Lyr Req: The glesga eskimos

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: The glesga eskimos
From: GUEST,akenaton
Date: 28 Aug 18 - 02:43 AM

Gallus, I'm surprised to hear that you thought I might be posting under another name. Jim has always been a gentleman towards me on this forum, likewise Guest Observer from whom I have learned a great deal. It upsets me to see these two people disagreeing in such terms, but this is an open discussion forum and we all have our own priorities regarding what we see as important.
BS is now an echo chamber, let us hope that vigorous discussion is not proscribed here.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: The glesga eskimos
From: Jim McLean
Date: 28 Aug 18 - 08:46 AM

I posed my question in the interest of academic research. I have no problem with healthy debate but Observer has just been nasty, his/her attitude has been obstructive, negative and vile. This is why I am taking no further part in this conversation. Apologies to GM and Akenaton.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: The glesga eskimos
From: GUEST,Observer
Date: 28 Aug 18 - 10:47 AM

Oh dear, seeking clarification on a point rather poorly stated, and offering up a article that seemed to shed some light on the OP's question is being nasty, obstructive, negative and vile. Matter of opinion I suppose but at least I do not take credit for acts carried out by others. As to your research Jim, why break the habit of a lifetime, just invent the information you think you need.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: The glesga eskimos
From: Gallus Moll
Date: 28 Aug 18 - 05:40 PM

Observer you really do talk a load of shite -- (or sh*te as this is an American site) - folk songs do not require to be factually accurate, they reflect how the people feel / felt about something!!!! Just go to the ballads - many of them originating hundreds of years ago, surviving as fragments, being reconstructed and modified to suit other eras, other areas----
Anyway - history as written by the winners of any conflict is not accurate either!!!
And as you have not actually bothered to listen to the Glesca Eskimos or probably any of the other songs from that era -- I don't see any reason why you should be pompously commenting!!! I think its a great, fun song and sang it and many of the others like Ding Dong Dollar to US naval people while they were in Dunoon - and still do anytime I get a chance! (You forgot to mention that Yanks and the general population of the USA are not synonymous- - but it disnae matter - it's part of the songs!!)
You are just nit picking and I have no idea why -- Jim McLean is a brilliant songwriter, I have been enjoying and singing many of his songs for years before even finding out he was the composer!
- What have you written?
I recently composed a ballad (is that a logical statement?!) - Ake, I hope you will appreciate this when you hear it. It is about the death / murder of Baron Macinturner on the Larach between Whistlefield and Ardentinny. There are only fragments of oral history and a little bit of written info -- not necessarily accurate, the event was in 1685 (ish) and I always felt there should be a song or ballad. Eventually it wrote itself in the right hand side of my brain, rhymes and all - and a fair bit of it is 'made up' as there are no facts on which to base the story! But it is all part of painting a picture, filling in the gaps of a dastardly deed and commemorating an event. I am hoping members of the local communities will offer additional ideas and even info, the song can be modified to incorporate these- - I certainly don't expect someone to come along and have a go at me for what, in their opinion, is inaccurate!!!!
Awa' and write yer ain sang!!!
(Ake I humbly apologise for thinking you were grumpy observer!!! Ah should hae kent better!)

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: The glesga eskimos
From: GUEST,Observer
Date: 28 Aug 18 - 06:46 PM

as you have not actually bothered to listen to the Glesca Eskimos or probably any of the other songs from that era

Now as you apparently cannot read or comprehend the English language Gallus Moll, here once again is what was said:

Taking credit and stealing the thunder of others by false appropriation is, I think rather despicable, making the song itself nothing more than a "braggart's" chant. Thankfully, in all the decades that I have been attending folk clubs, concerts and festivals, I have never heard it sung.

I have however read the lyrics (Difficult not to - they appear in this thread) but I would suggest that there is a marked difference in someone who has not actually bothered to listen to the Glesca Eskimos and someone who has never heard it sung

But Gallus as someone who thinks the song is a great, fun song

Taking this bit first:

We'll gaff that nyaff ca'd Lanin
We'll spear him whaur he blows
We are the Glesca Eskimos

Well the "Glesca Eskimos" gaffed nobody did they - they were totally ineffectual and none actually existed when Laning and the Proteus turned up according to Jim McLean.

We've been in mony a rammy, lads, we've been in mony a tear
We've sortit oot this kind afore, we'll sort them onywhere
O, get yuir harpoons ready--he's comin up for air
--We are the Glesca Eskimos

"Been in mony a rammy, we've been in mony a tear" - very much doubt it.

"We've sortit oot this kind before, we'll sort them onywhere" - The Glesca Eskimos as described by McLean sortit oot naebody, they couldn't even be bothered to turn up on the day. They achieved S.F.A.

I would have thought for a song to be relevant it would have to bear some, even the vaguest, semblance to the events the song describes.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: The glesga eskimos
From: GUEST,Gallus Moll (away from home!)
Date: 29 Aug 18 - 05:23 AM

It's a folk song, ffs - no' a thesis!!!!

- how about you direct us to some - one? - of your own compositions, so we may view an example of how it should be done?

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: The glesga eskimos
From: GUEST,Observer
Date: 29 Aug 18 - 06:35 AM

Ah Gallus so only people who have written songs are allowed to comment on someone else's work. When did that become the rule? Or like McLean did you just make that up as it suits whatever your drift on things is?

"The Glesga Eskimos" = Bunch of ineffectual posers who actually did nothing and achieved nothing apart from writing daft songs boasting about things that they never did and had no part in. That Gallus is the truth of the matter.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: The glesga eskimos
From: GUEST,akenaton
Date: 29 Aug 18 - 06:48 AM

I think perhaps "poetic licence" is the thing we are discussing Gallus. Guest Observer's points do appear to be valid, tho' I would not have expressed them to Jim so forcibly.
Personally, I'm not too keen on folk music as a political vehicle these days, but I'm also sure Jim wrote the song with entertainment and humour in mind.....preaching to the converted :0), but I'm afraid most of the great political ideas that I have had in my life, have perished in the depths of despair, or the rocks of reality.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: The glesga eskimos
From: Gallus Moll
Date: 02 Sep 18 - 01:14 PM

Dear Observer, I bow to your expertise and superior knowledge - you are obviously a world expert on -- everything?
Tho' it does seem strange that you waited 55 years to offer your belated and unhelpful criticism to Jim, just think how much better his huge body of work might have been with your earlier input.....? (not!!)
Fortunately for people like me, we have thoroughly enjoyed all the Jim Mclean songs we have come across, feeling they captured a moment in time; we added many of them to our own repertoires, some are still relevant today.
So - - why don't you go and compose your own meticulously researched songs, accurate to nth degree -as for the rest of us -jist leez'alane!

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: The glesga eskimos
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 02 Sep 18 - 02:01 PM

and Observer....Puff the Magic Dragon didn't really live by the sea, but it rhymed with Honalee you see.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: The glesga eskimos
From: GUEST,Observer
Date: 02 Sep 18 - 02:30 PM

Ah well Gallus if your taste and stated preference in songs runs to deliberately misleading propaganda, then Jim McLean's efforts tick every box.

An observation Mr MacKenzie, I find it rather ludicrous that a man of your age still believes in dragons, I know for certain that I have always understood them to be mythical creatures. I take it that that is why you must obviously believe in the worth of Jim McLean's sometime equally invented and mythical version of events.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: The glesga eskimos
From: GUEST,Anne Neilson
Date: 03 Sep 18 - 04:31 PM

If I could offer a wee suggestion?

Having known (and heard and sung) these songs since they were first written, I never understood them as presenting historical records of events. It was always my belief that their proper purpose was to build morale and help keep a sense of focus and solidarity in a struggle that was never going to be either quick or easy.

I remember a dear friend saying that irreverent protest songs of this type were potentially more useful -- especially on a march where pavement spectators might only catch a small section of one of the more wordy, hymn-like protests like 'The H-Bomb's Thunder': making melodic bullet points (snappy statements with much repetition) allowed bystanders to pick it up very quickly!

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: The glesga eskimos
From: Jim McLean
Date: 04 Sep 18 - 04:32 AM

The reason I entered this thread was from an academic standpoint I wanted and still want to find the date when Captain Laning reputedly said "We're not worried. They're jus a bunch of goddam Eskimos".
I wanted this information to date the writing of the song "The Glasgow Eskimos" by T S Law.
Observer's intervention's have been incorrect and full of poisonous insults. The NVA data example was written in 2012 and merely conflated "demonstrators " with "Eskimos" and the writer's sources were empty of information and confirmation.
I had and have no intention of discussing the merits of "protest" songs pertaining to my serious quest in seeking the date of Captain Laning's quote. This is purely academic and Observer's sneering at my using the British Library rather pay to use the Scotsman's data base is a new low.
If you have nothing positive to add to my enquiry I suggest you 'Tak the road an' seek ither loanings for your ill ploy tae sport and play'.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: The glesga eskimos
From: GUEST,Observer
Date: 04 Sep 18 - 08:55 AM

The NVA Data Base article was one I found and posted as it appeared to shed light pertinent to the original enquiry. It obviously didn't, no skin of my nose.

As for the Scotsman's archives and the British Library here is what I wrote once you had clarified an earlier question of mine:

GUEST,Observer
Date: 23 Aug 18 - 12:16 PM

Ah, thanks for the explanation. The Scotsman's online archive contains content of the newspaper from 1817, or 1855 UP TO 1950. From 1950 onward you have to pay, hence your trip to the British Library - got it.

Please point out where the "sneering" is identified in that post. Besides McLean, being based, as you are, down in London the British Library would be a damned sight more convenient and wider source for your research than that of The Scotsman archives which I presume are located up in Edinburgh - which makes your choice perfect common sense and I do not believe that I made any reference to you paying, or not paying anything, so you can tuck that new low away as I never made any comment about it at all. Just mark it down as yet another McLean myth, something that has never happened.

The events that you are looking into occurred in 1961, so why were you looking at articles printed in The Scotsman 1971 (YOUR post this thread Jim McLean Date: 23 Aug 18 - 12:54 PM) or was that just a typo.

IF what you have told us is in any way factual we know the following:

1: You were not on the first demo at all, as the first demo was the one made by those English CND protesters in kayaks who tried to impede and interfere with the mooring of the USS Proteus in the Holy Loch on the 3rd March 1961.

2: IF Captain Richard Laning USN had made any comment regarding "Goddam Eskimos" at all, he would have been referring to the protesters in the kayaks who were present when the USS Proteus was coming in to moor on the 3rd March.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: The glesga eskimos
From: GUEST,Anne Neilson
Date: 04 Sep 18 - 02:40 PM

Observer, I think you are being somewhat obtuse -- or, possibly. trolling (as Jim has suggested).

I don't think it would be difficult to show (from TV and press reports) that the original protest on 3/3/61 involved more than just a few kayakers : I'm absolutely certain that there will be print and video evidence of onshore activity, either marching or sitting.

But what I do know, without a shadow of a doubt, is that one of the treasures of the whole protest is the grand song 'The Eskimo Republic'

   Where there is nae class and there is nae boss
   Nae kings or queens and damn the loss
   And you get boozed up for a six-month doss
   In the Eskimo Republic!

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: The glesga eskimos
From: Tattie Bogle
Date: 04 Sep 18 - 03:13 PM

I have observed that Observer (always Guest, why not sign up properly) has a habit of jumping on people from a height, and doing down their posts. (Including one or 2 of mine - I await results!) Is that "flaming" or "trolling"? If I've read his or her post of 28th August correctly, he/she has never heard it being sung. But difficult to interpret what exactly is going on here, with so many quotes and re-quotes going on.
But for the record, Guest Observer, the song is still very much alive and kicking, still being sung, by the likes of Danny Couper, Ewan McVicar, Alastair McDonald and other less famous people in plenty of song sessions in Scotland.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: The glesga eskimos
From: GUEST,Anne Neilson
Date: 04 Sep 18 - 03:55 PM

Well said, Tattie Bogle.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: The glesga eskimos
From: GUEST,Observer
Date: 04 Sep 18 - 07:59 PM

I don't think it would be difficult to show (from TV and press reports) that the original protest on 3/3/61 involved more than just a few kayakers : I'm absolutely certain that there will be print and video evidence of onshore activity, either marching or sitting.

You are probably right GUEST Anne, but none of them would have been Jim McLean or any of his pals as he himself drew our attention to the fact that none of them went down there until AFTER Proteus had moored up. The photograph he draws attention to was taken, according to him, on the 4th March, 1961.

IF Laning made any reference to any protesters in terms of them just being Goddam Eskimos then he was NOT referring to Jim McLean and his pals, so why did McLean and said pals feel they had any right to appropriate name - they after all had done nothing to deserve it as all the work and all the risk had been taken by others.

The Eskimo Republic? Another braggarts chant by the sound of it.

As for "The Glesga Eskimos", if indeed - the song is still very much alive and kicking, still being sung, by the likes of Danny Couper, Ewan McVicar, Alastair McDonald and other less famous people in plenty of song sessions in Scotland. - all I can say is that I have never heard them, or anybody else do so. Going through "The Eskimo Republic Song Book" the songs therein are dated, naive, puerile, pathetic and all a bit sad really.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: The glesga eskimos
From: GUEST,akenaton
Date: 05 Sep 18 - 03:23 AM

Well, my view is that the anti Polaris songs were "of their time". I was only sixteen at the time, and these songs were sung regularly at folk clubs and very occasionally on TV.
The local people who were involved in the demonstration were only a tiny minority, mostly left wing Labour supporters in a county and a country which was pretty Conservative.
Looking back, it was a tiny political demonstration, which aught to have been a huge National one.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: The glesga eskimos
From: GUEST,Ewan McVicar
Date: 05 Sep 18 - 04:19 AM

I just encountered this rammy.
I and Jim always use our own name in this place. I can understand why Observer needs not to. I would too I suppose if I were flinging around accusations, insults, and often unsubstantiated assertions.
'Puerile, pathetic and all a bit sad really'. Very true of much said above by Observer. I've heard some of these songs performed by others a half a dozen times in the past four years, but as nostalgia or historical references.
They, like most songs, were indeed of their time, they lived and then they died. The books and the recordings are stuffed with dead songs. Maybe 3% [unsubstantiated figure warning] survive to be sung 'live' say five years [ufw] after they are made. Please supply your own calculation on this.
Ewan

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: The glesga eskimos
From: GUEST,Ewan McVicar
Date: 05 Sep 18 - 04:28 AM

Please do not feel you have to make your own calculation, it should have been a suggestion rather than a formal request.
Ewan

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: The glesga eskimos
From: GUEST,Observer
Date: 05 Sep 18 - 06:57 AM

This is primarily to Ewan McVicar.

Of the song, which then in this thread became songs, in question - 'Puerile, pathetic and all a bit sad really'. [ My Opinion, to which I am perfectly entitled] Very true of much said above by Observer. [Your opinion Mr McVicar to which you are perfectly entitled]

Only thing is Mr McVicar, I have detailed the reasons why I hold my opinion, you on the other hand have not, and as you have decided to participate in this rammy I challenge you to point out the errors in posts, remembering of course that most of the information was supplied by Jim McLean.

Personally, and again this is entirely my own opinion, I doubt whether McLean will come up with any verifiable evidence at all that Captain Richard Laning USN ever came out with the remark mentioning "Goddam Eskimos", purportedly used to describe English protesters in kayaks attempting to interfere with the mooring of his ship in Holy Loch. I also cannot see Laning using the phrase to describe anyone standing on the shoreline.

So considering the events that actually happened for Jim McLean and his pals to claim to the world days after the mooring of the USS Porteus in Holy Loch that they were the "Glesga Eskimos" is baseless, it is a total misrepresentation of what did happen and is dishonest.

Going back to the lyrics of the song - as previously stated:

We'll gaff that nyaff ca'd Lanin
We'll spear him whaur he blows
We are the Glesca Eskimos

Well the "Glesca Eskimos" gaffed nobody did they - they were totally ineffectual and none actually existed when Laning and the Proteus turned up according to Jim McLean. Should you dispute any of that Mr McVicar take it up with McLean, after all they were his words, and nothing of the sort ever happened, or even remotely ever came to pass. So accept it for what it is a total work of fiction - an accurate way to describe something that never happened, which should lead any sane, honest person to question why the author of this fiction is NOW scrabbling about searching for proof that Laning made any reference to "Goddam Eskimos".

We've been in mony a rammy, lads, we've been in mony a tear
We've sortit oot this kind afore, we'll sort them onywhere
O, get yuir harpoons ready--he's comin up for air
--We are the Glesca Eskimos

Now that first line about the "Glesga Eskimos" having "Been in mony a rammy, we've been in mony a tear" - Tell us Mr McVicar, can you enumerate how many "rammys/rammies or indeed even rammi" Jim McLean and his fellow self-styled "Glesga Eskimos" were actually involved in, apart from having their photograph taken on the Gourock-Dunoon Ferry the day after the arrival of the USS Proteus? My guess would be NONE.

"We've sortit oot this kind before, we'll sort them onywhere" - The Glesca Eskimos as described by McLean sortit oot naebody, they couldn't even be bothered to turn up on the day. So in actual fact they did S.F.A. They achieved S.F.A.

I would have thought for a song to be relevant it would have to bear some, even the vaguest, semblance to the events the song describes. Hence my opinion that - the songs therein are dated, naive, puerile, pathetic and all a bit sad really.

Akenaton - of the times. You forgot to mention that at the time, it was at the height of what was to become known as The Cold War. At the time the UK no longer had any credible nuclear defence, I believe that the air dropped and land based weapons held by the RAF were regarded as being too vulnerable to attack. So much so that in 1958 through mutual defence agreements with the USA the UK seriously started looking at a submarine based nuclear deterrent. The first Polaris missile was successfully fire from the USS George Washington in July 1960. It was seen solely as a second strike weapon. It's range was such that the USN required forward support bases located in several parts of the world to credibly demonstrate the capability to hit its targets. Holy Loch was the first of four of such bases and USN Polaris submarines based out of the Holy Loch provided the UK with a credible nuclear deterrent until the first of the UK's own Polaris submarines (HMS Resolution) was commissioned in October 1967. Resolution fired her first test Polaris missile in February 1968.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: The glesga eskimos
From: GUEST,Ewan McVicar
Date: 05 Sep 18 - 07:41 AM

Well, Mr or Mrs or Miss or Ms [not Master I think] Observer, I cannot be bothered challenging your version of things in detail. You are indeed fully entitled to your opinions. We differ in some areas on what we perceive to be facts and history. On some we would agree. But to challenge back and forth would achieve S.F.A. Please rest in your conviction of your rightness. As the fella said, you are right on your side and I am right on mine.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: The glesga eskimos
From: GUEST,Observer
Date: 05 Sep 18 - 08:25 AM

What you cannot be bothered to do Mr McVicar is support your own knee-jerk opinions, I on the other hand have fully explained and supported mine, all on information supplied by Jim McLean himself.

As to historical fact and the order in which things happened your perception may well be at variance to mine. Unfortunately what is inescapable truth is that McLean & Co had absolutely nothing to do with the protest that may, or, more likely may not, have prompted Captain Richard Laning USN to make any reference to Eskimos. There has been no verification presented that he ever made the remark.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: The glesga eskimos
From: Allan Conn
Date: 05 Sep 18 - 12:22 PM

Phew!! Folk obsessing or what? It surely doesn't matter what did or didn't happen and who was or wasn't there! Isn't it the sentiment of the song that really counts. Like the D-Day Dodgers! Did Astor say that or not? It doesn't really matter now. I've not heard it being sung but I am down here in the Borders so maybe not surprising but one thing I can say - you can easily tell from the word scan what tune it is sung to and it is surely much preferable to hear Jim's words than the words I'd normally hear with this tune? ie The Billy Boys.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: The glesga eskimos
From: Gallus Moll
Date: 05 Sep 18 - 12:57 PM

bwahahahahahahahah ooh ouch ferfuksakes!!!!
Nameless observer you really are a convoluted eejit!!!!
I think we should crowdfund for a large sack, send it to you and you can get inside and have a huge punchup with the hot air inside it!
- Jim Mclean's original contribution to the Glesca Eskimos discussion was seeking information that would lead him to written (or even recorded) evidence that would prove that Captain Laning had made the 'bunch of Eskimos' statement - or not.
Which is what you have said in your final sentence - - however you have just plucked that statement out of the air, you have done no research to confirm it so in fact it is merely your opinion!!!!!
And in getting to this point you have insulted many other people participating in the thread - me for one - and slagged off a large number people from all over the country including the West of Scotland and Glasgow who did come to the original and many of the follow on marches and protests down the years. You are NOT a world expert on the anti-nuclear protests here or life in the garrison town suffering a US naval base whether they wanted it or not.
Perhaps you should reflect a little, admit you may be in error - and apologize for all the insults and patronising remarks?

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: The glesga eskimos
From: GUEST,Ewan McVicar
Date: 05 Sep 18 - 04:28 PM

Observer, I do hope you calm down soon, this cannot be good for your heart. I cannot make out if you are confused, or deliberately misrepresenting things for effect. Either way, like Jim I had better not respond to you any more, it does neither of us any good.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: The glesga eskimos
From: GUEST,Observer
Date: 05 Sep 18 - 05:18 PM

Mr.McVicar, Gallus Moll, Allan Conn I would point you in the direction of Brian McNeill if you want songs covering events that have happened. You have all vented and levelled insults at me yet not one single one of you has found one single error, lie or misrepresentation in a single word that I have written.

The Glesga Eskimos = Pure bloody fiction, it never happened,they never did anything, they never achieved anything. Songs about their fictitious deeds, etc are nothing more than a contemptuous insult to the intelligence of any sentient human being.

Oh and Allan Conn yes it does matter, or where do you draw the line between fact and fiction - going your way and allowing works of pure fiction and total misrepresentation to stand you would then have to automatically dismiss all folk songs as any form of insight into history social or political.

I take it then Gallus that you have been unable to find any verifiable evidence of Laning ever having made the remark that supposedly in the mind of Jim McLean spawned the whole Glesga Eskimos MYTH?

As Akenaton stated the demonstrations you mentioned were minor - you or anybody else can protest whatever you like, I for one would never dream of doing anything to stop you. But don't you dare attempt to silence me or force me in any way to apologise and alter opinions I have arrived at based on the hard verifiable evidence placed in front of me.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: The glesga eskimos
From: Jim McLean
Date: 06 Sep 18 - 05:48 AM

Oh Mr Observer, how delusional can you be?
You twist the facts or make them up, to see what you want to see.
Your pen is really poisonous, your letters sad to read,
Oh Mr Delusional "awa an bile yer heid".

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: The glesga eskimos
From: GUEST,Observer
Date: 06 Sep 18 - 07:06 AM

Very droll McLean - but as they say, "If wit was shit, you'd be constipated."

Let's see delusional means characterized by or holding idiosyncratic beliefs or impressions that are contradicted by reality or rational argument, typically as a symptom of mental disorder

Applied directly to Psychiatry it means maintaining fixed false beliefs even when confronted with facts, usually as a result of mental illness

The Glesga Eskimos:

1: A collective term coined and appropriated by Jim McLean and pals days, possibly weeks, after the USS Proteus arrived in the Holy Loch.

2: The title of a song penned by Jim McLean which on examination bears absolutely no relation or relevance to anything that ever happened in real life that could possibly be connected to the US Base at Holy Loch in 1961.

3: The writer of the song tells us all that he popped down to Dunoon the day after USS Proteus arrived, and that now 57 years after the event he is searching for written verification that the complete and utter stranger, and visitor to our shores, who McLean refers to as a "Nyaff" and threatens with physical violence, ever made a comment where said stranger referred to English CND protesters in kayaks/canoes encountered on the 3rd March 1961 as "goddam Eskimos".

How am I doing so far Jim? (Note: All the information above by the way is information contained in this thread that YOU have supplied us with)

So which one of us is delusional?

The person who dishonestly appropriated a "title" that may, or, as now would appear to be more likely, may never have been directed at and bestowed upon, a bunch of English visitors who actually did try to do something to prevent the Proteus from mooring.

The person who dishonestly infers that they were there in his song when patently he most certainly was not.

The person who brags about rammys, tears and sortin people oot, when in actual fact nothing was ever even attempted, let alone done by these so called Glesga Eskimos. All pure fantasy McLean, if ony heid needs biled - It's yours.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: The glesga eskimos
From: Gallus Moll
Date: 06 Sep 18 - 09:51 AM

some comments and corrections in no particular order - - --

Akenaton DOES from time to time fail to use his mudcat name and posts as 'guest' - normally apologises at the time!
(by the way Ake, you are a mere 4 years older that I am, so please withdraw yer 'arse wet' remark from an earlier posting!!)

The Glesca Eskimos was composed by T.S.Law

I don't know what psychiatric or psychological experience the anonymous observer has (a number of the people posting on this thread have qualifications in one or other of the disciplines) but it seems clear that 'delusional' is a word that should be applied to a person who invites him/her/itself into a discussion about which he/she/it knew - and knows - has learned nothing, does not even comprehend the content from the word go (Jim having to spell out to you what everyone else understood first time round re. the Scotsman's archive charges from 1950 onwards) but slags off nearly every one of the people posting with more and more ludicrous utterings!!
I for one don't give a sh*t what you think about The Glesca Eskimos and whether is based on an urban folktale or not - it is part of my cultural heritage and I will continue to sing it as and when I choose; yes I am interested in finding out if Captain Laning uttered a comment along those lines -- but it actually doesn't matter, as I said earlier - folk /traditional music is about how people FELT about an incident!
You are just an annoying distraction, uttering pompous diatribes. Please just go away!
(and by the way - explain to me how Brian McNeill travelled back in time to gain the required experience in order to accurately compose The Lads O' The Fair?)

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: The glesga eskimos
From: GUEST,Ake
Date: 06 Sep 18 - 11:13 AM

Aw Gallus dinnae take the huff, of course i'll withdraw the remark....and ah'm very pleased tae hear thit your erse has on occasions been jist as wet as mine wis aw these years ago!! :0)

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: The glesga eskimos
From: GUEST,Observer
Date: 06 Sep 18 - 03:07 PM

Gallus have a word with McLean and maybe he will tell you which one is the correct version:

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: The glesga eskimos
From: Jim McLean
Date: 04 Sep 18 - 04:32 AM

The reason I entered this thread was from an academic standpoint I wanted and still want to find the date when Captain Laning reputedly said "We're not worried. They're jus a bunch of goddam Eskimos".
I wanted this information to date the writing of the song "The Glasgow Eskimos" by T S Law.

OR

Subject: RE: Words please: Scottish Breakaway
From: Jim McLean
Date: 24 Jul 02 - 06:46 AM

The album Ding Dong Dollar was recorded in Morris Blythman's house around 1960. The singers, if I can remember, were: Jack O'Conner, Nigel Denver, Josh MacRae, Morris Blythman and various people in the choruses. Alastair McDonald played various instruments. Luckily for some, I'm not a singer but I wrote We dinnae want polaris, NAB for Royalty, They say we've never had it sae guid and wrote verses for Ding Dong Dollar, Camp in the Country and THE GLESGA ESKIMOS. Anti-Polaris was written by Hamish Henderson and sung by Josh MacRae. If you require more specific info let me know. Cheers, Jim Mclean

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: The glesga eskimos
From: GUEST,Ewan McVicar
Date: 06 Sep 18 - 04:38 PM

Well, a bit of basic research would have uncovered for you that Morris Blythman told more than once in print that he ran a song assembling process that called on various contributors, then gave / shared out name credits to whoever had had the first idea. or had contributed most, or had not had a name credit recently. Morris gave a fine account of how he gently manipulated Matt McGinn into thinking up as new of the key phrase that Morris had already thought of, so that Matt then worked to create much of the verses and lines of a song which Morris then credited to Matt holus bolus.
So T S Law got the credit for the song, but Jim [and others? Morris surely at least] made verses / parts lines.
See?

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: The glesga eskimos
From: GUEST,Gallus Moll (away from home!)
Date: 06 Sep 18 - 06:10 PM

...and 'Thurso Berwick' was an all encompassing name for song production as i recall?!

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: The glesga eskimos
From: Gallus Moll
Date: 06 Sep 18 - 07:53 PM

Found this article by Gordon McCulloch (who sadly died last year. (probably agin copyright to share it?) Youse can find it yersels in an easier to read format by googling Thurso Berwick.
Please note the number of canoeists at one point (13) and the origins of at least one (Dublin not England).
Jim McLean also noted for his songwriting ability.
I totally love how the whole Eskimo Republic grew out of the (alleged or genuine) comment by Captain Laning- - the work of creative imaginations. - I think Observer's problem is that he/she/it is completely lacking in imagination, can only cope with literal facts, no fantasy - so I am really not sure why he/she/it is drawn to folk music which is full of witches and faeries, dastardly deeds and amazing rescues, lots of other brilliant events most of which are not in the slightest factually correct!!!

a.k.a. Thurso Berwick: Doon Amang the Eskimos
By Gordon McCulloch
The Glasgow Herald: 28th March, 1961: Three anti-Polaris demonstrators yesterday boarded the U.S. submarine Patrick Henry at the Holy Loch. Michael Nolan (26) made the most strategic approach by climbing up onto the top of the vessel’s after-fin jutting 7 feet up in the air. U.S. naval ratings offered him a cup of coffee if he would join them, but he politely refused and for three quarters of an hour remained cold and damp on his perch. A U.S. naval launch with civil police on board then drew alongside and brought his escapade to an abrupt halt.
The Glasgow Herald: 22nd May, 1961: U.S. sailors turned fire hoses on demonstrators who tried to board the submarine depot ship Proteus in the Holy Loch from kayaks, dinghies, launches and a motorised houseboat. The houseboat, bearing a red cross and the words “Life Not Death”, bore down on the Proteus. Giving chase, two Police launches collided, one of them carrying senior police and naval officers.
The Glasgow Herald: 25th May, 1961: Anti-Polaris demonstrators today lost the last of their 13 kayaks in the Holy Loch. The depot ship Proteus was held up as she entered the loch by lone canoeist Sean Edwards from Dublin who put out from Kilmun where the demonstrators are encamped. Edwards evaded pursuing launches and got within 20 yards of the vessel before being tipped into the water by naval frogmen.
Ma Maw’s a millionaire (hiv a banana)
Blue eyes and curly hair.
Doon amang the Eskimos,
Playin a gemme o’ dominoes
Ma Maw’s a millionaire
Glasgow Children’s Street Song—Tune: “Let’s All Go Down the Strand”)
Despite the comic opera overtones of events following the first arrival of the Proteus at the Holy Loch on March 3rd, 1961, there was no doubting the serious commitment of the anti-Polaris movement. These events had been preceded by vast marches and demonstrations throughout Europe, and, perhaps most notably, at the British Atomic Weapons Research Institution at Aldermaston. The captain of the Proteus, however, declared himself, (with hindsight unwisely) to be unmoved by the anarchic goings-on at the Holy Loch. “They don’t bother us” he scoffed dismissively “They’re just a bunch of goddam Eskimos”. At this time the most influential group of political song writers in Scotland was The Glasgow Song Guild … they seized gleefully upon Lanning’s remarks … and almost overnight, it seemed, they had transformed themselves, by some mysterious weegee alchemy, to become The Glasgow Eskimos:
It’s up the Clyde comes Lanin, a super-duper Yank,
But doon a damn sight quicker when we cowpt him doon the stank,
Up tae the neck in sludge and sewage fairly stops yuir swank
—We are the Glesca Eskimos.
CHORUS:
Hullo! Hullo! we are the Eskimos,
Hullo! Hullo! The Glesga Eskimos,
We’ll gaff that nyaff caa’d Lanin
We’ll spear him whaur he blows
We are the Glesga Eskimos.
It’s in an oot, an up an doon, an on an aff the piers,
There’s councillors, collaborators, pimps an profiteers,
The hairies jook the polis, an the polis jouk the queers,
—We are the Glesga Eskimos.
There’s dredgers and there’s sludgie boats tae keep the river clean,
Ye lift yuir haund, an pu the chain—ye ken fine whit ah mean,
But how in the hell has the Holy Loch been left outside the scheme?
—We are the Glesga Eskimos.
We’ve been in mony a rammy, lads, we’ve been in mony a terr,
We’ve sorted out this kind afore, we’ll sort them onywhere,
So get your harpoons ready, boys, he’s comin up for air,
—We are the Glesga Eskimos.
(TUNE: Marching Through Georgia)
The Glasgow Eskimos had not, however, sprung fully-formed into the political arena. Previous incarnations of the loose groupings of Scottish political poets and songwriters from the early 50s onwards (The Bo’ness Rebel Literary Society; The Glasgow Song Guild) had produced a steady stream of low-cost chapbook-style collections of rebel songs, including early publications of the celebrated Rebel Ceilidh Song Book series.
There is little doubt that the seminal event in the development of Scottish Republican songwriting had been the removal of the Stone of Destiny from Westminster Abbey in 1951, described at the time by the Dean of Westminster, in a radio broadcast on the British Home Service, as “a senseless crime carefully planned and carried out with great cunning … a truly squalid deed”. The London Times thundered that it had been “a coarse and vulgar crime”. Popular opinion in Scotland subscribed to an entirely different view. John McEvoy’s “The Wee Magic Stane”, set to the tune of “The Ould Orange Flute”, captured the exuberant combination of farce and derring-do that was abroad at the time:
Noo the cream o the joke still remains to be telt,
For the bloke that wis turnin them aff on the belt,
At the peak o production wis sae sorely pressed,
That the real Stane got bunged in alang wi the rest.
CHORUS: Wi a toora, li oora, li oora, li ay.
So if ever ye come on a Stane wi a ring,
Juist sit yourself doon an proclaim yourself King
For there’s nane will be able tae challenge yuir claim
That ye’d croont yourself King on the Destiny Stane.
The core Eskimos were five in number: Trade Unionist Jackie O’Connor, singers Josh MacRae and Nigel Denver, and songwriters Jim Maclean and Morris Blythman. MacRae was then decidedly better-known than the other members. He had enjoyed considerable popular success through his television appearances, as well as through frequent performances at Folk and Jazz clubs. His repertoire was, for the most part, (though not exclusively), taken from American political song, especially the dustbowl ballads of Woody Guthrie. To this day, however, perhaps his most enduring popular recording remains “Messing About on the River”.
The Young Turk of the group was Jim Maclean. Arguably the most gifted songwriter, and certainly the most prolific, he was possessed of a sardonic talent for parody, producing a succession of waspish anti-monarchy polemics. Best known of these was, perhaps, “Maggie’s Waddin”. Written to the cornkister tune of “Mairi’s Wedding”, Maclean’s song offered a mock celebration of the marriage of Princess Margaret to Anthony Armstrong Jones. (Though written some fifty years ago, a handful of his verses might illustrate some unnerving parallels with much more recent royal nuptials):
Sing a song o tax an woe,
Empty pooches in a row,
The Chancellor’s collectin dough,
Aa for Maggie’s Waddin.
Silk an satin, gold lame,
Tony weirs a lum hat tae,
Ma suit’s in the pawn sae whit’ll ah dae
At the Royal Waddin.
Whaur d’ye think they’ll honeymoon?
Gay Paree or on the moon?
Without a doot it’s no Dunoon!
Efter sic a Waddin.
Royal mince is awfy dear,
Tony needs a rise next year,
Up’ll go the tax on fags and beer,
Efter Tony’s Waddin.
The Eskimos’ main ideological ordnance was provided, however, by Morris Blythman, who had already, under his pen-name Thurso Berwick, established himself in Scottish Republican Socialist circles as a published poet and songwriter. Fuelled by his personal brand of heterodox Marxism, Blythman was committed to the process of communal authorship of the Eskimos’ repertoire. It was a process that was executed not only by the immediate core Eskimos, but by the “collective mincer” of a handful of creative contributors that oscillated around the Blythman igloo located up in the hostile Arctic wastes of Balgrayhill Road in Springburn, Glasgow. Blythman described the workings of the process:
One of the most unusual features of this whole movement was the way in which many of the songs were born. Workshop techniques were employed, and as a result, many of the songs had a communal authorship. In at least one song as many as twenty people contributed to the final production … I have always believed in mass creation. That is why I adopted the pen-name Thurso Berwick. My hope was that other poets could be persuaded to write under this name which was chosen as the name of the people, from Thurso in the north to Berwick in the south.
He went on to give a concrete example of the collaborative process at work. Glaswegian songwriter John Mack was present at a public meeting at which one of the speakers, George McLeod of the Iona Community (later Lord McLeod of Fuinary) declared that, “Of course, you cannot spend a dollar when you are dead”. Much struck by this remark, Mack came up with an embryonic chorus (to the tune of “She’ll be Coming Round the Mountains”)
You cannot spend a silver dollar when you’re dead. In fact it might as well be made of lead.
In the hands of the extended Eskimo tribe, however, these lines were rapidly “gallusised” (i.e. made more “gallus”) emerging reified as “Ye cannae spend a dollar when yuir deid”. The tune remained ‘She’ll be Coming Round the Mountain”, but the final text of “Ding Dong Dollar” owed a much greater debt to the Glasgow street song “Ye Canny Shove your Granny aff a Bus”.
CHORUS: O, ye canny spend a dollar when ye’re deid.
O, ye canny spend a dollar when ye’re deid.
Singin Ding Dong Dollar, everybody holler.
Ye canny spend a dollar when ye’re deid.
Noo the Yanks have juist drapt anchor in Dunoon.
And they’ve had their civic welcome frae the toon.
As they cam up the measured mile
Bonnie Mary o Argyll
Wis wearin spangled drawers ablow her goon.
O, the Clyde is sure tae prosper noo they’re here.
For they’re chargin wan and ten pence for a beer.
And when they want a taxi, they shove it up their jersey
An they charge them fifty bob tae Sandbank Pier.
An the publicans will aa be daein swell,
For it’s juist the thing that’s sure tae ring the bell.
O the dollars they will jingle, there’ll be no a lassie single,
Even though they’ll maybe blaw us aa tae hell.
But the Glesga Moderator disnae mind.
In fact he thinks the Yanks are awfy kind.
For if it’s heaven that you’re goin,
its a quicker way than rowin,
An there’s sure tae be naebody left behind.
There is, then, no doubting Blythman’s commitment to the collaborative process of song writing. Indeed it is as well to bear in mind that beyond the confines of the immediate political coterie surrounding the Eskimos, there existed an even broader creative pool in the form of the countless vigorous oral transmissions of the songs that must have taken place at demonstrations, concerts and ceilidhs. In oral transmission, songs, like rumours, can usefully be compared with so many pieces of plastic material passed from hand to hand: the item is received, given a gentle squeeze, and passed on, emerging subtly changed from each successive transaction. A new word here: a changed phrase there.
Nevertheless, the “house style” of the great majority of the printed sources of the Eskimo songs (The Rebel Ceilidh Song Book and Ding Dong Dollar Song Book) bear the unmistakeable imprimatur of Blythman’s editorial hand: the chapbook format, the final choice of materials to be included; the commitment to the crackling Glasgow dialect, together with an orthography that broadly matches that favoured by Blythman in earlier poems, such as are found in “Fowrsom Reel”. Collaborative creation then, but with a firm directorial hand in the background: a minor folksy vindication perhaps, (from an unexpected source), of Truffaut’s “La Politique des Auteurs.”
Being himslf a teacher (of languages) in Glasgow, Morris Blythman was perfectly aware of Scotland’s long and honourable tradition of “dominie makars”: a 500 year tradition stretching from Robert Henryson to many of Blythman’s teacher contemporaries, with whom he doubtless shared a pint: Iain Crichton Smith, Robert Garioch, Norman McCaig, Hamish Henderson, Sorley MacLean, Edwin Morgan. Blythman greatly admired the work of the Scots Makars of the renaissance period, particularly Dunbar. While none of the Eskimo songs matches the scatological excesses of the likes of “The Flyting of Dumbar and Kennedie”, they nonetheless occasionally indulged in a similarly broad sense of visceral humour:
Doon at Ardnadum, sittin on the pier,
When ah heard a Polis cry: “Ye’ll no sit here!”
CHORUS: Ay, but ah wull sit here!
Naw, but ye’ll no sit here!
Ay, but ah wull! Naw but you’ll no!
Ay, but ah huv sat here!
(Tune: Ye’ll No S*** Here)
Again, with the benefit of liberal-left hindsight, a number of the pejorative phrases used in the Eskimo songs are perhaps ill-considered, inescapably unacceptable by today’s standards. References to “hairies” and “queers” can scarcely be thought of as politically correct. In defence of such solecisms it should be allowed that “that was then and this is now”. (As an ironic footnote, the very term “Eskimo” is no longer always tolerated … ask any passing representative of the Inuit peoples). Yet it is precisely this employment of the reckless salty humour of the streets that distinguishes the Scottish political songs of the period from those originating south of the border.
Songs Against the Bomb, issued by Topic Records in 1960, contained a number of the songs sung by demonstrators on the enormous anti-nuclear marches from Aldermaston, Berkshire to Trafalgar Square, London. Anthems such as “The Family of Man” (Karl Dallas), “Song of Hiroshima” (Ewan McColl) and “The H-Bomb’s Thunder” (John Brunner) were indeed resonant, worthy, serious-minded, well-intentioned … but perhaps fatally flawed by a weakness for homily … in the end, just a little bit po-faced … anthems of “the joyless left”:
The H-Bomb’s Thunder (Tune: Miner’s Lifeguard—American Trade Union song)
Shall we lay the world in ruin?
Only you can make the choice.
Stop and think of what you’re doing.
Join the march and raise your voice
Time is short: we must be speedy.
We can see the hungry filled,
House the homeless, help the needy.
Shall we blast, or shall we build?
CHORUS: Men and Women, stand together.
Do not heed the men of war.
Make your mind up now or never.
Ban the Bomb, for evermore!
Where the English songs offered measured hymn-like language, the Eskimo songs unashamedly pursued the Glasgow vernacular. Where the English songs set out to confront the moral issues of the times, the Scottish songs went neck-and-crop for the caustic “agit-prop” humour of the factory gate: the problems might be of the most serious order possible; but never so serious as to stifle laughter. The demands of demonstrations, marches and sit-ins, the Eskimos reasoned, were not the proper arena for ideological debate. Instead the Eskimo songs should be driven by the ad hominem approach: attack not the idea … but the man: and left wing radicals of the day had little difficulty in identifying favoured targets. The main author of “Boomerang” was Matt McGinn (known to friends and Eskies as Mahatma Ginty):
CHORUS: Boomerang! Boomerang!
Juist send them back whaur they belang.
Alang wi auld Adenauer, Kennedy’s pal,
Signor Fanfani and Chairlie de Gaulle.
For we dinna like gifts that go bang,
Juist try wan an see if ah’m wrang.
The banners are wavin; wha’s next for the shavin?
So open the boom; boomerang!
Behind the narrower confines of the political struggles of the 1950s, however, lay broader-based social upheavals. The immediate post-war decades had witnessed a dawning realization, especially among working class folk, that the professional classes—medicine, religion, the law and education—were no longer to be regarded as the sole custodians of knowledge: perhaps, occasionally, “sir” might not know best. Challenges to the previously perceived natural order of things were writ largest of all, however, in the sphere of popular culture.
Driven by Hollywood and Tin Pan Alley, the 1940s and early 1950s had seen the import of a relentless diet of anodyne drip-fed pulp culture. With some honourable exceptions, the movies, together with the emerging medium of television, had become dominated by frothy comedies and turgid sentimental dramas: dopes and soaps. Popular music was saturated with an apparently inexhaustible succession of suffocating rechauffés of Moon-in-June love songs: pace Doris Day, Pat Boone, Perry Como, Jim Reeves. Not surprising, therefore, that a growing impatience with transatlantic crooners (mostly of a certain age) was soon to be making itself known.
In Scotland, as elsewhere, minor surges of a more genuinely based popular song culture had begun to bubble up from the cultural broth. The skiffle movement was quickly followed by the trad fad, accompanied by a growing interest in the blues that was to lead to the emergence of primitive rock and roll. From the perspective of political song, however, there is little doubt that the crucial development turned out to be the post-war folk revival. By the end of the fifties the tap roots of a new popular song culture had become well established. In Scotland many young singers were already turning decisively towards native Scottish materials, including political songs. Further afield, Bob Dylan was waiting in the wings.
The earlier years of the musical counter culture were times of exhilarating intellectual chaos: chaotic because no-one had a clear idea as to what they were attempting to create on the hoof … experiment … suck it and see … reinvent the wheel … the triumph of empiricism. The following topsy-turvy litany of early Eskimo musical influences is taken from Morris Blythman’s sleeve notes for the seminal LP Ding Dong Dollar, issued in America in 1962 by Folkways Records:
Everything was thrown into the pot: the missionaries first to give it the bite, army ballads from World War II, football songs, Orange songs, Fenian songs, Child ballads, street songs, children’s songs, bothy ballads, blues, skiffle, Australian bush ballads, calypsos, McColl and Lomax, Ives and Leadbelly, Dominic Behan, S.R.A. songs, I.R.A. songs, Guthrie and Houston, pantomime and vaudeville, Billy Graham, Scottish Land League songs, Gaelic songs, mouth-music, Wobbly songs, spirituals, mountaineering and hiking ballads, Elliot and Seeger, mock-precenting, the Royal Family, Roddy McMillan and Matt McGinn … and as a result of this genial eclecticism, we finished up with a banquet.
It would be grand indeed to be able to report that when the U.S. nuclear warships left the shores of the Holy Loch in 1992, they did so bowing to the will of the Glasgow Eskimos. History, alas, has a different tale to tell. They finally departed (amid the tears of publicans, taxi drivers and ladies of the night) in response to the changing imperatives of global nuclear strategies. The many thousands of young men and women who swelled the ranks of the Eskimos are since become distinctly grey about the temples. And the Special Branch has long since ceased to be interested in their comings and goings.
It has been possible to quote from only a handful of the Eskimo songs. Yet in their prime they produced a blizzard of vibrant political songs, chants, squibs and slogans. At their best the songs were purpose-built, driven by a streetwise humour; the texts possessed of a fierce demotic energy, contributing vitally to the emergence of a Scottish folk-based alternative song culture.
Some of the demonstrators liked to style themselves, somewhat fancifully, as “bohemians”. The popular press decreed instead that they were actually “beatniks”. In fairness, perhaps there was always a grain of truth in this perception. Certainly, not a few of the Eskimos hit the road with Kerouac; howled with Ginsberg. Be that as it may, their oppositions to a perceived imported cultural and military hegemony, together with the songs that accompanied them, are now consigned to history—to be replaced by different times, different struggles; and doubtless, different songs. Perhaps Honorary Eskimo Hamish Henderson’s majestic “Freedom Come-All-Ye”, written for the peace marchers, best captures the spirit of the times. Now, as then, there is indeed “mair nor a roch wind blawin through the Great Glen o the Warld the day”.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: The glesga eskimos
From: GUEST,Ewan McVicar
Date: 09 Sep 18 - 02:37 PM

Well, I fully agree that our friend considers that his opinions and assessments are 'truthful' from his viewpoint, and I think I have acknowledged that above.
But I object to the the manner in which he presents these as absolute truths and mixes them with insults and obnoxious remarks and accusations.
Yes, some of what he has here said I have responded that I agreed with, though not in the responsive or contradictory detail he arrogantly demands.
He has muscled in to a search for information, and flung many words around. None of it helped with the information sought, none of his contributions had any news for me, and none of it made me think anything new.
He throws out insults and contempt, I choose to respond in kind.
He started it.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: The glesga eskimos
From: GUEST,Observer
Date: 09 Sep 18 - 04:03 PM

I fully agree that our friend considers that his opinions and assessments are 'truthful' from his viewpoint, and I think I have acknowledged that above.

Let us all know when the verified source on Captain Richard Laning USN EVER having made any reference to anyone being "just a bunch of goddam Eskimos" turns up.

By the way, should no such verification be found (Remember the myth is that he was reported as having said this at a Press Conference, so it is highly unlikely that such a remark would not be reported) then which one of you is going to set the matter to rights - My money is on no-one after all why spoil a story with truth and as with other songs, the theme of which would appear to be political propaganda, lies and total misrepresentation seems to be the stock in trade.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: The glesga eskimos
From: GUEST,Ewan McVicar
Date: 10 Sep 18 - 03:46 AM

Here you are riding coat tails again. Why do you think Jim started the query? Because he had no doubts as to the answer? Really?
If you came round the front you would see better. I would have more respect for you if I knew what you yourself have accomplished. I can see how good you are are criticising others how have done something of worth.
Let's take just one of your jibes. I have good friends in Russia, I had the chance to visit and work with them. None of them think that their country would be better off now had the Tzarist system continued. None of them seemed to think they had lived in 'a workers paradise', but then I would not have been silly enough to think they would think that. Some of them were unsuyre if what they have now is better than what they had under the USSR, but they live in hopes.
The USSR did a lot of good and a lot of harm. All empires go bust. The British Empire did a lot of good and a lot of harm, so did the Roman Empire. Gordon MacCulloch, labelled by some as a tankie, sees/saw different 'truths' from you or I. My grandfather could explain all the twists and turns of the British Communist Party from 1929 to the 1970s and make them sound sensible and necessary - while you listened to him!
This is an auld sang, with some challengeable assertions. I assume you will next proceed to demand that all suspect pro and anti Jacobite songs be winnowed for 'historical accuracy', and the 'truth' be proclaimed.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: The glesga eskimos
From: GUEST,Ewan McVicar
Date: 10 Sep 18 - 04:00 AM

ERRATA For 'how' above read 'who'. For 'unsyure' read 'unsure'. For 'truth' read well but doubt all.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: The glesga eskimos
From: GUEST
Date: 10 Sep 18 - 04:46 AM

he wouldn't be the only one.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: The glesga eskimos
From: Jim McLean
Date: 10 Sep 18 - 05:45 AM

Could I repeat my original post for the benefit of Observer who seems not to have understood it.
20th August 4.50pm "I'm still looking for the official, newspaper article, on when Captain Richard B Laning (correct spelling) referred to the canoeists as Eskimos. The article mentioned by Susan, Glasgow Herald 25 March, 1961, does not appear in that paper and all mentions of Laning's comment appear only to be apocryphal and repeated. I would like hard evidence so if anyone can help ....."
Also I said the song Glasgow Eskimos was written by T S Law.
2 simple and clear statements.
Observer's answer on the 26th August 4.36pm "..... your life and beliefs are based on lies.. ".
Could I kindly ask Observer, whose hobby seems to be writing poison pen letters, if you can't help me in my quest, then desist ... go and lie down in a darkened room before suffering apoplexy or some other rage induced condition.
I'll leave the last word to you.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: The glesga eskimos
From: GUEST,Observer
Date: 10 Sep 18 - 05:51 AM

To answer your questions Mr. McVicar

1: Why do you think Jim started the query?

I would have thought that that was fairly obvious he posted the query in order to confirm what he already believed to be true. Probably because he was shocked to find in the course of his own searches that no such actual report of the man ever making the remark that gave both the Eskimo Republic and the Glesga Eskimos their name. Now why do you think he inititiated the query?

2: I would have more respect for you if I knew what you yourself have accomplished.

It is of no concern to me whatsoever whether you have respect for me or not, it is not something I feel I have to earn from you or anybody else.

3: I can see how good you are are criticising others who have done something of worth.

In YOUR opinion you think that they have done something of worth. Fortunately your opinion is not fact and there is no compunction at all that anyone other than you has to share that opinion of yours. What I have pointed out is that everything this crowd known as The Glesga Eskimos was based on was myth.

4: Let's take just one of your jibes. I have good friends in Russia, I had the chance to visit and work with them. None of them think that their country would be better off now had the Tzarist system continued. None of them seemed to think they had lived in 'a workers paradise', but then I would not have been silly enough to think they would think that. Some of them were unsuyre if what they have now is better than what they had under the USSR, but they live in hopes.

Now I would venture that the above would all depend on the age of your good friends and whether or not they had been fortunate enough to have been members of the Communist Party during the U.S.S.R. days - BUT

(a) None of them think that their country would be better off now had the Tzarist system continued.

Rather odd that Mr.McVicar and very difficult to understand. I take it that your good friends would realise that had the Tsar, or the Tsarist system stayed in place then there would have been no such thing as Bolsheviks or Communism. Had the Bolsheviks and the Communists never existed then Mein Kampf would never have been written there would have been no Nazi Party in Germany and there would have been no Second World War - I think everybody on the planet would have appreciated that, let alone the millions of "Soviet" citizens killed by Lenin, Stalin and Hitler. So I think that their opinion on this is rather ill informed.

(b) None of them seemed to think they had lived in 'a workers paradise', but then I would not have been silly enough to think they would think that.

Ah so your good friends were not fortunate enough to have been invited or born into membership of the Communist Party in the U.S.S.R. So not for them the "special" schools, not for them the Party Pioneer Corps plus all it's advantages, not for them the special party shops and stores in which to purchase items, not for them the guaranteed access to jobs and careers reserved for loyal Party members and withheld from the bulk of the population.

5: The USSR did a lot of good and a lot of harm. All empires go bust. The British Empire did a lot of good and a lot of harm, so did the Roman Empire.

Which one of those once the days of Empire were over found itself a member of the second largest international organisation in the world after the United Nations. A group of nations made up of former members of that Empire and recently increased in size by new member states that had no historic link to the former Empire at all?

6: Gordon MacCulloch, labelled by some as a tankie, sees/saw different 'truths' from you or I.

For the uninitiated the term "tankie" means a supporter of the policies and actions of Joseph Stalin, one of history's greatest democides who was responsible for millions of more deaths than Adolf Hitler.

7: My grandfather could explain all the twists and turns of the British Communist Party from 1929 to the 1970s and make them sound sensible and necessary - while you listened to him!

It would appear that your Grandfather was obviously as deluded and naive as MacCulloch.


7: Of The Glesga Eskimos presumably you say "This is an auld sang, with some challengeable assertions."

SOME challengeable assertions, massive understatement!!! With regard to the USN and Laning and the inferred part played by the so-called Glesga Eskimos there isn't a single iota of truth in any of it.

8: I assume you will next proceed to demand that all suspect pro and anti Jacobite songs be winnowed for 'historical accuracy', and the 'truth' be proclaimed.

Nope Mr.McVicar, sorry to disappoint you, I just don't bother either learning,playing or singing the ones based on myth and nonsense (Haughs of Cromdale is one in that category that immediately springs to mind).

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: The glesga eskimos
From: GUEST,Ewan McVicar
Date: 10 Sep 18 - 08:46 AM

Sigh.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: The glesga eskimos
From: GUEST,Observer
Date: 10 Sep 18 - 09:20 AM

Quite Mr. McVicar - but I made more sense out of that exchange than anything to do with none existent "gaffin' of nyaffs, rammy's, tears and sortin' people oot" by a bunch of pseuds that remind me more and more of the character Wolfie Smith from the 70s sitcom Citizen Smith the more I hear about them. Sigh indeed!

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: The glesga eskimos
From: GUEST,Ewan McVicar
Date: 10 Sep 18 - 09:32 AM

Well, resisting the temptation to start a game of 'Spot The Real Observer', can I say I thought I'd see what our friend is made of on one particular point.
And I got
1] more lordly contempt and arrogance,
2] an assignation of the term 'tankie' retroactively applied to supporters of Stalin, though a quick online search shows that others also apply the term more generally than I do, since I recall how it was earned,
3] deliberate insults aimed at my beloved and widely admired dead grandfather, who employed his beliefs to do magnificent things for his community.
Observer, you are not worth talking or listening to.
Away and fly.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: The glesga eskimos
From: GUEST,Observer
Date: 10 Sep 18 - 10:23 AM

Observer, you are not worth talking or listening to.

But you do persist in doing so Mr. McVicar, normally without saying much at all, and what you do say tends to be drivel.

1: So you have no idea why McLean is casting about pleading for someone to find verification of this supposed remark by Laning. For without the remark having been uttered the whole Glesga Eskimo thing is nothing more than a rather pathetic joke.

2: You mistake arrogance for 100% pure indifference to you, your views and your opinions. Anyone in this day and age that espouses and advocates Marxism seriously wants their bumps read. Not my fault it never panned out the way you revolutionary Eskimos wanted it to, but it might explain why now you are all so prickly about it.

3: If the outpourings of the Morris Blythman song writing circle, where even those who participated and self admittedly lent a hand in the writing of the songs now disown them, are anything to go by when it comes to be regarded as something of worth then by Christ the bar is set exceptionally low.

4: Didn't your good friends in Russia realise that the ONLY reason there was a NAZI party in Germany was because of the perceived threat of Communism? More importantly do you realise that?

There would have been no Bolsheviks and no Communists had the Tsar or Tsarist system remained in place. By the way had Russia NOT withdrawn from the war in 1917, there would have been no German Spring Offensive in March 1918 because they would not have had the necessary manpower and the war would have ended by the beginning of the summer of 1918 instead of November.

5: Where is Russia's "Commonwealth of Nations" Ewan? Russia's former satellites could get out from under quick enough when the USSR's empire collapsed. And what countries have returned to the fold have done so at the point of a gun.

6: If indeed your Grandfather could explain all the twists and turns of the British Communist Party from 1929 to the 1970s and make them sound sensible and necessary - while you listened to him! That would make him an apologist for one of the greatest killers that ever walked on earth, I think describing him as deluded and naive is letting him off lightly considering the degree and the extent of sufffering inflicted on this earth by the Communists under Joseph Stalin. Very pleased to hear that he did good in his community. Would that be Glesga too? Just as well he did do his community some good because for certain those Labour politicians everybody on Clydeside kept voting for sure as hell didn't do anything.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: The glesga eskimos
From: Gallus Moll
Date: 11 Sep 18 - 01:03 PM

Update for Jim, Ewan, Ake, Tattie B, Anne - in fact everyone other that deluded troll - Jim I am taking your advice and completely ignoring the troll's presence!
Today I went to the museum, but most of what they have is photographs - however these do confirm that there were a number of canoes on different occasions in those early weeks of protest. I read an article elsewhere which mentioned 13 at one point, then they gradually diminished - blasted to bits by the water cannon? However John had a spark of memory so I hope this will issue forth into an actual fact eventually! And - a lot of people call in when they are on holiday or visiting relatives so eventually some of the older ones will turn up, might get some memories surfacing?
I plan to put a post on the town's 'old photos' site, quite a few Americans are members of that. (I already messaged one but he is too young- - however maybe he knows older ones..?)
I have a friend who is a retired US submariner / pc expert so I sang him the song, told him what evidence I was seeking and we'll see what he can turn up from the various associations eg Site 1 etc. (His opinion - and I agree - is that Captain L would not have said 'goddam ' specially is it was at press conference!)
On Friday I am booked to trawl thro the local paper archives for 1961 -tho I am thinking that even if the editor was present, he would probably not have actually published that type of comment? Fingers crossed he might have kept a notebook -- but whether that is still in archives - who knows? His daughter lives near me so I can pick her brains - -
I read somewhere that there were about 200 at the/a press conference -- if that is true then surely someone heard something - if it was actually uttered?
Sadly many of the people that might know are no longer with us. -Jim, I wondered tho if Neil might come across something on his blog (that you assisted him with)?
Anne - is Marion Blythman still with us, would she have any info? (I saw on a cnd site an article by Marion, she mentioned the phrase we seek - but not sure if it was from the original 'horse's mouth or apocryphal version?)
I know a few more people to try - a bittie older that me, would have been on marches -- Ake, you should be able to think of a few of the older generation who are still with us and who might have something to offer?
And - I'll compose a letter to the editor, get folks started talking, you never know what evidence might turn up!
PS thanks to the person who started this thread, I have thoroughly enjoyed revisiting a load of the songs I used to sing! Brilliant memories of that era - ban the bomb, The War Game film being secretly shown in church halls, Aldermaston marches - and of course anti Polaris marches on the Clyde and Holy Loch! Interesting era to have lived through, participated in -- kicked off an instinct within that I should never blindly accept the pish governments, the establishment, try to land on all the rest of us - never blindly accept anything, always question, check the back story. I have so much admiration for people like Brian Quail, who is still actively stopping nuclear convoys - wow!

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: The glesga eskimos
From: Jack Campin
Date: 11 Sep 18 - 02:02 PM

This is completely irrelevant to Jim's question but I doubt he'll mind me posting it...

There is a "Nae Nukes Anywhere" gathering at Faslane Peace Camp, 22 September 2018, 12.00-17.00pm (week after next). Contacts via the Faslane Peace Camp page on Facebook; there are buses from Edinburgh and Glasgow.

I will probably be going; I was last there about 25 years ago, when I gave them a pile of catering equipment. I'm curious to see if it's still in use; if anybody can get a song out of an industrial saucepan soldiering on providing meals for a whole generation of protesters, Jim could.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: The glesga eskimos
From: Gallus Moll
Date: 11 Sep 18 - 05:03 PM

Thanks Jack--- alas I am not yet fit enough to attempt this (recovering from operation) but I will be there in spirit! - was inspired all over again today by looking at all those old pix from Holy Loch in early '60s.