Who Do You Think You Are?

Peter Anderson, born in Aberdeen, 1938 knew, he was one of the grandsons of Aberdeen City Police's first official Chief Constable, William Anderson.

He got in touch with me in my capacity as police curator for Grampian as he had been told that his aunt had donated grandfather William's artefacts to the museum, a ceremonial sword, medals, his cap, belt and baton.

Ceremonial Chief Constable's Cap
Kings Police Medal & Coronation medal

I was delighted to be able to tell him we had these items on display at Woodhill House. He was so interested in finding out more about his grandfather, who was born in the 1860s, son of a Forfarshire farmer, and the rest of the large Anderson clan, that he enthused to his brother Ian, who said, 'Oh, by the way, I have grandda's OBE medal.' Peter was so impressed by this discovery he told me he would like to have it on display in Aberdeen on long loan. And so started the long process of organising a visit, Peter to Aberdeen, and me organising some publicity for this lovely story about the city's first chief.

William Anderson escorts the HM Inspector of Police to visit the troops c.1930

Peter visited today with his wife, Sandie, and produced a huge volume on the family tree. We looked at old photos of his grandfather, which I scanned in digital format for him, then we went to look at the artefacts - Peter commented that he had never seen the medals, William's KPM (King's Police Medal) and the Coronation Medal, issued on the crowing of King Edward VII after the death of Victoria in 1901, and had only seen tiny reproductions. Sandie was charmed by the KPM which featured the device of a knight with a shield and pike, on the shield it read 'I will defend the people.' Looking at the sword, Peter reckoned the one he had at home perhaps belonged to an uncle - and indeed, he had an Uncle David who died in the Great War in 1917. The 3.5 ft steel blade is highly decorated and shines like it was new, not bad for a century and a bit old! The cap was looking a mite discoloured, but still very pretty with its gold braid and Aberdeen City crest. Our current chief has nothing so fancy!

William Anderson in Dress Uniform

After lunch we went across to Force Headquarters where a bevy of media bods were waiting. Since the current chief, Colin McKerracher was away on holiday, Chief Superintendent Bert Donald, an native of Aberdeen, deputised for him. The head of corporate communications was there too to direct the journalists and photographers. We met with people from the P&J, BBC Radio Scotland, Original 106 FM (and yes, I was telling the truth when I said that it is my favourite station! I think Emma Pettes didn't believe me!), the Evening Express and the syndicate press peeps. They were fascinated by the tale of William Anderson, who was a true gentleman.

Peter was quite emotional when he described his grandfather's determination to make the police force open and friendly to the public. He said 'My grandfather did not want people to be scared of policemen, he wanted anyone visiting police headquarters not to have a frightening experience.' He did a number of other things to revolutionise the force including -

• introducing the 'beat system' of policing to ensure that officers could stay in communication with headquarters
• introducing 'police boxes' the tardis-style boxes that really were containers for a phone, which the public had access to, a space to keep a spare uniform, notebook, first aid kit and a temporary 'lock-up' for unruly suspects in the street
• founded the Police Pipe Band
• introduced a rank structure to CID
• introduced medals for exceptional policing
• employed the first WOMAN police officer

Peter said when he was awarded his OBE by Edward VII, William Anderson regarded it as a personal honour, not one to be flaunted, never ever wore it other than on ceremonial occasions and never used the post-nominals. Another member of the family recalled Chief Anderson refused to accept gifts of any sort, but passed them on poor and less-privileged folk in the city.

And so, the OBE will be on display at Force Headquarters along with the Chief's other items and artefacts belonging to chiefs of other eras.

To hear that William Anderson rose from humble beginnings but even from his youth had ambition and intelligence as his first job was in the Fiscal's office in Forfar at the age of 14, reminded me very much of my own ancestor, x3 great uncle, Charles Stephen, who was the Chief Constable of Perth City Police in 1938. Charlie was born in Fraserburgh, the son of a fisherman and fisherwife at the height of the herring fishing in 1881, yet was a pupil teacher in his final years of schooling at Inverallochy Public School, an insurance agent, and then joined Perth City force. Like William, he too rose rapidly through the ranks.

Charles Stephen - Chief Constable, Perth City Police - my ancestor

From joining in 1890, William reached the rank of Deputy Chief Constable by 1899. He succeeded Thomas Wyness when the latter died in December 1902.

So I know how Peter felt when he spoke of his grandfather, proud, pleased, delighted at the kindness and interest from those who follow in his grandfather's footsteps. I now look at William's photo and see the fine gentleman smiling with modest joy that his grandson has got to know him, even though Peter was only six when his grandfather died. Charlie Stephen's father, James, a fisherman, was lost at sea when the lad was only six also.

Coincidence? I don't think so!

(BBC Website)

(STV Footage)
(this clip from last night's news is available until 6pm on 7th July)

and by the way... the missing baton is my latest mystery to solve!

New Facebook Group

Hi all,

Facebook is the place to be! Or so it would seem. Since the demise of the folklore forum I found out where a'body was - on FB.

So I've joined the Social Network Revolution - firstly have set up an oral history/reminiscence group. I'll do a folklore one later. But for now, the Aberdeen & Region Oral History Association presents the first Facebook Oral History Group - obviously you need to be registered for Facebook to join.

Do please join up, I know alot of you folkie ppl are on FB. Oral reminiscence is the backbone of folklore, so we need to make sure it's recognised as a proper source by traditional historians.

And don't forget the Oral History Society's conference at Strathclyde Uni, Glasgow in 3 wks time 3-4 July, 2009: See link

also - Voices in Visual Art (VIVA) is an on-going oral history project based in London College of Arts.

Shop Signs

Just started a new Flickr site for recording 'material culture' - started with shop signs - here do please let me know if you have any good ones I can link to!

Of course, I saved on just for this post!

Not got a shot of the shop yet, but this is the bag that rowies are transported from the great shop in!!

Dinna tell ma ye dinna ken wot a rowie is!!

Heating on my shiny new toaster's crumpet rack!!

And they are sooo fine that people will pay alot o money for them!!

So, get out your I-spy books and look for some nice signs!

Papa Stour Sword Dance

As performed at the Shetland Museum & Archives, Lerwick, May 2007.



George Peterson, former teacher from Brae High School, Shetland, introduced the dance. He had taught it to some of his pupils a few decades back which they very much enjoyed. The dance he suggested could have been influenced by servants of the earls from Northumbria who would have been familiar with sword dances. The figures are very much like the 'Rapper' dances of NE England, especially the end figure where the swords are put together to make a 'shield' which is much more like a star - Star of David perhaps?

Anyway, though not so energetic as the rapper dances I've seen, this one features another medieval tradition - the Seven Champions of Christendom the seven 'saints', George of England, Andrew of Scotland, David of Wales, James of Spain, Denis of France, Patrick of Ireland and Anthony of Italy. St. George - wearing the red sash - is the dance master and recites all the poetic material between each feature at the beginning. I find it quite a hoot to hear 'St George' speaking in a broad Shetlandic twang! Mind you, if the 'real' George was an Anglo-Saxon, he'd have Viking blood anyway!

Ok, so Sir Walter Scott (he of the nice slippers), famous usually for the 'Tartanisation' of Scottish culture, records the text of the dance in his 1822 novel The Pirate, which he claimed had come from an 'ancient text' dated 1788. At the Shetland 'Out of the Box' conference there was a great ballyhoo about this text and the editing thereof between Paul Smith and Michael Preston (Colorado) and others. It was great fun, but very little other than George Peterson's suggestions as to where it came from.

Guess that's another debate waiting to happen. It seemed a bit too much of 'the text' (literally) is the thing! But fascinating that, like the Mari Lwyd last summer, here's another traditional 'play' which has re-emerged into modern day to be performed. Terry Gunnell also presented a great paper about guising, which also informs the folk play discussion (He was even asking the wifie in the shop at Tangwick Haa about it!).

So if anyone wants to tell us any more - do email me and I'll add it.

I've actually submitted this to Shetlopedia as well, since they don't have an up-to-date film!

Shetland - land of sea... and well, sea!

I utterly LOVED my trip to Shetland on the ferry to take part in the Taking Shetland Out of the Box Island Identities Conference. My first trip in 2007 was by plane, but the boat is the way to go! This is the first in a series of mini-movies I'll be posting about my trip - mainly scenery accompanied by fantastic Shetland music - courtesy of www.shetland-music.com, who I big up as I'm less likely to get into trouble for using music downloaded from their site otherwise!!

As you can see from the film, the weather's much better when leaving! Huh! But I love Shetland's weather, it's insane. Shetlanders I know say 'if you don't like the weather, just wait five minutes', cos it does change that fast. We had rain, wind, sun, sleet, sun. It was magic!

So - Journey to Shetland - featuring the Cullivoe Fiddlers from Yell

Another Folkie Blog

Just launched in the last few days, http://humphreywithhisflail.blogspot.com/ by fellow folklorist, Paul Cowdell. Paul's current researching ghost belief in contemporary England, much to my delight! So far he has a couple of witty limericks and a May Day observation. Paul's a graduate of Sheffield University, and now doing his PhD at Hertfordshire. He is also a committee member of the Folklore Society in England.

I met Paul at the Third Postgraduate Ethnology Students' Conference when we hosted it at Elphinstone. He and the Sheffield contingent really inspired the foundation of this blog, and you'll probably see his photo amongst the others at the beginning of the blog. We're all now communing on Facebook, which is a much better alternative than a forum! Anyway, do visit Humphrey with His Flail (no, I don't know what that means either, you'll have to go look!!!) and support a fellow folklorist!!

And, as this is May Day, here's a link to Dale Jarvis, folkorist and storyteller in St John's, Newfoundland, who is looking for May Bushes!

Dale is also planning a storytelling conference in NF next July. Details to follow.

Star Spangled ...Pint??

One of the coolest tunes is The Star-Spangled Banner, and yes, I know, it's the American national anthem (or one of them), but it's such a stirring tune, in the same vein as La Marseillaise or Flower of Scotland, and it does have beautiful words... I'm a sucker for a good tune whatever its origins (though I make exception to Take That's new pop songs, how dare they write proper catchy tunes?? Argh! Boy-band tripe!) so it was with massive surprise I discovered the origins of this very American tune...

It came from ...

An ENGLISH DRINKING SONG!!!

Although the words were written by American Francis Scott Key in the 19th Century, he borrowed the tune from The Anacreontic Song, a song celebrating Bacchinalian exploits which was such in the gentleman's club of the same name which existed in London during the 1700s.

Anacreon was a Greek poet who sounds a bit like yer standard pub singer who wrote and sang the usual 'wine, women and song' stuff in the tavernas of the 6th Century BC. Here's the chorus:

And besides I'll instruct you,
Like me, to intwine
The Myrtle of Venus
With Bacchus' Vine

It was often used as a sobriety test (in the days before Lion Alcometers! ;-)), if you could sing the whole verse in tune, then you were sober enough to order another round! A mite more difficult than '99 Bottles o' Beer'! The tongue-twisting tune was fiendishly difficult for a teetotaller, so you can imagine what it was like for a bunch o' bleezin Georgians!

Key's song and tune were adopted by the nation in 1931 as the national anthem, even though it had been used by the US Navy since 1889.


AND funnily enough, the previous anthem, 'My Country, Tis Of Thee' had been derived from God Save the Queen!

So, perhaps the best tunes belong to the old country! Still, I love it, it's fabulously patriotic and I defy most people not to want to belt out the last couplet! Keep on flying, star-spangled banner!

And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!