As I'm sure Jim would agree Ewan's wonderful song was a lament for the passing of a way of life and a culture. A culture that I have some memory of....."They'll soon have machines....and the travellin' queens and their menfolk will need tae be shiftin".

I remember the travelling queens in Bute and the small farms of Mid Argyll....the tattie howkin' the shawin' o' neeps.....all gone just as MacColl prophesied.

Sorrowfully they are a sector of society which has just run out of road.