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Subject: Mary Brooksbank - NO Wikipedia entry??? From: GeoffLawes Date: 24 Jun 12 - 11:51 AM I have just checked Wikipedia and am amazed to discover that the Scots poet, songwriter and political activist Mary Brooksbank does not have a Wikipedia entry. Them that work the hardest, are wi' the least provided. This needs sorting, surely? As of 2017: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Brooksbank |
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Subject: RE: Mary Brooksbank - NO Wikipedia entry??? From: GUEST,999 Date: 24 Jun 12 - 11:58 AM Get on it, Geoff. |
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Subject: RE: Mary Brooksbank - NO Wikipedia entry??? From: GUEST,999 Date: 24 Jun 12 - 01:05 PM PS: I'd be glad to help. |
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Subject: RE: Mary Brooksbank - NO Wikipedia entry??? From: GeoffLawes Date: 24 Jun 12 - 04:40 PM I do not know how to do Wikipedia entries -and besides there are 5.5 million Scots ahead of me in the queue. |
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Subject: RE: Mary Brooksbank - NO Wikipedia entry??? From: GeoffLawes Date: 24 Jun 12 - 05:56 PM Although this sassenach has had a pretty good go already:http://www.grahamstevenson.me.uk/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=70:mary-brooksbank&catid=2:b&Itemid=98 |
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Subject: RE: Mary Brooksbank - NO Wikipedia entry??? From: GUEST,999 Date: 24 Jun 12 - 06:21 PM Quite a woman. |
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Subject: RE: Mary Brooksbank - NO Wikipedia entry??? From: Effsee Date: 24 Jun 12 - 10:39 PM My mother was a friend of her's, she told me that during the 2 minute silence of the Remembrance Day, the only sound to be heard in the Jute Mill was the clacking of Mary's knitting needles, in her disapproval of such a thing. My Auntie Annie, who was a nun, also gets a mention in one of her books. She died of malnutrition at the hands of the Japanese in Burma whilst nursing a colony of lepers which the British Army refused to evacuate. |
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Subject: RE: Mary Brooksbank - NO Wikipedia entry??? From: MGM·Lion Date: 25 Jun 12 - 12:44 AM I think greatly, as do we all of Mary Brooksbank's songs, and admire what I know of her in general; but must say that I cannot see any virtue in anyone's, whatever their political principles or persuasion, disrespecting the Two-Minute Silence, the object of which is to honour, among others, those such as Effsee's Aunt. Most disappointed to learn of that. ~Michael~ |
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Subject: RE: Mary Brooksbank - NO Wikipedia entry??? From: Gutcher Date: 25 Jun 12 - 04:10 AM Good for Mrs.Brooksbanks. These ceremonies are usually set up by those with a vested interest in encouraging war and who thus need a constant stream of cannon fodder. Unfortunatly economic circumstances prevail that ensure that this need is met. Was it Wilde who said " Patrionism is the last refuge of the scoundrel"? True grief and mourning for the departed is practiced in private and is not made a public show off led by self seeking politicians and others who only flourish in the rarefied air of self publicity. |
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Subject: RE: Mary Brooksbank - NO Wikipedia entry??? From: MGM·Lion Date: 25 Jun 12 - 04:42 AM So why do all people, in pretty well every known culture, wish publicly to express their mourning and honour their dead with funerals, Gutcher? Patriotism [learn to spell] is not the issue here ~ or if you think it is, kindly be more specific as to how. It wasn't Wilde, it was Samuel Johnson, whose pronouncements were about equally constituted of brilliance and idiocy. You are entitled to your opinion of course; but you seem to me to have argued it very foolishly and confusedly and ineptly. ~M ~ |
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Subject: RE: Mary Brooksbank - NO Wikipedia entry??? From: peregrina Date: 25 Jun 12 - 06:38 AM Seems very odd to hasten to judge Mary Brooksbank here without fuller information about how she explained what she was doing and why. She was obviously a person of strong principles and courage and compassion; more first hand information about her convictions and actions-and about the context of such memorials-- would be interesting. |
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Subject: RE: Mary Brooksbank - NO Wikipedia entry??? From: Gutcher Date: 25 Jun 12 - 06:49 AM From your last post MtheGM are we to take it that you are so perfect that you have never made a spelling mistake? As to the quote, at my age one can be excused for a slip of the memory, we cannot all be such paragons as you would have us believe you are, you may not have noticed the question mark at the end of the quote. As to wars and the glorification of them two fairly recent examples of what I was conveying in my last post come to mind:-- Can you honestly deny that Mrs. Thatcher and her immediate family did not profit hugely from the wars she led this country into? Did not a certain Mr T. Blair, that stalwart of the Labour movement, become a multi- millionare by wading through the blood of thousands of innocent people. I rest my case. In a long live I have found it most unprofitable to bandy words with such a superior being as you deem yourself to be, so I will be making no further comment. |
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Subject: RE: Mary Brooksbank - NO Wikipedia entry??? From: Gutcher Date: 25 Jun 12 - 06:56 AM Dear me I am at it again ----life not live |
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Subject: RE: Mary Brooksbank - NO Wikipedia entry??? From: Big Al Whittle Date: 25 Jun 12 - 07:09 AM Fascinating. You don't hear The Jute Mill Song as much these days. I suppose -born in the 1940's- our generation were among the last who knew the survivors of that terrible pre-war poverty. They were horror stories to us - they were the nightmares our parents and grandparents had lived through and didn't want for us. Perhaps the best place for songs like that is the library. there's a sort of arrogance in believing you can stretch out a hand backwards through the years towards and understand Mary and her world. I would love to see her in wikipedia. But I'm not sure that a sub operatic version of the Jute Mill song is the sort of thing that will say anything worthwhile or is likely to be listened to by modern folk. |
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Subject: RE: Mary Brooksbank - NO Wikipedia entry??? From: Vic Smith Date: 25 Jun 12 - 07:37 AM What year was the International Ballad Conference in Edinburgh in the late '60s/early '70s? My prime memory of that was a concert at the George Square Theatre with Hamish Henderson introducing the cream of the Scots Tradition. I had already heard most of the characters on stage that day - Jeannie Robertson, Lizzie Higgins, Willie Scott, Calum Riach Nicholson, Flora MacNeill etc. - were all in the semi-circle on stage. One face I did not know was a very small woman sitting in the middle of the arc. She has her overcoat tied up tight and her arms folded across it and what appeared to be a furry blue tea cosy on her head. When Hamish called her up to sing, she stood up and took her coat off. This revealed that she was wearing a working overall over her dress. She walked up to the microphone - "Ach! A've forgotten tae tak' aff ma pinny!" she said before launching in to a mesmerising, unforgettable set of songs. I was already singing her Jute Mill Song by then, but as a result of that concert, I also learned Hey, Donald and the one, that title of which I have forgotten, that starts:- I am a Dundee Lassie, that's easy for to see.... * There is now a special needs school in Dundee named after her - very appropriate for one of her many campaigns was to make think easier for those with disabilities. * Read an excellent biography of her by clicking here * Didn't Michael Marra co-write a theatre show about her? I think it might have been called The Mill Lavvies though that may have been another of his shows. |
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Subject: RE: Mary Brooksbank - NO Wikipedia entry??? From: The Borchester Echo Date: 25 Jun 12 - 07:44 AM That biog was written by Graham Stevenson who is not only a prolific socialist writer and trade union activist but also played cricket for Yorkshire. Multi-tasking, eh? |
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Subject: RE: Mary Brooksbank - NO Wikipedia entry??? From: MGM·Lion Date: 25 Jun 12 - 11:36 AM Gutcher ~~ What do you mean, you rest your case? What case? What have Thatcher & Blair to do whatever with the point at issue ~~ whatever you might think it to be? Your thought processes remain entirely impenetrable to me. And what long life? I am 80, FWIW. How old you? Strained sarcasm is a poor substitute for rational argument. ~M~ |
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Subject: RE: Mary Brooksbank - NO Wikipedia entry??? From: Big Al Whittle Date: 25 Jun 12 - 11:52 AM A great song, how ever you call it. Write a song like that and you should get an allowance with your pension for your gift to everyone. |
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Subject: RE: Mary Brooksbank - NO Wikipedia entry??? From: Northerner Date: 25 Jun 12 - 01:30 PM I've been singing "The Jute Mill Song" at local venues recently and it has gone down very well indeed. There is a political words and song venue in my area now and this song fits in very well with the context. We had a festival at the weekend and it was really good to see all the young people listening to folk songs and joining in. |
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Subject: RE: Mary Brooksbank - NO Wikipedia entry??? From: Bev and Jerry Date: 25 Jun 12 - 08:16 PM We just sang "The Jute Mill Song" about two weeks ago at the San Francisco Free Folk Festival in our workshop about the Industrial Revolution. In fact, we led off with it. There were a number of people there who seemed not to have heard it before so that's a good thing. Bev and Jerry |
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Subject: RE: Mary Brooksbank - NO Wikipedia entry??? From: Susanne (skw) Date: 27 Jun 12 - 03:31 PM Michael, respect for those who have died fighting wars is one thing most people will go along with. But as long as public remembrance ceremonies exist there have been attempts to create respect for war itself on the backs of those fallen. This is what I, being a socialist, cannot tolerate, and I like to think it was Mary's way of reasoning too. And another thing: I've just finished a paper on 2nd World War memorials in my area, and it is amazing how often the words "our fallen" occur on these monuments - as though neither the enemy dead nor civilians mattered. (Even worse here in Germany, of course, when "our fallen" actually were the aggressors, albeit in many cases unwilling ones.) As long as such a way of thinking prevails, particularly among those in authority, opposing public remembrance ceremonies seems entirely reasonable and justified to me. |
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Subject: RE: Mary Brooksbank - NO Wikipedia entry??? From: Joe Offer Date: 08 Jan 17 - 06:18 PM Mary Brooksbank (1897-1978) (click) - entry in Wikipedia. -Joe- |
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Subject: RE: Mary Brooksbank - NO Wikipedia entry??? From: GUEST,Chris Wright Date: 09 Jan 17 - 06:05 AM Plenty of recordings of Mary singing and talking over at the Kist o Riches site: http://tobarandualchais.co.uk/en/quicksearch/Contributor:3752 Chris |
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Subject: RE: Mary Brooksbank - NO Wikipedia entry??? From: Stilly River Sage Date: 20 Dec 22 - 11:03 AM Brooksbank came up when someone posted a link to a Facebook Working Class History group for December 15, 2022. From the post: On this day, 15 December 1897 Scottish mill worker, songwriter and socialist Mary Brooksbank was born in Aberdeen. Growing up in poverty, her baby brother died of diphtheria before the age of three. |
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Subject: RE: Mary Brooksbank - NO Wikipedia entry??? From: Tattie Bogle Date: 21 Dec 22 - 09:32 AM The Jute Mill Song still gets sung a lot in Scotland in sessions, and most people in the folk fraternity will have heard of Mary Brooksbank. Good to see, as Joe has indicated, that there is now a Wikipedia page about her. Fraser Bruce has included a section about her in his recent book "The Folk River" - and with a lovely smiling picture of her in later life, playing the fiddle. As he says "It certainly doesn't create a vision of the political firebrand that she was". |
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