hear the one song about three crows sitting on a wall?

-Oh, a brave few times I heard it.

-I know one has four crows sitting on a wall.

I never heard that version, now.

# Four Greba cras sittin' on the waa

# The four Greba cras sittin' on the waa

# Four Greba cras sittin' on the waa

# On a cauld and frosty mornin'... #

Sure the folk round here are known as nothing else but "cras",

on account of the cras in the trees. As soon as you speak and somebody says to you, "I'm from Greyabbey."

-You say, "You're a Greba cra."

-Aye.

-They never get anything else, anywhere they go.

# Ah well, the first Greba cra fell and broke his ja'

# The first Greba cra he fell and broke his ja'

# The first Greba cra fell and broke his ja'

# On a cauld and frosty mornin'... #

There's another song, Willie, from the top of the town, a wee street -

North Street they call it, but it's really Hard Breid Raa.

That's an old name that has stood. Nobody knows where North Street is.

If you say to somebody from Greba, "I'm going up North Street,"

they wouldn't know what you were talking about because it's always the Hard Breid Raa.

How it become that I asked, but nobody could tell me.

# The second Greba cra he tuk and flew awa'

# The second Greba cra he tuk and flew awa'

# The second Greba cra he tuk and flew awa'

# On a cauld and frosty mornin'... #

If you just look at that old road there, folk are coming down there from Newtownards,

coming round this road by us here and out round the back to Kircubbin.

But they wouldn't know that years ago, there wasn't such a road as that there.

The road was up in the back, you can see it. It's narrow now, but it would have been wider.

-It wouldn't have been much wider, there were only horses and carts.

-Well, that would have been it.

Then it would have come down here. This would have been open here, there was no road at all.

-Straight down there.

-Through the estate?

-Up through Montgomery's estate, round the back of the bushes

-and that brings you out, then you're on the road to Kircubbin.

-Two old ruts in the road, just.

-Aye, you'd have to keep the horse steady between them.

-Oh, aye!

# Well, now, the third Greba cra He wasnae there in ava'

# The third Greba cra He wasnae there in ava'

# Oh, the third Greba cra He wasnae there in ava'

# On a cauld and frosty mornin'

# And then, the fourth Greba cra He cudnae flee at a'

# The fourth Greba cra, He cudnae flee at a'... #

We're just round the corner, now, from Greyabbey,

onto the main road to Kircubbin, a wee place called The Slae Bushes

on the banks of Strangford Lough.

There was a brave bit of smuggling here.

What time are you talking about, Willie? What year would that be?

Must have been in the 1800s. I'm sure it went on for years before that because...

It would have been tobacco and tea.

Well, they brought it over to one of the big islands,

round about where Daft Eddie's is,

and there was a big stone there, like a table,

and it was divided out there and then each took their share

and they would have brought it to different places.

They would have had wee boats then, to shift it about.

It was brought over to Greyabbey, here,

and, to get it quietly up the street,

they had to enlist the help of The Big Man.

-The big man?

-The Big Man.

This was a boy, but how he became such a big man,

he put a box on his head and he put a coat over the top of the box,

so he was the headless man as well as this.

So he dandered up the road.

Now, they would have had the horse and cart,

and they would have had sacking tied round the old iron cartwheels,

and that would have stopped the clattering up the road. This thing just came up quietly.

You can imagine - a man eight and a half foot tall,

a horse and cart behind him that made no noise.

You would have got out of the road brave and quick!

# So there wus nae Greba cras Sitting on the waa

# Nae Greba cras sitting on the waa

# Nae Greba cras sitting on the waa

# On a cauld and frosty mornin'. #

Well, that's near enough it for this week. But just before we go,

we're going back to Scotland for a tribute to the Wigtown Martyrs

introduced by Mark Wilson. See you next time.

Wigtown Town Hall, here behind me, houses The Martyrs' Cell

from where two local women were marched to their death by drowning at the stake

in the nearby Solway Firth, due to their religious beliefs.

Gary Blair recounts the martyrs' story,

accompanied by Ailie Robertson on harp.

Auld Merrick views o'er Bladnoch burn

That threads as silk tae Solway's shore

Through fertile land it twists an' turns

It's flowin' burden, aft and fore

Meg Wilson frae Glenvernoch came

The highest Covenant tae swear

A virgin blesst in Jesus' name

Her will was strong like her flaxen hair

And Meg McLaughlin's aged years

Knew proud love's veneration

She faced oppressors without fear

Refused the Oath of Abjuration

At Grierson's hand their fate did fall

Bound tightly on a lowtide stake

Both bold an' true tae their call

As waves o'er them did rise an' break

Ashes to ashes; dust to dust

When truth is treason, freedom dies

Immortal wings tae a' things just

We remember thee when the wind sighs

Here westlin' winds o'er Wigtown blaw

Here spirits haunt the morning mist

And when the Maytime rains do fa'

They are seen Where the shore is kisst.

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd