Strathclyde Suite, Royal Concert Hall, Glagsow, 21 January 2010

Bethany and Jenna Reid

THE SHETLAND BUS is the nickname given to the fishing boat service which sailed the heavy seas between Shetland and Norway during the Second World War, ferrying supplies and reinforcements to the Resistance in Nazi-occupied Norway, and spiriting refugees back to Shetland.

It’s not a journey to undertake lightly even today, but then, sailing at night without lights, evading German submarines, destroyers and aircraft, the voyage was hazardous to a degree unimaginable to us, cushioned as we are by decades of peace.

All credit, then, to Shetland sisters Jenna and Bethany Reid, for devising a programme of music and narration to commemorate these heroic, perilous missions, in particular the exploits of Norwegian commando Jan Baalsrud MBE, only survivor of the Braatsholm, which was sunk in March 1943.

Baalsrud managed to swim to shore, and evade capture, dodging bullets despite having had half a big toe severed and consequently trailing blood in the snow. All the other survivors were either tortured to death or shot.

Embarking an epic journey lasting over two months, he continued to evade capture with the aid of the Resistance and his own stubborn nature, surviving an avalanche and three weeks in a snowhole (where he amputated nine frostbitten toes with a penknife to prevent gangrene), finally making it to safety in Sweden thanks to reindeer herders. He died in 1988, aged 71, a national hero of Norway.

This compelling story was told vividly and appropriately in the Shetland dialect, which sits somewhere between Scots and Old Norse, interspersed with tunes crystallising key moments in Baalsrud’s odyssey. Urgent, pounding heartbeats on percussion, augmented by pizzicato bass and the panting breath of the flute evoked perfectly the terror that he must have felt as he started running for his life.

The indomitable people of fjord and tundra were characterised by a harmonium-like drone from the bowed bass, while a fiddle tune of quite heartbreaking poignancy played to perfection by Jenna Reid accompanied his dazed recovery from the avalanche.

The inventive, sympathetic soundscaping by all the musicians is to be commended, especially percussionist Iain Sandilands’s creations – the white noise of hissing snow on the snare drum, bowing the vibraphone to avoid the sharpness of the cymbals.

A triumphantly joyous closing tune demonstrated that it was, however, very much a group effort which had brought into being this inspiring evening. The suite will be repeated soon in Shetland, but deserves to tour much more widely.

© Jennie Macfie, 2010

Links

• The Shetland Bus
• Celtic Connections
• Jennie Macfie