I found this mention of John McEvoy written in Frontline in 2010



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John McEvoy

Dear Sir/Madam,

I would like to correct you on one point which I think is important.

The Wee Magic Stane is written by John McEvoy my grandfather.

Ewan McVicar has informed me that Timothy Neat's biography of Hamish Henderson uses both spellings( McAvoy, McEvoy). For what reason I do not know. I would like to get to the bottom of this.

I don't know why his first name is given as Johnny. I have only ever heard my grandmother Ella call him John. In the family he was always called John. He may have been called Johnny in his younger days.

John is still living in Lynn of Lorne Nursing Home, though too old to speak out on this issue. To respect the man and his legacy I think it is more appropriate to call him by his name John McEvoy.

Ian Hamilton replied to my email and said he remembered John.

The article itself is very interesting. Before I knew much about the wee stane, John sang his song at the dinner table on a visit to New Zealand in 1990.

Regards,

Dominic Bowley from Auckland, New Zealand

Bill Scott replies:

Dear Dominic,

Great to hear from you. I didn't know that Frontline had such an international readership!

Absolutely no disrespect was meant by me when using "Johnny McAvoy" rather than John McEvoy. As I'm only in my 50s myself I had to use secondary sources and they vary in spelling your grandfather's surname as McAvoy and McEvoy, some even use both! For example see this German hosted website on traditional song which attributes the song's authorship to "Johnny McAvoy" -
On the other hand this site and several others give your grand-dad's name correctly as "John McEvoy".

I also, as you suspected, used Timothy Neat's bio of Henderson as a source and so have compounded the confusion. Happy for Frontline to carry a correction. Please accept my apologies for the mis-attribution. From now on if I refer to your grand-dad's song it will be correctly attributed to John McEvoy.

However I do think that some people may have called your grand-dad "Johnny" way back then as some of his contemporaries on the folk scene give his name as "Johnny" when referring to him in writing (e.g. Thurso Berwick/Morris Blythman does whereas Alex Campbell does not). I myself was "Billy" to everyone until I hit my mid-20s but friends made since then, including my wife, have always known me as "Bill" - however my family still refer to me as "Billy". Therefore if you asked my current friends if they knew a "Billy" Scott they'd probably say no. It may well be the opposite with your family where your grandfather was always "John" to them.

Regardless of all that speculation the real intention of the article was to tell a new generation of independence supporters about Ian Hamilton and co's reiving and also about the great song that was written about it. It's one of the first Scottish republican songs that I remember hearing (performed live by Hamish Imlach) and it's a great comic song. Your grand-dad has every reason to be proud of it (and therefore for it to be correctly attributed).

If you are in contact with your grand-dad please pass on my best wishes.

All the Best,

Bill Scott


So there is a chance that he may still be alive but apparently unable to help clear the matter