It’s Time To Sing A Rebel Tune

The Dean was in his braw nichtgoon, a cauldrife morn his doup aroon
When herried was the Stane o Scone that gied him Geordie-Lowrie
Noo Geordie-Lowrie’s no for me, nae gladness in ma Deanery
I’ve tint the Stane o Destiny, it gies me Geordie-Lowrie
Auld Scotia’s hert is heech aboon, sair pitten-oot is England’s Croun
As muckle as yon cheil de Bohun whan he got Geordie-Lowrie
Geordie-Lowrie, tune Muckin o Geordie’s Byre, words Tom Law

The Return to Scotland of the Stane of Scone at Christmas 1950 caused greetin in Westminster Abbey but was greeted with delight in Scotland. Half the best poets in Scotland wrote songs to praise the act, to assert Scotland’s rights and to ridicule the Scotland Yard searchers. The role of poet Morris Blythman was central and crucial at this time, as were the regular ceilidhs run by the Bo’ness Rebels Literary Society, a loose confederation of left wing political activists and writers whose joint aim was an independent Scotland.
The atmosphere at the Rebels’ Hogmanay ceilidh of the 29th December 1950 was supercharged. Four days earlier the Stone of Scone had been prized out from the Westminster Abbey throne by four unknown young Scots and taken to a secret location somewhere in Scotland. The local newspaper, the ‘Bo’ness Journal’, reported that the ceilidh “was dominated by one topic – the Stone of Destiny and where was it? When Calum Campbell arrived (with a bandaged hand) along with Dr McIntyre and other well-known Scots Nationalists and it was known that at least one detective was present, the atmosphere, to say the least, became charged with expectancy.”
Oliver Brown gave a “brilliantly witty speech”. “He hoped that the ‘Scone Stone’ would form the foundation of a modern progressive Scotland.” The programme included “spirited piping – a worthy effort”, “violin selections movingly interpreted” and songs in Scots and Gaelic. This ceilidh also featured the first reported Bo’ness appearance of Morris Blythman, who would be one of the key creators of the highly influential series of ‘Bo’ness Rebels Ceilidh Song Books’. Blythman wrote under the nom-de-plume Thurso Berwick, chosen to represent the length and breadth of Scotland. The ‘Bo’ness Journal’ said “The ceilidh moved to its climax when the chairman called on Thurso Berwick, the well known Lallans poet, to do his piece in ‘Poets Corner’.
“This recitation of the humorous poem ‘The Muckle Stane o Scone’ was the highlight of the whole evening, and was of a highly amusing nature.”

The Stane the Stane the muckle Stane, the Stane worth half a croun
Whit’s aa the steer aboot the Stane, this offa Stane-o-Scone?
Fa’s taen it this time? Fa’s taen it nou? The Dean that hed it yon time hesna got it nou
The polis say it’s Lang-neb Nell an Tousie-heidit Tam, a keelie pair frae Glesca toun that dinna care a damn
I ken it wasna Stalin, man, it wasna Mao-tze-Tung, but did MacDiarmid tak the Stane tae croun hissel at Scone?
The Muckle Stane O Scone, tune Ball of Kirriemuir, words Thurso Berwick.
Other verses ask if the reiving culprits were an intoxicated ‘Reid-nose Rudolph Reindeer’; ‘
Santie Claus’ who had ‘sclimmed doun by the lum’; or ‘Guid King Wenceslas’ seeking ‘the Front Page’?

After the speeches, “Robin Adair and his Band played as if inspired” for country dancing, and the evening “was concluded with the singing of ‘Auld Lang Syne’ and the Scottish National Anthem ‘Scots Wha Hae’.” The Bo’ness Journal
The Stane had been removed from Westminster Abbey and returned to Scotland by a team of four led by Ian Hamilton on Xmas Eve, 1950. But they were not the only ones to have the idea, which was being widely urged by poet Christopher Grieve, who wrote under the name Hugh MacDiarmid. Rob Gibson says that the idea of getting the Stone was talked about back in the 1930s.
SNP activist Hugh MacDonald explains. “Exactly a week before it was lifted from Westminster Abbey, I was deputed to recruit a group of guys. Four of us were in Central Station, waiting for a driver to take us south, he was from Elmbank Street office. He arrived at last. "Oh, ah cannae make it" - a load of guff. We were going to go down and take the Stone. I got the idea originally from Chris Grieve, he'd passed the idea on, it was being generally discussed that we should bring the Stone to Scotland, to be a focal point, that it was our property and symbol.”

O, the Dean o Westminster wis a powerful man, he held aa the strings o the state in his hand
But wi aa this great business it flustered him nane till some rogues ran away wi his wee magic stane

Noo the Stane had great powers that could dae such a thing, that without it, it seemed, we’d be wantin a King
So he caa’d in the polis an gave this decree, “Go an hunt out the Stone and return it to me”
So the polis went beetle’n up tae the North, they huntit the Clyde an they huntit the Forth
But the wild folk up yonder juist kiddit them aa for they didnae believe it wis magic at all

Noo the Provost o Glesca, Sir Victor by name was awfy pit oot whan he heard o the Stane
So he offered the statues that staun in the square that the high churches’ masons might mak a few mair
When the Dean o Westminster wi this was acquaint, he sent fur Sir Victor and made him a saint
“Noo it’s nae use you sending your statues doon here” said the Dean “but you’ve given me a right good idea”

So he quarried a stane o the very same stuff, an he dressed it aa up till it looked like enough
Then he sent for the press and announced that the stane had been found and returned to Westminster again
When the reivers found oot what Westminster had done they went aboot diggin up stanes by the ton
And fur each wan they feenished they entered the claim that this was the true and original stane

Noo the cream o the joke still remains tae be telt, fur the bloke that wis turning them aff on the belt
At the peak o production wis so sorely pressed that the real yin got bunged in alang wi the rest
So if ever you come on a stane wi a ring, jist sit yersel doon and appoint yersel King,
Fur there’s nane wud be able to challenge yir claim that you’d croont yersel King on the Destiny Stane
The Wee Magic Stane, tune Villikins, words John McEvoy

Jean McGillveray, wife of SNP organiser Angus McGillveray, says the Stane was passed from place to place and hidden. Several times it was transported in her husband Angus’s van, and their daughter Janice’s sledge used to move it. Broken off bits of the Stane were given to and are still treasured by various people. The author’s dentist has a relative who holds a piece of the Stane, passed down in her family.
Morris Blythman later wrote about the response of the Scottish people to the Lifting. “For the first time in generations, Scotland had asserted herself in an active way. This was a departure from the passive whining about what England was doing to us and a real blow for freedom. Above all, it was an action with which virtually every Scot could identify. It was England’s turn to do the whining – and the Scots treated it all as a marvellous joke.” Morris Blythman
“Sorley MacLean’s widow tells that when Sorley heard the news about the Stane, he was jumping round the room, whooping and screaming.” Rob Gibson
“Within days – just like the chapmen and balladeers of days gone by – Scots were writing quite independently at all levels about this great event. One song above all others has lasted from that period, ‘The Wee Magic Stane.’ Its success is probably due to the ballad, story-telling technique employed. Here was a song for the layman, however far removed he was from the actual events, and how he liked it.” Morris Blythman
The song was made by a Rebel Ceilidh regular, John McEvoy. Shortly afterwards he emigrated to Canada, soon moved to the USA, and retired back to Scotland in 1989. His step-son Colin Ward says that ‘The Wee Magic Stane’ is frieend Hwas the only political song McEvoy wrote. “Other than ditties to amuse his friends from time to time, which are now lost, I only know of two other songs he tried to write about his experiences in Canada. To his great frustration he was unable to complete either.”
Morris Blythman’s wife Marion thinks that John McEvoy’s example, and the excitement both the Blythmans had felt on discovering a living tradition of ballad singing while on a working trip to Aberdeenshire, led Morris to change his ‘Muckle Stane’ poem into a song, using the tune of a favourite bawdy song, ‘The Ball of Kirriemuir’.
Finding that other poets like Norman MacCaig had also written songs, Blythman gathered together lyrics, cajoled more poets, and engineered the creation of a booklet of fifteen anonymous pieces, set to popular Scots tunes.

There wis a wee Super o Scotland Yaird, Barraty-parraty, cocatou!
He cam up ti Glesca – He wisna feared!
Barraty-parraty, gie him ti Charity!
Niver fund clarity, Niver a clue!
Superintendent Thomas Barrat, Requiem I, tune Wee Cooper o Fife,
words Thurso Berwick

O, Sherlock Holmes is deid lang syne in some forgotten garret.
Bit aa o youse hae heard the news o Superintendant Barrat.
He cam up here in Janiveer, the day it was a Monday:
He crossed the Border deep in snaw an wished ti Hell he hadnae!
Requiem II, Tune Barbara Allen, words Thurso Berwick

“The ‘Sangs Of The Stane’ booklet was Morris’s idea, because he thought it was iconic, the stealing of the Stone of Destiny, and it was one of the first times that people in Scotland had a right good laugh at the Establishment. The Scots were thumbing their nose at them, and Morris thought that should be noted. Morris wrote ‘The Muckle Stane o Scone’ – a narrative poem. He was pals with John MacEvoy who wrote ‘The Wee Magic Stane’, and Morris thought it would be a good idea to have a song-book. It was he who got Hugh MacDiarmid and people like that to write poems and songs about the Stone. The songbook was basically his idea and he didn’t want people thinking they were making money out of it, so he wouldn’t put the writers’ names on it. He never put his own name on it and he never claimed copyright on anything. No!” Marion Blythman
The omission of writers’ names also obscured the fact that Blythman had written half of the 14 songs himself. Pencilled notes on the National Library of Scotland copy identify the others as H Ramsay, WW, Sydney Goodsir Smith, Norman MacCaig, AT, Tom Law, and John McEvoy. Hugh McDiarmid wrote an introductory poem.
Issue 32 of the ‘Chapman’ literature magazine in 1982 was ‘In Memoriam Thurso Berwick”. In her editorial Joy Hendry says of Blythman, “Part of the motivation in writing these was, he wryly remarked, to keep up the morale of the ‘culprits’, but the ‘Sangs o the Stane’ did much more than that: they captured the spirit of Scottish resistance at the time, partly because of their use of Scottish folklore traditions with Scottish humour and political attitudes. These songs truly were of the people, easily incorporated into the vernacular tradition.”
Among his ‘Sangs’ were two that derided the first Stone-seeking Scotland Yard detective, Superintendent Barratt, and another for his successor, Detective Inspector McGrath. Hendry notes that when the latter was reported to be travelling north, and was shortly due to arrive at Glasgow Central Station, Morris and eight friends decided to welcome him with song. Bystanders stopped to listen, and probably to join in the choruses.
“Officialdom, however, were unable to view this spectacle as a group of people having a peaceful singsong, and for reasons best known to themselves, interpreted this as a potential riot, an ugly mob of demonstrators, diverted the train and cleared the station.” Joy Hendry
Marion Blythman says, “We were slightly nutty, young and wild. When we heard [in April 1951] that the Stane had been left in Arbroath Abbey to be handed over, we dashed to the Abbey and were there all night making a protest. I fell asleep at school next day.”
The Blythmans and Hugh MacDonald heard that the Stone had been found in Arbroath Abbey. Hugh MacDonald remembers, “The police were going to transport it back south. I had inside connections, and heard details. I got on to Morris, we took Stane songbooks and a large Saltire and went down to Central Station. It was an England Scotland game, so the station was mobbed, Morris was singing the songs and selling the books, and I was holding up the banner. Suddenly two policemen came and said, ‘Get that flag down’. I said, ‘If ye care to take it - try it’. ’Shift that flag!’ An altercation struck out, with the Scotland supporters on our side, and I saw a helmet going up. Morris said, ‘Let's get out of this.’ We ran out of the station, unscrewing the flagstaff as we ran, and up to the SNP office at Elmbank Street, and got the caretaker to take the flag in. ‘Just dropping this off.’ Next morning SNP officialdom was not pleased. ‘When I get hold of these bastards’.” Hugh MacDonald

A chiel cam doun tae London toun, an nicked awa wi the stane, man
A lassie cried oot, “ I’ll gie ye a haun fFor it’s ill tae dae it alane, man”
A chiel’s awa, a chiel’s awa, a chiel’s awa wi the stane, man
A lad an a lass made His Worship an ass an nicked awa wi the stane, man

They had nae lorry tae carry it hame, nae steamer or airyplane, man
For – here’s a baur – in a wee Ford caur they nicked awa wi the stane, man
There’s spies in Biggar, and spies in Perth, in Bo’ness and Dunblane man
They’re speirin but an they’re speirin ben but Scotland’s holdin its ain, man
Stane Sang, tune Deil’s Awa, words Norman MacCaig

Morris Blythman later wrote a furious song condemning prominent nationalist John McCormick for colluding in the handing over of the Stane, dubbing him John McCorbie.
By 13th April 1951 the booklet ‘Sangs o the Stane’ was available, price 6d, from Bo’ness newsagents H & M Oliver. The ‘Bo’ness Journal’ commented that “The booklet has a special significance to Bo’ness folks who attend Rebels Ceilidhs as most of the authors are honorary members of that club”. Several were regular performers there, “and Bo’ness itself has been immortalised in a song to the tune ‘The Deil’s awa wi the Exciseman’ by Norman MacCaig”.
Norman MacCaig’s son Ewen says that his father “was basically apolitical most of his life, though to some extent a nationalist fellow traveller. But support for any Party would have been unthinkable at any time and the rise of the SNP since that time would not have been a source of satisfaction. At the time of the Bo’ness ceilidhs, he was a friend of Willie Kellock, politically naive (as he ever after remained) and susceptible to persuasion. I know he was not ashamed of this poem [The Stane Sang] at the time because he used to sing it, but probably would have shrunk from it in later life, partly because any form of political alignment became obnoxious to him, and partly because of the poetic quality (or absence thereof).”
Local bank manager Willie Kellock was the key motivator and initiator in Bo’ness. He organised the ceilidhs, found the guest speakers and performers, wrote the lengthy local newspaper’s accounts of the ceilidhs complete with the key points of speeches, and motivated and supported activists. Jean McGillveray says “Willie Kellock was full of fun. The songs were important, they sang about a past era we didn’t know.”
The Bo’ness ceilidhs began in January 1948 with a Burns Supper in the Coffee House organised by the newly-formed Rebel Literary Club [renamed the Rebel Literary Society in mid 1951]. Every few months for the next six years another ceilidh was organised, usually in Bo’ness Masonic Temple or Bridgeness Miner’s Welfare. The concert segment would begin with piping, and feature a mixture of visitors and local artistes, Gaelic song intermingling with Scots song and verse.
Speeches were made by prominent literary or political guests including Wendy Wood and Oliver Brown. Hugh MacDiarmid visited several times to speak ‘in his own forthright manner’ and deliver ‘highly intellectual discourse’. A basket tea was provided after the speeches and songs, and hostesses were reminded to bring supper cloths and teaspoons. Then there was a dance. In tandem with the ceilidhs were annual Burns Suppers.
“We went to all the Bo’ness Rebels events. I think it started with Willie Kellock getting in touch with us. He was in the Bank in Bo’ness. He was the funniest wee lugubrious character. He had this absolutely clear idea in his head for an independent Scotland and he thought the way to do it was through the Bo’ness Rebels and the ceilidhs. I don’t know that the ceilidhs had any particular purpose other than to get people together and promote the ideas. But they were always on a Friday evening and we used to get there about seven or eight. They went on right through the night, nobody went to bed, there is a famous photograph with Morris and Hugh MacDiarmid and others, that was taken in the morning after we’d all been up all night!
“Charlie Auld had the Lea-Rig Bar and sometimes we started in the Bar, but the ceilidhs were actually held in Willie Kellock’s house. At that time he was living with his mother and she wasn’t necessarily for the ceilidhs. Willie was always saying “Oh, my mother’ll no like this!” and going on and doing it anyway.
“Willie Kellock had a great admiration for Hugh MacDiarmid. Willie Kellock was the guy – and when he and Morris got together, it was like a marriage of twin minds because Morris had the songs and Willie had the place, and it went from there. Sometimes they were quite outrageous, terrible great fights, drunken brawls. The famous fight was at a Burns Supper. It hit the press because Norman MacCaig started shouting about Hugh MacDiarmid and it caused a real rammy. That was MacDiarmid’s way of operating – he was never going to be agreeing with anybody. The best thing I heard about him was when everybody was leaving the Communist Party. He had left because he was a Nationalist, but when everybody else was leaving – he rejoined! Entirely Scottish, you know.” Marion Blythman
Billy Wolfe became a parliamentary candidate in the local by-election, and later Chairman of the SNP. He recalls, “Willy Kellock of Bo'ness was a great nationalist and a great propagandist, and very thrawn too. He wrote all the newspaper accounts of the ceilidhs. The Bo'ness ceilidhs were sometimes riotous. There was a fight between MacDiarmid and MacCaig, they had to get the polis in. Those two didn't come off the same loom.
“I became a disciple of Willy Kellock and Charlie Auld - he was a great ideas man. Kinneil pit was still open at that time, so the basic culture of a mining community was still prevalent. A wonderful place. Bo'ness was basically a working class society, but they had an opera society, a wonderful brass or silver band, a pipe band, a fitba team, Scouts and Guides and BB, Women's Guild. Absolutely hoaching with activities, everybody knew everybody else.
“After the by-election I stood in we had a ceilidh in the Town Hall, and I said ‘I now ken what the SNP stands for - independence for Scotland and a parliament for Bo'ness.’” Billy Wolfe
Angus McGillveray wrote in 1994 that “The Bo'ness Ceilidh was always a source of wonder to me; how Willie Kellock managed to get all those talented people from everywhere, from Brass Bands to Mod Gold Medalists, from the Fianna na h’Alba to the much respected Patriotic orators Oliver Brown, Robert Blair Wilkie, Wendy Wood, Hugh MacDiarmid, Hamish Henderson of the School of Scottish Studies, Norman MacCaig, Seumas MacNeill the Principal of the College of Piping, Thurso Berwick and many many others.
“It was great to feel your blood rekindling in your veins by songs from MacGregor Kennedy and the Inverscotia Singers or an old haunting Gaelic air by Dolina MacLennan [Dolina herself says she never sang at the Ceilidhs, only at Bo’ness Burns Suppers], the rousing ‘Stirling Brig’ by Hugh MacDonald, puirt a beul from Kitty MacLeod or a laugh when John McEvoy sang his ‘Wee Magic Stane’ - they made everyone present proud to be a Scot.” Angus McGillveray
Poet Norman MacCaig was a regular performer, but as a singer. His rendition of the traditional ballad ‘The Wee Toon Clerk’ was particularly admired, and he also would deliver ‘Kissin’s No Sin’ and the ’Bonnie Banks of the Roses’.
Ceilidhs happened not only in Bo’ness. By June 1950 two new clubs in the Rebels mould were being welcomed in the local Bo’ness newspaper – the Thistle Society of Glasgow, and the Heckleburnie Club. Heckleburnie is a Scots euphemism for Hell. The author has found no clues as to where the club met. There were house ceilidhs in Glasgow and elsewhere, and evening campfire singing as young city Scots took to the hills and moors at weekends - the second song book produced by the Rebels was of ‘Patriot Songs for Camp & Ceilidh’. The contents of the first song book, the 1953 ‘Rebels Ceilidh Song Book’ show that Irish ‘rebel’ songs were an important element in the Rebels repertoire.
Hugh MacDonald says, “The song books were promoting Scotland, independence and revolution. We were aware that the situation was growing, and more needed to be done. There were weekly ceilidhs at Pitt St, the Fianna premises, with some good and some bad singers. Song was always involved. Scots and Gaelic song, and learning Gaelic in the Fianna, helping to promote Scotland.
“The Fianna was Socialist, Republican and Communist. A co-operative approach rather than a single political party. It wasn't SNP, but the whole beginnings of Scotland - who we are and where we should go. I joined in 1944, aged 14 and a half. I joined the drumming section. On Tuesday and Thursday nights there were fifty odds attending. John McEvoy brought friends, poets and writers, to the Fianna, Calum Kennedy, lads from Scalpay, Tiree.“Willie Kellock set up the Clann Alba, modelled on the Irish Fianna, in Glasgow. The Piping College is an offshoot of Fianna. Willie came out of the army, became a bank manager in South Side Glasgow, then in Bo'ness. Bus loads went from Glasgow to the Ceilidhs. Bo’ness was the most important place in Scotland re culture at the time. There were Burns Suppers run by the Burns Society as well as ceilidhs by the Rebels.” Hugh MacDonald
In her paper for the RSAMD, ‘Hillwalkers, Long Distance Melodeon Players and Gangrels’, musician Seylan Baxter says the Fianna na h’Alba was formed in around 1940 by Harry Miller and Drummy Henderson. “It had certain similarities to the Fianna Erin in Ireland, not least the name, but was very much a loose association of young people with a belief in Scotland and a desire for a change in the current order.” Out of it came the College of Piping, formed out of chanter classes taken by Seamus MacNeill and the Inverscotia Singers, one of whom was Baxter’s father Jim.
A grouping within the Fianna were the Inverscotia Nomads. They caught the bus out of Glasgow, and went hill walking and stravaiging together. They all wore ex-army WW1 kilts, and member Jimmy Jennett commented, “When you got on the bus at Killermont Street it was like embarking for France in 1914, every bloody regiment in Scotland was there.” Jennett composed a valedictory ‘The Soldier’s Road’ for the Nomads, that says while they were walking, Randolph, Rab, Roy and Terry would sing, Seamus would lilt canntaireachd and Big Dave play the moothie.
An offshoot of the Nomads was the Singers. “This was not just simple ceilidh singing. Songs were well rehearsed and arranged in three and four part harmonies. The Inverscotia Singers recorded an LP, ‘Angus’s Ceilidh’. Angus McGillveray had put up the money and organised the LP, which was recorded in one day. The Singers were engaged for a week at Jimmy Logan’s Glasgow Metropole, and went to Moscow with Calum Kennedy.” Seylan Baxter

It’s fa took it this time? And fa’s got it nou?
The yane that had it last time canna get it nou.

Meanwhile The Times does thunder, and the ither jackals yap,
And the polis o the kingdom bizz round in a fearful flap.
Fowr and twenty sextons wi fowr and twenty shools,
They werena owre anxious to be shiftan Grannie’s mools.

Brass-handles, coffin-lids and urns, were scattered aa about,
The deid sat up, they thocht it was the Resurrection Toot.
There was howkin in the cloisters, howkin in the crypt,
They coudna see the Stane, for aa the bogles round them skipt.

They dug and delved the yerdin-grund, and plouter’t amang the banes,
And sure enuff it was nae bluff – They fand a feck o stanes!
And ilka ‘humourless’ Scot i the land lauchs loud in ilka toun,
And bides the time whan the Stane comes hame til its richtfu seat at Scone.
Ballad O The Reivin O The Stane, tune Ball of Kirriemuir, words Sydney Goodsir Smith

BACK Josh Macrae, Jimmie MacGregor, Duncan Macrae
FRONT Andy Hunter, Morris Blythman, Nigel Denver