Jamie Stone: Music is a comfort amongst all of life’s challenges
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Just to lighten things up – and goodness knows we could do with it during these dark and fearful days – I thought that I would wax musical for a change.
Many years ago I worked as a toilet cleaner at Kishorn where they were building the massive concrete Ninian Central oil platform.
“There’s a show on in Lochcarron – let’s go to it,” suggested my fellow wielder of the brush and Vim, Hugh.
So it was that I went to my first ever Boys of the Lough concert, and the first time I ever heard the Shetland fiddler Aly Bain play.
I was transfixed.
Although I had learnt the traditional fiddle myself at school, this was music like I’d never heard before.
In particular, it was Aly’s rendition of Margaret’s Waltz that pulled at the heartstrings.
I’ve never forgotten it.
Fast forward to a very different life from scrubbing the china – to a life of politics and Donald Dewar’s funeral in Glasgow Cathedral.
By some quirk of fate I, a lowly backbencher, was sat in a front row directly opposite all the former Secretaries of State for Scotland.
However, more important than these august gentlemen, was the duo sitting to the right and facing directly into the central aisle: Aly Bain and Phil Cunningham.
As Donald’s coffin slowly left the cathedral, they struck up on the fiddle and the accordion.
They played sad slow airs and then, most astonishingly, their own brilliant interpretation of Hubert Parry’s greatest melody, “Jerusalem”.
I could not believe what I was hearing, and I must admit that it was such a moving rendition that I was not the only one with a tear in my eye.
It seemed to do justice to the great man who had left us all too soon.
And then again, the tempo changes – this time, as I wander up the train from Edinburgh to Inverness, in search of a dram.
“Och, it’s you Jamie! Come and join us, we’re having a wee ceilidh here.”
My eyes nearly popped out of my head. It was Phil and Aly – again with the accordion and fiddle, but this time wending their way northwards by way of rail and libation, in celebration of the fact that Aly had just sold his flat in Edinburgh for a very good price.
You know, your life of three score years and 10 can only hold so many truly vivid memories.
For me, the train journey with Phil and Aly and their music, and all the other people who gradually joined their end of the carriage, remains very bright indeed.
As we trundled down the final brae into Inverness we were all in fantastic trim (and looking back, it is now quite clear that a taxi home to Tain was the most prudent course of action).
I haven’t seen either of them in the flesh since then, but of course their musical renditions today are as famous as ever they were.
So really I end where I began – with music being good for us all.
That is why keeping musical instruction in our schools free for pupils is absolutely crucial. Let’s face it, who doesn’t feel better for the skirl of the pipes or a wee tune on a cold night when we need cheering up?
