Calum at the Folk Festival (1988)

Calum was nervous, really bricking it, as the young folk at the office often said.

He had rehearsed his version of Davy Graham’s ‘Anji’, and had it off to a fine art, even with a jazzy flourish at the end, which in his head, brought the likes of Django Reinhardt to mind.

He had his unaccompanied vocal version of ‘Lakes of Ponchartrain’ and his solo acoustic guitar and harmonica take on ‘This Land is Your Land’, complete with references to Scotland rather than the USA.

He had practised in the attic at home until he knew the words, the notes, and chords inside out and was sure he would manage to hold them together like he had done years before.

Once up on the stage, with a wee dram or two, it would be just like in the old days, the old rebellious spirit welling up, his past aspirations to be like his old heroes, Dylan, Guthrie, Williamson, to name but a few, would be with him once again for his short time onstage urging him on.

This was the first time he had played in front of a crowd for years, not since at least the 70’s, a lot of water had gone under the bridge since then, man, as his younger self might have said.

He’d been with Yvonne for thirty-five years, they had met at college and worked together, rebelled against the same stuff, gone on the same protests, liked the same music and books, so it was inevitable that they would get together. They had married in the early 70’s, with the girls Kirsten and Anna being born in 1974 and 1976 respectively.  When Yvonne gave up work to be a full time Mum, as they said these days, Calum buckled down in his career in the Civil Service. Work and evening classes took over from music, when he got his Highers and started off doing his degree at the Open University.

With the girls now getting on in their teens , Yvonne had urged him to do this, to play at the Festival, evidently  Robin Williamson was playing at this place and Calum might even get the chance to meet his hero from back in the 1960s, when Edinburgh’s bars and streets sang with the voices of the Incredible String Band with Clive Palmer, Barbara Dickson, Rab Noakes, Dick Gaughan , and the godfather of them all, Seumas Mor, the great Hamish Henderson.

He had been a bit of a hippy back in those days, but then, hadn’t everyone?

They all enjoyed a wee bit of the wacky baccy as it was called back in the day, with the odd pint or two of real ale accompanied by the ubiquitous ‘wee dram’ and that was during the lunch hour from work.

Times had hugely changed socially and politically , but they could and would turn back the clock for a few minutes and revisit past versions of themselves, and all would be well for that short time.