The very first song that I sang in a Folk club - it was 1964 in Beckenham - was The Jute Mill Song sung and written by Mary Brooksbank.
In 1969, I was delighted to hear her sing the song in the George Square Theatre in Edinburgh in a concert full of the great Scottish traditional singers. It was organised by the SoSS and compered by Hamish Henderson.
I had the chance to have a short conversation with her at the end of the concert and I was very impressed by her. I knew that she had been a union activist all her life but the only information that I had about her was the interview that the Dundee journalist and writer Maurice Fleming had conducted with her for Chapbook Vol.3, No.4: (1966) and the brief introduction to her book of poems and songs poetry and songs, which she eventually published also in 1966, in a collection called Sidlaw Breezes. The cost of the book was covered by Mary herself, and she lost money on it.

When Michael Marra was preparing a show for the Dundee Rep. on Mary and the jute mills, he was finding it difficult to gather information on her so he contacted me as he knew that I had met her. All that I could do, realistically, was to refer him to the two sources that I have mentioned.

As I wrote in a previous post, the copy of Dear Far Voiced Veteran arrived in the post yesterday. Imagine my delight, therefore, when I started reading it last night and the second article. by Margaret Bennett turned out to be in the main, a transcription of a long and detailed interview of Mary by Hamish in her home on 22nd May 1968. I know now a great deal more about this very important seminal figure than I did previously.

I have a feeling that there are going to be many more delights for me in this book.