Songs and Stories of Scotland

New Zealand Listener, Volume 24, Issue 622, 1 June 1951, Page 17

Songs and Stories of Scotland

BAN, on the west coast of Scotland, a port from which thousands of people leave every year on trips to the storied Western Isles, ig. also the point of departure for a new series of programmes, Songs and Stories of Scotland, to be heard from 2YA at 7,30 p.m. on Wednesdays. The’ first will be broadcast on June 6. They try to recapture something of the heather-clad hilis, the misty moors, the dark lochs, the winding glens and the smoke of peat fires. They should appeal to all with a drop of Scots blood in their veins. Songs and Stories of Scotland takes listeners wandering through Scotlandto the Highlands, the Lowlands, and the many islands; and wherever it takes them the narrator, Gordon McNair, has something to say about the events of the past associated with the countryside. He strikes a topical note almost at the beginning with references to the Stone of Scone, for the stone was once kept in Dunstaffnage Castle, not far from Oban. But Songs and Stories of Scotland is not all history. There is something about the customs of the people, and there are stories of the present agelike the one about Marjorie KennedyFraser, who went to the Hebridean isles in search of folk songs, little thinking that she was "sailing into a world that would hold me in its grip for the rest of my life." Linking the stories of Scotland together in these programmes are its songs -Wae's Me for Prince Charlie, Flora ' MacDonald’s Lament, Eillan Fraoch, Farewell to Fuinary, and others. These are sung by Helen Bennett (soprano) and George Gunn (baritone), No Scots programme would be complete, of ycourse, without bagpipes. These are played by Roy Gunn.