Fife's Famous Songs of Praise


Fife's Famous

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I'm at the centre of power of Scotland's medieval monarchs

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and home of the university where our future king and queen met.

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Welcome to the Kingdom of Fife.

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'This week, hymns from Dunfermline Abbey and St Andrews University.

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'The man who made a fortune, then gave it all away,

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'and who was the real Robinson Crusoe?'

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Fife is sandwiched between two of Scotland's great rivers,

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the Forth, here, and the Tay.

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It's called the Kingdom of Fife, and very proud Fifers are of this,

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because in ancient, Pictish times, they had their own kings.

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It was in St Andrews University that Prince William met Kate Middleton.

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St Andrews, on the east coast of Fife,

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was Scotland's medieval, religious capital.

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Its cathedral, built in the 12th century,

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is on the site where it's said the bones of the apostle were brought.

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It dominated Scotland's medieval church

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until the start of Reformation, in 1559.

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And we begin our journey in West Fife,

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in the ancient home of the Scottish kings and queens, Dunfermline.

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BELLS TOLL

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Dunfermline Abbey is not one but three churches, under one roof.

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Underneath its ancient floors,

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lie the bodies of eight Scottish kings.

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Mary Welsh is the custodian.

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The abbey here is of a very special place.

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It was built originally by Queen Margaret, as a small priory.

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She brought monks from Canterbury and she established

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-a very small priory here.

-And that's...

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That's the part that's down there.

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Margaret was a very pious lady and she tried to encourage people to be kind to the poor.

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It was very often said that she would feed the children

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from the king's table and bathe the feet of poor men as a penance.

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Margaret was originally buried in the floor of her own church,

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when she died, in 1093.

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It caused such a great uproar of tremendous feeling in Dunfermline.

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David, her youngest son, when he became king,

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he decided to honour his mother

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by turning her small priory into a large abbey.

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The abbey itself was consecrated in 1157.

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So, David actually didn't live to see his great church completed.

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-It took 100 years for that to be done.

-(Oh!)

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So, what is it like for you to spend your time...talking about this?

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You start out wanting to know a little bit of history

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and then eventually, you're hooked!

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You have to go back, look at the beginnings and work your way through history.

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To get to talk to people all over the world about that

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is really, quite an amazing thing.

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People have their own idea about Scotland

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and sometimes they think Scotland is Edinburgh and Glasgow!

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But to be honest, Dunfermline is much more ancient,

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has a huge royal history.

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It's a wonderful place to be.

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-And this place is very precious to you personally, is it?

-It is, yes.

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A few years ago I lost my mother, very suddenly,

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and I was looking for something

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and I didn't know what I was looking for.

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However, I saw a small advert in the paper

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and decided I would apply for the job of historian at the abbey

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and I haven't regretted it,

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I've loved every minute of it, and I think it was something I was given,

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something that was given to me,

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and I really love every minute of it.

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One individual who lived over a century ago

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has left a living legacy across the world.

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Libraries, schools, hospitals,

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universities - even church organs, including Dunfermline Abbey's -

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all benefited from the philanthropy of one of the richest men

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of all time, Andrew Carnegie.

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His personal wealth in today's money

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would probably be greater than computer billionaire, Bill Gates.

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He gave away a fortune during his lifetime

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and even today, his trust funds are still distributing millions.

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What was Andrew Carnegie's philosophy...about money?

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It would be fascinating to actually be able to interview him...

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-Hmmm.

-..to find, to get the real answer to that question.

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But by a comparatively young man, he had made this huge fortune

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and then by his middle years

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had decided to start to give it all away,

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and created these trusts, across the world.

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I mean the programmes, the extent of the programmes

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is just...astonishing!

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And the breadth of his thinking in that era...

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..I just find really challenging.

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By the time he had died in 1919, he'd given away

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in the region of 350 million,

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which equates in today's terms to billions.

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He grew up in Dunfermline, the son of a weaver,

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whose family all lived in just one room.

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The family emigrated to America and by the time he died,

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he'd made his fortune from steel,

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which funded a rather grander home beside New York's Central Park.

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A far cry from the Dunfermline cottage.

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Carnegie's legacy in his home town is here for all to see.

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The estate opposite his cottage -

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which as a boy he was never allowed to enter -

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was bought and turned into a public park for everyone to enjoy.

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He believed, didn't he, that it was actually a matter of shame

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for a wealthy man to die wealthy?

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That's right. He had this principle that the man that dies rich,

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dies disgraced,

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and so, he set about to give away all of his money before he died.

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-And of course, there's lots of it left...

-There is, there is.

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-..because of how it was invested.

-We're still spending it every day.

-Exactly.

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But it does bring responsibilities, so that when we do spend money,

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we've got to be sure that it's spent wisely.

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We want this trust to be here in another 100 years' time.

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Today, Andrew Carnegie's trusts are still spending

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almost a quarter of a million dollars, every single day.

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From the magnificent Forth bridges linking Fife to Edinburgh,

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there's a path around the coast, over 100 miles long.

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This part of the coast is known as the East Neuk.

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Neuk is an old Scots word for a corner.

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Every twist and turn reveals another historic town or village.

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The picturesque harbours are a tribute

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to 16th century building skills

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and evidence of the long tradition of a fishing industry.

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Ships would sail out from harbours like this, not just to fish

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but to trade with European countries,

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just across the North Sea.

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Our next song, in Scotland's ancient language, Gaelic,

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is a prayer for safe return from sea.

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The old ports and harbours are now havens for leisure.

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As well as holiday-makers, they attract commuters

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from Scotland's capital, on the other side of the Forth.

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Who would have thought that one of these villages, Largo,

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would produce Alexander Selkirk, the man whose real-life story

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would form a basis of Daniel Defoe's novel, whose hero,

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Robinson Crusoe, was marooned on an island off the coast of Chile.

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'This is the church where Alexander Selkirk worshipped regularly. A native of Largo,'

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he, like many schoolboys played pranks,

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but some of the behaviour that he got up to, was,

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in the eyes of the Kirk Session, just a little too excessive.

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So, he was asked to come before them,

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he was told to behave himself

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and I think as a result of that, he decided to take himself off to sea.

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He found himself in a ship, off Chile.

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When it was suggested that the ship he was on should mutiny,

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he wanted no part in that.

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So, they said, "Well, if you don't want any part, we're going to put you off!" And put him off, they did.

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And he landed in the islands that we now know as Juan Fernandez Islands.

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In particular, Robinson Crusoe Island.

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Largo was twinned with Juan Fernandez Island, just before a tsunami struck.

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Since then, Largo children have been raising funds

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to rebuild the school there.

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We found out about Juan Fernandez Island

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when one of the people from the town went

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and they set up a twinning project with the two towns -

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the town on the island, St John The Baptist

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and Lundin Links in Largo.

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There's been an earthquake in Chile and it didn't take very long

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but the shudders vibrated the sea and it made a tsunami...

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..most of their town was destroyed along with their school.

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When that happened we decided, "Right, we need to raise money for this. We need to help them."

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We're sort of, like, friends together,

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so we need to get them back on track.

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Well, we've already raised with our sponsored walk, over £1,000,

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and we've sent that over to help with the school

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and help rebuild the society.

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It's just sort of, to make their lives easier.

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I've made a detour back to Burntisland.

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It was at a meeting here,

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of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, in 1601,

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that the idea of the 1611 King James Bible was conceived.

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In the 16th century, in the wake of the Reformation,

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various vernacular translations

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of the Bible into English had been produced.

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All of them controversial for various reasons,

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partly because they were littered with mistakes.

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When King James VI became James I of England,

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the Scots said, "Please, don't forget our Presbyterian request

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"to get a new Bible."

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The tragedy is that King James immediately -

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when he had arrived in England, in the year 1604, said -

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"I will give you a Bible, but not the way you expected."

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He's reported to have said

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Scottish Presbyterianism and monarchy go together

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as well as God and the Devil,

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and so, he wanted to have a new translation,

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which would rather absorb and include difference of opinion,

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rather than favouring one side and thereby annoying the other.

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I'm travelling further along the Fife coast now

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to St Andrews, to find out about a more recent but very unusual

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translation of the Bible into Scots.

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"Ae day some fowk brocht forrit their bairns

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"for Jesus tae pit his haunds on them.

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"The disciples begoud tae quarrel them..."

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It's the work of the late Robert Lorimer,

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who was Professor of Greek at St Andrews University.

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"..come tae me, seekna tae hender them;

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"it is een sie as them at the Kingdom o God belangs...

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"..Syne he tuik the littlans in his oxter

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"an pat his haunds on them an gae them his blissin."

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-I love that, "The littlans to his oxter!"

-He puts them in under his arm, yeah.

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It's interesting, the language is simple and it's forceful

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but it's not, it's not simplistic, it's not...

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No, no, I mean, this guy who did it

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was a Greek scholar, he knew the Greek New Testament,

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he'd gone back to the original and thought very carefully about it,

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it took him ten years to make this version.

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What does it do to you, to hear the Bible in Scots, like that?

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I love the expression, "The Loch o Galilee"

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because it makes it very immediate.

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Although that's about water, it grounds it.

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"Ae day he wis gaein alangside the Loch o Galilee, whan he saw

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"Simon an his brither Andro castin their net i the watter -

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"they war fishers tae tredd - an he said til them,

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"'Come awa efter me, an i s'mak ye men-fishers;'

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"an strecht they quat their nets an fallowt him."

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I warmed to it quite immediately.

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It's a Jesus who hasn't gone to elocution lessons.

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So, he sounds quite warm,

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gets in under the radar,

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there's a vernacular immediacy to it.

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Words like, "Bairns," that Christ uses in the Bible, here,

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you could go onto a bus between here and Dundee

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and people would be speaking that way.

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So, maybe there's a slight class aspect to it,

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but there's also just a vernacularity

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that's hard to hear now, in the King James Bible.

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The King James Bible is such an orthodox,

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and to many people, a rather posh voice.

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This isn't posh-voiced in that sense.

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King James was a hater of democracy.

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He was very against Scots Presbyterianism

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and the King James Bible is not a Presbyterian version of the Bible.

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This, I think, is written by somebody who'd grown up

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very much in Scots Presbyterianism

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and with the vernacular Scots tongue of the people.

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So, to me, it has a kind of democratic accent.

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# Jesu

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# Joy of man's desiring

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# Holy wisdom

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# Love most bright

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# Drawn by Thee

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# Our souls aspiring

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# Soar to uncreated light

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# Word of God

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# Our flesh that fashioned

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# With the fire

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# Of life impassioned

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# Striving still

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# To truth unknown

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# Soaring

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# Dying

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# Round Thy

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# throne. #

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'We thank you for the faith, which inspired those

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'who gave us the buildings, where we can be still and reflect.'

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'We thank you for the vision, which has given us the opportunity

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'to make others' lives better and to play our part

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'in bringing your kingdom, here on Earth.'

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'We thank you for the words we use to shed new light

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'on our understanding of Jesus' life.'

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We close with an old favourite,

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Timothy Dudley-Smith's popular hymn,

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Lord For The Years.

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'Next week, we're back in St Andrews University,

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'whose 600th anniversary

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'celebrations were kicked off earlier this year

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'by two of its best known graduates, Prince William and Kate Middleton.

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'We'll be meeting the Prince's former tutor

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'and we'll have hymns from the university chapel

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'and from Dunfermline Abbey.'

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Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd

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E-mail [email protected]

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