The smell of the greasepaint……..

Tags

Dundee, Dundee Play, John Quinn, Juteopolis, O Halflins an Hedklers an Weaavers An Weemin., Verdant Works

Are  we serious here?

 

Come on, aye? It cannae be this much

Fraid so

I am checking the props’ list

It went this way like the script did every night.

AHHH

Fraid so.. Here’s the photographic evidence

 

 

The Duke of Sutherland clears the Highlands

Charles Trevelyn clears Ireland

Miss Perfect fae Perth

No that’s NOT William Wallace it’s my daughter….HONEST

 

‘The Romans find the Scottish weather is not to their liking. Shoulda brocht a brolly wi Italia on it

 

India has enough of the Jute Wallahs

When it comes to McGonagall as Macbeth it’s Macbeth’s death take one. The only genuine retake in the whole show.

 

Em takes up tour guiding

 

Are you two licensed to give tours? …Play’s either….Nice adlib Richard…

Does it look like it…?

What a goal….

Churchill inspects the Dundee contingent

Parliamo Dundee

Hecklers hard at work AND due a break…

The Jute Mill Song

Behind the scenes

 

 

 

 

Halflins, Hecklers and Dundee’s Literary Figures

Tags

Dundee, Frankenstein, Ian Fleming, James Bond, John Quinn, Joseph Lee, Literary Heritage, Mary Brooksbank, Mary Shelley, O halflins an hecklers an weavers an weemin, The Jute Mill Song, Verdant Works, William McGonagall

 

 

James Bond and the Dundee connection https://shehannemoore.wordpress.com/2017/03/27/james-bond-and-the-dundee-connection/

Mary Brooksbank and Susan Devine, the mysterious woman in the green felt hat. From ‘O Halflins and Hecklers an Weavers an Weemin,’ by John Quinn.

Susan Devine : – Mary Brooksbank! What are you daein here – you’re still a lassie!.

Mary : – Eh’m here tae learn fae you Susan Devine how tae fight back against the brutality o’ Capitalism and the Jute Barons!

Susan : – Well said. We’ve got a good crowd today.( Policeman appears. Susan gives him the finger. )

Policeman : – What’s going on here?

Susan : – (Ignoring him) Cox Brothers have decided to cut the number in a squad fae ten tae eight and lay off thousands. For the people that remain that means mair work for less money!

(Chants from everyone onstage. ‘Everybody Out! Everybody Out! Everybody Out!)

Susan : – Right you are – and we’re staying out until everybody’s re-instated. (Starts chant. All join in )  ‘March doon the Lochee Road girls. March doon the Lochee Road!’

Policeman : – You can’t do that without permission – you need a licence!

Mary Brooksbank : – Is that so? Well there’s a lot o’ women here and no many men…..

Policeman : – I’ll need reinforcements!(Blows whistle. Exit.)

Susan : – Roond tae Cox’s hoose at Clement Park. An we’ll tour the ither mills fur support. (All chanting  and marching round) ‘We’re gonna win an we’ll pit their windees in. We’re gonna win an we’ll pit their windees in.. .fur we are the weemin o’Lochee! (Takes off green felt hat and throws to Em. Marches off  brandishing shuttle.)

Mary Brooksbank : – And they didnae go back until the fowk that had been laid aff were re-instated. There were major disputes elsewhere such as the  Carters’ Strike. The spirit of revolution was in the air. But of course the Jute Empire struck back.  Black Watch soldiers were brought into the City of their heartlands to keep order. Early in 1912 Cox Brothers sanctioned the purchase of revolvers for their foremen. And Susan Devine? She melts back into history.  Me? I’ll let you draw your own conclusions.

(Exit.)

Em : – Susan Devine didnae quite melt back into history. (Brandish hat.) This is still remembered round here sometimes. (Get Suffragette hat and shawl.)

Ken : – As for Mary Brooksbank she was quite a woman – mill girl poet orator revolutionary family woman and voice of the poor. She was blacklisted and jailed for standing up to be counted. What can never be jailed though is her legacy

 

Every night a different show……

Tags

Dundee, John Quinn, Joseph Lee, Juteopolis, Mary Brooksbank, Mary Queen of Scots, Mary Shelley, Mary Slessor, O halflins an hecklers an weavers an weemin, Play, Verdant Works, William McGonagall, William Wallace, Winston Churchill

 

SHEY…….

.  was the story of jute in Dundee. How it got there, how Dundee came to be known as Juteopolis and how the mills are all gone now, how the Irish came during the famine in their droves, quadrupling the population in no time at all in a city which was unprepared for the onslaught,  how they joined Highlanders being cleared off their land, courtesy of the Duke of Sutherland.

 

 But it was also the story of weaving  in the city and how the city and its people, who are not an easily impressed people, have always kept their story moving forward.  The title says it all. Halflins were children who did half a day at school and half a day in the mills. Hecklers? Well, Dundee gave the world the word.

Weavers  speaks for itself. As for the Weemin? To quote poet Dundee poet Ellie Macdonald… and I did get to quote these lines in the play and boy did it give me a thrill to deliver them.

‘For any woman brought up in the Dundee tradition there should be no straining for equality no, need for a new consciousness of the power of women. We have inherited a freedom which seems unnecessary to verbalize. We are just waiting for the world to catch up.’

Why did the women have this freedom? Because they were the family breadwinners.

Shey…Well…..talking that…  because there’s a story that William Wallace went to school in Dundee and got in a ‘rammy’ –a row–with the English governor’s son, Selby, killed him,

thus becoming an outlaw but not before being hidden by a weaving woman just outside Dundee who sort of suggested he disguise himself…..

 

 

Shey. Indeed. Dundee has quietly furnished the world with one or two weel ‘kent’ folks, or folks who were inspired by their stay in the city. 

 

Mary Shelley said Dundee was where she got her idea for the famous ‘unbeast.’  Ian Fleming’s grandfather worked in the jute mills here. We also had a scene involving from mill girl, to missionary to magistrate Mary Slessor.

She was also known as the Mother of All the People. So we had a wee song about her too , one of two we wrote especially for the show, here sung by the most fabulous choirs, Loadsaweeminsingin and The Lochee Linties. In the middle of the first proper utterly chaotic run through, what they had done from scribbled music with Mr Shey’s words had my jaw on the deck.

 

We had the world’s best known writer of bad verse,

 

William McGonagall …  with two of his drunken hecklers….

and an enactment of the only known instance of the famous Scottish play where the lead character refused to die.  We had a wee onstage riot courtesy of Dundee woman Mary Brooksbank who wrote the Jute Mill Song, a visit from Mary Queen of Scot’s ghost, .  And did I mention Winston Churchill, famously served a maggot in his kipper here

and flung out the town which, despite being the drunkest city in the British empire elected a prohibitionist instead.  

We also had a scene featuring Joseph Lee, Dundee’s fighter writer and forgotten WW 1 poet.  Michael Marra’s daughter Alice, also a professional musician, sung her dad’s amazing Happed in Mist as a solo at this point. It was stunning. Here’s his version.

 

and then Mr and I recited one of the poems before the scene started. Alice was so stunning I could hardly speak. For once.

‘I dreamed that a man went home last night, from the trench where the tired men lie.

And walked through the streets of his own, old town. And I dreamed that man was I.’

Shey…I played tour guide Em Fae Dundee, opposite Mr who played Ken O ‘ Dundee, the sort of keeping everything together hardly off the bloody stage,  parts, William Wallace, A singing Suffragette, and on the Sat night cos we were two members of cast short, Mary Brooksbank, mill worker Jeanie

and an American tourist.  Oh and on opening night I do believe I also played an unscripted football fan…don’t ask……….A certain blond wig was on the wrong props’ island at that stage…

Shey. Pretty difficult because none of the stellar cast ever intended to be on this play and so far as I was concerned my directing days were done. Five weeks before the play was due on the theatre company who had been involved pulled out.  Meantime the fabulous choir run by Alice Marra, had learned all the songs, several of which were  written by her late father, Dundee musician Mike Marra. Tickets had been sold. It took two weeks to put together this  cast under the name of  a theatre co Mr and I once ran.

 Oh and of this cast, if we now add in the sound technician, there were four originals. Lol, here’s an oldie.  Anyway of our ‘new hastily constructed’  cast,  only five had ever done any serious theatre work. And two who had, could not do the Saturday night. I had to think about the overall look of the play–hence the tee shirts and the cast never leaving the playing space, I had to think about the difficulties of that nonetheless wonderful playing space the High Mill at Verdant works, a former mill now a museum,   about  working each scene in a way that would let  folks who had never been on a stage, shine–for example rather than cluttering the Highland clearance scene with a cast of thousands, why not just have the whole thing read, even the ‘Be off with you’ bit from the proclamation, as if it was part of it. I also  divvied up the parts in a way that might allow them to rehearse together where they were related to one another.  We had the mill during the day but that was no use to some of the cast.  There was no time for blocking rehearsals going on for weeks, or technical or props ones either.  This play went out there on opening night having been run start to finish twice.  There were bits that had been talked through, in terms of business and props at a meeting and then only had one rehearsal. I have to say the cast were wonderful. LOL and I am not saying that cos more than my Mr were family.

And it’s not easy being right up against an audience, although, the audiences were wonderful, it’s not easy never going off stage either, although okay…we did have a slogan, ‘Every night a different show.’ That was in terms of the ad libbing Mr and me did after he did little things, like start the wrong scene, not know what scene we were meant to start. 

Shey…No doubt, all down to the fact that on opening night,  I spoke the word you never EVER say onstage or off…….

When, in  a noble moment as Mr wandered up and down waiting to hear the immortal words  ‘Turn Hellhound, Turn.’ and would be waiting yet since he’d cut the speech that made scene of the entire scene, and my older girl who had taken the sword fight scene off me the night before, stood saying, ‘ What do I do Mum?’ and she is trained,  I stepped forward and spoke. I also had McGonagall escaping the killing fields not floors. Oh well.  You know, a fabulous time was had by all. Mr Shey loved us for putting on a different play from what he wrote. And yep, the cast were so good, I’m glad they  all said at the after show party, they are well up for another run.. ….  

Of Dead Crows and Jute City.

Tags

A Murder of Crows, Desperate Dan, Dundee, Dundee FC, Dundee United, Dundee's history, ebook, Jute and Dundee, Kindle, Paul Kennedy, Verdant Works

 

Settle PETals. It is indeed a map. A twitter percentage breakdown map of where your twitter followers are from. I must say for a  wee lassie from Dundee, and not just anyplace in Dundee either, I feel well travelled. Which is why it is pure dead brilliant, to be able to introduce this pure, dead brave gentleman. (The Dundee-isms are creeping in already, a few kens now and we’ll be there).

The brilliant, the unsuspecting, when I think about the last time a guy was brave enough to step on here… Paul Kennedy.

What? Were you expecting a dead crow? Well, hang about. Forrest Gump’s box of  choccies ain’t got nothing on not knowing what you gonna git on this blog..ahem.

Paul has a new book out which he’s going to talk about…if he gets the chance. But do you really think I am passing the pure dead brilliant chance for a blether with a pure, dead brilliant fellow Dundonian? We can get to the pure dead crows in a mo.Shey.  It’s awfie bra tae meet ye the day. Whaur are ye fae? Ok..Allow me to translate for our readers. It is wonderful to meet you today, Paul. Dundee, of course has such a turbulent history, having been sacked and razed, please let me show a little painting here of the defence of St Mary’s steeple…

it’s a wonder there’s anywhere left in it to come from.  Then of course there was all the moving of people to the hinterland. A bit like growing up in a frontier outpost I must say.

(Remind me to blog it sometime.) So naturally, while the answer to the question where you come from may seem to many of you to speak for itself, it doesn’t.

Paul.  First of all, it’s an honour to meet YOU, and I would like to take this opportunity to thank you for promoting my new book.

Shey. just give this time….

Paul. I was a Charleston/Lochee lad,

Shey. Being a Fintry girl, I am seriously behaving here. We want no fights between the Fleet and the Shimmy and the Shams. Oh, or stories of how they renamed streets in Fintry because no-one would live in them. That is Lochee’s Cox’s Stack above. Ahem….

Paul. But my gang of friends were from the Ardler and St. Mary’s areas; and that’s where I misspent my youth. I’ve probably lived in every scheme in Dundee at one time or another though and I’m a proud Dundonian first and foremost.

Shey. Yay! just like Desperate Dan.

So come on then, William Wallace, Mary Slessor, Captain Kydd, Bonnie Dundee, Admiral Duncan, the whalers, the shipbuilders, even those associated with the town like Captain Scott, Mary Shelley, give us the gen on  your favourite historical character.

Paul. My favourite historical character, associated with Dundee; is the jute worker. And I have always said there should be a statue erected in the city square to show our respects.

Shey. Well, I don’t know Dan’s gonna move over and I don’t fancy shoving him out the way. He’s a size 100 chest for a start.  But yeah, the city also has that past. Does a picture of Verdant Works jute museum  suffice?

No doubt, like me you have some Irish Tatty famers who worked the mills. Now are you going to give us that favourite….. childhood memory. (See how tidy I am keeping this today?)   

Paul.  All my favourite childhood memories centre around my late, great, granny Kennedy. My book is dedicated to both her, and my cousin. If I had to pick out one memory, it would be eating fish suppers from St. Mary’s chippie, while my gran let me stay up late to watch “The Sweeney,” or “The Professionals”.

Shey. See that? What did I say last post about fish’n chips? I don’t suppose you’ll give us the futba team you support? Hmmm?

Paul.  Given my Irish ancestry, and Charleston background, my futba team is Celtic. A lot of my pals however. are true-blue, Dundee fc fans, and in my teens I tagged along with them, and followed Dundee all over the country.

Shey. Mr Shey sees this and he will go titz but not to worry.

Paul. I had some great times and I still have a soft spot for them. The city should also be proud of United, who have a great history over the last forty years; and lay claim to some remarkable achievements.

Shey. Oh okay….to be fair and keep Mr Shey happy…..

Paul. Celtic are my team though, always will be, and until now, I’ve been a season ticket holder; but I’ve decided I’m getting along to Tannadice and Dens to lend my support next season; and would encourage the many thousands of blue noses and Arabs to do the same. They’re two great clubs with a unique, sporting rivalry.

Shey. Now Paul at last…tell us about your book, A Murder of Crows…I just want to assure Ranting Crow this is  not about an attempt on his life.

Paul. I am now 38, and although this is my first book (not including my small collection of poetry last year “The Black Crow”) it’s not something I’ve just turned to.

I’ve written since Primary school, but for various reasons, only now find myself breaking into the publishing world. I think there are far more opportunities for unknown writers out there now, with things like CreateSpace for example and this explains why I’m now in a position to release my work. I can assure your follower that unless he is the man I spoke to on the Dundee-St Andrew’s bus in the late 1980s when I should have been at school; then the book’s definitely not about him!!

Shey. All right Ranting, you can come out of hiding now. So, what’s the inspiration behind the book which I hear famous Dundee institution Grouchos has some signed copies of this week?

Paul.  For inspiration behind the book, see my last couple of sentences on question 5 haha.

Shey. But Paul..you promised…

Paul. Seriously, my friend and I had a strange experience on a trip to St.Andrew’s one day, involving a man who transformed into a crow. 

Shey. I’m not going to ask what you were on.

Paul. We were subsequently bothered by crows for a while, and the whole thing stayed with me. I liked the eerie, macabre side of it all and how it could be tied in with other things that I wanted to talk about. A Murder of Crows” is about Gavenia.

She’s twenty years old and grew up in care, after both parents abandoned or rejected her. She has no idea who her father is and little memory of her mother. Steffan is a handsome and enigmatic stranger, who’s entered her world, at a time when she’s already struggling, and things are about to get a whole lot worse. He takes her on a dark journey of the soul, pushing her to the very edge of sanity…and beyond?..as she’s forced to face her demons.

The story is set between the spirit world, the physical realm, and Hell, and I feel that I’ve created some interesting characters and given myself a lot of scope for their development.

Shey. OOH.. Sounds fabulous. What’s next for Paul Kennedy? Apart from attending futba matches?

And scaring poor Tinkerbelle hamster there?

Paul.  Next, I am working on the sequel to a “A Murder of Crows” which will be much longer, and far more in-depth. I hope to publish that next year, followed by a gritty Scottish-based novel (provisionally titled ‘Damaged’) following the misfortunes of a lad who grows up in care, then ends up in the prison system. It’s looking at the cycle of abuse from a different angle.

Shey. A lot of aspiring authors follow this blog. Any advice for them?  

Paul. Advice for aspiring writers?…write! Read anything and everything you can get your hands on. Don’t let praise go to your head and don’t let negative reactions to your work bring you down. The truth is probably somewhere in the middle.

Write what YOU want to write. Write what YOU need to write.

Take advice

 

and do whatever it takes (within reason) to get your work out there, but ultimately, be yourself. Break rules if you need to. Some people will love it and ‘get it’ most people probably won’t, there are billions of people on the planet, you can’t please them all, so please yourself, build up a genuine wee readership, and please them too.

Search out blogs such as this.

Shey OOH HALO.

Paul. Research, edit and promote your work. Don’t rush anything out there until you are satisfied with it, and excited by it. Write about your deepest, darkest fears and secrets. Things you would never talk about. Or write about love, peace, hope and joy. Whatever it is you are compelled to say. Whatever it is you need to exorcise – And take it easy on the alcohol.

Shey…. Sure you can ignore the last!!!! Thank you Paul. And good luck. You can buy the book here…

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Murder-Crows-The-Black-Crow-ebook/dp/B00JD08PZK/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1396372883&sr=8-1&keywords=paul+kennedy+a+murder+of+crows+on+kindlek.

And follow him here. https://www.facebook.com/paul.kennedy.908

Or if you are in Dundee….just pop into Grouchos.