I’d never heard of the improvisational guitarist Derek Bailey until I encountered his story on BBC Radio’s Great Lives programme. Amongst other things, the programme was memorable for a short and fractious exchange between the presenter Matthew Parris, and comedian Stewart Lee, who had selected Bailey as his “Great Life.” According to Wikipedia “As an adult [Bailey] worked as a guitarist and session musician in clubs, radio, and dance hall bands, playing with Morecambe and Wise, Gracie Fields, Bob Monkhouse, Kathy Kirby, and on the television program Opportunity Knocks.” Stewart Lee suggests – though this is not substantiated – that Bailey played as a session musician on Petula Clark’s 1964 international hit, Downtown. But that was before he abandoned such bread and butter work and set off on his improvisational journey into the musical avant-garde, and obscurity.
On listening to a snatch of Derek Bailey’s music on the programme, it would appear for the first time, Matthew Parris, usually a genial and open-minded host, suggested the it sounded as though it might have been played by a “chimpanzee.” Stewart Lee was not having that but, rather than walking out, he complained bitterly at Parris’ crass response.
Matthew Parris appeared unable to apologise or moderate his position. He might, for example, have admitted that he found the music challenging, difficult even. That, at least, would have been an acknowledgement that the failure was his and not Derek Bailey’s.
Don’t get me wrong. Following the programme I’ve been taking a listen to Derek Bailey on Spotify. For someone like myself, whose musical inclinations have been shaped by the Beatles and the top twenty of the 1960s, Bailey’s music is a challenge. But, to paraphrase Scottish Composer James McMillan, to appreciate great music requires effort.
McMillan, by the way, also featured in a recent edition of Great Lives, but in that case the Great Life, chosen by him, was Jock Stein, manager of the “Lisbon Lions.” This was the Celtic team that defeated Inter Milan 2-1 in the final of the European Cup in 1967 at the Estádio Nacional, Lisbon. At that time I considered myself a supporter of Liverpool and Newry Town, but I am proud to say that, as a fourteen year old, I watched that game and shared every second of its high drama on the black and white television of my family home. But I digress.
I was reminded of my recent acquaintance with Derek Bailey when I visited the Scottish Landscape Awards 2025 Exhibition, currently showing at the Kirkcudbright Galleries. It’s a stunning collection of work but I’d have to confess that I entered the gallery with the lazy expectation of encountering lots of dramatic coastlines, mountains, huge skies, maybe a few trees bent by the prevailing wind, and wee white cottages, all done in a range of styles and media. There was a certain amount of that but much of what was on offer seemed, on superficial encounter, to have only a very tenuous connection indeed to scottish landscape. But when I came away I found myself grateful that my prior expectations had been so completely confounded. I suppose landscape was the inspiration but what came next was as varied and wonderful as can be imagined. If you can’t get to the exhibition before it closes on September 28, then at least you can take a look at the pictures online.
If you don’t make it to the Landscape Exhibition, then at least be sure you don’t miss the show hiding away on the top floor of Kirkcudbright Galleries. It tells the story of four women living in Kirkcudbright in the early part of the 20th Century. They were outspoken supporters of women’s suffrage and, as artists, unafraid of expressing themselves flamboyantly and with originality in their life and their work. However, and this is clearly part of the story the exhibition intends to draw to our attention, in their friendship they were not bound by the heterosexual conventions of the time. This aspect of their friendship remained hidden and encoded in the archive of their artworks, diaries, letters and photographs. What the exhibition makes clear is that these women were as much a part of the story of Kirkcudbright Artists’ Town as are E.A.Hornell, E.A Taylor and Jessie M King.
The Home of Jessie M King and E A Taylor, 38 High St, Kirkcudbright.
As one of the interviewees says, in the film which accompanies the exhibition: “Kirkcudbright was just a few streets at that time.” He reflects on the impact these women must have had in a small rural fishing port in the wake of the First World War.
For me, three remarkable, bold, confident canvases were an eye-catching highlight of the exhibition. There must surely be other work hidden away in private collections and gallery storerooms around the country which deserves an airing.
My only complaint was the sound quality of the video – to be clear, not the recording of the sound, but its broadcast on rather tinny speakers. The poor quality of the soundsystem made the interviews quite hard work to follow and produced a rather disagreeable soundscape which reverberated through the main exhibition. But I don’t wish to overstate this. All credit to DJ McDowall of the Imaginarium who co-produced the exhibition with the help of young people from Kirkcudbright Academy, and the support of The Holywood Trust.
Coming Out of the Archives This exhibition celebrates the bohemian lives of the women artists who spent their summers in Kirkcudbright in the early 20th century. The Story of a Fairy Family
Following the assassination of Charlie Kirk I listened to an edition of BBC Radio’s Americast which included a number of clips of Charlie Kirk in action. In one of these he was addressed by a young man who introduced himself as gay, but also conservative in his politics. My guess was that, despite his religious and conservative identification, he felt himself targeted by Kirk’s extreme right wing christian evangelism.
Kirk’s response was polite, even welcoming. However he went on to challenge the way in which the young man had identified himself by his sexuality. “You’re more than that” he assured him.The young man immediately seemed reconciled to this challenge to his self-presentation. Of course, he was more than his sexual identity.
And yet it was not hard to see something disingenuous in the welcome Charlie Kirk gave to this young gay man. His insistence that he should not allow himself to be defined by something so narrow as his sexual orientation was a way of silencing him. Be what you want to be, but don’t talk about it.
The reality is that people frequently identify themselves by some detail which seems particularly important to them but which in reality offers a very limited window on the person they are. When I walk down the street in Dumfries I often see young men dressed in Celtic or Rangers shirts. They’re not going to a game. It’s just the clothing they feel comfortable in. It does sometimes cross my mind that their projected identity diminishes them, but really, it’s none of my business.
On that campus in Utah, where he was to meet his end, Charlie Kirk was shown throwing out red MAGA baseball caps to the crowd. The intention was obvious. Put on a MAGA cap and identify yourself with what it represents – and set the messy complexity of your real identity to one side.
The contradiction between Charlie Kirk’s challenge to that young gay man and his seduction of the crowd with his slick rhetoric and his red MAGA baseball caps, is obvious. And someone, armed with a high powered rifle, was sufficiently angered by that contradiction to climb a roof, take aim, and fire the single shot which was to end Charlie Kirk’s life.
In the frenzy of media coverage there have been other glimpses of Charlie Kirk in action. There is no doubt that he had capability in setting out a case against abortion or in defence of a religiously framed politics. Where the latter was concerned he was immediately able to offer a barrage of biblical quotations to support his case, though notably absent “Render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s, and unto God the things that are God’s.”
Charlie Kirk’s method was neither that of the philosopher or the theologian. He did not wrestle with contradictions or make subtle distinctions. He was, I can easily imagine, the star of the school debating team, quick witted, an excellent memory, smart. Armed with this talent he became fluid in the arguments that fed the algorithm which made him rich, famous, notorious, a friend of a President.
But that algorithm almost certainly became his master, shaped him and ultimately was to place him in the cross-hairs of his nemesis, a young man, just 22 years old, Tyler Robinson. Tyler Robinson’s motivations and affiliations remain shrouded in mystery but it can be safely assumed he was a mess of contradictions in search of an identity. I say “was” because his identity has become a public property, something over which he no longer has any control.
The death of Charlie Kirk is a tragedy, not just for Kirk himself but also for his two young children and his wife. Yet many will also see tragedy in the story of Tyler Robinson and his family who find themselves in a place they could never have imagined or wished for.
These tragedies, however, pale into insignificance when set against the war in Ukraine and the ongoing and systematic destruction of Gaza. Meanwhile, an incompetent US President looks on, threatens much, but does nothing.
Three Stories from This Year’s Festival of Art and Culture
Story 1: Home Truths for Home Rule: Scotland After 25 Years of Devolution
Lesley Riddoch and Henry McLeish in Conversation
Kirkcudbright Fringe has once again presented us with a fine array of events in a picturesque and – for me at any rate – very accessible location.
My opening outing was to see Lesley Riddoch debate with Henry McLeish the highs and lows of 25 years of a Scottish Parliament.
Lesley Riddoch, Henry McLeish and the discussion host, Alec Ross.
It was, contrary to the appearance of this prediscussion face-off picture, an amicable affair reminding me of the leadership debate in the 2010 UK General Election where the key takeaway was Gordon Brown declaring repeatedly: “I agree with Nick” – referring of course to Nick Clegg, leader of the Liberal Democrats. In this case it was Henry McLeish who was keen to say – without actually letting his Unionist credentials go hang: “I agree with Lesley.”
In her opening statement Lesley Riddoch outlined key failures of the UK constitution which remain unresolved. She mentioned in particular the unreformed and increasingly unrepresentative electoral system of the UK Parliament. She mentioned her interest in the question of land ownership. She illustrated this particular point by reference to the Great Reform Act of 1832 which allocated the franchise to all male citizens meeting the necessary property qualification – amounting in practice to an extension of the franchise from 1 percent of the population to 7 percent. In Norway as Lesley explained, where there were many small farmers holding their own property, a similar reform in practice extended the franchise to just over 40% of the population. But Scotland, as I am sure was Lesley’s point, has its own more extreme version of this injustice. Andy Wightmans lays out the scale of injustice involved in his book The Poor had no Lawyers. It’s a work which makes Proudhon’s provocative declaration: “Property is Theft” seem entirely reasonable.
Henry contested none of this. Indeed he sketched out further common ground in “stupidity” of Brexit, and the obvious self harm it has caused. Nevertheless, he asserted his right to be considered a proud Scot whilst simultaneously defending the Union with our English neighbours – they would after all, continue to be our neighbours in the event of Scottish Independence.
Missing from the discussion, for me, was the question of the currency. There seems general agreement that a Scottish pound, though possibly appealing to the more extreme flag wavers, is not a viable proposition. In the longer term Scotland would either have to retain Sterling, a currency over which it could no longer exercise any meaningful influence, or adopt the Euro, a currency union in which Scotland would be a very small player with very distinct island economic interests. It would have minimal influence over a currency which in any case has been conservatively managed in its short history as the Greek experience under Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis demonstrated.
Questions from the floor, as is often the case in such events, were less questions than declarations, mostly, so far as I could tell, expressing impatience with Westminster and a desire for Scotland to go it alone. One member of the audience, however, did throw down an interesting challenge to both Lesley and Henry – full disclosure – it was me! – arguing that Holyrood could never fulfill its full promise without radical reform of Westminster politics, in particular, the electoral system for the House of Commons.
When our politics was dominated by two parties, Labour and Conservative, the First Past the Post delivered a semblance of fairness in which Scotland shared – that is before the advent of Margaret Thatcher. Our party system however, is now in crisis with First Past the Post delivering increasingly unrepresentative and unpredictable outcomes. The Scottish National Party has been the beneficiary of this chaos and its polarising impact on politics in general and Scottish politics in particular.
Were the problem to be addressed and the system reformed, I would bet that an independence referendum, 10 years on, would deliver a resounding “No” to the secessionist proposition. But I’ll be waving no flags, one way or the other, and if I am wrong I’ll still hope to be around to experience the dawn of the new and independent Scotland. I’m sure they’ll do just fine.
Story 2: The Beatles, the Sixties and Me
Philip Norman in Conversation with Ken McNab
I have read a few music celebrity biographies in my time – Dylan – more than one, Cohen, Neil Young, Bruce Springsteen, … but in more recent years I have grown weary of the genre. Yet I could not resist this event, Philip Norman, biographer of the Beatles, both the group and the individual members – well, all except Ringo, but more of that later, interviewed by Ken McNab who has also written extensively about The Beatles.
Philip Norman (left) and Ken McNab amidst the splendour of the gallery room in Broughton House.
It was, perhaps unsurprisingly, an anecdote rich conversation. But what anecdotes they were. Philip Norman had encountered the Beatles in person at the earliest flowering of their celebrity, both Paul McCartney and John Lennon welcoming him, an unknown young journalist, into their inner circle, at least briefly, until firmly ejected by a professional Beatle Minder but not before gathering further evidence of George Harrison as a more taciturn presence and Ringo Starr … well, as I’ve already said, more on Ringo, later.
In fact Philip Norman was eventually to write a Beatles biography, Shout, published following Lennon’s death, in 1981. It was the first significant work on the Beatles. Subsequent Norman biographies of McCartney and Harrison were to revise some aspects of the narrative set out in Shout, which had pleased neither McCartney nor Harrison. Yet what was clear from the discussion was Philip Norman’s willingness to look for a more complex and complete version of the Beatles story.
The conversation was characterised more by jaw dropping anecdote and revelation than by brilliant insight, but given that Norman had found his way into the presence of such stellar celebrity, could it possibly have been otherwise?
A number of tantalising strands did emerge. One such was pinpointed by a question from the audience, which observed the rich evidence of John Lennon’s wit in the Beatles early years. And yet, when he formed his relationship with Yoko Ono and eventually broke with the Beatles and moved with Yoko to New York, all of this humour and whimsy, as evidenced in his early publication of the books John Lennon in his Own Write and A Spaniard in the Works, appeared to go missing.
Philip Norman, to some degree defended Lennon against this charge and yet was very clear that John was in awe of Yoko Ono’s status as a serious artist, and doubted his own claim to be an artist of any worth at all.
The discussion of Brian Epstein’s role in the rise of the Beatles touched on a similar failure of confidence. Philip Norman was very clear that Epstein was a crucial element of the Beatles rise to fame, and yet Epstein’s influence seems to me to have been a stifling one, particularly evident in insistence on Beatle suits.
Before Epstein came on the scene, The Beatles had, with the help of their booking agent, Allan Williams, found their way from the Cavern in Liverpool to a residency in Hamburg. There is strong evidence to suggest that they were capable of a discipline that might very well have carried them forward, perhaps with a different manager and without the intervention of Brian Epstein. And in those early Hamburg photographs their appearance is strikingly defined by leather jackets, jeans, Brylcreem and attitude. This is all evidence of the influence of the US film and music culture from which their own work was to grow. It was a look which could only have worked in their favour and yet Brian Epstein was to insist that they “smarten up”.
The remarkable thing is that the band went along with this regime and in John’s case it seems unexpectedly deferential.
Having said this, I’d have to admit that the cleaner look which Epstein brought to the band quite possibly did extend their reach into more conservative corners of the culture and perhaps this was crucial to the scale of their success.
Ah yes, Ringo. Not considered interesting enough, it would seem, for a Norman biography. Indeed unfavourable comparisons were made in the conversation between Ringo’s abilities and those of one of his predecessors, Stuart Sutcliffe, who left the band for reasons that are still debated, and tragically, was to die in April 1962 of a brain haemorrhage. Sutcliffe was succeeded as drummer, by Pete Best. Best already a band member, switched from bass to drums, with McCartney taking over on bass. Brian Epstein fired Best following the band’s first recording session and then, on 16 August 1962, came Ringo.[1]
Ringo has continued to be the butt of unfavourable comment. John Lennon is alleged to have said “’Ringo wasn’t even the best drummer in the Beatles.” And yet it may be that Ringo’s talent was perfectly fitted to the music that emerged and that a more brilliant or creative drummer, whilst they might have tipped the group down a musically interesting, route, would have harmed their popular appeal. I think I hear Gerry Hassan making a very similar observation about Ringo in the latest episode of Dumfries and Galloway’s very own Beatle Blethers, currently riding high in the UK podcast charts.
Story 3: The Power of Equality in the UK and Globally
Peter Tatchell in Conversation with D. J. McDowall
I arrived at this event with some sense of Peter Tatchell’s importance as a campaigner for human rights, equality and LGBT+ freedom over many years. I had not expected to find myself so impressed by the endless invention of his campaigning, and the courage, modesty and restraint he continues to show in the face of the threats and abuse directed against him.
D. J. McDowall’s thoughtfully planned sequence of questions deserves credit for a conversation which touched upon many aspects of Peter Tatchell’s 50 year career as a campaigner. Along the way we learnt about his deeply religious fundamentalist upbringing, his early protests, in Australia, against the Vietnam war, his two attempts to perform a citizens arrest on Robert Mugabe, and his unrelenting workload and commitment. “I am tired all the time. I just keep going”….I’m 73 now. I hope I’ll have another 20 years of campaigning.” The conclusion was understandably emotional. The standing ovation that followed was something I had never before experienced at such an event.
Above all, the conversation elicited from Peter Tatchell a master class in something he has raised to the level of an art form: protest and campaigning. Joy and humour were his key ideas, as exemplified in the mass kiss-in at Picadilly Circus in 1990 organised to challenge police harassment and laws that criminalised public same sex affection. His advice on how to greet an approaching policeman: with a smile and an outstretched and open palm – “It’s not what they expect.”
Peter Tatchell and D.J. McDowall
In the past, Peter Tatchell has worked cooperatively with Keir Starmer on human rights cases. He is distressed by what has become of Starmer. “I liked Keir and I don’t know what has happened to him.” A particular frustration has been the Government’s refusal to change the electoral system despite clear support from within the Labour Party in favour of reform.
Like many others, Peter Tatchell fears that the next general election will deliver an unrepresentative and backward-looking government, led by Nigel Farage. If the Government will not give us a fairer voting system, the only way to prevent this bleak outcome, he suggested, will be tactical voting and electoral pacts beween parties.
On a lighter note, D.J. McDowall somewhat ambushed Peter with a request for music that he has found inspiring or listens to in order to relax. He doesn’t really seem to do much of the latter. At any rate, here’s his impromptu playlist.
“Every day” said Peter Tatchell “I try to imagine …”
Endnotes
Note, this post was updated on 12 September, 13:55, to correct D.J. McDowall’s name and also the original elision of Pete Best from the sequence of Beatle drummers.
Further update on 15 September, with more detail on Pete Best’s presence in the band.
I arrived at the Coach and Horses last Thursday with no intention to write anything about the evening which was to come. But I went home with a different idea entirely for the event celebrated not just poetry but a remarkable local publishing venture: Roncadora Press. Hugh Bryden, the creative force behind Roncadora, has engaged in an extended collaboration with local poets to produce limited edition books. Each one is unique in character and, quite apart from its content, crafted with unfailing deftness in a range of print techniques, formats, and layouts. But Hugh has decided that Roncadora Press has run its course, and he wishes to focus on other projects.
To mark the conclusion of the Roncadora era, its final collaboration was with another Hugh, Hugh McMillan. The two Hughs have collaborated on many Roncadora projects. This final work, “Colin goes South”, has been described by the poet himself as a “deranged version of the Gododdin set on the train from Dumfries to Carlisle!” We were treated to readings from this epic, a fascinating and, at times, hilarious piece of work. I should like to have quoted from it. Sadly, the copy I bought somehow got left behind in the Coach and Horses. Rest assured, I shall be purchasing a second copy and sending my good wishes to whoever went home with mine.
The second half of the evening was given over to an open mic session, providing an opportunity for a range of others to present their work. We heard everything from a first poem—a kind of manifesto for the medium—through to poems expressing grief, a poem on the challenge of an empty chair, and a poem on a remarkable encounter in East Belfast, this last read by a visitor, Charlie Gracie. For me, perhaps signalling my less than complete commitment to serious work, the highlight of the evening came from a young woman (I didn’t catch her name, but someone I hope will tell me). She gave us an extended monologue culminating in a visit to the castle of Count Dracula, the whole thing performed from memory in a range of character voices and distinguished by some magnificent puns. Edinburgh Fringe, eat your heart out, I would say. It was a fine evening’s entertainment all round.
I would note one contribution from a member of the audience who did not deign to take the floor. She offered an eight-line poem, a commentary, as I understood it, on the use of mobile phones by some of those performing as a source from which to read their work. The eight lines were cleverly written, I thought. The author appeared to suggest that words read from a paper source, whether book, notebook, or folder, were in some way preferable, perhaps even superior—or did I miss some detail?—to those read from a screen.
My understanding of the message was consistent with the creative framing which Roncodora Press has offered for the work of local poets, and that is something I esteem. Yet as I set off for home, I found myself in disagreement with what I think I heard. I have listened more than once to poems read from a mobile phone and thought the work was good. Indeed, I have more than once read poetry aloud (not my own) from a mobile phone and felt that I have shared something significant with my listeners which I’d like to think was welcome. There is a vast archive of poetry on the internet which can be accessed on a mobile phone.
If I do have a message for those who read their work from a phone or a tablet, it would be: get the damn thing sorted out before you stand up. But that’s a minor point, and I can imagine that, when you’re nervous, sorting your phone out is a little like tuning a guitar—necessary, of course, but also a way of calming yourself down.
I’ll finish, though, with a further mention of the work of Hugh Bryden. I was in Sanquhar a few weeks ago in the cafe and art centre, A’ The Airts. I spotted a book of poems by Betty Tyndal, titled “Journey at Solstice”. I knew who Betty was, though I hadn’t seen her for years. I picked up the book. It was a slim volume, hand-sewn, but what most caught my eye were the beautiful illustrations throughout. They were by Hugh Bryden, working in a style I might not have associated with him. I won’t tell you the price for which it was for sale, because it was an insult to the work. Of course I bought it, took it home, and what’s more, I read it. I thought it a rather fine piece of writing.
I brought the book along to the Coach and Horses and asked Hugh to sign it, which he did, telling me that Betty, now aged 92, is still living at the address given for the publisher and printed at the front of the book.
The following day I dropped in to see her. She sat in her small conservatory, surrounded by books, overlooking a garden full of apple and pear trees laden with fruit. She recalled for me the research she had done for “Journey at Solstice”, which she thought of as a reappraisal of the contribution which the Vikings made to our culture. She was kind enough to sign the copy of her book which I had brought with me.
Remarkably, she was working on a new poem, framed within her own bespoke book—a beautifully crafted folding creation with little pockets containing various objects, and also a short poem, which she took out and read to me. The project is a work in progress, she told me.
There is no doubt that mobile phones do have their limitations.
I really enjoyed the first episode of the Beatle Blethers podcast with Alan McClure and Gerry Hassan. It was a lively conversation, yet Alan and Gerry managed to avoid that excess of bonhomie, weak jokes, and loud laughter which can infect the podcast genre. It was definitely “a blether”, and yet that word, “blether,” understates the depth of knowledge of the subject, and the cultural and historical context which underpinned the discussion. I learnt a lot of things I didn’t know.
I grew up with the Beatles – well, I was 9 years old in October 1962 and living in Newry, Co. Down, when their first single Love Me Do was released. I have my eldest brother Michael to thank for bringing each of their LP records into our household as they arrived in Carlin’s record shop, just opposite Newry Market. Our family sat around the telly to watch them perform All You Need Is Love as Britain’s contribution to Our World, the first live global television link. It was heady stuff, but the Beatles broke up and the world moved on.
It is a good moment to reflect on the seismic impact of the Beatles on UK culture and on the culture of the wider world but also on the culture and politics of Northern Ireland. The first stirrings of the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association (NICRA) were in the early 1960s. I am guessing the leaders of that movement were probably listening to singers like Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger, early Bob Dylan, Joan Baez and, no doubt, the speeches of Martin Luther King.
The appeal of the Beatles went way beyond the boundaries of folk music and created a much larger space for young people to start thinking and behaving in ways that were challenging to the old orthodoxies. I am quite sure that Terence O’Neill, who became Prime Minister of Northern Ireland in 1963, only listened to the Beatles long enough to make him very uneasy about their likely impact. Reverend Ian Paisley, on the other hand knew, with his usual certainty, that this was the devil’s music. (Sorry, I can’t provide references for either of these speculations, but somehow I doubt many will question the accuracy of those guesses.)
A possible moment for peaceful political change occurred in Northern Ireland as NICRA gained strength with its formal establishment in 1967. Its stated objectives were:
To defend the basic freedoms of all citizens
To protect the rights of the individual
To highlight abuses of power
To demand guarantees for freedom of speech, assembly and association
To inform the public of its lawful rights[1]
Unionism and, above all, Reverend Paisley, dug in to defend the status quo from such nonsense.
There were to be other moments during The Troubles when the music scene set a course towards cross community rapprochement that the campaign of the Provisional IRA and the unyielding inflexibility of the Unionist establishment were relentlessly undermining. Terri Hooley, a heroic figure in the recent history of Northern Ireland, founded Good Vibrations record shop in the early 1970s and created a space in which a Northern Irish punk rock scene emerged with the Undertones, and Stiff Little Fingers breaking through into the wider UK music market.
So what? Nothing changed until 1997 and the Good Friday Agreement and that didn’t really owe much to Lennon and McCartney or Terri Hooley. And yet, the Beatles were the opening blast of a popular cultural revolution which has crossed all of the political divisions in Ireland. A deeply divided community has become more aware of the things that unifies it. There can be no doubt this cultural shift made political change not just easier, but perhaps inevitable.
As for possible themes for future episodes of Beatle Blethers … What about the impact of Bob Dylan on the direction in which Lennon McCartney’s song writing and lyrics developed? I imagine that impact to have been significant, but maybe I am overestimating it?
Or the Irish connection; in episode one Gerry and Alan referenced some ill-judged interventions from Lennon and McCartney in the debate on the The Troubles across the water, but I am more interested in the cultural influence of Ireland through the family connections of Lennon and McCartney. Perhaps that’s just fancy on my part and I am trying to claim something for Ireland that is indelibly Anglo American in its roots. Discuss!
I dare say Alan and Gerry have got a few other things in the pipeline!
This essay on song writing is also available as a video podcast on YouTube or can be listened to as an audio podcast or download an MP3 file. I have no plans to podcast regularly, though I do have one other podcast idea. I just need a little time to put it together.
Over many years, I have written songs. None of these songs have been hits or even attained minor celebrity. And yet I have accumulated a collection of pieces which have been received well enough within a variety of informal settings. Mostly I have sung them as a floor singer at folk clubs. In his 1988 album, I’m Your Man Leonard Cohen, reflected on his own place in the hierarchy of contemporary song:
I said to Hank Williams, ”How lonely does it get?”
Hank Williams hasn’t answered yet
But I hear him coughing all night long
Oh, a hundred floors above me
In the Tower of Song
Though there can be art in songwriting, a great deal can also be accomplished by the exercise of more prosaic skills and if your object is to entertain first yourself and then, just maybe, a few friends, my advice would be, have a go. You too may be able to find your place in the Tower of song.
In primary school I remember being invited, when I was about nine or ten, to write a poem. A poem in my mind was something that rhymed, and for whatever reason this task was something I felt confident I might be able to accomplish. My memory is that whatever I wrote on that occasion met with the teacher’s approval, but perhaps more importantly, also impressed my class mates. I am not quite sure where my confidence came from, but I think I knew instinctively not to always go for the most obvious rhyme and then there was also the question of phrasing and an awareness that a modification of phrasing might work better. I continued to write poems from time to time, mostly directed at the school magazine.
This writing of verse was never to mature into anything that might properly be called “poetry” but as I became mildly obsessed with the popular song of the era in which I was coming of age and started to learn – after a fashion – to play the guitar, the idea of writing songs was never far from my mind. Yet I knew, somehow, that this was a greater challenge than getting a poem in the school magazine. The standard set by my heroes was high. Bob Dylan, the Beatles, Leonard Cohen, Van Morrison: the fact that there was something going on in the work of these artists that was beyond my grasp did not stop me from having a go, but fortunately, of that early work, nothing remains.
The world of popular song in the 1960s was dominated by young men, yet one of the first songs I learnt was Universal Soldier, written by Buffy St Marie. In 1971 Carol King emerged into a solo career from the obscurity of 1960s Tin Pan Alley where she had been turning out hits with her then husband, Gerry Goffin. And then of course there was the peerless Joni Mitchell who properly came to my attention with the release of Blue in 1971. So women could be songwriters too, as has become increasingly apparent.
Looking back, I think my initial stumbling block was a desire to write songs without first having any ideas which might form the backbone of a lyric. Unlike Paul McCartney, I couldn’t rely on a great melody to carry me forward. McCartney woke up one morning with a tune in his head to which he initially sang “Scrambled Eggs.” This was to become Yesterday with a melody which somewhere or other I heard compared to “anything Schubert ever wrote.”
My songs were always lyric led and my guess is that that is the case for many of the songwriters I admired, in particular Leonard Cohen or Bob Dylan. Certainly in his early songwriting Dylan sat at a typewriter to compose. The accompaniment was a secondary consideration. With Joni Mitchell I just couldn’t say what her method might have been, perhaps some coevolution of music and words. Van Morrison I imagine evolving a song as if out of a chrysalis composed of sounds and words. But who knows. The point really is that song writing methods rely very much on the strengths, weaknesses and particular abilities of the individual.
Elton John worked with Bernie Taupin from whom he received lyrics in the post which he turned into Tumbleweed Connection, an album which I reverenced in the years before Elton veered off in a direction with which I felt a lesser connection.
But there is more to it even than that. I recall listening to a Youtube interview with Bob Dylan. He was asked about the origins of the songs he was writing in the 1960s, I am assuming in particular the period of Bringing it All Back Home, Highway 61 Revisited, and Blonde on Blonde. One does not necessarily expect Dylan to offer straightforward answers to such questions but his response was, I think, revealing. I paraphrase: “I don’t know where those songs came from.”
Dylan doesn’t say it but he hints at something mystical going on in his compositional style. Perhaps, given the times, a few drugs may have been involved, though I don’t really believe drugs or alcohol are a wise accompaniment to creativity even if F. Scott Fitzgerald did succeed in writing his masterpiece The Great Gatsby in a state of inebriation.
I think it may have been in the first volume of his autobiography Chronicles (published 2004 – the world is still waiting for the second volume) that Dylan recalls going to see Buddy Holly on January 31st 1959. In one telling of the story Dylan was in the front row of the concert. He recalled: “I was 3 feet away from him and he looked at me.” Dylan seems to hint that something like the spirit of popular song was passed in this encounter directly into his stewardship. Adding to the potency of this myth is that, less than a week later, 3rd February 1959, Holly was killed in a plane crash along with Ritchie Valens and “The Big Bopper” JP Richardson – “the day the music died” as Don McLean was to put it in his song American Pie.
Well you can believe that Dylan myth if you want to but I am more persuaded by the fact that Dylan’s love for American popular song, in all of its forms, is deep and his knowledge of it, encyclopaedic. Anyone who listened to Dylan on his Theme Time Radio show which aired from 2006 to 2009 will be aware of this. Much of his creativity comes from an ability to synthesise and blend all of this raw material with his own distinct, indeed mercurial view of the world.
We can’t all be Bob Dylan but there is a lesson of openness to musical genres that we can all learn something from.
There can be no doubt however that Dylan relies on a level of instinctiveness in his writing, and may even be wary of overworking his material. In May 2008 Mark Lawson interviewed Leonard Cohen for the BBC Radio 4 Arts programme, Front Row. I believe it was during the course of this interview (not currently available on BBC iplayer) that Cohen told a story of meeting up for lunch with Dylan when they both happened to be playing in Paris. Over their meal Dylan spoke of his admiration for Cohen’s song Hallelujah, which at that time was not particularly well known or fully formed. In return Cohen said how much he liked the Dylan song I and I. Dylan expressed an interest in how long it had taken Cohen to write Hallelujah. It is a song which in fact Cohen had worked on over an extended period and for which he had written many verses, unable to decide on a finished version. It was only with the help of editing from John Cale – formerly of the Velvet Underground – who had presumably heard Cohen perform an earlier iteration of the song – that the version which was to become so well known was laid down.
Having provided his answer to Dylan’s question, Cohen then asked in return how long it had taken Dylan to write I and I. “Five minutes” was the reply.
Was this an entirely honest answer? Who knows, but the point really is that instinct, inspiration and impulse all have their place in writing a song, but in general, and for most of us who aspire to the craft, work is also required. And then there can also be the problem of knowing when the deed is done.
In my own case I don’t generally set out to write a song, rather I am struck by an idea which I can see could be turned into a song. For me narrative is important and this is expressed in two distinct ways, the first being a matter of considering a range of perspectives on the chosen theme.
In the late 1970s I spent an evening with some friends and a story was told about a social occasion where the host had introduced the novelty, at that time, of a games consul. I thought that that story could make a song.
I was visiting with some friends
The atmosphere was kind of lame
Until the host jumped up and said
Lets get out the electronic games.
I began to think of other contexts in which electronic games might be introduced:
Out at a party
People shuffling round
Just then somebody cried out
And I knew what they had found
The atmosphere was suddenly electric
As we fought for control
And everyone was queuing up
For some of that electronic soul.
You get the idea I am sure. The song wrote itself on the basis of the original idea. Six four line verses tumbled out. I played it for a few people and though no one said anything as encouraging as “That’s a hit” it was a source of amusement and once or twice people have even requested that I play it. I couldn’t really ask for more.
At the time I wrote electronic games I believed, for a very brief period, that I had cracked this song writing business and might be able more or less to write songs to order but that was about as close as I ever got to Dylan in the 60s and soon enough I had to accept that for me, patience was necessary; I had to wait for the lightning to strike.
This said my brief period of creative fertility had its roots in something that was for me a songwriting breakthrough, namely punk rock. Not that I ever wrote anything with the recognisable rawness of a Sex Pistols or a Clash song, but I saw the importance of a simple and direct approach. Punk rock opened a space in my mind for a song writing method which allowed humour and irony to find their place alongside the song’s central idea.
But what was my song writing method? Before I digress on that topic I should mention the second type of narrative which can structure a song, put simply, a story. When I moved to Dumfries in the 1980’s I started getting up to play as a floor singer at the local folk club in the warm up for the main act. Whilst the songs I brought with me, mostly in what I now think of as an Indiefolk style, I began to realise that a longer form song which told a story might go down well in this context. That was the origin of a song called Dog Man which I wrote after giving a young hitch-hiker a lift from Cumnock in Ayrshire down to Dumfries. My passenger told me his life story in that journey; how he had left school at 16, gone through a training scheme, ended up unemployed and then found his way into the dodgy but fascinating world of greyhound racing. When I dropped him off I could hardly get home fast enough to write out what he had told me. It felt as if I was transcribing his words which without a great deal of reworking were to form the text of the song.
When my father died I was only fourteen
A bricklayer’s all he’d ever been
And I always said I would play the same part
But when the time came I could not get a start.
The original version of that song had eleven four line verses, including much detail of how races could be fixed and how the Dog Man could manipulate the betting odds in his favour. With the passing of time, a little like John Cale and Hallelujah I slimmed the song down to a more audience friendly eight verses, but in the context of Dumfries folk club my sense was that the full version was warmly received as a bold attempt at a song in the style of a traditional ballad.
For me a critical device in the writing of a song is the use of rhyme, and the greatest pitfall is to reach for the most obvious rhyme on the assumption that inspiration has offered you it as a gift. Most of us know that if our opening line ends in the word “moon” we should probably not be coming up with a following line which ends in the word “June.” I am not going to say that it couldn’t be made to work, for all the words in the two lines have their part to play, but the important thing is to consider other possible rhymes and ways in which they might be woven into the idea behind the song you are writing. This prompts consideration of a range of possibilities and the use of ingenuity to find ways of making a rhyme fit which did not initially seem to have a place. From this process something fresh can arise, perhaps humorous or ironic but above all, original.
For most of my song writing experience I would just work through the alphabet to consider the possibilities of rhyme and half rhyme which might serve. More recently I have discovered Rhymzone, a web site in which you enter a word and are immediately presented with a list of rhymes and near rhymes. If you can’t make one of these work there is always the possibility of reframing line A to offer a different rhyming opportunity in line B and this too can open up ideas in the song which were not part of its original inspiration.
When the lyric is complete, the challenge of creating a tune to which it may be sung remains. My approach to this is pretty basic and generally involves starting with a simple chord sequence in a major or a minor key depending on the mood of the song. If I am pleased with the lyrics, singing it at even this vestigial stage can be pleasing and this probably helps with the evolution of a melody, the introduction of additional chords or experimentation with 7ths or major 7ths can be done by trial and error. In my experience there is likely to be some evolution of the accompaniment in the coming week or so which may continue beyond an initial performance of the song to whatever audience may be willing and available.
Lily Allen tells an amusing story of how, when she went into the studio to record her debut single Smile, the producer at one point said: “That song needs a middle eight.” Lily responded: “What’s a middle eight?” The matter was explained to her, she withdrew from the studio and in a few minutes returned with a break based on a series of “la las.” The song was duly recorded and went on to be a huge hit.
I mention the story as it makes the point that what may be considered a finished song can still go through many stages of development, in particular if accomplished musicians become involved and add layers of arrangement to the original which can, on occasion, transform it from something relatively bland to a spectacular hit. Would we remember Gerry Raferty’s Baker Street or Hazel O’Conner’s Will You, were it not for the magic of the saxophone solos which were inserted into the arrangement of each?
The acid test is when your song is first shared with others. Here caution is advisable. Friends are often polite in their response but may also be dismissive or even caustic. They cannot see what you think is so good about the song. They can see what you cannot – it’s flaws. You have put them on the spot. They’re just being honest.
In these circumstances you must be your own critic, neither swayed by bland encouragement or harsh judgement. Sit on the song for a while and give yourself the chance to stand apart from your very personal engagement with its genesis. Maybe at that point you will see the changes that need to be made, or perhaps that the song is not quite the masterpiece you felt it to be at the outset. However, if you continue to like the song yourself, that alone is important and should not be dismissed as a measure of its quality.
Song writing partnerships offer evidence that the contribution of friends can be in alignment or complimentary in ways that are mutually supportive of the end results with that needed balance of criticism and mutual support. Lennon-McCartney, Jagger-Richards, or a somewhat undercelebrated favourite partnership of my own, Walter Becker and Donald Fagen of Steely Dan have all produced remarkable bodies of work. If you are part of a band there must be a fair chance that a creative rapport can be established, probably one which shares out song writing responsibilities between the complimentary talents of the ensemble.
If you are working on your own, however, you must strike a balance between believing in your ability and critical self reflection. It’s an easy one to get wrong and it is unlikely that every song you write will be a good one. I notice that Alan McClure who has been appointed Scotland’s Scriever for 2025, is an advocate of song writing workshops. That may indeed be a way into the craft for many though I feel sure that even in such a context that it is the writer who can both believe in and critique their own work who will produce the best work.
If song writing workshops become more common I feel sure that the quality [I meant quantity, really!] of what is produced will improve[increase!], but so, in a world of already short attention spans will the competition to be heard and appreciated. lt is worth reflecting on artists who have contributed perhaps only a single song which has spread beyond the tight circle of their acolytes. I think of Dave Goulder’s The January Man, recorded by many artists including Christy Moore and Martin Carthy. I was privileged to hear Dave Goulder sing the song when he was the guest artist at Dumfries Folk Club. He did a set of well crafted songs but the January Man is the onlMick West, who recorded it in 1997 has called it: “A beautiful piece of poetry married to a wonderful tune.” It is the dream of every journeyman songwriter, that a piece of their work should be taken up and more widely appreciated in this way. But in the end, if all you achieve is to please yourself and a few friends at an informal sing song, that too can be a reward.
This video was written, presented and produced by me, Stephen Shellard. Just learning the trade really. All of the songs I have written, including the two referenced in the talk are availableon my Youtube channel, Singing from the Floor, available at www.youtube.com/@Carruchan If you do like any of the songs please give them a thumbs up as it may help others find their way there.
How Fringe Factions Fuel Dysfunction in Israel and Beyond
[1,097 words, 6 minutes read time]
When Hamas attacked Israel on October 7th 2023, they massacred 1,195 people, 736 Israeli civilians (including 38 children), 79 foreign nationals, and 379 members of the security forces. While Israel had every right to defend itself, the scale and nature of its military response in Gaza have been disproportionate and reckless, amounting to war crimes on an industrial scale. A panel of experts in international law convened by the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court states that: “Based on the material it has reviewed… there are reasonable grounds to believe that Netanyahu and Gallant (Israeli Minister of Defence, 2022-24) made essential contributions to the common plan to use starvation of civilians as a method of warfare and commit other acts of violence against the civilian population.” [1]
While Benjamin Netanyahu and his Likud party carry primary responsibility for these actions it is equally clear that the opportunism of small Jewish fundamentalist parties has exacerbated the situation and has made a uniquely malign contribution to the catastrophe.
At the outset of the Israeli election in November 2022, Likud won 34 seats. Its coalition government was enabled by three other factions. These were:
Shas, which favours orthodox religious practice and holds 11 seats.
The Religious Zionist Party, with 14 seats
United Torah Judaism (UTJ) with 7 seats [2] [3]
Such parties rely on religious text to determine their key policy positions and have little interest in pragmatism other than as a means of obtaining their own narrow objectives.
The coalition gave Benjamin Netanyahu 64 seats in a 120 seat parliament. There have been various fallings out in the meantime and following the Hamas terrorist attack, the formation of a war cabinet which includes Benny Ganz, former Israeli Defence Force Chief of Staff. Critically, however, Ben-Gvir (leader of the far-right Otzma Yehudit party) and Bezalel Smotrich (leader of the Religious Zionism party), indicated they would withdraw from the government if there was to be a ceasefire at this stage. Their withdrawal—along with their factions—would collapse the government. Netanyahu, prioritizing political survival over moderation, empowered these factions—granting them unprecedented influence over security and settlement policies.
Inflexible ideological or religious thinking and a narrow agenda, even a single issue agenda, are liable to be characteristic of small political parties. Of course there are exceptions, small parties with genuine potential to grow their electoral base and an authentic commitment to good governance. But many small parties will always remain on the fringe, their eccentric character obvious to most citizens.
With multiple small parties democratic politics slides, sooner or later, into dysfunction. Coalition building becomes increasingly difficult and time consuming. Larger parties concede to the eccentricities of smaller parties. Smaller parties use their unwarranted power to collapse the system in favour of their own interests rather than accepting compromise to protect the national interest. The electorate becomes weary of the whole fiasco and blames politicians rather than the system.
In most countries where the legislature is elected by a proportional system, measures are in place to manage this problem, with minimum vote thresholds for a party to be awarded seats.
The dangers of small, extremist parties holding disproportionate power are not unique to Israel. In the UK, a fragmented political landscape raises similar concerns. In a recent edition of the Rest of Politics podcast Alistair Campbell and Rory Stewart were contemplating the possibility following the next General Election,, by some quirk of the electoral outcome, of either Nigel Farage or Jeremy Corbyn, becoming the next UK Prime Minister. As Campbell commented: “We are on the point of becoming a European Multi Party democracy in a First Past the Post System.” [4]
He’s not wrong. Indeed I would put it a little more strongly than that. We are on the cusp of a new level of dysfunction in UK politics. Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultan are launching a new party “to take on the rich and powerful.” [5] This seems laudable, but why not join the Greens who seem broadly to share this same objective? The likely outcome of this exceptionalism will be vote splitting, creating opportunity for Reform to come through the middle and take seats. And by the way, part of the current dysfunction in our electoral politics is the significant under-representation of Reform. This distortion fuels public disillusionment, as just over 4 million votes for Reform translate into negligible parliamentary power.
Regionally based parties, with a limited interest in a national perspective, add a further dimension to the quagmire. The DUP saw the chance to extract their pound of flesh from Teresa May’s government during the post Brexit hiatus. Often overlooked in this particular fiasco was the negative contribution of Sinn Fein, who by virtue of their abstentionist policy, utterly failed to represent their EU friendly constituency in the way Brexit was handled. But do Sinn Fein care if the UK Government screws up? All they are really interested in is Irish Unity – another project, by the way, for which I have some sympathy. Like Israel’s fringe parties, regional factions like the DUP and Sinn Féin exploit their leverage—not to govern, but to extract concessions or sabotage the system outright.
Then, of course, there is the rise of Scottish and Welsh Nationalism. Separatist parties have a legitimate case to make, but their role in the UK Parliament is inevitably subversive. They have no interest in a successful UK Government and direct all their energies into undermining those parties who are attempting to make it work.
If the Labour government truly wants to prevent the kind of dysfunction seen in Israel—or the looming chaos of an unrepresentative Farage or Corbyn premiership—electoral reform should be at the top of their agenda. It may seem a low priority amid economic crises—but delaying it only entrenches dysfunction.
Basic Income, Artificial Intelligence and Reimagining Immigration
Universal Basic Income (UBI) – that is to say provision of a living allowance for all citizens regardless of their employment status – is an idea that has interested me for many years. Indeed in October 2017 I had a brief email conversation with BBC and Financial Times journalist Tim Harford on the subject. He told me that he was a fan of the idea himself but cautioned: “It’s not easy to make the sums add up.” He referred me to an article by John Kay, a journalist with the Financial Times. I read it carefully and was left feeling thoroughly disheartened. Essentially John Kay offered an impenetrable case suggesting UBI would be impossibly expensive to implement. I could see no way to push back against what he said.
Expense is the obvious objection to UBI, yet logic suggests that if the goal is not wealth redistribution but maintaining current incomes through tax-and-payment adjustments, the net cost could be neutral—aside from transitional bureaucracy.
I can accept that transitioning from the current system of benefits and means tests to a system of UBI would be fiendishly complicated. I don’t see Rachael Reeves buying into the idea anytime soon. And yet there are reasons why even so fiscally cautious a person as Rachael Reeves might be persuaded that the time is coming soon when a basic income for all citizens will be not just desirable, but necessary.
The AI Jobs Crisis
The most obvious consideration is the coming Artificial Intelligence (AI) revolution. A Government Report, published in 2021 – ancient history so far as AI development is concerned – suggested that “7% of jobs were at high risk of being automated in the next 5 years, rising to 30% after 20 years.” The research “also reported that many jobs would be created through AI-related productivity and economic growth (and) concludes that the most plausible assumption is that the long-term impact of AI on employment levels in the UK (will be) broadly neutral, but that the potential impact is unclear.”
This conclusion carries a hint of wishful thinking. AI offers increases in productivity that have eluded us in recent years. AI-driven productivity gains will reshape the economy. While some jobs vanish, new ones may emerge—but not necessarily at the same scale or skill level. The real risk is structural unemployment outpacing retraining efforts.
China is already trialling driverless lorries. A driverless lorry is probably a safer proposition than an overworked individual who may fall asleep on the job. For a human at the wheel of a UK lorry the maximum driving time per day is 9 hours, not to mention a range of other requirements to allow for ingestion of food, excretion, rest and recreation – oh yes, and weekends and holidays. The economic benefit of ditching human drivers is obvious. Yes, there will be resistance to change, but the inevitable outcome will be fewer jobs.
The impact of driverless vehicles alone will be massive. Driverless taxis are already being used in some parts of the United States.
Increased productivity will initially result in an expanding economy, but new businesses and expansion of existing businesses will inevitably base their investment on increasingly effective use of AI and the longer term promises an economy in which there will be a plentiful supply of what people need produced by a workforce pared to the absolute minimum.
There is an economic catch in this apparently virtuous cycle. Unemployment—the byproduct of AI-driven efficiency—could trigger a recession unless we bolster the spending power of displaced workers.
There is both a dystopian and a utopian vision as regards the way in which this future will unfold. Perhaps some of these obsolescent individuals will retrain to provide a much needed boost to those areas of service and care which can less easily be handed over to AI. That would be a positive outcome. It is also possible that lorry drivers cast on the AI scrapheap, having lost the dignity of traversing the country at the wheel of a supertanker or some other articulated behemoth, will find the transition to a new life a difficult one. I imagine however that many will make every effort to reinvent themselves for employment or self-employment. But the stark reality is there may be no job waiting for them.
A basic income would expand options for this growing pool of unemployed individuals. UBI makes it more possible to imagine individuals starting micro businesses, developing latent artistic, musical and craft abilities, volunteering, gardening, self-educating; the possibilities are endless. All of such activity has the potential to strengthen the wider economy and enrich our culture.
But for this to become a reality there would have to be a greater acceptance that society no longer requires every citizen to be formally employed at every stage of their adult life in the production of needed goods and services.
It is worth pointing out that UBI, in addition to its obvious benefit for those not in employment, would also mediate the power relationship between those in low paid employment and their employers. An employee would more easily be able to walk away from a working situation where they are being poorly treated or they could insist on better pay if the work is unpleasant or demanding. UBI, on the one hand, is a subsidy to employers. Indeed in some circumstances interesting work and generous working conditions may be enough to keep an individual in employment where the employer does not have the means to offer generous pay.
Immigration Reimagined
UBI could also recalibrate immigration policy. By restricting it to citizens (after, say, a 10-year residency), we might deter some migrants while ensuring those who come contribute meaningfully before accessing benefits.
Determination and a willingness to accept some difficulties would be required but these are qualities immigrants exhibit on a daily basis. Registration, being an essential step in beginning the journey to citizenship and stability, would be encouraged. Equally, the charge coming from some quarters of our political culture, that migrants are getting preferment in various ways, would be immediately quashed.
Undoubtedly the implementation of UBI on this basis would give prospective migrants pause for thought. One might expect a consequent decline in the number of new arrivals, but those coming could be made welcome. It is also obvious that migrants with qualifications would be less discouraged by the citizenship qualification period, for they might hope to earn at a higher level from the outset.
Personally I have some concerns about attempting to attract highly qualified migrants who, by rights, should probably be serving the needs of the people in the country in which they had gained their training. For the moment that seems a minor concern which might be addressed by other measures such as increases to the foreign aid budget.
Support Networks
At present, typically, immigrants who arrive unbidden and under the radar in the UK rely for support on a network of relatives and friends. Such networks are strengthened by community ethnic and religious affiliations. These protections, however, fall well short of a guarantee against exploitation and hardships of various kinds.
Under the UBI citizenship qualification that I suggest, registered migrants would quite possibly be even more vulnerable to dropping through their informal networks of support and protection. The state would have an obligation to provide a safety net. Registered migrants could have access to a range of services, which might include health insurance, hostel accommodation and food kitchens. It would also make sense to offer training in language and other skills which might be of immediate use. There could be an environmental task force offering day work – both to citizens and migrants – in need of ready cash.
War, famine, political instability, tyranny, climate change.
I cannot leave this discussion without asking an obvious, indeed rhetorical, question. Why do so many people face the huge challenge of leaving the country of their birth, making a perilous journey across foreign countries and dangerous seas to seek employment in a country which is often unwelcoming, even hostile to their arrival?
The answers are familiar to anyone paying attention: war, famine, political instability, tyranny, and climate change.
Anything which contributes to the alleviation of these challenges would reduce flows of migrants into Europe and North America. Hitherto, that has been one of the objectives of foreign aid budgets. Policies advancing net zero also address migration, since climate-induced disasters—floods, droughts—force people to flee.
The US Government, at the bidding of Donald Trump, has just dismantled USAID and all such aid initiatives in the UK and elsewhere are under threat from the populist right of our politics. There is a short sighted clamour, energised by the politically unscrupulous, to cut or abandon foreign aid and policies intended to take us towards net zero.
Into the vacuum, which this parochial thinking has opened up, China is building influence through its Belt and Road initiative. In so doing, they are focussed on securing their own interests and are content to leave Europe and the US to flounder in the squalor of their fractious divisions.
John Kay may be correct in his estimation that UBI would be impossibly expensive to implement. Perhaps, on the other hand, its time has come. I would say to Rachael Reeves and indeed, Keir Starmer – should they be listening – the way forward would be a minefield of fiscal constraints and political resistance. But leadership demands courage, not just caution.
Not long after publishing my memoir, Remembered Fragments, I thought it might be an idea to contact the Newry Reporter in order to draw this momentous event to their attention. After all, at various points, the Newry Reporter made an appearance in episodes I recalled in the book. The slightly portentous style of its journalism in the late 1960s, particularly where sport was concerned, had made something of an impression on my young mind. I found a telephone number for the paper and rang up. I was answered by someone who described himself as the editor.
I formed the impression of a young man, possibly in his early 30s, sitting back in one of those wheeled chairs that tip satisfyingly with the occupant when they lean back. That’s what I imagined this young man was doing when he received my call; leaning back, enjoying a break from his computer screen, perhaps even with his feet up on the desk, ankles crossed.
“How can I help you?” he enquired.
I summarised the nature of the book and told him that I’d sent a copy to Colum Sands. He had emailed me to say he was enjoying it. The young man seemed to have heard of Colum Sands, and did not disagree with my assertion that Colum was a local person of some cultural significance. However, my offer of a free copy of Remembered Fragments for review purposes met with obvious disdain.
On reflection, my approach was naive. I had imagined myself phoning into a busy office. Perhaps that was the case, but having examined the current business model of the Reporter I have some doubts about this image and imagine the editor was, as likely as not, all on his lonesome.
The Reporter is no longer published in a print edition, but continues to exist as part of a consortium of local papers each with their content entirely online. Many column inches are filled with shared stories of national or even international significance.
In the case of the Newry Reporter, the banner title so familiar to me still exists with its gothic lettering framing the little motif of St. Patrick sitting between the two yew trees on the strand, which were to give Newry its name. Apart from this handsome banner, there is no similarity between the online paper as it is today and the paper I remember. The new business model relies heavily, it would seem, on copy submitted by members of the public. I daresay the editor himself engages with the larger local stories when they emerge.
When he had finished my book Colum Sands was good enough to send me a review. I submitted this to the Reporter. They published it. I’m very grateful for that, despite the fact that the presentation of the review is, for me, somewhat marred by the presence of multiple advertisements and a standard layout which hints that I might myself have written this favourable review.
But in other respects, what could be wrong with a local news platform filled with just such unpaid contributions. Indeed, that may be the only way in which “the local” in local papers can continue to exist.
Perhaps the Newry Reporter always relied on some element of voluntary journalism. Were the reports on the Carnbane League and multiple other sporting events which were documented in the paper, really the work of professional journalists? It is hard to imagine a payroll that extensive. Nevertheless, the Reporter, as I remember it, was an institution deeply embedded in the lives of Newry people. It united all the disparate elements of local life: sport, music, drama, education, the visual arts, commerce, criminal behaviour, marriages, births, deaths. The paper, so far as I could see, navigated matters of religion and politics without becoming entangled in any of the divisions which marred the world in which I grew up.
The Newry Reporter had been founded in 1867 by James Burn. However in 1915 it was acquired by Edward Hodgett, and the Hodgett family were to be the proprietors until January 11th 2023 when its locally based production became unviable and it was sold to National World, a company with its head office in Leeds.
As a boy scout in Newry, I had some knowledge of the Hodgett family. Noel Hodgett, or “Frosty”, the name by which everyone in the scouts knew him, had an enduring connection with the First Newry troop. Frosty, along with his brothers Max and Richard, was a director of Edward Hodgett Ltd, the company, founded by their father, that owned the Newry Reporter
I always understood that Frosty had a connection with the paper though was never clear what precisely his role was in the weekly appearance of the Newry Reporter in our household. He did not strike me as a journalist, a purveyor of the written word, but nor for that matter did he seem in the least like a small town Rupert Murdoch.
At the time I became a scout, Frosty had withdrawn from weekly attendance at meetings, but nevertheless I remember him coming on annual camps. We delighted in his reputation, a jovial figure, his good humour beaming from many of the photographs recording those great adventures.
From stories I heard about Frosty I came to believe that he was more than just good humour. There was evidence that he had a benign understanding of the many concerning stages through which adolescent boys develop on their way to a state which might pass as maturity. He was as interested in the miscreants as much as those destined to become Queen’s Scouts.
To what extent these rich human qualities were shared by the other directors of Edward Hodgett Ltd, or influenced production of the Reporter, would be hard for me to say, but what is clear is that Frosty was a newspaper proprietor with much more than just a commercial interest in the community which he served.
Can National World match this level of commitment to the many small communities to which it now provides an online news service? The Newry Reporter’s shift from print to a shared online platform reflects a wider trend. Studies show that as local papers are absorbed by conglomerates, their original character often fades, replaced by homogenized content and community-submitted copy—a far cry from the deeply rooted journalism of Frosty Hodgett’s era.
It is, however, too early to judge the matter. We are on a journey where the provision of news is concerned and it could be that the esteem in which local print media were once held in so many communities may in time be matched by the online output of National World and their like. In 2022, the Hussman School of Journalism and Media compiled a report which includes the following call to action.
Making certain that no community is disenfranchised because its residents lack access to critical information is the journalistic challenge of the 21st century. The burden for accomplishing this mission is not only on journalists, but also on community activists, philanthropists, owners of news organizations and government officials to make sure newsrooms have the resources they need to enfranchise everyone.
Review on YourWorld.Net This is the same review by Colum Sands minus advertisements but also without the historic Newry Reporter Banner.
News Deserts and Ghost Newspapers: Will Local News Survive? A paper which documents the decline in local media in the US, argues the importance of local media for a vibrant local democracy, and suggests possible ways of reinventing local news.
Is it truly impossible for aspiring writers to break into the publishing industry? At this, the penultimate event in Kirkcudbright Book Week 2025, the panel of experts seemed to think so.
The programme information referred to the “rapid change” which the world of publishing is undergoing, “providing authors, readers, publishers and bookshops with unprecedented opportunities and challenges.” I looked forward to a wide ranging conversation. Yet though I enjoyed the discussion, from the point of view of aspirant writers, what I heard was mostly a counsel of despair. It is nearly impossible to get a publisher, we were told. Fiction does not sell, said Ian Spring of Rymour Books, though non-fiction can sell, for example books about the Scottish mountains. This was stark realism in spades.
There was very little analysis of the sub genres of non-fiction – biography, memoir, travel, history philosophy and so on. According to Gerry Hassan, writing on popular music is enjoying something of a golden age and may be treated as an exception. To self publish, on the other hand, is to accept that you will only ever be read by friends and family. One member of the audience did claim to have sold four hundred copies of a self published book. There was general assent from the panel that that was a pretty impressive outcome. Nevertheless, said panel member, Anstey Spraggan, you can tell, often by just reading the first line of a book, whether it is a work of self publication or has gone through the rigours of editing on which a proper publisher will insist.
The comment of the panel on the difficulties of finding a publisher is something on which I have a personal story to tell. Indeed, having attempted unsuccessfully to get a publisher for my memoir, Remembered Fragments, I have some sense of just how competitive the world of publishing is.
My book was written during the pandemic when, we can be sure, many similar projects were being worked out. The central narrative was my coming of age in Newry, Northern Ireland, with my earliest memories from the late 1950s through the 1960s when the Troubles were just beginning to kick off.
For whatever reason I had settled on the idea that Belfast’s Blackstaff Press would love what I had to say. On consulting their website it became clear that they were not taking any further submissions for that year, as they were already overloaded. When I checked up in January of the following year, the message had been updated to say that Blackstaff would only be accepting submissions in April and May, and that a maximum of 30,000 words should be submitted. I waited patiently and submitted my 30,000 words and in due course was turned down. I received no comment on the quality of the work.
The panel at the Selkirk Arms in Kirkcudbright was clearly representative of a fairly traditional model of publishing for fiction and non-fiction books. There was a general assumption that, unlike myself, would-be writers are intent on a career as an author. If you are in that category, then get yourself an agent who will act as an intermediary between you and potential publishers. So far as I can tell this system of agents as intermediaries continues to work well for many established writers. The main challenge for new writers is the increasing number of people out there who believe, rightly or wrongly, that they have a book in them, perhaps even a future as a writer. This inevitably makes the problem of getting the attention of a publisher more difficult.
Publishers in general take the view that they are already skimming the cream and that great writing will inevitably find its way to the top. There is of course a market for celebrity biographies, cookbooks, and the like. For the rest, there is self publishing in its various forms. The possible merits of this option were not really explored other than as a refuge for the desperate. The panel warned us in particular against the blandishments of those who will take money in exchange for proofreading and typographical services. I’d say that was sound advice.
But even if we restrict our idea of publishing to the written word, the age of change has had impacts well beyond the bastion of mainstream traditional publishing. For those with an impulse to blog on whatever subject takes their fancy, a world of opportunity has opened up with the internet. My own efforts as a blogger have had limited reach, but I follow a couple of local blogs which I think are well written and of significant interest and which clearly have a substantial audience. Increasingly even professional writers are using Substack and similar platforms to cut out the middlemen and get paid directly by their readers.
Panelist Ian Spring, made it clear that poetry can sell, though this is usually reliant on energetic promotion by the poet. In Dumfries and Galloway, and I am sure elsewhere, the writing of poetry is supported by workshops which offer an apprenticeship of sorts and undoubtedly a first level of quality control. Southlight Magazine is a secondary filter on the local literary scene offering a forum to new writers of poetry and indeed of short stories. Southlight provides opportunities to read at the Magazine’s launch events. Small publishers such as Drunk Muse Press deserve honourable mention having brought some of the fine poetry which is being written in obscure corners to a wider audience.
While small specialist publishers have long existed, they have been made more viable by the computing technology used to prepare work for publication which, combined with modern methods of printing, would appear to make short print runs an affordable proposition. Since poets never expect to become best sellers, this model of publishing works well for them.
When question time came I was keen to ask the panel how they thought Artificial Intelligence might affect the publishing industry. The question was understood more as being concerned with the threat posed by AI rather than the opportunities which it might offer. I was advised that asking Chat GPT or Deep Seek for comment on drafts for my blog, as I do, was “feeding the beast” … well the word “beast” wasn’t used, but that was the implication.
It does seem possible that Artificial Intelligence may begin to replace writers in a range of circumstances and that is indeed an alarming thought. Yet at the current stage of its development, AI has the capability to assist writers in shaping their work, just as a friend or editor will assist us by making corrections and suggestions – for example that chapter 3 is a pointless and self indulgent digression which should be cut out entirely; and so on. Used in this way, we control the AI and get it to do what we want. If you don’t like what it says, by all means, plough your own furrow.
Ian Spring pointed out that the publishing industry is already shaping the work of writers, moving it towards what will be more digestible, more saleable. At the more extreme end of this “management,” publishing may already be doing the very thing that we fear most from AI, crushing creativity and promoting a product which is shaped entirely by the demands of the market.
Where creative writing is concerned, the end point impact of Artificial Intelligence is indeed hard to predict. AI can, in its current incarnation, rattle off poems to order, no doubt, making some attempt at the style of T.S.Elliot, or W.B.Yeats, if required. Yet I don’t see a serious threat to the writing of poetry from this quarter. Perhaps AI will independently produce work to feed a public appetite for crime, romantic or science fiction. Much of the publication in these genres already betrays a strong element of formula in its construction. That, possibly dark day, of ubiquitous AI created content has not yet arrived. In the meantime we will probably do better if we take control of AI and exploit its obvious potential as a researcher, an editor and a critic of our work.
Many of the audience for this event, I suspect, had attended with some hope of gaining advice on how to gain a foothold for their own work in the world of publishing. Well not James Robertson, who was present mostly because he was the main attraction in the following event, though his contribution to the discussion was welcome, so far as I was concerned.
I felt particularly for the lady who had turned up with a complete manuscript in her bag. It was, she declared, the work of a deceased aunt. She had discovered it gathering dust in an attic and, having read it, was sufficiently impressed to believe it was deserving of a wider audience. The panel listened to her story politely, and made some encouraging noises. The phrase “friends and family” may have figured yet again, but no one rushed forward to claim the document for their own press.
I imagine this was a handwritten manuscript. My advice to that lady would be, type it up, or pay to have it typed up if you can afford to do so. Feed the manuscript into ChatGPT or Deep Seek asking for advice on spelling, grammar, readability and structure. Work through the advice and make whatever corrections and changes you yourself feel are appropriate.
This will be quite a job of work, which would usually be undertaken by the author. Indeed the process brings to mind a recent cartoon in the Guardian by Tom Gault on Finishing a Book. This makes it clear how an author is obliged to revise and rework at every stage of their engagement with an agent and a publisher.
If, as I eventually did, you use Amazon Print on Demand for publication of your book, Amazon will assist you with cover and book design. However, don’t expect this necessarily to do justice to your aunt’s work. If you are prepared to pay money, employ someone to assist you with the design and typography. I might approach a local artist, even for advice on this subject. In my own case, I paid my nephew Joe, who works in graphic design in London. That was the most expensive part of my own project, but I think well worth it.
Once you’ve got a copy of the book in your hands, think about a launch event. Invite all your friends, acquaintances, family, members of the local book club, indeed anyone who seems remotely interested. Print enough copies to sell to the number you believe will be likely to attend. Better too few than too many. You can always take orders. You definitely don’t want to be tripping over boxes of unsold books for years to come. At the event you should tell the story of how you found the book, came to believe in its worth, and explain the process by which you published it. Offer a short reading.
This done, write a press release summarising the story of the book’s publication as you have told it at the launch event. Send the press release to local and national newspapers and television. They’ll love your story and the book will maybe even sell a few copies on Amazon. Don’t expect the book to be reviewed but, just possibly, word of mouth will spread and you will have an extraordinary success on your hands.
But that’s not likely. In a previous post on the subject of blogging I quoted writer Hamilton Nolan who said: “most books sell shockingly few copies…You should not write a book to get rich or famous. That won’t happen.” He then goes on very powerfully to explain why this should not put a writer off. I think what he has to say might equally be applied to the project of publishing your aunt’s legacy.
I wish you luck and am confident that your finished book will for you be an important achievement whether it sells or not.
Endnotes
Chair: Rosie Ilett, writer, editor and co-director of the Kirkcudbright Fringe Festival.
Panel: Publisher Ian Spring, the founder of Rymour Books, Elizabeth Parsons, of Kirkcudbright Book Shop Gallovidian, and authors Anstey Spraggan and Gerry Hassan.
Carruchan 
Great Lives, The Lisbon Lions, Scottish Landscape and Bohemia in a Small Scottish Town
I’d never heard of the improvisational guitarist Derek Bailey until I encountered his story on BBC Radio’s Great Lives programme. Amongst other things, the programme was memorable for a short and fractious exchange between the presenter Matthew Parris, and comedian Stewart Lee, who had selected Bailey as his “Great Life.” According to Wikipedia “As an adult [Bailey] worked as a guitarist and session musician in clubs, radio, and dance hall bands, playing with Morecambe and Wise, Gracie Fields, Bob Monkhouse, Kathy Kirby, and on the television program Opportunity Knocks.” Stewart Lee suggests – though this is not substantiated – that Bailey played as a session musician on Petula Clark’s 1964 international hit, Downtown. But that was before he abandoned such bread and butter work and set off on his improvisational journey into the musical avant-garde, and obscurity.
On listening to a snatch of Derek Bailey’s music on the programme, it would appear for the first time, Matthew Parris, usually a genial and open-minded host, suggested the it sounded as though it might have been played by a “chimpanzee.” Stewart Lee was not having that but, rather than walking out, he complained bitterly at Parris’ crass response.
Matthew Parris appeared unable to apologise or moderate his position. He might, for example, have admitted that he found the music challenging, difficult even. That, at least, would have been an acknowledgement that the failure was his and not Derek Bailey’s.
Don’t get me wrong. Following the programme I’ve been taking a listen to Derek Bailey on Spotify. For someone like myself, whose musical inclinations have been shaped by the Beatles and the top twenty of the 1960s, Bailey’s music is a challenge. But, to paraphrase Scottish Composer James McMillan, to appreciate great music requires effort.
McMillan, by the way, also featured in a recent edition of Great Lives, but in that case the Great Life, chosen by him, was Jock Stein, manager of the “Lisbon Lions.” This was the Celtic team that defeated Inter Milan 2-1 in the final of the European Cup in 1967 at the Estádio Nacional, Lisbon. At that time I considered myself a supporter of Liverpool and Newry Town, but I am proud to say that, as a fourteen year old, I watched that game and shared every second of its high drama on the black and white television of my family home. But I digress.
I was reminded of my recent acquaintance with Derek Bailey when I visited the Scottish Landscape Awards 2025 Exhibition, currently showing at the Kirkcudbright Galleries. It’s a stunning collection of work but I’d have to confess that I entered the gallery with the lazy expectation of encountering lots of dramatic coastlines, mountains, huge skies, maybe a few trees bent by the prevailing wind, and wee white cottages, all done in a range of styles and media. There was a certain amount of that but much of what was on offer seemed, on superficial encounter, to have only a very tenuous connection indeed to scottish landscape. But when I came away I found myself grateful that my prior expectations had been so completely confounded. I suppose landscape was the inspiration but what came next was as varied and wonderful as can be imagined. If you can’t get to the exhibition before it closes on September 28, then at least you can take a look at the pictures online.
If you don’t make it to the Landscape Exhibition, then at least be sure you don’t miss the show hiding away on the top floor of Kirkcudbright Galleries. It tells the story of four women living in Kirkcudbright in the early part of the 20th Century. They were outspoken supporters of women’s suffrage and, as artists, unafraid of expressing themselves flamboyantly and with originality in their life and their work. However, and this is clearly part of the story the exhibition intends to draw to our attention, in their friendship they were not bound by the heterosexual conventions of the time. This aspect of their friendship remained hidden and encoded in the archive of their artworks, diaries, letters and photographs. What the exhibition makes clear is that these women were as much a part of the story of Kirkcudbright Artists’ Town as are E.A.Hornell, E.A Taylor and Jessie M King.
As one of the interviewees says, in the film which accompanies the exhibition: “Kirkcudbright was just a few streets at that time.” He reflects on the impact these women must have had in a small rural fishing port in the wake of the First World War.
For me, three remarkable, bold, confident canvases were an eye-catching highlight of the exhibition. There must surely be other work hidden away in private collections and gallery storerooms around the country which deserves an airing.
My only complaint was the sound quality of the video – to be clear, not the recording of the sound, but its broadcast on rather tinny speakers. The poor quality of the soundsystem made the interviews quite hard work to follow and produced a rather disagreeable soundscape which reverberated through the main exhibition. But I don’t wish to overstate this. All credit to DJ McDowall of the Imaginarium who co-produced the exhibition with the help of young people from Kirkcudbright Academy, and the support of The Holywood Trust.
Endnotes
Great Lives: Comedian Stewart Lee on Derek Bailey
Wikipedia Derek Bailey (guitarist)
Great Lives: Jock Stein, first British football manager to win the European Cup
Scottish Landscape Exhibition 2025 109 works
Coming Out of the Archives This exhibition celebrates the bohemian lives of the women artists who spent their summers in Kirkcudbright in the early 20th century. The Story of a Fairy Family
About The Imaginarium https://www.theimaginarium.world/about
Header image taken in the back garden of Jessie M King’s and E. A. Taylor’s house, 38 High St, Kirkcudbright.