I've just returned to Connecticut from Edinburgh where I attended Hamish's funeral service. It was a grand affair. St. Mary's Episcopal Cathedral was packed with six hundred friends, family, students, and the generations of musicians Hamish has inspired and mentored over the years. Brian McNeil and a group of young fiddle players played slow airs as we all took our seats. Then a lone piper played the coffin in to begin the many musical tributes of the afternoon. Stories were told, songs were sung, and it was very clear how deeply he was loved and respected not only by Scotland but by the international folk community as well.

The speakers and singers included Allan MacDonald, Adam McNaughtan, Tim Neat, Sheila Stewart ("Jock Stewart"), Margaret Bennett (a beautiful Gaelic song), Janet Henderson, Joy Hendry (several poems), Freddie Freeman, and Alison McMorland ("The Flytin o Life and Daith" set to music). The hymns were both sung to traditional tunes – "Be Thou My Vision to "Slane," an ancient Irish tune, and "Who Would True Valour See" to "Monk's Gate," a traditional English tune collected by Vaughan Williams. The service was conducted by Canon Kenyan Wright. Hamish had asked him many years ago to do so, and Canon Wright agreed on the condition that if he went first, Hamish would sing at his funeral. Canon Wright brought out Hamish's note, which he had carried with him in the intervening years. The service ended with Brian Miller and Arthur Johnstone and the entire congregation singing Hamish's "Freedom Come All Ye" over and over as the coffin was carried out and the cathedral emptied. What a sound!

Afterwards, the "wake" was at the Pleasance Bar, where the Edinburgh Folk Club meets on Wednesday evenings. After about an hour of chit chat and socializing, Margaret Bennett organized a four-hour sing-around with everyone doing a single song or poem or story, most of them representing one of the many facets of Hamish's long and varied career – songwriter, poet, author, collector, World War II veteran, socialist. And then a trip to Sandy Bell's for a session and to raise one last pint to Hamish.