Love Scotland podcast – 2025 season, part II

Transcript

Five speakers: male voiceover [MV]; Jackie Bird [JB]; Scarlett Mack (narrating the diaries) [SM]; Jenny Sturgeon [JS]; Roger Hutchinson [RH]

[MV]
Love Scotland, brought to you from the National Trust for Scotland; presented by Jackie Bird. 

[JB]
The remote archipelago of St Kilda is one of the most magical places in the Trust’s care and the one which appears on so many people’s bucket lists as a place to experience.

And it is special. Those tiny dots far out in the Atlantic are the UK’s only dual UNESCO World Heritage Site, lauded for both natural and cultural heritage. But I think the lure of St Kilda lies with its people – a handful of fiercely independent communities who inhabited the islands for thousands of years, but who were finally beaten by the challenges of the 20th century. Could there be a more poignant image than the last 36 islanders, at their own request, boarding a boat in 1930 and leaving their homes forever? 

There are many photographs of St Kilda, but a revealing insight into the day-to-day life there lies within a collection of diaries written by an incomer in 1906. Alice MacLachlan’s husband Peter was called to be the minister there. 34-year-old Alice had been born near Edinburgh, and her diaries allow us to join her as this strange new world unfolds. 

In this edition of Love Scotland, we’re going to hear extracts from those diaries as well as a speech she later gave about her experiences. Her writings include the daily routines as well as the traditions and the tragedies of island life. And, as always, there is her beloved husband, who she affectionately calls Dunie. Her pronunciation of what is the Gaelic for ‘man’ [duine].

You’ll hear some original music too, the result of another woman’s voyage of discovery to St Kilda. A few years ago, the National Trust for Scotland commissioned singer-songwriter Jenny Sturgeon to visit the islands and translate her thoughts into evocative composition. Enjoy.

[Violin music plays]

[SM]
The St Kilda Diaries: Reflections on St Kilda. I hope that the friends and members of the YMCA will pardon my use of a paper as I am not accustomed to public speaking. This very interesting and romantic island lies 50 miles west of Harris. Properly speaking, there is a group of islands. Hirta or St Kilda, the largest and only inhabited, has been compared to a leg of mutton in shape. It is about 3 miles long by 2 broad. It is faced on the north, east and west by enormous cliffs, which rise like walls out of the deep.

The village itself is built in the shape of a crescent on sloping ground not far from the shore, and is backed by lofty hills. There are 16 stone cottages, very good houses they are, and compare most favourably with those of Harris, etc. A 17th house is also occupied, but it is one of the old thatched huts in which all the people used to live, but which are now used by the others as byres. The 18th house is the manse. 

In the summer of 1906 my husband and I were asked by the Committee of the Church of Scotland to undertake the Church work in St Kilda, clerical and scholastic, in the latter of which I was asked to help. 

St Kilda Diary of Mrs Alice MacLachlan, St Kilda, 16 August 1906 
We left for St Kilda on Tuesday 14 August by the SS Hebrides and arrived here at 1am midnight Wednesday night, but did not land until Thursday morning. The inspector, Mr Beaton, came with us and inspected the school at 7 o’ clock in the morning; and by 9 o’ clock the Hebrides was off and we were left on our island home. 

[JS sings]
I walk a path down to the sea 
Past thrift and iris bright 
On a chimney stack, a tiny bird with a big voice
O, what a voice 
As salt air pinches skin.

[SM]
Thursday 30 August 1906
We were aroused at midnight by the welcome whistle of the Hebrides. I was so excited I could hardly sleep for the remainder of the night. The first sirens sounded to the St Kildans at 5:15am and we jumped out of bed. The mails had been brought ashore at midnight, and our letters, papers and parcels were on the parlour table. What an array! Upwards of 40 letters, papers and magazines and picture postcards galore, every one of our friends wrote.

We were out just as the first boatload of passengers came ashore. There were some nice people among them, and we had a nice time. I took some of them into the church and they sang ‘O, for a closer walk with God’. It sounded so pretty.

[Hymn plays]

Perhaps you would like to know how our days were spent. We were far from being lonely as there was always plenty to do and a good Coates library in the manse. Beginning with Sabbath, there were always two services at 11 and 6 o’ clock. Sunday school at 4.30–5.30pm. The church is a plain building; the vestry is fitted up to serve as a school during the week. They learned the usual subjects, and the majority were very smart. The little ones (my special care) were most interesting and amusing, and got on amazingly with their English.

[Fiddle plays]

Tuesday 2 October 1906
School as usual today. Went in an afternoon. As we were finishing our tea, we heard a great shouting and other confused noises. In a few moments the men were down and in less time than it takes me to write they launched the boat. The women were screaming and wringing their hands. It seemed that poor Norman Gillies, who had got away from school a little earlier than usual to go to point of call to fish mullet, had fallen from the rocks into the sea. There is a fearful current there, and although the only man there, Hugh Gillies, had flung him a rope, the current carried him out beyond it. 

Some of the bigger boys had run off home to give the news. Norman MacKinnon went to the place on foot, but only in time to see poor Norman sink. He was clinging to the fishing rod. He never made a sound. The boat was too late even to see him. We went up to the house with the men and women and stayed until 9 o’ clock, and the sight was pathetic in the extreme. They were all wailing in the minor key, the same sound, saying something like ‘Bho tavromic’, ‘Oh, Norman, Norman’. It was terribly sad. 

The poor mother was very quiet and sensible, though in an awful state. The father was in a frenzy. I was so sorry for them all, especially the poor girl Catherine, in bed. Came home with a splitting headache and was very sick.

[JS singing]
Dancing, floating on the wind, 
Off the cliff and to the air
Half a million strong
The sounds and smells throng 
Each to their own defined layer.

[SM]
The population just now is 76 all told. We lost the two heads of families, and a son later. They are very industrious, at least the women are. The men, I always thought, might have done more work, although when once properly started they worked well. I used to find fault with them for allowing the women to do work they themselves ought to have done. It was no uncommon thing to see the young man helping to rope the bags of meal and flour, which had come by steamer, onto the women’s backs. Sheep, coal or any burden were carried from the pier by the women as a rule, very occasionally the men.

I thought it very, very funny on one of my visits to the village to see the wife digging the ground, preparatory to planting the potatoes. But the good man of the house was seated at the door, sewing a Sunday gown for his wife. All the household and the girls or women were only able to knit stockings, socks or gloves, which later they sold to the tourists who visit the island. The principal occupation of the men is catching the seabirds for the sake of the feathers and oil; these being bartered with the factor for the proprietor of the island – MacLeod of MacLeod – in payment of their rent.

Sunday 4 November 1906
Nothing on; stormy day. Church three times. Cross. 

Tuesday 6 November 1906 
Wet day but wind down much; what there is is still from east. Went to see some people. Home and read Bleak House. No boats. Took out and dusted every book. V busy.

[JS singing]
Time said goodbye and left us standing, 
Stock still and restless,
Watching the seasons change, 
Watching and waiting.

[MV]
The National Trust for Scotland cares for thousands of miles of coastline – from the sea cliffs of St Kilda to the magic of Fingal’s Cave, from the tight-knit community of Fair Isle to the seal pups at St Abb’s Head. You can help to protect this incredible heritage and to safeguard it for future generations. Find out more online, including how to donate to the Trust’s Wild Scotland appeal, at nts.org.uk/donate

[SM]
Tuesday 25 December, 1906 
Christmas Day here in Hirta. Heavy snow all day. Busy in kitchen all morning cooking Christmas pudding and roasting fowl. Had a capital dinner. Afterwards, went to school. Busy with Kate’s blouse too. Quite happy in Hirta this Christmas with my dear Dunie. I don’t mean all the things I say in this book in other places, because I love him. 

So funny to see snow here. I wonder what they’re all doing at home and in Tobermory and in Garve. In the evening, went up to see Angus Gillies’ wife, who is ill just now again, or at least worse than usual. Got her to rise, or rather lifted her out of bed, and took her to fireside. She took some tea and was better then, a little. Angus was so pleased. Called at D Ferguson’s – snow very deep in drifts.

Wednesday 26 December 1906
Snow worse than ever and still falling and drifting badly. No school of course. Dunie cleaning paths, etc. Fearful weather but I like it, if the sitting room chimney wouldn’t smoke so much. No visitors at all during the day. Men came down and put up the big black boat. Some of the men went over the hills after sheep; we hear they are dying. We never expected anything like this out of Ross-shire. Kate busy spinning all day. Of course, no meeting. 

You may perhaps wonder how we managed to do with the food. It was rather a puzzle to me before I went to know how the larder was to be filled, but once there, it was wonderful how, day by day, with ease, dinner was provided. Captains of vessels were often very thoughtful, and would send me ashore a supply of beef, fresh fruit or other dainties, which one would not think much of on the mainland, but which in St Kilda were luxuries indeed.

[Fiddle music]

Thursday 28 March 1907 
My birthday! I got my presents yesterday by Captain Walckner. During the morning John McQuien came down to tell Kate to go up for the letters and parcels. We got about 100 between the two. Letters from everybody. Also one from Miss White, Mrs McWalter, Mr Shore, Mr Robertson, Bessie, 6 from Mother, 2 from Bab, 2 from Jeannie …

[Violin plays]

One of the most peculiar things about the St Kildans is that they nearly always catch cold when strangers visit the island. It is a kind of influenza, and they always seem to have it after the visit of a steamer or yacht. It does not only attack one or two, but goes from end to end of the village. We have been told there is another solitary island in the South Atlantic Ocean called Tristan da Cunha, where the same thing happens.

Friday 17 January 1908
Better day. Two or three boats in. Captain of Princess Melton came in and gave the children a gramophone entertainment, which delighted and charmed them. Children got oranges. Cornelia in bay; had the skipper and William McDonald to tea.

Saturday 18 January–2 February 1908
No diary kept between these two dates owing to being ill myself with neuralgia, and everything else under the sun. The whole village has been ill with a kind of influenza. It’s got its grip on poor old Bess and carried her off in less than two days. It comes on with shivering and one has a very sore head. This is one of the chief symptoms, together with very sore back and bones. The majority of the people had violent vomiting. 

School of course closed from Wednesday 22 January until Tuesday 4 February. Bess died on Tuesday night, 28 January, and was buried on 31 January. For the worst case at present is Beau Finlay Gillies, who has the most fearful, incessant cough. This cough, casadaich as they call it, is one of the symptoms of the sickness. 

[JS singing]
I walk a path down to the sea 
Past thrift and iris bright
On a chimney stack a tiny bird with a big voice 
O’ what a voice
Where salt air pinches skin.

[SM]
Saturday 22 February 1908 
Worst day we have ever seen in St Kilda. Wind simply fearful and roof of house rising up and down. Sea just like boiling pot. 5 boats in bay trying to get shelter and finding none. Seedy myself. Reading Ouida’s Under Two Flags. I like it very much and it rubs up my French a little to go over it. So stormy that the men came down and hauled up the boat.

Tuesday 5 May 1908
Simply an awful day. Rain pouring down in buckets, no one could do any outdoor work at all. Beasts in again. In the evening, the first whaler came in. It was the Ornoff, Botolph’s boat. Dunie and I waved but there was no response, so we knew there was something amiss. A trawler came in at the same time and whistled, and the men hurried out. When they came in, alas, it was to tell us the poor Botolph was dead. He died in January, about 3 weeks or a month after coming back from Africa. It is terribly sad, and we shall miss him more than anybody, as he was most of his time here. 

The mate of one of the boats is now captain. The boat whistled to give fish to the men. They had asked before it seems, and the captain had none. He said Finlay Mor had cursed the boat, and he would get no more fish if he had not come with them. Very wet night. Jolly fried haddocks for supper.

[Fiddle plays]

Tuesday 11 August 1908 
Anne Gillies and A McQuien married to Malcolm McD and Donald Gillies. Great fun in church. Quite a lot of the women went to see the ceremony and the men made audible remarks. After 6 o’ clock all the wedding party came to the manse and had tea and stayed and saw the newly married pairs in bed. Such fun. A Gillies Beau Donald looked sweet in her night dress and cap. A MacDonald did not look so nice; she had a blouse. Callum and Donald just had shirts on. We kissed them all, Mr McClellan and all, and oh it was awful fun. I was taken unawares and Norman MacKinnon kissed me unawares, greatly to the delight of everybody.

Monday 22 March 1909
Glorious day. I am still in bed. Think of getting up later on in day, just like summer and so warm. Two boats left about 10 or a little after for Boreray to see about sheep etc. All at once I heard the most terrible cries from the Dùn and called to Kate, who ran out and in turn gave the alarm up that something had happened at the Dùn. The suspense at home was awful. The women were all down and the anguished weeping and wailing, I cannot describe.

However, the boat came, and our worst fears were realised, worse than we ever imagined. Donald MacDonald, Norman and John McQuien were all drowned. Neil MacKinnon and John Gillies were rescued in a very exhausted condition. Donald MacDonald’s body was found floating in the water, but poor Norman and John had gone down gripping each other. The scenes are indescribable. A beacon was lighted at Berenahaketo make the men come home, as it seems they purposed staying to kill gannets. Poor Donald òg and Ewan MacDonald.

Friday 16 April 1909 
Out part of day but we thought it advisable to have Meirut, Sarah Gamp, down to sleep as I wasn’t well during day. She came accordingly. I turned ill about 11 o’clock but we did not call Sairy until about 3am when I was very ill. Draw the veil over the next 7 hours when a bonnie wee girl was born.

[A baby cries]

Saturday 17 April 1909
The loveliest wee baby girl was sent to us this morning at 10 o’ clock. Kate was just coming in with Beau Neil Ferguson when the wee girl was just coming into the world. She has good lungs at any rate and such long hair. Very dark at present, but it may all come out. Sairy did well at the event. The house was at once filled with all the women in the place, greatly excited of course. All had cake and wine and tea. I am as well as can be expected.

[Fiddle plays]

I shall say in closing how kind we found all the people. Of course, it is like other places; there are those who are not so nice, but without exception we may say we found the people kindness itself. I conclude, but not before saying, that I shall always have a very warm place in my heart for the St Kildans and for the island where God sent me such a great gift in the April of the year we left.

[Applause]

[JS singing]

Climbing, scaling stacks and stone 
Lifeline for a lonely isle
Feathers, flesh and oil
Results of daily toils 
To help keep a body sustained.

Shifting, soaring on the wing
Mismatch in a sea of change.
The silver fish peaks 
Out of sync with begging beaks 
And the journey goes on and on.

They’re shifting and changing with the tide.
They’re shifting and changing with the tide.

[JB]
Alice and Peter MacLachlan left St Kilda with baby Susan in 1909. After living on the mainland for a few years, Alice died of a brain haemorrhage at the terribly young age of 48. Her diaries were bequeathed to the Trust by her daughter.

Thank you to Scarlett Mack for bringing Alice’s diary entries to life and to Jenny Sturgeon for our music. You can find more details about her St Kilda-inspired EP, ‘The Wren and the Salt Air’ on the notes page where you found this podcast.

I hope you’ve enjoyed your visit to St Kilda, which is looked after by the National Trust for Scotland. Thank you for your donations and for your support. Until next time on Love Scotland, goodbye.

And if you’d like to hear more about life on St Kilda, head to the Love Scotland archive wherever you get your podcasts, and look for an episode called ‘St Kilda: Life Before the Evacuation’.

[RH]
There was as much as 200 people at times. There was a large smallpox epidemic 300 years ago and that wiped out almost everybody but a handful of young men who were actually out birding on the rocks. But the whole of Village Bay and Hirta was killed, went down.

[MV]
Love Scotland is brought to you by Think and Demus Productions, on behalf of the National Trust for Scotland; presented by Jackie Bird. For show notes and more information, go to nts.org.uk and don’t forget to like, subscribe, review and share.

Transcript

3 speakers: male voiceover [MV]; Jackie Bird [JB]; Richard McLauchlan [RM]

[MV]
Love Scotland, brought to you from the National Trust for Scotland.

[Bagpipes play ‘Highland Cathedral’]

[JB]
For many people around the world, this is the sound of Scotland. Now that in itself is quite an achievement, as around that same world there are more than 130 variations of the pipes. Yet in the battle for musical supremacy, the Scottish version we’re all familiar with, the great Highland bagpipe, has emerged victorious. Well, I would say that, wouldn’t I?

Even more controversially, despite a love of the pipes felt by a great many people, there are some for whom the pipes would not be their instrument of choice. Well, hopefully after our chat today, if that’s you, you’ll gain a new appreciation of the instrument, if not for its sounds but for its history, the talent and dedication of players down the years, the bravery of wartime pipers, and how, in a way, the piping world is a lens from which we can view changes in society. Isn’t that right, Richard McLauchlan?

[RM]
Absolutely. Couldn’t agree more!

[JB]
That was the correct answer! Richard, welcome to the podcast.

[RM]
Pleasure to be here. Thank you.

[JB]
You are a piper and author, and we’re going to be talking about your new book today: The Bagpipes: A Cultural History. And that claim that you can see a changing society through the evolution of the pipes is yours. How so?

[RM]
Well, the more I looked into the history of the bagpipes, the more I realised they shone a much brighter light on the whole of society. They told us about the people of the times, and the politics and the culture in a much broader way than I’d ever expected. I think this was one of the most exciting discoveries of the book. And so yes, I think they are an amazing lens through which to view culture more widely.

[JB]
Well, before we examine that lens, let’s deal with the pipes themselves, the constituent parts of the pipes. The great Highland bagpipe, what is it and how does it differ from its key competitors?

[RM]
Yes, well, I suppose a few unique things. You’ll spot a great Highland bagpipe by the three drones on the shoulder. 

[JB]
Those are the three pipes coming down? 

[RM]
Yes, the cylindrical pipes as it were – you have the long one (it’s the bass drone) and you have two shorter ones (these are tenor drones), and they each have a reed in the bottom of them. They are tuned to harmonise with the A; they are in tune with the A on the chanter. And so, the tenor drones are an octave below the low A, and the bass drone is 2 octaves below the low A on the chanter. These create this mesmeric hum, this drone, which is so powerful and mysterious.

[JB]
And what’s the chanter?

[RM]
Yes, the chanter. This is where the fingers are and this is where the melody is played. Chanter, it’s from cantare, the Latin ‘to sing’. So, you’ve got the singing element of the pipes. This is a conical bore; you’ll notice it’s not straight down, it’s not cylindrical – it’s got that tapered look to it. Some bagpipes, like the Northumbrian small pipes for instance or the Scottish small pipes, have that cylindrical bore, that straight look. Whereas with the conical bore, you get that much louder ringing, that distinctive sound of the great pipes. That’s something very special.

And of course, the bag is critical to all this. This is what’s allowing the air to go through the reeds. And as the reeds vibrate, that’s what creates the sound. The bag is filled through a blow piece and that is supplying … the piper is blowing into that. And the key is to try and keep a constant pressure within the bag. So, while you’re breathing in, you’re squeezing on the bag. That takes some skill in getting used to, to try and keep that constant flow of air through your reeds, or else you’ll hear them wavering all over the place. So yeah, these are some of the distinctive features.

[JB]
And what are the pipes made of? In the past, they were made from parts of animals, I have to say.

[RM]
Yes, well, nowadays most pipes, certainly the great Highland pipes, most players tend to use synthetic bags.

[JB]
What were they made of?

[RM]
Well, I mean, sheepskin, goatskin. If you go way back … actually if you look at bagpipes across the globe, you find some of the most extraordinary things: stillborn calves, young horses, dogs, cats, even the stomach of a seal once I heard of. So, pipers seem to have been pretty open to using anything they could find that would work.

And then the wood tends to be African blackwood, a hard wood. I think it’s a shame in some ways that nowadays the pipes are often very synthetically created. There’s something very special …

[JB]
I don’t think cats would agree!

[RM]
No, no – that’s true! – but there’s something quite special about this animal-like connection that the piper has to his pipes. But anyway.

[JB]
Without becoming too technical, you touched on the notes and the tones. Can you give us an overview of how many notes the pipes can play and whether they can play in any key, like a piano for example?

[RM]
No, no. The limitations of the pipes are something every piper, if he wants to play with other musicians, is going to struggle with, to some extent. You’ve got 9 notes, and they go from the low G up to the high A. It’s a fairly restricted palette and it’s interesting because this scale that it has is unique amongst Western instruments really, and that again adds to its mysteriousness.

[JB]
Now, in your book you tell us about the first named piper who was more famous as being a fiddler, I would suggest.

[RM]
Ha, yes. You are talking about the Roman Emperor Nero, which is pretty extraordinary. He’s the first named bagpiper. A Greek chronicler records him playing an aulos, a Greek pipe, with his mouth and with a bag under his armpit – very specific. And really, 1st century CE in Rome, that’s the earliest, really good, concrete evidence we have for the bagpipes. Everything prior to that is pretty murky, but that’s where we can really nail it was definitely around by then.

[JB]
So clearly Scotland didn’t invent the bagpipes. Do we know – is it possible to go back; you’re saying it’s pretty murky – who did or when they first emerged?

[RM]
Alas, no. I wish we could, but no, we don’t know. One theory behind how they emerged is really it was about if you were playing, say, an aulos, a Greek pipe, you had to master the art of circular breathing. This is where you keep a continuous sound going through your pipe. This is where you store the air in your cheeks, and you let the air come out in your cheeks as you breathe in through your nose. You’re never having to stop. A lot of bagpipers, if they’re playing the practice chanter, are able to do this. So, they’re able to play the practice chanter without having to take any breaths.

But one theory, of course, is that the bag was added as a way for those who couldn’t do the circular breathing to keep the continuous sound going in the pipe.

[JB]
That’s really interesting. 

[RM]
So, it was not that, in a sense, it was creating a new instrument; it was just trying to develop an existing instrument into a more effective piece. 

[JB]
What’s the first evidence of the pipes in Scotland?

[RM]
Well, we have a reference in the 13th century to pipers playing before the king – this is David II –and the problem there is that we don’t quite know if pipers means bagpipers. It could be another form of pipe. What we do get in probably the late 14th century, we get the piping pig at Melrose Abbey.

[JB]
So, that’s an inscription. 

[RM]
That’s a carving, yes. And there’s also, on a cottage in Skirling in Peeblesshire, a piper built into a wall there, which had come from another castle. Some people argue that this is from about 1415. And then a little bit later on, Rosslyn Chapel in Midlothian, you’ll see the piper there – the angel playing a bagpipe, carved.

[JB]
I know there’s something at Craigievar Castle; that’s the National Trust for Scotland property.

[RM]
Indeed, yes. And that’s a really interesting one. That comes later. That’s between 1610–26 and that was built by William Forbes, otherwise known as Danzig Willie, and he made his fortune in the Baltic trade. The interesting thing there about the piper at Craigievar is that he’s got the drone across his chest. This is very similar to the European bagpipe – the dudy – and it suggests this is one way that maybe piping was reaching Scotland. I’m not saying the only way, but one way was here’s William Forbes with the Baltic trade, and is this an import, as it were? A cultural import coming from Europe across. So, that’s a really interesting example.

[JB]
And again, that plays into what you’re saying, that there’s so many variations of the pipes, more than 130, widespread across Europe and Asia. Something I read in your book was that James I & VI, who came down from Scotland (Unification of the Crowns) – there was already a court piper in London and James got rid of him!

[RM]
Well, it’s not that he got rid of him. It’s actually very amusing. 33 years prior to James taking the throne of England, the last Sovereign’s Piper had died and he’d not been replaced. And so, James comes down to London and he wants to replace the Sovereign’s Piper. But does he get a piper? No, he gets a bass viol player instead! And it’s really interesting because the English monarchs, yes, they had salaried pipers within their retinue; the Scottish monarchs didn’t. Funnily enough, the very first reference to the nationality of pipers playing for a Scottish king – I think it’s in the 1480s – they are English pipers, it says in the text.

[JB]
Go wash your mouth out. You’re talking about the 17th century there and the fact that the king, presumably James, said no, I would rather have a viola player. There were piping dynasties in Scotland. Tell me about those.

[RM]
Yes. These were families who would serve the clan chief. Originally, the clan chiefs had harpists and bards and so on. But by the 16th century/17th century, you get the piper replacing them. And he has a very important role within the clan chief’s life, structuring life – writing pieces upon a victory or a lament upon a death, and so on. And he passes his skills and his compositions down to the next generation. These families would serve the clan chief over many decades and sometimes even hundreds of years.

[JB]
How were these pieces passed down? Were they written down or was it all oral?

[RM]
No. Written pipe music doesn’t come on the scene really until the late 18th century. And so, it was sung – Canntaireachd in the Gaelic, which means ‘chanting’. You passed on the tunes by singing them. And still to this day, many people will … they’ll have their sheet music, absolutely, but a good instructor will get the nuances, the light and the shade as it were, by singing it to his pupil. 

[JB]
Any piper I have ever met has to be physically restrained from humming, chanting away by themselves! They’re all very musical. Pipers weren’t restricted to the Highlands, even though we’re talking about the great Highland bagpipe; there were the Lowlands too. Is that the same sort of pipe?

[RM]
Oh now, this is murky waters.

[JB]
Let’s go there!

[RM]
Yeah, absolutely. We really have to remember that until the 18th century, the Borders and the Lowlands had just as thriving a piping culture as did the Highlands. And whereas you had the hereditary pipers serving clan chiefs in the Highlands, you had town pipers serving the towns in the Lowlands. And again, like in the Highlands, they were showered with benefits for their labours. Sometimes they’d even get their own house, and they’d get their own livery and something to wear. And they again were structuring life for the townsfolk – waking them up in the morning, telling them when it’s time to go indoors, playing for dancing and when people were working. 

And over time, once the bellows-blown bagpipes came to Scotland, they tended to dominate in the Lowlands, these bellows-blown pipes. There was no blow piece; these are being worked by the bellows.

[JB]
The bellows, they’re under your arm. 

[RM]
Exactly. These died out in the early 19th century pretty much. There had been a few people carried on playing them, but they almost pretty much died out. But there was a massive renaissance in the 1980s actually to bring these forgotten bellows pipes back into Scottish culture. And now it’s thriving. A lot of the great players who are fantastic on the great Highland bagpipes are just as proficient on the Lowland pipes. So, this was a key part of our culture, and it was forgotten for a long time.

[JB]
When did the pipes start to become associated with the military? Was it from the clan chiefs marching them into battle?

[RM]
We know that pipes were being played in battle from the 16th century, and in fact there’s a record even at Flodden in 1513 of them being played there. And very interesting, during Henry VIII’s Rough Wooing of Scotland later that century, you have a French officer recording that ‘savage Scots incite themselves to battle through their bagpipes’ – leur, their bagpipes. So, there’s already a sense that these belong to these people in a sense, if we perhaps can read that into it. From then on, they become key as an instrument of war.

[JB]
And what about another famous battle: Culloden? Because I know the Culloden museum has a set there. Do you know anything of the origins of these?

[RM]
Yes, that’s a really interesting set because it’s only got two tenor drones, no bass drone. It’s a point I really make in the book around the sheer diversity of bagpipes – even in Scotland, just one country, there were so many different kinds; they came in so many different forms. These belonged to a chap from North Uist. And surprise, surprise, he was not fighting for Prince Charlie; he was fighting for the Government side. This is a really important fact that we often forget. We equate Jacobites with the Scots, and therefore the pipes were being played by the Jacobites and so on. But of course, the Government side was heavily made up of Highlanders, and they too had their bagpipes. So, at Culloden they would have been piping on both sides.

[JB]
And what about post-Culloden and the Act of Proscription? You can’t wear Highland dress; you can’t have weapons. Some sources claim that applied to the playing of the pipes.

[RM]
This is commonly thought that they were suppressed and outlawed. This is not actually true. There is no mention of the bagpipes in the Act of Proscription in 1746 and no one was actually ever put on trial, under the stipulations of that Act, for bagpiping. We like to think that but in fact, there’s good evidence to suggest the pipes were thriving post-Culloden. So, it is a bit of a myth there, yeah.

[JB]
Now, that expansion post-Culloden, I presume that was linked in with the expansion of the British military, who took a lot of the fighters, who took a lot of the Scottish clans, and they joined the British Army. Is that the case?

[RM]
That’s absolutely right. Later that century there was a big push to recruit from the Highlands, and a huge number of regiments were started up in the latter half of the 18th century. And of course, pipers were key within that, and it was quite a thing that every officer was to have their piper. But interestingly, the piper was not on the Army books, as it were. He was the officer’s responsibility to pay for him and to make sure he was appropriately kitted out and so on. It was much later that the piper was paid by the Army themselves.

[JB]
Do you think that was quite a clever manipulation to make the Scots feel at home within the British Army?

[RM]
Yes, it’s a really interesting question, but some people do see it like that. Yes, it was a way of saying, particularly when the Highland dress and so on was no longer allowed to the ordinary man, actually you can come into the Army and you’re allowed to wear this stuff that’s been banned.

But, there’s been other historians who say actually for the Scots, it was a lot to do with they were getting their security of land by giving their service to the army. This was an exchange with the Laird, and they didn’t much like having to wear the kilt, because it was actually more expensive for them and it was not particularly comfortable and so on. So, some historians say that actually that element wasn’t so important for them, but this was more about security of land, and a financial move.

[JB]
Is this where the global reach of the great Highland bagpipe began?

[RM]
Well, yes. You’ve got the colonial ambitions of the British Army, and the pipers go out with their regiments and soon make a name for themselves – endearing feats and acts of heroics. 

[JB]
So, we’re talking India, Pakistan, Middle East, wherever.

[RM]
Absolutely, yes.

[JB]
But the indigenous people, they really took to the pipes. In your book you say there was the maharaja who wanted to buy the pipe band.

[RM]
Yes, he heard the Speyside reels and he thought, ‘This is the music for me; can I have that? Can I buy that?’

[JB]
Did he?

[RM]
Well, he was told, actually if you pay the right money, maybe you can buy one of these pipers as it were, which he did. This piper came into the service of this maharaja and he was amply rewarded. He had his house, he had his horse and cart, he had his servants; he was well paid. And he started instructing the locals in the bagpipes, and he kitted them out in Highland trews and so on. Sometime later, this chap bumped into the chaplain of his regiment. Here was this piper and he looked fully … he had all the sort of native clothing on and was beautifully turned out. He stayed about five years, I think, and made his money and then came back to Scotland and set up business with that money. So, it’s a brilliant story.

[JB]
How wonderful. Although some of the pipers returned, within some of the countries they took the pipes and they evolved. They evolved their own uniforms and the pipers in Oman performed on camels. 

[RM]
I know. One bagpipe maker even makes special blow pipes for pipers who play on camelback, so that they don’t damage their teeth. You get the most extraordinary array of different styles.

[JB]
They love the spectacle.

[RM]
That’s it. Yeah, they really do. Because we in Scotland and the West, we have quite a sense of a binding tradition – that we’re trying to repeat what’s come before us and so on. There’s a kind of freedom there in India and Pakistan to do things a bit differently. And that’s why you witness these extraordinary arrays, spinning round 360, doing things that look like the can-can and penguin waddles while they play. They do the most extraordinary things and it’s just so entertaining. But obviously, in this part of the world, we find that we wouldn’t go near that kind of style. 

[JB]
Perhaps we need to up our game … On that controversial suggestion, let’s take a quick break, Richard McLauchlan. And when we come back, we’ll talk about how the world of piping has evolved a little, and of course about the incredible feats of bravery by pipers in 20th-century conflict.

[MV]
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[JB]
Welcome back to Love Scotland and to my guest, piper and author Richard McLauchlan, whose book The Bagpipes: A cultural history we are discussing today. Richard, when the so-called romanticisation of Scotland, exemplified by Sir Walter Scott, came to its peak – the brave Highland warrior – I take it the pipes came along too?

[RM]
Absolutely, they played a key role here. You have these very important institutions – the Highland Society of London and the Highland Society of Edinburgh – being founded in the late 18th century. They want to rejuvenate Highland life after Culloden and so on. And they want to, importantly touching on what we spoke on earlier, make sure that the fighting spirit of the Gaels is injected into the British Army. They put on these magnificent competitions, first at Falkirk but then in Edinburgh. The great pipers of the time were brought down to compete against each other in this kind of …

It was quite an interesting thing because here we are, in the heart of Enlightenment Edinburgh, and you had Adam Smith and so on going along to these things. And yet here, you have the great romantic image of the Highland Scot playing his pibroch. The two things, the Enlightenment and the Romanticism, come together here. The pipes are used as a way to display national valour and to try and distinguish the nation from England. Because of course, after 1707 and the political union, you had a creeping sense of Scotland being viewed … you know, it was even called North Britain. This was a fight to restate: No, we are Scottish. Look at our national emblems here, to really show this is our identity, and the pipes do that better than anything else.

[JB]
And then we had the Victorian era. Queen Victoria and Albert’s love of Scotland is very well known. Did she reinstate the Sovereign’s Piper or had there been one?

[RM]
Yes. There had been one a long, long time ago, but there hadn’t been one for generations. 

[JB]
Because James knocked that on the head, as we know! Had there been a sort of hiatus?

[RM]
Yes, indeed. Angus MacKay, the great figure of Angus MacKay, comes in and is appointed Sovereign’s Piper. He’s a very fascinating character because he was an absolute prodigy and won all the great competitions when he was still young. He was very important in writing down the tradition, the pibroch tradition, and he developed the … 

[JB]
What is a pibroch?

[RM]
This is a particular Gaelic style of pipe playing, which today, if you heard it, slow and stately would come to mind. Perhaps when it was traditionally played it was a bit livelier. It’s the classical music of the great Highland bagpipe. It has this opening statement, as it were – the ground where the main melody is played. And then you have variation after variation building on that, playing with it. It builds up, it builds up, greater finger embellishment, and then it comes back to the ground and it’s finished off. They tend to be quite long pieces. As I say, today they have this stately quality to them.

This is a really important part of the Highland bagpipe tradition. Angus MacKay was, as it were, capturing this tradition, getting it down on paper. He was developing the competition march. He was a real major figure. But he gets appointed to be Sovereign’s Piper. And while he’s Sovereign’s Piper, the signs of madness start to appear, probably as a result of syphilis. He eventually has to be put into confinement. He believed Prince Albert was denying him his marital rights to Queen Victoria. Apparently, he became a very dangerous patient and would kick you where the sun don’t shine if you got too close to him and so on. 

[JB]
Good grief!

[RM]
He eventually escaped and sadly drowned, trying to run away from the attendants and fell in the river. It’s a tragic story, but today he’s still revered – the pibroch that we play today owes so much to him and what he did. So many of the great tunes that we know today were composed by him, and the competition marches and so on. So, a great and mesmeric figure in the tradition. 

[JB]
And the Sovereign today continues to have a piper.

[RM]
Absolutely. I think, at the funeral of the late Queen, this really turned the spotlight on the piper and what emotions that can rouse in us.

[JB]
Well, to another sombre moment, which was World War One. How were pipers distributed to the various regiments? Did each battalion have its own piper?

[RM]
Well, they had their own pipe bands.

[JB]
When they were in active service? 

[RM]
It depended on the regiments – some had their pipers actually piping for them in the trenches. Others, the pipers were ammunition runners or stretcher bearers. But early on in the war, this desire to live up to the heroic tradition – pipe your men into battle – it made for some wonderful stories, but my goodness did it make for some awful statistics.

Of the 2,500 pipers that served in the First World War, some 500 died and 600 were wounded. So, it’s easy to, as it were, romanticise the great piper going over the top, playing his regimental march, rousing the men. But so often this had disastrous consequences.

[JB]
But as you say, there are so many stories. What are the standouts for you?

[RM]
Well, the one that people tend to know, if they know of them at all, they’ll know about Daniel Laidlaw, who was known as the Piper of Loos. He played over the top at the Battle of Loos, September 1915. In fact, there’s a great clip of him after, because he lived to tell the tale. There’s a great clip of him on YouTube from 1934, and he describes the moment where his Lieutenant calls to him. He says: ‘Laidlaw, for God’s sake, do something with your pipes’. And up he gets and he cracks on, and he plays ‘Blue bonnets over the Border’. The King’s Own Scottish Borderers – that was his regiment. He goes over the top and he goes on to the first line of German trenches. He’s on to the second line where he’s bowled over, and he lived to tell the tale. So, he was a famous case.

But someone like James Richardson, he was a Scot who’d emigrated to Canada and was part of the Canadian Expeditionary Force. He was a young lad, I think still in his teens when he was fighting at the Battle of the Ancre Heights. I think that’s October 1916. The battalion are advancing, and they get stuck behind barbed wire and the German bullets are raining down on them. And again, he turns to his company Sergeant Major and says, ‘Shall I gie ’em wind?’ And he says, ‘Aye, man, gie them wind’. And so, he gets up, goes and he starts playing in front of the wire back and forth – unbelievable bravery. This rouses the men to leap at this wire, to cut at it, to break it open. And they can charge on to achieve their objective. 

Now, Richardson lives, but as he’s taking the wounded back off the battlefield, he realises he’s forgotten his pipes. And he says, ‘I’m going back for my pipes’. His superiors say, ‘On no account are you to go back’. But he disobeys and he goes back, and he was never seen again. Mysteriously, the bagpipes did turn up later and made their way to a Scottish prep school and eventually they now sit in the National Parliament in Canada. It’s a tragic tale.

The final story I’d like to tell is about David Anderson, who’s a 20-something soldier fighting for the Royal Scots at the Somme. The other two pipers I’ve mentioned won the VC, but he never was awarded the VC. And yet his story, for sheer guts and determination, is incredible. He goes over the top again, playing his regimental march. On his own, he reaches the first line of German trenches. He’s not got a weapon on him; he’s only got his pipes. And the Germans throw up their hands in surrender. 

Then Anderson’s fellow soldiers arrive. They go on further, and they reach a third round of German trenches. Anderson is hit in the right side. He falls, but knowing the tradition – there’s been a long tradition of pipers in battle still playing their bagpipes despite injury, rousing the men – he hauls himself up. For a moment, the battlefield again is flooded with pipe music. But then he gets a hit in the leg, and the loss of blood is so extreme, he goes, ‘I’ve got to get out of here. I’ve got to get back’. So, he pulls himself up … and waiting for him is this German to engage in hand-to-hand combat. Anderson knocks the guy out with his bare fists, pulls his gun off him and fights on until the loss of blood is so great that he passes out. Amazingly, he lives, and he came back to Edinburgh and he joined Edinburgh Police Band and so on. But, no VC for him but it’s an amazing story.

[JB]
What a story! You’ve got quite an interesting take on those stories and why the men exhibited such bravery. You talk about finding some sort of glory in moments of abject horror.

[RM]
I think that’s it. I think it’s too easy to look back now and to say, oh, come on, it was just a futile act walking to their death. What were they doing, these pipers? But actually, when we remember this is what they had to do at the time, this is what the orders were. And time and time again, the testimony is the sound of the pipes roused the men in a way that nothing else did. It gave them that glimmer of hope, that sense of bravery, that courage to go over the top and fight on. And so, I think we’ve got to be careful at saying this was so futile and pointless and so on. This was providing that moment of hope amidst the despair, as it were.

[JB]
Go on, indulge me. Give me one more story. World War II, Lord Lovat.

[RM]
Ah, yes. Lovat is leading the 1st Special Service Brigade into France during the D-Day landings in Normandy, June 1944. And he’s got with him his personal piper, Bill Millin. Now, Millin had originally objected to this because the War Office said you’re not to have a piper in battle.

[JB]
Because they’d learned from those terrible casualty rates in World War One …

[RM]
Exactly, exactly. But Lovat says, ‘Ah, but that’s the English War Office’. He says, ‘You and I are both Scottish and that doesn’t apply’. So, they come in. Millin was so seasick on the boat going over that he was actually just desperate to get off. He gets off, and the bullets are raining down on them. Lovat asks, ‘Would you give us a tune, ‘The Road to the Isles’?’ And apparently Millin said, ‘Oh, shall I march up and down the shore, as is tradition?’ And Lovat says, ‘Oh, that would be lovely!’

He’s going up and down. And apparently he could feel, in the surf, the bodies of his comrades rolling up in the waves. Eventually, they decide they’ve got to go on to Pegasus Bridge, about 6 miles away, I think. Those who survive go on this march. And apparently, Millin would be piping away and he’d turn around and he’d see everyone was gone, because they were all hiding in a ditch because some German sniper was firing away at them. But he hadn’t heard.

Anyway, when they get to the place they’re supposed to be, they have to go over this bridge. I think quite a high number of his comrades anyway are shot through the head, and he just marches on slowly. He was asked years later, how could you do this? And he said, ‘Well, Lovat was a bit of a critic of the pipes. So, I was thinking to myself, I’d better play well. I was concentrating on the pipes and not on what was going on around me’. He’s extraordinary. 

One of the German snipers was captured and was asked, why didn’t you fire at the piper? And he said, ‘We thought he was a dummkopf; we thought he was a fool, a simpleton – we took pity on him, as it were.’ So, amazing bravery. I think the only statue to a soldier at Normandy is the statue of Bill Millin. He left an incredible legacy there.

[[JB]
We’ve talked a lot about male pipers, as well we should. What about women? Did women play back in the early days, the pipes’ inception in Scotland, but just weren’t listed, weren’t noted?

[RM]
It’s claimed that at least two of the MacCrimmon women … 

[JB]
That’s the piping dynasty. 

[RM]
… that we mentioned earlier; they were very proficient and great pipers. And yes, there were piper women, but it wasn’t until the early 20th century really that they start competing and they start getting recognised. But it was a long old journey, a long battle.

[JB]
There’s quite a famous photograph of a little girl piper during a famous Suffragette pageant in Edinburgh, just at the turn of the century. 

[RM]
Yes, Elizabeth or Bessie Watson – she was quite a character and known as a Suffragette piper girl. She set so many firsts. As you say, she was playing in these suffrage marches. Wonderful – surrounded by all these grown men and others playing their pipes, and here’s this little girl with her sash playing her pipes. She was recruited to be the piper for the Edinburgh recruiting car during the First World War. She became one of the first women to play with a male pipe band. She was the first female official piper to the Auxiliary Territorial Service. She was the first woman to pipe in a regimental dinner for officers in the British Army. And, I think most importantly, she founded the very first state school pipe band in Scotland, at Broughton High School in Edinburgh. She tells these tales wonderfully in her book titled The Lone Piper. So, she was an amazing character. 

[JB]
I think it’s fair to say – I don’t think I’m doing them a disservice – that the piping world has been fairly traditional. Was there push-back against women joining male bands?

[RM]
Yes, there will have been some who were perfectly open to it, but there was certainly push-back. For instance, when the Canadian Gail Brown, initially when she sought to join the great Shotts & Dykehead Caledonia Pipe Band, this was about 1970, the pipe major tried to put her off and said, ‘Oh, but you’re just a wee lassie’. Three years later, when she was eventually included in the band, they actually won the World Championships that year. But apparently, some of the other pipe majors were still to be found muttering about this. This wasn’t quite right. 

So, you could argue in a sense that that’s the 70s, and we think about how already what steps had happened by that stage. Was the piping world a bit behind the trend?

[JB]
And this plays into your assertion that the piping world is a lens with which to see society. The example there is the changing role of women. So much to talk about. Let’s try and bring it up to date to the 80s and 90s and the emergence of rock star pipers, people like Gordon Duncan and Martyn Bennett, of whom I’m a huge fan.

[RM]
Yes, extraordinary characters. 

[JB]
These are virtuoso players who played, for example Gordon Duncan, they were more like lead guitarists, I would imagine.

[RM]
Absolutely, that’s it. People have called Gordon Duncan the Jimi Hendrix of the pipes. He was doing things with his pipes which others wouldn’t dare to do – playing notes that had hitherto been considered forbidden. It’s called false fingering – the C natural, for instance. He was influenced by AC/DC playing, riffing on their track ‘Thunderstruck’. He was influenced by Galician music, Breton music, and he was willing to experiment. There are all sorts of great stories of him also being a bit wacky – going through the baggage X-ray machine at JFK airport, on his back playing his chanter; up the mast of the ferry to Rothesay playing away! He was just a character. 

He was also a bin man. Apparently, an American tourist was over here once and saw him in his overalls and said, ‘You’re this world-famous piper but you’re a bin man.’ And he said, ‘Aye, but if I wasn’t doing this, I’d be steaming all the time.’ And this was the tragic side to that story because, yes, he did have this struggle with alcohol. And in the end, in 2005, he took his own life, aged just 41. But he is remembered as a revolutionary; his debut album, Just for Seamus (1994), really rewrote the rule book. We’re still living in the era that he inaugurated with that album and this openness to experimentation, which before just wasn’t there.

With Martyn Bennett, he was doing something quite different. He was playing with the electro-dance music world, doing extraordinary things, taking stuff from other cultures and looping it into his tracks. People said, when he played with his band at the Cambridge Folk Festival, no one had ever heard music like this before. Scots music had never been like this before, and people were shocked by this style. He died tragically young from cancer and had to make his final album, Grit, entirely from archival material because he was just too ill to perform himself. But it’s a very, very wonderful, moving album.

So, these two – Gordon Duncan and Martyn Bennett – they were revolutionaries. And we still, as it were, can see their influence in how the music of the pipes is approached today.

[JB]
If we come right up to date, perhaps the most famous piper in the world right now is not a man nor a Scot. It is a young American woman.

[RM]
That’s right. Allyson Crowley-Duncan, otherwise known as Ally the Piper, has geniusly used social media to bring her pipes to a whole new audience. She’s trained in the classic tradition, but she decided she would, through TikTok and so on, put up these videos of her playing Metallica tracks or Ozzy Osbourne or film themes or whatever.

She’s opening up piping to so many. She’s got something like 3.3 million followers across her social media. She’s highly in demand, and she’s just brought a new image to piping. She really is very impressive in how she’s opened up this instrument to so many different people. There will inevitably be traditionalists who say, oh, come, come; we should have none of that. But actually, I think it’s great if we can bring the pipes to new people, new audiences, and showcase how varied they can be.

[JB]
Do you think that will happen? What do you think of the future for the pipes? Are they being taught in state schools still?

[RM]
They are, but there are issues there. I mean, funding is inevitably … for music generally. I raise this issue in the book. We call it our national instrument – do the facts back that up? I think they ultimately do. But, you do start to question things when you discover, for instance, that there’s about 7,000 young people learning the pipes in Scotland at the moment, but apparently there’s about 20,000 who would like to be playing if they could. But access to instructors, access to instruments, access to lessons is just not quite there. So, there’s a lot of work to do there.

Having said that, I am quite positive about the future of piping. We’ve never had so many pipers. It’s now being recognised that it’s such a global instrument. You have these exciting players who we’ve mentioned, taking the pipes into new realms. You’ve got an amazing collaboration, you’ve got pipers playing numerous different pipes, not just stuck to one style. And, there’s also accessibility – there’s these wonderful festivals that you can go to. 

[JB]
Knowing pipers, if you can play the pipes, no matter where you go in the world, you will never go hungry.

[RM]
No! It’s a passport to the world. That’s how I met my wife, busking on the streets of Cologne in Germany. 

[JB]
Was she busking, or were you?

[RM]
Sorry, I was busking! I was busking, there she was …

[JB]
Saying, excuse me, would you pipe down?! 

[RM]
Ha ha! No, not quite! It can take you all over the world and there’s open arms for you wherever you go.

[JB]
Finally though, what’s the secret of the pipes? Why do they move so many people, and not just Scots and not just the diaspora?

[RM]
OK, well, I think we’ve got to be careful here to try and define the magic too much, because I don’t think it’s possible. I tried so hard in that book to put my finger on what is it? Of course you’ve got this drone element. This is automatically something quite mysterious. And of course you’ve got the reeded pipe. It’s quite primitive; it speaks to something quite fundamental in us as human beings.

But yet, you’ve got that sophistication of the music on the chanter itself, these things coming together. You’ve got the loudness of it. Of course, it’s so aurally powerful on us. But why is it that you can even hear a set of bagpipes being played out of tune and it’s the same frequency or loudness as a pneumatic drill? And yet we still love it! There’s something really mysterious about that. 

And I would say, actually it’s important to let the mystery be – and to say we can’t reduce this to words. I think it ultimately brings me anyway, who’s studied it for all this time, to the point of speechlessness. I just think there’s something so mysterious about this, because it will bring tears to our eyes and we can’t explain it. So, to me, it’s just a magical romantic instrument. Even if you approach it with the greatest historical rigour, you can’t take that away from it.

[JB]
And that really sums it up, Richard; the pipes: indefinable. Thank you, Richard McLauchlan. 

[RM]
Thank you so much for having me.

[JB]
And Richard’s book, The Bagpipes: A Cultural History, is published by Hurst and is out now. We started the podcast with the more traditional sound of the pipes; we’ll leave you now with a taste of the virtuoso playing of Gordon Duncan.

[Bagpipes play ‘Thunderstruck’]

[JB]
The unique sound of Gordon Duncan bringing this edition of Love Scotland to a close. If you’d like to receive fortnightly podcasts into your inbox, just hit the subscribe button and it’ll be there for you. Thank you for supporting the work of the National Trust for Scotland; we couldn’t care for our special places without you. Until next time, goodbye.

[MV]
Love Scotland is brought to you by Think and Demus Productions on behalf of the National Trust for Scotland; presented by Jackie Bird. For show notes and more information, go to nts.org.uk and don’t forget to like, subscribe, review and share.

Transcript

Eight speakers: male voiceover [MV]; Jackie Bird [JB]; Kathy Willis [KW]; Tim Keyworth [TK]; Andrew Painting [AP]; second male voiceover [MV2]; Ciaran Hatsell [CH]; Andrew Dempster [AD]

[MV]
Love Scotland, brought to you from the National Trust for Scotland; presented by Jackie Bird.

[JB]
Have you ever hugged a tree? Taken part in some forest-bathing (no swimsuit required for this one!)? Or simply been cheered up by that pot plant on your desk? Well, if so, you’ll know something of the effect of nature on our wellbeing. But if you’ve ever wondered why you’ve felt like this, then my guest today is uniquely placed to explain.

 A number of years ago, Kathy Willis read a study that changed her view of our relationship with the natural world. The study revealed that hospital patients recovering from surgery improved 3 times faster when they looked out of their windows at trees rather than walls. So, Kathy began her own study on the link between the amount of green space in our lives and our better health, mood and even longevity.

Of course, it helped that Kathy is Professor of Biodiversity at the University of Oxford, so she has a scientific head-start on the rest of us. And I’m very pleased to say she’s joining us on Love Scotland. Welcome, Kathy.

[KW]
Thank you very much.

[JB]
Now, you’ve pulled together those findings in a book called Good Nature. It’s got countless examples of how our interactions with nature, however small, make us feel good. So, why was it necessary to search out the scientific explanation for what we felt in our bones?

[KW]
I think because the problem with nature, any interaction with nature, the minute you start talking about nature, people think it’s nice, fluffy bunnies, pretty flowers – but actually there’s no scientific evidence. It’s all in the mind. It’s all a cultural thing. Your grandmother gave you lavender bags and therefore they make you calmer.

And the thing I found about that hospital study was that they were looking at both physiological and psychological markers in the body and seeing that it was actually affecting – there was a mechanism of action happening in the body – when people were looking out of a clinical room onto a green wall. They were having a physical response and a mental response.

And so, I felt that the time had come to say, what clinical evidence is out there? Is there much and what interactions? Should we be seeing or smelling or hearing or touching nature? I started this journey as a very cynical scientist; I always like to really kick the tyres. And I thought, well, this is all a bit voodoo science-ish. And then every time I looked at a different set of studies, I just became more and more convinced that there is a very strong evidence base to show that things happen to our nervous system, to our hormonal system, to our psychological state, to even our gut microbiome, when we interact with nature.

And the other really important thing is these things happen automatically. You don’t have to think ‘I’m in nature, therefore I’m more relaxed’. It will happen regardless of whether or not you think that. But also, it shows that even if you’re stressed and you look out a window onto green, you recover faster if you look out onto green than if you look out onto a brick wall.

So, it’s not only good for when you’re feeling stressed, but also even if you don’t feel very stressed – it’s both physical and mental relaxation that occurs, or one of the actions, when we interact with nature.

[JB]
And is it the case that it’s only in recent years that we’ve had the technology to be able to measure what is happening, or that we’ve never really had the desire to do it?

[KW]
I think it’s a bit of both actually. But I think, certainly in terms of understanding, let’s give … there’s one thing in particular when they’ve been looking at brain activity and they look at which areas, when you’re interacting with nature, you get the greatest activity in the brain. And there’s a particular magnetic resonance measurement system that’s come out in the last 10 years. Therefore, you can start to see which parts of the brain are getting the neural activity going on when you interact with different aspects of nature.

One of my favourite, and most surprising, examples I think was the fact that when you smell certain plant compounds – when you walk in a pine forest and you smell that very piney smell – what actually happens? You don’t just breathe it in and breathe it out again. When you smell those compounds, pinene – which is the volatile compound creating that smell – passes across your lung membrane into your bloods.

So, your blood has a higher level of pinene in it after you walked in a pine forest than before. Now, they measure that using a gas chromatography method to look at these different compounds. And so therefore, it’s the technological innovations that have happened – along with more direct interest – that’s merged together to build this evidence base that we just didn’t really have before. 

We sort of probably knew. If you think about aromatherapy and what has been used in all those years in aromatherapy. So now I know, from looking at the evidence base, that lavender, for example – it’s not your old grandmother’s tales or a cultural memory. When you breathe in lavender, the lavender compounds that create that smell, they do pass into your blood and they interact with the same biochemical pathways as if you’re taking an anti-anxiety drug. 

And when you put people in sleep chambers and you puff out lavender vs no-lavender, the people that have lavender that night, they have longer intervals of sleep, but also they have more of that deep sleep, which we all need for our health.

So, you can start to see. They’ve tried even with things like lavender and limonene, which is another one – they’ve tried it on babies and still see this reduction in the stress markers. Babies have no cultural memory – eight-week-old babies – so you can start to see this is really stuff that’s not all in the mind. It’s actually things really going on in the bodies. 

[JB]
We’ll talk some more about smell later. You describe it as a Cinderella sense, and we’re not really harnessing the power of smell. But, as you know, the National Trust for Scotland holds nature very dear to our heart. And to that end, we thought we’d break off from our chat occasionally to hear from some of the Trust teams about their nature experience.

So, let’s go first to Tim Keyworth. Now, he’s a Gardens and Landscapes Manager and he works from Brodick Castle on Arran. 

[TK]
As I walk out of the office at Brodick Castle, the first thing that I hear is the sound of the birds. I already instantly feel a lot more connected to nature. I feel the crunch of the gravel beneath my feet. This makes me feel more grounded and, as I head over to a summer house that overlooks the walled garden, I’m already starting to feel a lot more relaxed after a morning of paperwork. 

I look back to the hills behind me, and the landscape really gives me a sense of awe and wonder, and how I fit into this place. It’s very calming. I’m definitely at my happiest when I’m outside. I feel incredibly lucky to work in a place like this.

[JB]
He does sound incredibly laid back, does Tim! 

[KW]
I want some of that please! 

[JB]
I want to be there! I also suppose that the importance of your findings, Kathy, goes hand in hand with the fact that we now know just how detrimental stress can be on our bodies.

[KW]
Absolutely. So, there’s two things that come from that snippet we’ve just heard, that sound snippet. But just addressing your first point: about 78% of global deaths now every year are due to non-communicable diseases. They are things related to cancers, to strokes, to heart attacks, to high blood pressure – to all of those things that have a really strong link to stress.

And the more we move into cities and the less nature we interact with, it would appear the greater and more stressed we have become. So, going back then to that wonderful snippet, the first thing is when I did the chapter on sound, absolutely: sounds of birds, birdsong, trees, water trickling past. They’ve tried it on many people and show that it does make you both physiologically and psychologically calmer when you hear those sounds.

Not all sounds of nature make you calmer! And they’ve shown with birdsong in particular, the tuneful birdsong – the sort he’s describing there – that does make you physiologically calm. Your blood pressure goes down, your hormonal levels are much lower, or the stress hormones go down. 

[JB]
You’ve actually gone as far as naming some birds though – haven’t you? – to look out for, like blackbirds?

[KW]
Blackbirds, warblers – if you look at the spectral signature, there’s lots of pattern in it. But if you have a loud squawking noise from a crow, or something like a parrot or even a seagull, that very sharp squawking sound from birds can actually have the opposite effect. It can make you stressed. So, it’s the sort of sounds of birds that you hear.

They’ve gone as far as actually placing headphones on people in hospital who have operations – let’s say with an epidural, so that they’re still awake – and they measure their salivary amylase, which is a really good indication in the saliva of stress. The higher the stress, the higher these levels. And they’ve measured it in the beginning and the end of the operation. Those people that wear the headphones hearing birdsong have much, much lower stress levels throughout the operation when they’re awake, than those who hear no sound or hear the background sounds. So, it’s a really interesting way of taking the science and the data – and then being able to use it in a very applied way.

[JB]
So, what happens in our brain when we look at a plant?

[KW]
The psychological theory with this now is called the stress reduction theory. We have two biologically predetermined responses when we view a horizon. We have a preference for natural spaces. And what they’ve shown is when you look at a green horizon rather than a built horizon, it leads to this more positively toned emotional state. And as a result of that, that seems to trigger these mechanisms of actions in our body, which I was talking about before, automatically. So, you’ll get this automatic response in your nervous system – your breathing rate will go down, your heart rate goes down. It triggers the endocrine system, the hormonal system – and you’ll find things like your salivary amylase levels go down. And it also affects things like your psychological state; people are less anxious. 

All of these things happen because it’s the way that your brain has … it’s a psychological state you go into when you look at nature. But there’s also something really interesting about looking at nature. When you look at nature, the other thing they’ve shown is that your cognitive performance improves after doing it. That’s a different theory, that one is called attention restoration theory, and most people will relate to this. When you spend a lot of time working on one piece of reading or writing, or staring at the computer, your attention does start to wane. And it’s because that is your directed attention. 

Now, when you look out the window or onto a picture even on your computer screen, of a green horizon, that uses a different source of attention. It uses this bottom-up attention that they now know we have. It’s called an involuntary attention and it gives your mind this mental mini-break. And when you go back to the task in hand, because it’s refreshed, you do better. It’s really incredible the number of studies that are out there now, where they’ve had people – from school children to teenagers to office workers – have a 5-minute (or even less – 90 seconds in one example) break staring out the window. When they came back, they were faster at the test and they were more accurate.

[JB]
You do realise this is terrible news for teachers everywhere who have tried to stop pupils looking out the window?!

[KW]
I know! But it’s also got a really interesting policy behind it. Because actually what it says is in playgrounds – doesn’t matter where your school is – if you’ve got a brick wall, you should cover it with ivy or something, some vegetation. So, when people do stare out the window, which they will do, it could be a good thing, but it’s only a good thing if they can look onto green.

[JB]
Right, so any smart Alec kids listening to this can retort ‘Miss, miss; I’m working on my attention restorative theories’.

[KW]
Yeah, something like that!

[JB]
Let’s go back to the birdsong because we have another clip from one of the Trust teams, which just sounds so delightful. Let’s hear from Andrew Painting, who’s a conservation officer at Mar Lodge Estate in the Cairngorms.

[AP]
One of the lovely things about woodlands in spring is that they just come alive with birdsong. Currently, I’m listening to chaffinches, blue tits, mistle thrush, tree-creepers. It’s a wonderful thing, and if you really tune into birdsong, you can work out what habitat you’re in just by listening, which is always a lovely thing to think about.

One of my favourite times of the year is early spring, when the woods – which at Mar Lodge have been really quite quiet over the winter, covered in snow, everything moves south – suddenly comes back alive with birdsong. But spring hasn’t really started until you hear the first cuckoo.

[KW]
He makes a really good point that actually the whole world is coming alive again after spring. But does that mean that we can’t interact with nature in the winter, when we probably most need it? The really important thing, I think, I discovered by looking at all this stuff is you can bring an awful lot of nature indoors and still get the same effects. So, you can play birdsong on your speakers, on your headphones, but you can also have plants inside. You can have smells inside through diffusers. And so, you don’t have to be outdoors to gain these benefits from nature. We need to surround ourselves with nature everywhere.

[JB]
Is it possible to determine which of our senses in that case, when we’re in nature, works most effectively for us? Is it sight, sound, smell, touch?

[KW]
Well, I mean, in a sense they’re all there. That’s the beauty of being in nature because you’re getting a stacked benefit. But there are two benefits that I’d just not been aware of, not come across. And I think in some ways, if we’re talking about resilience to future health risks, there are two that are particularly important.

The first one is smell. As I mentioned earlier, when you smell particular scents, the molecules pass into your blood and there they trigger all sorts of other biochemical reactions. And one that’s really interesting, they show people who walk or even have diffused cypress (Cupressaceae) scent, they have elevated natural killer cells in their blood.

And these elevated natural killer cells can last for up to seven days after walking in the forest, which has got that very strong smell of cypress in the air. Natural killer cells attack cancer virus cells, so we want elevated levels in our blood; it gives you that resilience. And so, to me, that’s a really interesting research avenue; it’s just really starting in the last few years. 

But there’s a very good paper published in one of the cancer journals on oncology (I think it is), which shows the people who live in this Japanese cypress forest, so surrounded by them, automatically have much higher levels of natural killer cells in their blood than those who live near the city. But they also showed those that went to walk in the forest for a couple of hours ended up with these elevated levels that remained. So, I think that’s the first one that I found really interesting.

[JB]
Now that sounds like serious stuff. Is that where forest-bathing comes in? Because I’d never heard of forest-bathing before. 

[KW]
Forest-bathing is prescribed in Japan now. In some ways the Japanese medical sciences are way ahead of us. I went to Singapore recently and they have in their hospital a department of Biodiversity in Medicine. They’re already thinking about this as a practical thing to be doing. With forest-bathing, it’s everything – it’s sight, sound, smell; all of these things that you can be prescribed to go and sit in the forest for two hours a week for example.

Where I’ve taken the research that I’ve pulled together in the book is you don’t have to go and sit in the forest for two hours a week. You can bring those senses – you can get them from your local park – into your home. I have a diffuser now in my office at home, where I press the button in the morning. I have a 10-minute puff of Japanese oil in the air from the diffuser because it’s not going to do me any harm. But if it is going to raise my natural killer cells, thank you very much. I’ll take some of that!

So, it’s thinking really about what we can individually do, and we don’t need to wait to be prescribed; a lot of these things we can naturally do in our everyday lives. It takes small tweaks to build up a resilience that we all really want.

[JB]
So, Kathy, we now have the evidence of the benefits of nature. Let’s take a break and when we come back, we’re going to find out how best to utilise all of that free good stuff that’s out there.

[MV2]
You need to smell the flowers, said my bro. Turns out wild heather works just as well. We were up Ben Lomond like mountain goats. Couldn’t believe it was so close to home. At the top though, life was a million miles away. So, we signed up to help look after it. We all need looking after.

[MV]
Since 1931, the National Trust for Scotland, a charity supported by you, has been looking after Scotland’s treasured places so we can all share in them. Support us at nts.org.uk

[JB]
Welcome back to Love Scotland, and my guest today is Kathy Willis, Professor of Biodiversity at Oxford University and the author of the book Good Nature. Kathy, a lot of what you report on is the scientific basis for the benefits of nature that we already know about. But even you were impressed by something I had never heard of called environmental microbes. What are they and what do they do?

[KW]
I was blown away when I started doing this chapter, and I didn’t stop going on about it for quite a while! I think I got very unpopular in my own home. Effectively, we’ve all heard about gut microbiome and that we have these bacteria in our gut and, depending on the composition of bacteria in our gut, they trigger all of these metabolic processes.

And now there’s a lot of discussion about the gut/brain access and how important the gut is in our health. So, we’re all advised to eat 30 green vegetables a week and to drink probiotics. What I hadn’t realised, and this work was done about 15 years ago and it just got missed, is that a really world-class ecologist in Finland worked with the top of the medical sciences in Helsinki and they came up with the idea that when you’re in the natural environment, in a biodiverse environment, it’s full of good bacteria in that environment.

The more biodiverse it is, the better the bacteria are in the environment. And they’re the same sort of bacteria that we want in our gut; they’re exactly the same groups. And what they showed was that when people were in these more biodiverse environments, they had a much higher level of these good bacteria on their hands, in their nasal passages and in their gut. So, effectively, your body adopts the signature of the environmental microbiome if you’re in a good microbiome. 

Now, why is this important? Well, to show why it’s important, these are studies that have been done in the last couple of years, and they’ve been done on nursery school/kindergarten children. And what they did was they had three playgrounds. In one they just had normal matting – plastic matting. The other one had the normal sort of concrete and the usual stuff. And in the third, they bought in trunks of soil from the forest; this is a coniferous forest nearby. For 28 days the children played on these different playgrounds. 

And they measured the microbiome on their skin and they measured the microbiome in their poo. They also measured their bloods to see whether there were any changes in the markers in their bloods. And after 28 days, there was a really significant difference. The children that played in the soil had a greatly enhanced microbiome in their gut of the good biota, but also really importantly in their blood, the T cells that show inflammatory markers, effectively they had greatly reduced inflammatory markers in their bloods. 

So not only had they changed the gut flora, but as we are seeing in many other studies, if you change your gut flora, you can affect … there seems to be some metabolic process that goes on that they don’t fully understand that starts to affect the inflammatory markers in the blood.

[JB]
That’s extraordinary. 

[KW]
Really extraordinary. And we’ve known, haven’t we, for a long time actually, we’ve got all these massive increases going on in children who are highly allergic to all these things. And now the hypothesis is that the more sterile the environment we put our children in, effectively you are sterilising their microbiome that’s around them as well. And so therefore, you’re not giving them that resilience that builds up by having this diverse gut flora and skin flora.

There’s a lot more work to be done on this, but these trials – there’s three of them now that I know of – are published in Science and Arts; they’re published in the top science journals. They are randomised controlled trials; they’re proper clinical trials. And I think we should all take a lot of hope from these because it’s starting to show that nature itself can build, in children and adults, the resilience that we need and reduce the inflammatory markers that we really don’t want, because those are ones that trigger all of these autoimmune diseases.

[JB]
And that really plays into the fact that I’ve noticed an increase in the number of outdoor nurseries now. I used to feel sorry for the little tykes in Scotland in January, digging the frozen earth. But now? No, no. Harden you up and help your gut! 

[KW]
Get them out the door! When I visited Finland a couple of years ago, before I was doing this work, they have a completely different attitude about children outdoors over the winter. Even the small babies in the pram – it’s -10 and they’re for two hours in the pram! But now I think, you know what, it’s probably really good for them.

[JB]
And again, it harks back to what you were saying about changing your own environment. You can bring these microbes into a room and there’s evidence to prove that. 

[KW]
There’s a lovely study done on spider plants. I mean, who would think a spider plant was an attractive thing to have? I now have many! They showed a single spider plant – they put it into an air-conditioned room, which was completely cleansed. And then they went back six weeks later: the environmental microbes on that spider plant had seeded the ceiling, the walls, the floors. It had created the environmental microbiome in this sealed room.

And there’s another lovely study, again published in a very good science journal, where they put a green wall in an office and they measured the gut and skin microbiota of the adults working in the office vs people next door who didn’t have one. And sure enough, after 28 days, they saw the same changes, both in their skin and gut flora, but also in their markers – the T cell markers in their bloods.

[JB]
Let’s take a moment now to eavesdrop on our last National Trust for Scotland special guest appearance. Ciaran Hatsell is Head Ranger at St Abb’s Head National Nature Reserve in the Borders.

[CH]
I’m currently sat here looking over a wild, windswept grey ocean. The waves are battering the cliffs – cliffs which will soon be packed with thousands of seabirds. It really is an incredible sight, and for me there’s nothing better for you than just getting out and having a walk in nature. The physical benefits are obvious, but the mental health benefits are actually probably under-appreciated.

I’m really lucky to get to work here on this amazing nature reserve. But you don’t have to go very far to find nature. In the middle of cities, we can have starling roosts and pied wagtail roosts in really busy places. A key message maybe is to focus on the little things. Look at what’s around you; look at what’s in your patch.

So, just get out there and immerse yourself in nature, whether you’re in the middle of a city, whether you’ve just got a window to look out of! Just feel that wind in your hair and try and appreciate nature, however you can, wherever you can.

[JB]
Sound advice there, from Ciaran. 

[KW]
All three of these snippets are so moving and so right. This is not something for the privileged. Any small patch, anywhere that you can go and appreciate nature – it could be a green wall in a city; it could be a small patch of green community woodland; anywhere. But also, you can bring it indoors. You can look out onto it, but also even just your computer screen, your screensaver – put a forest on it. Don’t have some angular picture on there.

And the point that he also made was actually looking onto blue as well. So, a lot of work’s been done – and my book is about nature and about green nature – but there’s a lot of evidence about looking onto blue. Blue water also can trigger very, very positive benefits. You certainly have a more relaxed psychological state when you’re looking onto blue. 

[JB]
And for people who can’t, as you say, access the countryside easily, there is advice. And again, this is scientifically based because a lot of this, people will say, well, I know that; if I go out for a walk, I feel better. This is telling you, now we know why – that if you go out for a walk, you can change your route, even a short walk in the middle of the day away from work, and make it more beneficial for you.

[KW]
There’s some lovely studies where they’ve measured people walking. There’s a nice one with young men, all the same age. They didn’t have coffee, they didn’t smoke, they didn’t do anything beforehand. They kept it all as controlled as possible. And they walked for 15 minutes in the streets and then they did 15 minutes walking around the edge of the park. They showed a really strong difference in blood pressure, in psychological wellbeing indexes, etc, etc – just by walking around the edge of the park or walking on a street with trees, rather than walking on a street with traffic.

Now, as you say, with all of this, people go, well, I know that of course, but actually how many people change their direction in order to do it? And I think that’s the thing once you see the scientific evidence base. For me personally, I do now take a different route to work as a result of that. And at weekends, we’ve always gone stomping the highways and byways around Oxford. I’ve always loved being outdoors, but I feel most of my time in Oxford is behind a desk, as it is today. But in this room I’ve now got five plants and I’ve got flowers on my computer screen. You know, small things. A diffuser behind me when I’m feeling particularly stressed. So, you can just make these small tweaks which can make a very, very different way to the way that you feel, both physically and mentally.

[JB]
And even what you think about changed your ruminations?

[KW]
Yep, absolutely. Ruminations are very negative – when you start to go into that doom loop when you’re thinking. And what they showed is people who are walking in nature, they have a lot less ruminations than the people who are walking, let’s say, on the street. So again, it can just flip that switch in your mind where you’re feeling it’s one thing after another after another. You go and walk in the park or on a street with trees, and you just don’t do this nearly as much.

[JB]
We know now that COVID gave us renewed appreciation for nature, but a bit like the Pied Piper, now that the threat has gone, will the impetus to save the green areas, which, as we keep saying, science now tells us they are beneficial, will that impetus remain as strong?

[KW]
I think that’s a really interesting question. What the evidence base is showing is that people who took up gardening, going outside during COVID, have continued. So, there hasn’t been a dramatic drop, which I think is really good. But I think the biggest threat will be the new building and planning regulations coming through.

We know we need more houses; there’s no question of that. No one should argue we don’t – we’re in a housing crisis. But we do need to think about, in cities, including green space and vegetation and nature as much as any other infrastructure. We think about roads, we think about water, we think about electricity – where do we put nature so everybody can access nature within where they live? 

[JB]
And if there’s one thing we should take from your book, what would it be?

[KW]
Gosh, one thing … spend time in nature every day.

[JB]
I will do just that forthwith. Kathy Willis, thank you for your time and for giving us some inspiration.

[KW]
Thank you, I’ve enjoyed talking to you.

[JB]
And Kathy’s book Good Nature is out now, published by Bloomsbury. And thanks to the Trust team who dropped by – Tim Keyworth, Andrew Painting and Ciaran Hatsell – thanks for sharing your experiences. I hope they’ve inspired you to take a walk on the wild, or not so wild, side.

The National Trust for Scotland is committed to protecting and conserving Scotland’s nature, beauty and heritage. From maintaining accessible and remote footpaths to cataloguing every plant species in our gardens, we do it because of your membership and donations, so thank you.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this episode of Love Scotland. There is a new podcast each fortnight, so hit the subscribe button and never miss an episode. That’s all for now. Until next time, goodbye!

And if you’re a seasoned hill walker or just thinking of lacing up your boots, have a search on our Love Scotland archive for an edition called The Munros: Mountain myths and milestones.

[AD]
I’d been in thick cloud for a good few hours and I had this feeling it was never really going to lift. But it was one of those magical days when you come out of the cloud, you rise out of this constricting grey mass, and you’re up and you see blue sky. And then you think, oh wonderful. And then you go up a bit further and there’s just a sea of cloud with peaks rising up above. I think any hill walker will know that that is one of those magical occasions which happen now and again. But I was very, very surprised. I really thought I was going to be walking in cloud for the whole day.

[MV]
Love Scotland is brought to you by Think and Demus Productions, on behalf of the National Trust for Scotland; presented by Jackie Bird. For show notes and more information, go to nts.org.uk and don’t forget to like, subscribe, review and share.