When yellow's on the broom

The Economist - probably the best edited periodical on the planet - has a weekly obituary.  Sometimes it's a famous statesman, a political philosopher, or an economist.  But engagingly often, it's a writer, artist or collector - perhaps someone you've never heard of, but who lightens your day with their achievments and the recognition thus bestowed.

One of these occurred last week - on Stanley Robertson, of whom I'd never heard (yes, I'm an ignorant Sassenach), but who captured my imagination immediately through this brilliant obituary.  Stanley Robertson was a fish filleter in Aberdeen for 47 years, but he was also a traveller (not quite a gipsy or a Romany, but close in spirit), a folk singer, a story teller, and a guardian and creator of this folk tradition, speaking a language which was Scots (a dialect of English, in case you're wondering), Doric, Gaelic, and Cant.

He wrote a book of stories, Reek Roon A Camp Fire, which I feel I must read, and you can hear him on a pair of CDs of his singing and storytelling.

I cannot improve on the  prose of The Economist, so here are two brief extracts.  First, time to go on the road:

Since 1945 or so his family, weary of a life of gathering flax or hawking rabbit skins, had settled ... in an Aberdeen tenement. But a time would still come every year when Mr Robertson knew in his bones that it was time to go away:

I’ll tak’ ye on the road again
When yellow’s on the broom.

They would go up the Old Road at Lumphanan, a green drove road peopled with spirits and with a venerable oak tree, Auld Craobhie, who had to be greeted each time they passed. (“We ca’ them the guid folk,” Mr Robertson said, “for they can dee ye an awful lot of damage.”) There they would camp, light a “glimmer”, or a fire, sing songs and tell stories, with each teller throwing on a piece of peat as they began.

And second, a one sentence summary of his life, working and storytelling:

... kippers hoisted on tinter-sticks, fish baskets swirled in water, one herring every second dropped into the splitting machine - all that his busy, careful hands were doing, while his head was in Fairyland.

Comments

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[glo]

To Dark Puss
re your comment below - True Colette fans usually prefer the novels inspired by her own life (including, of course, Break of Day), and you are no exception apparently.
Personnally, I definitely prefer her animal-themed works - at least for now. I find her really skilled at observing, and describing, and sometimes genially interpreting the behaviour of the animals she comes across or lives with.
I don't intend to make you change your mind but I am just going to tell you why I don't like much her autobiographical work. The stories inspired by her own life are always sad or weird, and then my theory is that she used the writting process as a therapy when she had to go through hardship and didn't feel good - and she surely had some very difficult times all through her life. Literature is sometimes inspired by bad experiences and hardship but writting when you feel bad certainly doesn't suffice to make it fine literature. The latter requires some distance between the writer and the story he/she tells, according to me.
I saw you have commented about The Master and Margarita too. I will answer to you about that soon.

[Dark Puss]

I agree with your comment on the quality of the editing of The Economist and I occasionally read it in my SCR.

The cat is very well thank you Glo, and he has just finished reading that amazing, lyrical, book by Colette "Break of Day". Truly one of her very best works and confirms again for me her status as one of great writers of the 20th Century.

[glo]

Mr Robertson's obituary itself is told quite like a fairytale - this Scots language probably helps too. And his life sounds likewise too, although he no doubt had a very hard life.
I never read obituaries in newspapers, unless it is about someone I knew or met.

I hope everybody is fine well, especially my favourite Cat.