Caol Community Centre, Caol, 19 October 2009

I FIRST saw The Flight of the Arctic Tern in March this year at the Tall Ship in Glasgow, where it was being recorded on CD, and I wondered how well it would fare in the very different setting of Caol Community Centre on the opening night of its Highland Homecoming tour.

But what this tale of the Clearances and emigration by sailing ship to Australia lost in terms of the nautical atmospherics of the SV Glenlee it gained in the warmth of its reception by a near capacity Highland audience. Local people even contributed ship’s ropes, chains, barrels and a fishing net which were spread along the front of the stage to make the company feel at home.

The Arctic Tern Crew (© Norman Bissell)

I’ve seen some of Mark Sheridan’s previous commissions for Celtic Connections, and this year I collaborated with him on the Atlantic Islands Suite which we premiered on Luing in July and took to Belladrum in August, but I can honestly say that I think this powerful blend of story, music, sound effects and images is his best yet.

First of all it’s a great story, beautifully told. It recounts how Alexander Gunn left his home in Durness in 1853 at the age of 19 and sailed on the barque Ivanhoe all the way from Glasgow to Australia. His story was typical of the many thousands of Scots who left as a result of the Highland Clearances and undertook a long and hazardous voyage to a new life.

155 years later two of his descendants knocked on the Durness door of popular broadcaster Iain Anderson, whose rich, mellow tones narrate this remarkable tale in the form of an extended letter to him from Gunn in Australia.

The accompanying historical and environmental commentary which was provided at the Tall Ship by Michael Russell, MSP and Minister for Culture, was authentically rendered at Caol by Gaelic broadcaster Hugh Dan MacLennan, whose knowledge of all things shinty also came in handy when it came to rousing descriptions of fiery shinty matches on a Balnakeil beach on New Year’s Day, and later on an Australian shore.

But what impressed me most about Mark Sheridan’s writing was the way in which the long voyage and its many hazards were brought vividly to life. We all know that millions of emigrants journeyed on sailing ships across the oceans of the world but until now I didn’t fully appreciate what that must have been like.

As the Ivanhoe left Glasgow, the shipyards along the banks of the Clyde brimful of boats with thousands of men swarming all over them were memorably depicted, as were gannets and puffins out in the Firth, the first ‘big blow’ in the open sea, daily routines on board ship, the sweltering heat and sickness when the ship was becalmed for a week off the African coast, the keening of women as children were buried at sea, blue whales, terns, petrels and the haunting spectre of an albatross further south, a hurricane in the Roaring Forties, the Antarctic – the coldest place on earth – and the barque’s final arrival in Australia three months later, minus eleven of the crew who had jumped ship to head for the newly opening goldfields.

But there was gentle humour, too, in the tale of the wee boy who was fished out of the Clyde by a docker with a boathook and dropped like a fish on the ground, and Dúmhnallach, the ship’s carpenter, who was never happier than at the prospect of how the passengers would cope with potential storms crossing the Bay of Biscay.

The reasons for the emigrations were supplied by testimony given to the Napier Commission in 1883 about the Strathnaver Clearances, when over 1500 folk were cleared from the land and their houses burnt to the ground, which began whilst some of the men were fighting Napoleon at Waterloo.

By 1853 they were recruiting for the Crimean War and young Alexander and his father could see no future for him in Durness, where his family had moved from Strathnaver. We also learnt that death was commonplace on these voyages with, in 1852 and 1853 alone, 53 deaths of emigrants mainly from Skye on board the Marco Polo and 64 from Skye and Harris on the Hercules, which sailed from Campbeltown.

The analogy of ‘the ultimate long distance migrant’, the Arctic Tern, which flies 22,000 miles every year from the north of Scotland to the Antarctic, Australia and back, was also skilfully woven into the story, most poignantly at the end when Gunn asks those back home to think of him whenever they see an Arctic tern.

The music, which was also composed and orchestrated by Mark Sheridan, evocatively conveyed the changing highs and lows of the narrative, from the spirited fiddle tune during the shinty to an affecting lament for the empty glens, from discordant sounds that ran through the account of the becalming of the ship to his ambient piano playing which echoed the endless gliding of the albatross. As well as original tunes, he also incorporated traditional songs into the piece, and set poems by the Durness bard Rob Donn MacKay to his own freshly composed music.

In Patsy Reid on fiddle, James Lindsay on bass, and Matthew Herd on soprano saxophone, Sheridan has assembled a young team of musicians drawn from the applied music course he pioneered at the University of Strathclyde, and they all acquitted themselves admirably. Herd was standing in for Tom Dalzell, who was on Celtic Connections launch duty and who, with Michael Russell, will be rejoining the company in Inverness for the remainder of the tour.

Musically, though, the highlights for me were the marvellous Gaelic songs by Mod Gold Medallists Mairi Macinnes and Sineag MacIntyre. Sineag came hotfoot from winning the Gold Medal at the Oban Mod, and sang lovely duets a cappella with Mairi and with the band on Gu Mo Slan. Mairi’s beautiful version of Tha Mo Thriall-s Do Shimeuca (My Journey Lies to Jamaica) would have brought tears to a glass eye, and Gleann Gallaidh from a Rob Donn poem was equally moving. Their final Homecoming song with the full band sent us all off with a spring in our step into the night.

Sounds of the sea, calls of the gulls and the creak of ship’s rigging drifted through the piece, and projected slides of the sands at Durness with the waves crashing in, the tern itself, empty glens, stone ruins and old gravestones were used to good effect to support the narrative.

The whole story is told on a double CD which deserves to become a classic of its kind, and the website below contains plenty of striking images and further information. There could not be a more appropriate show than this to capture the very essence of what Homecoming means to the Highlands, and it is bound to strike a resonant chord wherever it plays.

They are travelling north in an old Macbraynes charabanc, and I for one would love to be there to witness the reception they receive when they take it home to Durness on Saturday night.

The tour continues at Eden Court, Inverness (22 October, 8.30pm), Ullapool Village Hall (23 October, 8pm) and Durness 24 October, 7.30pm).

© Norman Bissell, 2009

Links

• Flight of the Arctic Tern