Isla St Clair - The ScotsCare podcast - Episode 1
Can’t listen right now?
Read this episodes transcript below.
[Intro Music] Hello, I’m Marcus Railton and this is the ScotsCare podcast ScotsCare is the only charity dedicated to helping disadvantaged Scots in London through a range of support including mental health therapy Financial grants advocacy sheltered housing for older Scots job coaching social events befriending and support for Children and Families the Charity’s been running for 400 years to help break the cycle of poverty experienced by some Scots in this series of the ScotsCare podcast I’ll be chatting to celebrities and supporters of the charity that have also forged a life in the capital away from home and about the ups and downs that can bring
Today I’m chatting with Isla Sinclair one of Scotland’s foremost and best known traditional singers Isla was singing before she was even walking and the recordings are still used for reference in the school of Scottish studies to me even before the music she was the lady on my TV on a Saturday night and I must admit to being just a little nervous to finally be meeting her the charity helping to break the cycle of poverty some Scots find in London
[Music] hey Isla Hi Marcus I know this is an odd thing to start with but we’ve never met
and we’ve never spoken before but I kind of feel like I’ve known you all my life because you’ve been a well-known name to
me since since I was a wee boy really exactly so you’re of a certain age that
can remember because it’s a long time since I was doing a lot on the television but anybody of them shall we
say middle age and onwards would pretty well remember some of the work that you know I did on television and
and so on and so forth and you’ve been a well-known name much longer than you
haven’t been a well-known name is that kind of does that form the kind of person that you became
um that’s interesting I think the well-knownness bit I was sort of not as
well known as Andy Stewart and so on when I was in Scotland but I was getting very well known because I’d kind of
crossed over from just being in the folk scene and doing the folk clubs and so on and had crossed over into the various
light entertainment programs like with a welcome to the Kelly’s and what was that thing that sdv used to do our
thingamajig exactly so whereas a lot of the folks singers perhaps it wouldn’t have fitted
them or they couldn’t have transferred their skills shall we say I was able to be a bit Adept there and get from one to
the other and I earn a few Bob to keep me going till the next program and so on and thus
through television and radio and sauna became you know quite well known uh as I
say I don’t think I was quite the star that Andy and these others were but uh I was certainly getting up there with them
and becoming well known in Scotland and and perhaps Beyond a bit as well I was
doing a lot of touring abroad and so on so it was really the generation game that made me a household name I would
say and the people presume as you went through this period of Fame did people presume they knew you where you’d be
walking around Sainsbury’s and people say oh hello and not quite right yeah didn’t know you
absolutely there’s the silver how are you doing or how’s Larry and all you know that’s during the generation game
spell and thereafter I was amazed but after a few weeks how that kicked in it
quite extraordinary because prior to that yes people had perhaps recognized me in Scotland or wherever and my name
was known and whether they would instantly put my name to the face before is is debatable but my goodness me once
that program which was going out what was it beaming into 16 million homes every week and then more when ITV went
on strike but I think we got 26 million or something at one stage so virtually everybody at some stage would have seen
this program in the United Kingdom and so wherever I went I was recognized it was um quite a
shock actually well that’s what I was going to ask because I I was I thought what I will say to you is I do want to
talk about your music and your musical background and I want to talk to you about your family but I kind of wanted to start a little bit forwards and talk
to you about that time because this was a time of Television before it was
diluted by Netflix and Amazon Prime there only was three channels and you
were 19. that must have been quite mind-blowing to be watched by 26. no no no no no no no no no no no no I was not
- I was 26 when I started the generation game oh
yes yes I was getting on already you looked I looked at a photograph of
it the other day and I thought you looked so young I know I did look young and I was young and actually in my own self I was young
um very young and yeah you know whether it’s naive or
emotionally immature was a lot to take on at that point oh no emotionally I think I was very immature I could sing
Barbara Allen some of these ballads at the age of 12 and understood the great sadness and the terror and all the other
emotions I understood all that very well what I didn’t perhaps get quite such a grip on was real life as it was now I
was in medieval times mainly but the emotions of course are still the same for people whether medieval or present
time but go back to the generation game well I think nobody
is used to fame not even those who are trained for it and whether it’s the
royal family or whatever it is nobody knows what that’s going to be like or how you’re going to react to
you’re actually in it and I know many people desire it because it seems like
you know a great thing as opposed to have other people knowing who you are and all that kind of thing but
uh it’s not what you think when you get there are you tempted by the Showbiz
lifestyle than London no well I mean before I knew it perhaps I was a bit and
you know I remember actually going to see um what’s what Warren Beatty’s sister
called you know the oh goodness me my brain you know um what’s her name the actor the actress for goodness come on
you can do it singer and actress and all the rest of it anyway I went to this great show and
she was singing and dancing Sue Brett style and absolutely fantastic and I
went on my organs went to things on my own actually and anyway I remember watching that and thinking God that’s
fantastic got it exactly I knew I knew who she was
full of my brain just took a little bit of time to kick in there yeah but I was filling the Gap while you were thinking
and uh anyway I thought God you know I’m going to be like that one day I’m gonna
everybody’s gonna know who I am and all this sort of thing but little did I imagine in a million years that it would
actually be through a game show and the generation came out just in a million
years that one I did not expect look at the stuff you did early on in your career and I was thinking I want to ask
Isla this been you know I don’t want to offend her you know that might be wrong but is there an element that the work
that brought Alice and Claire to the attention of most people is maybe not what fed your soul the most completely
right absolutely right it’s always been the singing and the songs and interacting with people in probably
smaller venues actually and that sort of thing I’ve always enjoyed the the traditional songs that I’ve sung
have given me the most sustenance and grounding and Sanity actually of
anything I mean no no no show businesses is very superficial and wasn’t for me
the kind of um that kind of world although I did dabble in it a little bit but it really wasn’t for me in fact what
I used to do when I was doing the generation game was to have a little Kelly every at least if not every
weekend every other weekend and then I’d invite um my Chums or whoever it was I’d met that week that I thought was a nice
kind of person I’d invite them along get them all there get in a pile of Buffy type food and we’d all have a good sing
and I could sort of reenact my my days as the folk singer and all the rest of
it because that had kind of been put in the back burner for those few years so that was good fun I used to enjoy that I
didn’t really enjoy going to um other people’s Gatherings because they’re they didn’t have the same sort
of singing and things which I enjoyed you know the musical aspect well who was making the decisions for you back then
because you obviously I mean you must have had a manager or an agent but you you you sound you’ve always sounded like
you had your head screwed on you said no this is this is what feeds my soul I’m going in this direction well there must
have been somebody or or powers that be pushing you in another direction that maybe you didn’t want to go in well
actually I never had um a really a proper manager I suppose certainly not
in the days when I was um most well known but I did have a very good Agent excellent agent he was quite convinced
that it was the personality and the the generation game sort of thing that was the big seller and the singing was very
secondary and certainly in those days we’re talking back in 1970 late 70s early 80s
folk music well I mean if you’ve seen the Cohen Brothers film when the guy
sings the shoals are Herring on one of these fabulous traditional another song Queen
he just looks at him and says I just can’t see the money in it and basically that was it I mean you
could barely scrape a living together by doing the focusing so I suppose Peter Pritchard who was my agent then quite
rightly thought for goodness sake you know it’s uh there’s nothing in that but for me there
was everything in in in in my in the singing and the songs the songs are just so great because they are coming from
people’s emotions because they’re they weren’t written to make money on the Hit Parade or any such thing they were
written from people’s experiences and from their their Joys their hopes their desires their sadnesses their tragedies
and and and also the ballads themselves are just goodness me they’re like films in in themselves the episodic and
exciting and you know just all of life is is in them and when you started out
and you you came down south and you were in London did you have to tone down your scottishness no no I’ve always just been
what I’ve been I’ve been a right mixture you see because although I started my life in uh well actually in grangemouth
but only for a few months I was born there but my mother hastened back to Phoenix in the northeast of Scotland
when I was just a few months old and we stayed there until 1956 when I was now
four and we moved to England and I had four years down in a little hamlet in England which oh gosh I loved it I mean
it was really super I went to first school there and used to run freely through all the fields near in Bradfield
green near crew and thoroughly enjoyed my young life and I don’t think my
mother was having a great time by the way but that’s another story but anyway we moved back to Aberdeen in 1960 when I
was just about eight and and from and we stayed in Aberdeen for the next day oh
five seven years to move back up to Bucky from the last couple of years in school so I’ve forgotten what the
original question was now but scottishness scottishness ah scottishness well
I must have my mother spoke in Broad Doric well she she would go between broad Doric and then proper English if
you like she could do the two languages if you like and she obviously spoke to
me a lot in the dark when I was we when I was little and uh and would have continued to do so in England but of
course as you do you pick up the local accent and by the time I got back to Aberdeen in 1960 I was uh I spoke with a
broad Cheshire accent well of course it was amusing to all the other pupils and horrifying to me who was very
embarrassed about it also I kept my trap shot of fear him into the time and then gradually obviously I had a balance
between whatever it was learned up till then and I got in the Doric though I can
understand it perfectly all the direct from her and I can speak nabad and I can certainly sing in it
um but um the English thing was modified by Living
in Aberdeen and the Northeast for the rest and and Scotland until I moved back to England when I was 27 28 you know so
the accent you’re hearing now has not changed very much I think you’ll hear my voice is higher in younger recordings
you hear me um speaking in a slightly higher voice and so on but that’s because I’m because
I’m wearing on your mother Zetta used a beautiful phrase to describe you she described you
as my linty bird long before she talked or walked she sang and I love that it’s just so simple but what what is a Lindy
bird it’s just a birdie it sings the singing bird memories of song in the home that you
were born in and as you moved around oh my earliest memories are well I’m never
half a sure if it’s what I’ve been told or what I actually remember but being in
in Infinity when we were living there um whenever I was lost my mother knew exactly where to find me and I’d be with
the Salvation Army Band either at the rehearsal hall or trips and up and down the streets with them because at that
time there was there was no pubs in fenectady but about 13 different denominations of churches you know
including the Salvation Army my favorite and I used to sing with them and the money who ran the Salvation Army
there he he was called Johnny copy and uh he would say that a week early here
and she just loves to sing and I drove that way down and sing my heart I just love to sing that was it it basically
loved to sing and so did Zetta of course my mother loved to sing and she was now
running the brown owls the the brownies and my sister and I would go along even though I was rather young to be going I
got to go as an honorary pixie and uh that I performed my first concert at the
the wee Harley Infinity singing nursery rhymes and uh my mom
said she I wondered what would happen when they opened the curtain would I stay and sing her with a runoff well I
stayed and I sang and I literally threw myself off the stage Gucci Gucci Gander and doing various actions to go along
with the nursery rhymes but uh thoroughly enjoyed it and that was the perhaps the beginning of a performance
era shall we say and my mother always always encouraged it and loved to perform herself you see so that was um
that was a wonderful thing and I would say anything anything I heard anything that was on the radio and I would you
know sing my heart and she loved it she never I was never told to be quiet I was always it was always fine that I was
singing oh well let’s hear something now let’s see this is my love is like a red red rose how how long have you been
singing this when did you first record it about 2002 I think I made an arrangement for
it I was asked to sing at a Burns thing and I was away with my partner and I think I was still in the throes of a
great deal of Love or something and anyway I was just I came up with this
Arrangement which is slightly different in timing and so on to the usual ones I’d heard you know which are very very
good by Kenneth McKellar Etc but anyway I did it away I thought I could sing it and express it best
and um and that is what I did and so it’s it’s perhaps not the song that’s
been with me in my heart for the longest but it’s certainly one that holds a big bit of my heart I do I do think it’s an
extremely beautiful piece my love is like a red red rose oh
oh my love is like
the red red rose that’s newly sprung into
melodies [Music]
thank you as fear the lord
[Music] is
[Music] still [Music]
idea [Music]
do all seasons [Music]
while the sons of Light Charlotte
[Music] unfairly
my only life and fear the wings
[Music]
oh it was ten thousand miles
us fear the lord tonight
[Music]
the sea is [Music]
foreign [Music]
Scott’s care for Scots in London in need of support Financial practical or
emotional help [Music] how strong is the traditional music
scene in Scotland these days Ireland do you see younger folk coming through and carrying that torch very much so um
people a terrific Talent musically and the bagpipes of course have been
encouraged greatly as long as well as fiddle playing Etc oh I think there’s a I think there’s a big search huge surge
compared to when I was young and the standard is terrific lots of young good
you good young singers lots of musicians uh I don’t think there’s any fear that
it will vanish but I still think it’s only a small proportion of the country
who are are aware of how wonderful it can all be
can I ask you a silly question no this seems like a silly question but I’m totally naive about things but do you have to sing every day is it like going
to the gym do you have to keep vocally in shape well you have to but I love singing so it’s fine for me but I’ve got
we roomie here that I can go up to and I can sing for half an hour to go to an hour whatever just to keep yes you do
have to keep going and I’m not a train singer at all but just to keep that
because it is just a muscle you know your vocal cords need to be exercised and anybody enjoy it it’s it’s like um
it’s uh where people go and work out in the gym when I sing I’m sure that I get
the same kind of release of tensions or stress or whatever it is you’re needing
to to do I mean I don’t go to the gym I do walk I do gardening and I look after
my bees I like having my bees and I love to sing I still love to sing and I think
that would be the hardest thing if I couldn’t well I want to talk more about your mum in her own right a very
skillful singer and a writer yes absolutely she was writing long before I was a twinkle in anybody’s eye and had
written many many poems and I mean about 70 that I’ve managed to research collate
and put together and they’re found on my website along with 20 songs that she wrote very beautiful songs what she had
was a natural ability with words along with a very lyrical melodic
and melodic ability to give her these lovely tunes that she thought of because she
couldn’t read music or anything so it was all picked out by notes you know on the on the piano and all piano we had
and also I suppose she was very idealistic and romantic actually and
that comes through too and she just had had a great way of of catching things and putting them
together and anyone who cares to read any of her work or hear any of it it’s
all all available there through through my own website and and honestly I’m very proud of it and I was able to finally
get it all put together from all our wee bities of paper and scraps of writing finally be able to get it all together
during um lockdown though I was near driven demented with Punk trying to punctuate
poetry is not an easy thing I had to try and think what she would be thinking you know exactly what she was meaning and
try to do it and then it is very very difficult very difficult but you know
what I think it comes across beautifully I read every poem in the book and oh you did I think what runs through nearly all
of them is a real appreciation for the beauty of Nature and what I absolutely what I took away from much of a writing
was to enjoy the simple things live in the moment be grateful for what you have
and after I read them and I like the one the ones about children and I like the one you know that mentioned the Sea and
the beach and I wondered if did this philosophy extend to the way she raised you you know in a kind of not a simple
way but just to smell the coffee a bit every day very much so she was very I
wouldn’t say the moralistic isn’t the word exactly but she she she had very well what I would consider very
high values in life and what was important and how to be and to be honest and you know to to to
particularly to take all you could from nature and she’s absolutely spot on you
know and at the same time where you read it in these these wonderful words but she was obviously a very I’m not a tough
woman but a strong woman bringing up three kids in tough times very tough times indeed and after a first fairly
unhappy marriage and going on her own with me and her other two children to
live in findoki alone um that I think was an extremely difficult time for her and then that was
why she decided having met some people in England to go down there but yes you’re right because also physically she
she had a lot of ailments I mean she was she had double pneumonia at the age of three and they had a coffin all built
for her and she survived at 12 she contracted double pneumonia again she
then in her teens I think got diphtheria rheumatic fever teens in early twenties by which time she was married and had a
child she lost a child um all kinds of tremendously difficult illnesses and
losses during the the wartime she lost I think it was five members of the family
in the space of 18 months I mean both are brothers our mother or father and her child I mean she was only 23 and
gosh how does that affect the rest of your life in her case it made her made
her serve well she survived I love the fact that you’ve done this you know I think and it’s something I’ve been
thinking about a lot recently you know but chronically experience your family’s experience because my dad passed away at
the start of lockdown I was at April 2020 and my mum had passed away a few years before and I’ve got three children
and my oldest boy now who’s 13. he asks me questions and I kind of before I
would have said oh go and ask your papa and now there’s a lot of answers that I can’t possibly give him so I think it’s
a wonderful thing to actually get these get these facts written down for future Generations yeah I think it’s all the
way that you you it’s the way that you view when your parents die you realize you are no
longer the child and you it changes your whole perception of living and of life
and it’s quite frightening actually I think because you’re it’s now all down to you
and you are responsible particularly when you have your children you must give them good advice and
tried to give them honest advice that will help them and at the same time you don’t want to be
lecturing folk all the time and I think it is by example because every all of us every single one of us humans who live
on this planet suffer in one way shape or form and nobody nobody gets out free
nobody nobody does there are different problems for in different ways and I think it is then how how you have the
support and where you look for your support whether that is through your
communing with nature singing um friendship all sorts of different
ways of of having support but most important that you know you you how to
look for it and where to look for it are you close to your two Lads oh very oh Incredibly Close yes very very close to
them did they follow you into did they sing or are they in Show Business they they my Elder son is is it will
sing at the drop of a hat and in any possible venue but he he’s he hasn’t taken it up as a profession
no he hasn’t taken it as a profession but by goodness he’s got a good voice and and he’s a he’s a great guy he’s a
wonderful guy I love both of them so dearly and Callum my younger one is
extremely kind and always always helpful and uh patient and so I’m so wonderfully
proud of them both you know um they have the most important things in life
they have a good moral compass and they have um and again that sounds slightly
sort of what you call it preachy but I don’t mean it to be so but they do and
they know what’s important and what’s important is is the basic things everybody tells you about all the time
and kindness and patience and and you know forgiving and remembering that um
forgive yourself as well by the way that’s also be kind to yourself because you know the world is a hard place oh
what a tough tough Place believe me and I’m not having plenty of times is that I had plenty of times of down I asked her
towards the end of her life actually how how she got through so many difficult
times and she actually said well I just hoped that the bad times would go through quickly and I’d get on to the
good times that’s a lovely thought it’s lovely I did and I’d like to play something and
and say thank you for speaking to me today it’s been really interesting but I’d like to play some by by your mum now
he said I want to play the Bonnie boats of Bucky to to play out the podcast today can you just tell me briefly is
that one of her poems but you have said this to music no all the tunes are hers all the tune this is one of her 20 songs
if you like that she wrote and all of these songs and tunes all the words and
all the tunes are hers and um I just sing them I just sing them this one
actually was written probably in the 60s when we were in Aberdeen and she was a
member of the Aberdeen fucson club and it won the competition there and so on and so forth that and I’ve always
continued to think I think it’s awfully Bonnie her her own father my grandfather was a fisherman had his own books for
some of the time he was a fisherman and the boats are Bucky played a large part in zetta’s young life and indeed even in
my young life because I remember when the harbor Bucky was stowed for the booties and only they were even though
they were even though by that time they were mayor kind of trawlers and that kind of thing you know the old Five
Seasons and so on I think it’s an awfully Bunny song and I think her should her parents my grandparents have
been able to hear it that have been extremely proud well this is the Bonnie boats of Bucky and I understand Claire
thank you for taking part in the Scotts care podcast today oh it’s been a great pleasure
foreign
sailing out across the bay now there’s a sight on a summer’s night
before the sun sets for the day
before the sun sets for the day
see the bunny boots or bucket spreading out across the bay
they are broadening till the dawning sailing home at break of day
sailing home at the break of day
see the fishermen or Bucky happy crewmates you may say
but hear them balling at the hall and
tail and plums we calls it Faith
Talent prawns we calls it pain
see the fish what a price they have to pay
to earn their bread They Mourn their dead but go to see another day
but go to see another day
see the bunny boots or Bucky hold it up
across the bay now there’s a sight on a Winter’s Night
when Northern Lights we power the bay
when Northern Lights we power the pain
Scots care
.