THere yis go

THE TERROR TIME
(1964, The Travelling People)
Winter. . . that’s ... the terror time. No place to go nor doesn’t know where to go. Doesn’t know any place to go and sit. And it doesn’t matter whether it’s snowing or blowing,you’ve got to go.
—Maggie Cameron, Inverness Traveller, recorded in a bow-tent at Cookson’s field, Alyth, Perthshire, Scotland, 1964

alternative title: “The Winter (sung by Joe Heaney and by Elisabeth and Jane Stewart

The heather will fade and the bracken will die,
Streams will run cold and clear.
And the small birds will be going,
And it’s then you will be knowing
That the terror time is near.

Whaur will ye turn, noo, whaur will ye bide
Noo that the wark’s a’ done?
For the fairmer doesna need ye
And the council winna heed ye,
And the terror time has come.

The woods give no shelter, the trees they are bare,
Snow falling all around.
And the children they are crying
And the bed in which they’re lying
Is frozen to the ground.

The snaw winna lift and the stove winna draw,
There’s ice in the water churn;
In the mud and snaw you’re sloshing
Trying to do a bit o’ washing,
And the kindling winna burn.


Needing the warmth of your own human kind,
You move near a town, but then
Well, the sight of you’s offending
And the police they soon are sending—
And you’re on the road again.

“There was about three foot of snow and would you believe that I had to pull down that tent among that snow. And when I come foment the police office in Auchterarder, the horse fell. The horse fell down and the two policemen came out with their fingers in their tunics like that and commenced to sneer and laugh. “My word, ” I says, “you two men has something to laugh at. ” “Get that up,” he says, “andget the bleezes out of here.”
—Sandy Cameron, Inverness Traveller, 1962