Joan and Tom Flett made an unparalleled contribution to traditional dance knowledge through their research and collecting tours of Scotland and England in the 1950s and 60s. Tom was also an eminent pure mathematician and latterly Professor at Sheffield University until his death in 1976. Of Orcadian descent, he was born in London, as was Joan. Here their daughters Jane and Lindsay describe how they retraced one of Tom’s collecting trips.
It is not always easy following in the footsteps of famous parents, but thanks to our parents’ keen interest in traditional dance we count ourselves lucky to have grown up with folk dance as well as song and music being a great part of our lives, and we have done our best to keep alive and pass on many of the dances they collected. We were rather pleased then to be invited in 2013 to give a talk on our father Tom at the Orkney International Science Festival; he would have hated any eulogy but remembering his mathematics and his contribution to traditional dancing seemed a fitting way to mark what would have been his 90th year.
Howie Firth, the Science Festival organiser, had found out about Tom’s mathematics and collection of old Orkney dances through looking for people with Orkney names and thought Tom would be of scientific as well as local interest. So with some trepidation, not least about tackling his mathematics, we started delving into the ‘family archives’ – our mother kept nearly everything from their dance research days; reams of literary research, copious notes of dance-collecting interviews and all their letters. We found almost too many snippets which gave not only the dance history but also reflected the social history of the time and then we got to grips with his mathematics (just about) and so armed we set off for Orkney, with fiddle and clogs as well of course.
Come a Friday afternoon in Kirkwall and safely past the mathematics, we found that our audience became rather more engaged as we recounted some of the stories from Tom and Joan’s collecting excursions. Starting with a joint visit to the Hebrides in 1953 where they had their first success, Tom went on to undertake a series of journeys covering most of mainland Scotland, Orkney and Shetland by the early 1960s – and nearly all without a car. From collective memory they were able to build up a comprehensive picture of the differing Scottish dancing traditions in existence before the First World War, social dancing, step dances and even comic jigs and in 1964 published their first dance book, Traditional Dancing in Scotland.
Sixsome Reel and Axum Reel
Tom visited Orkney in the summer of 1955 and found a couple of dances new to him, including an Orkney version of the Queen Victoria Country Dance, as well as finding out more about the Orkney traditional Sixsome Reel. His most interesting find though was an unusual dance for eight, called the Axum Reel, which he collected from Ivy and Roy Scott.
At this point in our talk, imagine our surprise for a lady on the second row to bob her head up and interject, “They were my parents!” Given that it was 58 years since Tom was in Orkney and then his premise was to interview older people so as to have the earliest memories of dancing, we had had very little expectation of finding anyone who would remember his visit; so to meet Mr and Mrs Scott’s daughter, Ella Henderson, and to find she had such clear memories of our father coming to their house was wonderful. Not only that but she could remember her mother telling Tom he must have Orkney connections because of his name, only later found to be true, and afterwards her parents poring over complex drawings of the Reel’s figures trying to ensure they were correct before sending them back to Tom. Ella even still had some pictures of Lindsay as a toddler from our parents’ letters as they had kept in touch for many years; the Scotts wrote how pleased they were with the way Tom notated not just the dance, but its history and its traditional use as the last dance at weddings when it was danced around the newlyweds.
Afterwards Ella kindly invited us to visit her at home, and on the most beautiful sunny day we spent Sunday lunch catching up on nearly 60 years of family history. Ella and her sister were both taught Highland Fling steps from an early age, as were we, though Ella said their father danced ‘in his great clumpity boots’ (Tom recorded several unique Highland Fling steps from Ella’s father).
Back in the family archive, Tom noted that he met Roy Scott by pure chance on getting into a conversation when having lunch one day in a hotel on the Orkney mainland. When the talk turned to dancing, Roy showed Tom the figure of a Reel he knew from his own island of North Ronaldsay. Obviously extremely interested, Tom was invited back to the Scotts’ home to be shown the dance.
On his return home, Tom immediately taught the Axum Reel to his own team, the Marlowe Scottish Dancers, and chose it as one of their dances when they competed at the Llangollen Eisteddfod the following year. Tom invited Ella and her sister to go with them but Ella could remember how they had insisted their parents go instead as it was all down to them and was such a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to see it exhibited. Tom’s notes also recorded how Roy Scott was most struck by there being almost as many people as in the whole of Orkney gathered in that one field at the Eisteddford.
We could have talked to Ella all afternoon and it was wonderful to find so much connection with someone through dance and a chance meeting of our fathers nearly 60 years ago. This would have been the perfect end to our trip only it got even more interesting as we then went on to meet yet another lady who remembered Tom meeting her parents in 1955.
The Dounby Reel
On the evening of the lecture we had been invited to the practice session of the Orkney Traditional Dance Association (OTDA) which had been formed in 1998 to promote, revive and preserve traditional dance throughout Orkney. We were treated to a demonstration of the Axum Reel they had revived from Tom’s notes and were delighted to be invited to join in. We also danced the dance which they called the Dounby Reel, that Tom collected as ‘Hands Across’ from the Dounby district, and the Orkney Sixsome Reel. Neil Leask of the OTDA suggested that we might like to meet the only other person left with a connection to those Tom met. Elsie Johnston was the daughter of John and Ethel Findlater from Dounby. On the Sunday Ella called Elsie, introducing herself and asking if we could go and talk to her about dance. Expressing remarkably little surprise, Elsie was in and happy to see us and so after lunch all three of us set off for Dounby. Elsie was still living at the same place as our father visited, although not the same house, and as with Ella, Elsie could also well remember his visit.
We were by now dying to ask both ladies what they remembered of our dad’s visit and of what dances their parents had shown him, in other words to do our own collecting. This is so much harder than it sounds – you don’t want to interrupt the natural flow of conversation for your own curiosity but we wanted to hear first-hand what they remembered themselves and it is very hard not to ask leading questions. And then, we experienced exactly what our father must have found, as Elsie and Ella effectively began to interview each other.
Elsie and Ella were sat facing each other either side of the fireplace (next to Elsie’s accordion) and after establishing their respective Orkney genealogy, Ella started quizzing Elsie and they chatted away. Elsie remembered her parents getting together with a few other couples to dance for our father – she listed the Dounby Reel as well as ballroom dances like the Maxina. You could easily see how this would trigger memories and allow Tom to see the dances actually performed. He would not even have to ask the questions, just sit there and take notes as they talked! Elsie said that for many years she had kept the articles that Tom had had published in the Orkney Herald after his visit until passing them on to a dance teacher friend.
The songs of John and Ethel
Almost as we were leaving, Elsie said that she had at first thought we had come to ask about song rather than dance. There had been a book on the chair when we had come into the lounge which Elsie showed us was her mother’s songbook, containing over a hundred ballads and early popular songs. At the front was a printed copy of the song, ‘Andrew Ross, the Orkney sailor’. Elsie said that she couldn’t really sing any more as she was a bit croaky and Lindsay, having learnt it at an early age, started singing the first verse and to our joy Elsie joined in and they sang it together. It was then that Lindsay at last realised that Elsie was herself a ‘tradition bearer’– Lindsay had learnt the song from a recording of the singing of Elsie’s own mother.
Ethel and John Findlater were both wonderful singers and Peter Kennedy, in collecting for his folk music programme, ‘As I Roved Out’, visited them in the 1950s, recording them and Elsie singing and talking. The recordings include the songs Lord Lovel, The Maid o the Cowdie-an’-Knowes, The Laird o’ Drum, and The Four Marys; all later published by Caedmon/Topic Records. The blurb from the record, The Lover’s Stone – Ancient Traditions of Orkney, tells that the Findlaters “proved to be a storehouse of local tradition”. Elsie remembered Peter Kennedy fondly and he had kept in touch for many years, as Tom had with Ella’s parents. She also regaled us with stories of Cathal O’Connell and the other Boys of the Lough visiting and sitting at her feet when they had been appearing at the Orkney Folk Festival, also very glad to meet one of the great contributors to our folk-song heritage.
After Peter Kennedy, Ethel and Elsie were visited by various researchers from the School of Scottish Studies from 1961 to 1977 who made a large number of recordings of their singing which have now been made available as part of the Tobhar an Dulchais project (‘Kist o Riches’ website) together with recordings of Ethel describing Orkney life including her earlier farmhouse, probably the house that Tom would have visited in 1955. Well worth listening to, there are the Child Ballads: ‘Lord Lovell’ and ‘The Four Marys’ but also Orkney songs such as ’The Hamars of Syradale’.
Letters in the family archive
We left Orkney sadly on another sunny day but having gained a much greater insight into Tom’s collecting, made many friends and inspired to go home and trace everything we could in his notes about Orkney. We wondered whether Peter Kennedy or Tom had gone to Orkney first and we went back to the family archives and there we found three letters from Peter Kennedy, confirming that they had both gone to Orkney in 1955; Peter recorded the Findlaters’ songs on 12 July and Tom first visited the Scotts on 20 September 1955.
Peter’s first letter to Tom described briefly his having just returned from Orkney. He had been originally planning to visit the Scottish Borders but the BBC did not want him to go there as Francis Collinson of the School of Scottish Studies was there that summer. He went on to say that Tom would probably like to know what dances they had in Orkney and talked about “The Brides Reel” and “Strip the Willow which they do in the same style as Drops of Brandy in Northumberland but without the first figure”. The second letter is dated a few days later with Peter agreeing to meet Tom who was apparently making more inquiries about “The Brides Reel” and so it’s possibly thanks to the BBC and Peter that Tom visited Orkney in the first place.
The last letter from Peter Kennedy is from the following year; Tom had obviously commended Peter’s radio programme on his Orkney recordings, and Peter said how glad he was that the “Dounby folk were able to arrange dancers for Tom”. Peter also said “it was fine idea to publish in the Orkney Herald” and “to let the Orkney people [be] aware of their own tradition and bring about a natural revival in the Islands”. So here was another piece of the jigsaw, how collectors collaborated to exchange notes of what they found and to pass on the names of possible informants.
We then went to talk to one of our parent’s friends, John Wesencraft, one of Tom’s original Marlow Scottish Dancers who had danced the Axum Reel at the Eisteddfod. John could remember vividly dancing that day for Ella’s parents; the palpable excitement the dancers get as the music speeds up and the reeling figure gets tighter and tighter until you could hardly dance it any faster. They were placed a commendable fifth in the judging and John remembered Violet Alford the judge saying later that they might have been placed higher but she wasn’t sure that the fling steps used in the dance were traditional. Tom was quite indignant as these were steps learnt from Roy Scott. Further insight to Tom’s collecting was John’s ability to remember every small detail of the day even to being able to dance the fling steps although nearly 79. Again, we can see how Tom was able to collect so much from people even when they were in the 80s and 90s.
So that they could be danced again
We had a fascinating trip to Orkney and have thoroughly enjoyed ourselves since following up the various strands of dance and song research. It was wonderful to see the Orkney dancers reviving dances from Tom’s notes and we are thankful that he had such foresight to recognise the need to record people’s memories of dances; as well as luckily the talent and the attention to detail to be able to record them with such exactitude.
He was the only person to travel so extensively recording Scotland’s dances; but it was not just an academic exercise, he collected dances so that they could be danced again and danced in the vigorous style of the people they were collected from. His notes though can never fully replace directly passing on tradition and we are lucky to have the dancing connection with the people Tom visited and carried on teaching dances which he taught us, dances that were passed on to him that can traced back to dancing masters born in the 1800s. So we finished our Orkney lecture by dancing clog steps he collected, and performed as a dancing master would have done, playing fiddle and dancing at the same time.
