Another piece for the Clutha Project, this time reflecting on childhood memories of days out on the Clyde. For those that could not afford a full holiday or eating out in a restaurant, the answer was to pack a picnic, get cheap train tickets down to Gourock, Largs or Wemyss bay and then a ferry out on the Clyde either just to cruise for the day or maybe to visit somewhere to eat your picnic, play crazy golf, or go to the beach for a few hours. A day trip to Dunoon was often the choice in our house but its geographic location appeared to give it one of the highest rainfall instances in the UK. More often than not we would have to take refuge in a bus shelter there to eat our picnic and wait for the sun to come out again, but it never seemed to matter to us as kids. Billy Connolly famously sang in the 1970's of the decline of the Guest House industry in Dunoon as people realised they could broaden their horizons with the help of cheap foreign holidays provided by Freddie Laker.  This was just another facet of the social changes affecting the Clyde area from the 1960's onwards - gradual but inevitable. There are still places to stay in Dunoon, but it's not the high-density tourist destination that it once was. And there's still plenty of rain.......

I had intended this to be a song but in the end felt it was better as spoken word with musical accompaniment. All the instruments in this track are virtual.... in case anyone's wondering how my guitar and mandolin playing  has suddenly improved.... :)

RAIN IN DUNOON.

When we didn’t have much
The smallest things would do
Like the way we took our comfort
In those small words “I love you”
Or the carefully made sandwich
Of dates or cut-price jam
Or sometimes, if we were lucky,
Some cheese and smoky ham.

With flask of milky coffee,
And a blanket for the ground
We’d set off on our journey
And listen to the sound
Of steam making dreams
As we’d clatter down the rails
To Wemyss Bay and the ferry
That would take our spades and pails

Across the sparkling water
To the joys of far Dunoon
To ice creams, parks, and castle
And a hopeful afternoon.
Where parents left their drudge behind
And children freely played
That great trip doon the watter
Was where memories were made.

But always in the picnic bags
Our anoraks were ready
For the weather there is fickle
And the rain can fall so steady
And many’s the time the Bus Shelter
Became our restaurant
Where a warm drink and a date sandwich
Was all we’d ever want.

These days we have our easy jets
And far-off holidays
The steamers went to scrap-yards
And no crowds now pass this way
The gift shops and the cafes
With signs saying “Come back soon”
Are these days not so busy
When the rain falls in Dunoon.

© enlimila 20/10/2021

Rain In Dunoon

(Clutha Project) Rain In Dunoon

This is a short musical sketch to describe the bluebell woods of my childhood in Renfrewshire. The idea of all the kids in the street going off for hours by themselves to play in woods, out of the sight and supervision of their parents didn't seem to cause any stress in those days and we had great fun climbing trees, building dens, sword-fighting with rotten sticks etc. Early May was the best time for the bluebells, sweet-smelling and a vivid blue that bewitched the eyes. There was no problem with picking a few to give to your mum, especially if you were late home for tea and wanted to ward off a scolding. The lanes that led down to the Clyde were always lined with them too and wherever I see bluebells, I am always transported back to those remembered places.

This track was made with my first use of a new Spitfire library I treated myself to - Fink-Signatures - so everything here is virtual, including the bluebells...

(Clutha Project) Bluebells

This track was created to be part of my "Clutha Project", reflecting on memories of my childhood and connections with the River Clyde. My parents went over to the Isle of Cumbrae to visit my grandparents in Millport, many years ago and I was living in London at the time.  After they got home they rang me to say they had been privileged to see a really strong display of Aurora Borealis from Millport, which was a bit unusual as normally you need to be further north to see these. They were really impressed by what they had seen and I sensed they had shared a moment of awe and wonderment together. Sadly I have never seen these lights myself other than on film or video. So I has happy for them but also slightly jealous. This track tries to reflect the ethereal wonder of these beautiful lights and the sense of awe my parents felt from what they had seen that night. There's a video at : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=exy6xVvY5U0, if you are interested.... :)

(Clutha Project) Aurora over Millport

(Clutha Project) Aurora Over Millport

I finally finished another piece for the Clutha Project!

The Firth of Clyde has many types of sea birds and waders gracing its shores. I particularly love the antics of the Oystercatchers. These strikingly handsome birds with their beady red eyes strut and fret through the sands and rock pools as they prod and poke for their next meal. Their pace is slow, slow, quick quick, slow, as they dispute a scrap of ragworm, or chase off the smaller wading birds that get in their way. 

Ever watchful for disturbance or danger, they will instantly take off at the slightest provocation and wheel around in their groups, low over the water, before settling down again just a few yards away. 

I find them a perky and jolly sort of bird. I was watching them during a recent holiday in Berwick on Tweed, when i got the idea for this tune, which tries to capture their strutting and their sudden take-offs. Hopefully you will find it a jolly tune. Lord knows there's a current shortage of jollity in the world....

The guitar is real and played by me. The other instruments are virtual,  courtesy of Spitfire Audio Solstice Orchestra, and 8DIO Bazantar. Field recordings were taken by me at Berwick.

The Oyster Catchers (Clutha Project)

Another piece for my "Clutha Project" reflecting on my memories of the River Clyde and the various aspects of it that have changed over the years.

On the west side of the Isle of Cumbrae is a beautiful spot called Fintry Bay. It faces towards the isle of Bute's Kilchattan Bay  (where my Great Grandmother had a farm), and the isle of Arran where other relatives of mine still live.

As a child, when visiting my grandparents in Millport, it was a great delight to take a hike over the hill to Fintry Bay where there was a wonderful tearoom on the shore side, overlooking the bay. It had been there for many, many years, having been started by a man called John Kennedy who also made and sold there a variety of carbonated drinks from  nearby spring water that he had rights to. There was a drinking fountain nearby which was sourced from that spring water and I remember it had a slight fizz to it. The cafe's decor had seen better days and I particularly remember the paint peeling on the woodwork outside. The food and drink inside was always lovely though and the beach was a great spot for playing. In many people's family photo albums there will be pictures of them or their ancestors at this spot as they did the tour around the island when it was in its tourism heyday. Eventually, the cafe's physical decline led to its demolition in 1987, but a replacement was built across the road from it which still runs today and serves beautiful and diverse foods to all who come.

This piece seeks to evoke the beauty of the spot and the warmth of wistful memories is has generated for many people over the years. All instruments are virtual via Native Instruments and Spitfire Audio.

The photo depicting John Kennedy outside the old tea room  is borrowed (fair use policy applies) from the North Ayrshire Heritage Trails website, and copyright remains with them.
© Copyright 2019 North Ayrshire Heritage Trails

(Clutha Project) Fintry Bay

This track is part of my ongoing "Clutha Project" - music inspired by my childhood memories of the River Clyde and its surrounding countryside as well as the changes wrought over time to the communities set in this region. It is an elegy for the passing of the numerous wooden piers that once serviced the extensive and highly popular Clyde steamer routes and the various ferries that took hundreds of folk (and sometimes their cars) back and forth across the Clyde.

Boats and shipping of all sorts  have been the lifeblood of the River Clyde throughout the centuries.

The era of the Clyde steamer began in August 1812 with the very first successful commercial steamboat service in Europe, 
when Henry Bell's Comet began a passenger service on the River Clyde between Glasgow and Greenock.

By 1900 there were over three hundred Clyde steamers operating, and the industry was still in full swing by the early 1960s. Then, competition from new forms of holiday travel brought the era almost to a close, but the Paddle Steamer "Waverley" still continues to provide excursions as the last of her kind on the Clyde.

Ferry crossing points on the Clyde, such as Erskine Ferry, were made redundant by the construction of modern bridges. 

The jobs that these services once provided also became redundant, and their employees faded into obscurity as did their ships and ferries.

Most of the wooden piers that serviced this once bustling trade now lie derelict and unloved. Their memories linger on in forgotten holiday-snap albums, specialist history books tucked away in local libraries, and in the hearts of the small bands of enthusiasts who work to save what is left.

In dusty corners of Britain's antiques emporiums, lie cheap pottery pieces bearing the names of these places - trinkets brought home years ago as souvenirs of a brief holiday away from the dull routines of town-dwelling and factory-working.

There's a video to go with this soundtrack at https://youtu.be/OkBOZSx91pc if you fancy a peek back in time.

Cover image - Sunset from Craigendoran by Colin MILNE (@argyll66)

This track was composed using only 8DIO Soundpaint instruments, which was part of the challenge I set myself in making this.

End of the Pier

End Of The Pier (Clutha Project)

This is another track for my "Clutha Project" series - music and/or lyrics evoked by my childhood and family links to the River Clyde. 

In this case I was  playing with my new musical acquisitions - "String Murmurations" and "Small String Gestures" by the Crow Hill Company (they are fab!) - and I fell into thinking of the rhythm of the tides and how they connect (and affect) folk all around the world. At some point in every river's journey, it meets the tidal power of the moon and sun and becomes a party to that twice-a-day rising and ebbing that affects all estuary and coastal life.

On the Clyde (as with all rivers of the world) , sandbanks appear and disappear, water channels change their courses, vessels come and go, birds feed and depart, children play in rockpools, all to the rhythm of the slow swelling and departing of these tides every day. This track tries to capture that slow rhythm that most of us take for granted and the beauty that it contains.

Image Clyde sunset courtesy of Colin Milne (@argyyll66)

I have made a video to accompany this, which is at https://youtu.be/WQCp0cQJBU4 if you fancy a look as well as a listen. :)

The Murmuring Tides (Clutha Project)

This instrumental track was composed as part of my "Clutha Project"  series where I use memories of my childhood and family connections in the   area of the River Clyde as the basis for the composition.

As a young boy I lived in a house where the fence at the bottom of our garden was the perimeter fence of a sprawling factory complex in the Clyde Valley that made explosives for the Ministry of Defence. There were cooling towers and tall chimneys scattered across it and these used to churn out huge columns of steam and smoke so big that I thought it was these that were creating the clouds and the weather. I spent hours of my childhood watching these form and rise into the real clouds.

Later, as a young man, I lived in a village that faced south across the Clyde estuary and out to sea. Most of our weather came in from that direction. You could see it advancing up the Firth of Clyde and, with experience, you could work out if you had enough time to get to the shops without getting a good soaking from the next rain storm.  The weather was immensely changeable there. No sooner had one weather front passed by then the next one would be rolling in from the sea. The pocket-sized folding plastic mackintosh was in frequent use in those days.

I have created a video to go with this, which can be found at:
https://youtu.be/zPNzutpKtEI

The cover photo is by courtesy of Colin Milne (@argyll66)

Weather Front

This composition is part of a series that I am calling "The Clutha Project". They each relate in some way the the River Clyde and my memories of it, or to the ways in which it has affected the lives of myself and others. Some of the pieces to be included were in fact written several years ago, before the idea of the project came to me. The idea is to have each piece relate the  different sections of the river from source to sea. Since this is something coagulating from various ideas over the years, I haven't tackled the project in any logical order. This particular piece is new and represents the moorland where the Clyde rises as a spring and begins to trickle down towards the industrial Lowlands of Scotland.

The wildlife recording of Curlews used in this is XC291789 from the Xeno-Canto website, recorded by David M in 2015. It is used here under terms of CC Licence.

The Moorland Spring

(Clutha Project) The Moorland Spring

Another song written for my "Clutha Project" - songs reflecting my memories of, and association with, places on the River Clyde. This one relates to a tiny peninsula known as Ardmore Point. It's a place well used by dog walkers, as the footpath down to the shore would attest from the volume of dog poo to be found on route (hence the title) and I used to go there with my parents to walk their dogs. Plenty of others also go there without dogs though, perhaps for the fresh air, the wealth of wild nature there, or just the beautiful solitude to rest their minds. I would often see lone persons down there, sitting as still as the rocks on the beach, staring out to sea with a beer tin or a bottle of something stronger by their side. You get some great sunsets from the beach there and, for some of the people going there, maybe those sunsets would be the only good thing they had to look forward to.

I asked Mark J Bennett to do a collab with me on this and he not only patiently provided all the excellent vocals but provided the artwork too, so deep thanks to him for all of that.

DOG POO ALLEY

Dog poo and plastic bags
Broken bottles and burnt out fags
Under the green forgiving trees
Plastic ropes and old beer cans
Forgotten barbeques in the sand
Last week’s newspapers blowing in the breeze

The tide comes in and the tide goes out
The waste of man is all about
Among the rocks down by the seaweed shore
The people come, the people go
But trees remain and flowers still grow
Across the marshy woodland floor

ch#
It’s a place for solo dog-walkers
It’s a place to come and think
It’s a place for seals and seagulls
It’s a place for some to drink
Alone

Moss and lichen, weathered stones
Suntan bottles like old bleached bones
Of things that died a long, long time ago
A welly boot, an old oil can
Embedded in the glistening sand
Who knows what else might lie below?

Mussel shells and sea-worn glass
Bits of wood from ships long past
Oyster Catchers rambling on the shore
Curlews call and seagulls cry
Harebells nod as the breeze blows by
So beautiful but still ignored.

Ch#

The Sugar Ship lies in the sea
Half submerged, it’s just like me
We’re both going nowhere anymore
Sitting on this driftwood log
I watch an old man and his dog
Standing silent on the windswept shore

They’re waiting for that sunset
That golden glowing flowing sunset
The one that makes the whole long day worthwhile
Walking here between the trees
I’m free come or go as I please
If I come with a frown I’ll leave here with a smile.

Ch# FIN

©enlimila 23/10/2020

(Clutha Project) Dog Poo Alley

This is my spill-over page for newer stuff. The older material is at https://soundcloud.com/enlimila.

Thanks for looking. :-)

This is my latest spill-over page for newer stuff. The older material is at @enlimila and @enlimila-plus

Thanks for looking. :-)

 SoundCloud
 hearthis.at/4YJwNLhy/
 metapop.com/enlimila

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