The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #144129   Message #3332096
Posted By: Vic Smith
01-Apr-12 - 01:21 PM
Thread Name: A.L. Lloyd - 'Songs of the People'
Subject: RE: A.L. Lloyd - 'Songs of the People'
Jim Carroll wrote:-
"another on The Hebrides."


I certainly remember that one vividly. I think that Bert was working with Philip Donnellan on that programme. Two superb scenes come back from memory:-

* A Gaelic lament is being sung whilst the camera pans around the rocky landscape of Barra. After quite a while, the focus is gradually shortened and we can see that we have been looking through a window. Another pause and the camera swings slowly around reveals that we are in a fairly crowded croft room, a musical party because some people are holding instruments. Eventually the camera seeks out the face of the magnificent singer who is singing the lament and we can confirm our suspicion that the voice belongs to Flora McNeill. At the end of the song, we are told the voiceover tells us that we are in Flora's home.

* The film crew are filming an interview in the home of one of the high bards. It might have been Calum Ruadh Nicolson on Skye; certainly someone of that high status. At one time the interviewee looks around the room says in his slow, heavily accented English, something like, "How would you all feel if you were witnessing the end of your language.... the loss of all your culture?" The cameraman seeks out the faces of the film crew, producer, microphone man, etc. and they all look rather sheepish.

Memory tells me that this was one of a short series on traditional culture and that another in the series was about The Stewarts of Blair.

A lot of Philip Donellen's material became part of the Charles Parker archive in Birmingham, - http://www.birmingham.gov.uk/charlesparkerarchive - now (I believe) fully digitised with copies available through the National Sound Archive.