The Scotsman Sessions #390: Stuart Paterson

Transcript

00:00 This is a poem called Aye. Aye in Scots, which is my first language, is spelled A-Y-E. You

00:18 can also mean Aye, which means always. And this poem is called Aye.

00:24 Och an aye, och an aye, it's the time has come for the grand telling.

00:33 Sit down, hawd furret, cock a lug to me, in Dingwall, Dumfries, in Dors, in Dundee,

00:43 in Australia, New Zealand, the US of A. Feel the tide of an old freedom swelling.

00:51 Gae there the graith fae Fosse King tae collective.

00:58 Rip up the plides o' the past thousand years. Shack aff the stew that had blun you for aye

01:03 and wipe aff your jocadile tears. Och an aye, caw a bye to the gurnon, and

01:13 howk out the lead that had gee you the boke. Cawff up the shackles that wech doon the race.

01:20 Tim your hands on the legends that smour this place that have ground meir important than

01:25 folk. Cock a lug to the swirl o' the kilts and the

01:32 drums, to the snash o' the factories and reek o' the lums, in mind that oor betters would

01:40 raither the clan o' yin brain than yin free-thinking woman or man.

01:49 Woke up the fricatives, graloch the soons o' the clank and all shackles still wey in

01:54 us doon. Yinson fae nor, they a skek at the lot we've

02:00 been selt to console us and mak us the Scots. The mist, the midges, cacades and claymores,

02:11 the gordonston, loch lomond, braymar, haggis, neats, the wee free kirk, a wadding kelp wey

02:19 a plastic durk, hollyrood, monsmeg, glams and codder, rangers Celtic, harry lodder,

02:28 cullodon, floddon, preston, pans, the wee white rose, the drunk man, the working man,

02:36 the vow and labour, whisky, loadie and michty, cabers, the monarch of the effing glen, the

02:45 lassies, rashies, lochs and bens, the corries, purich, brigadoon, robroy, graveheart and

02:54 the broons, the tartan army, qualifying, thinking, drinking, no qualifying.

03:04 Ali Bain and Norman Maccaig, Gartcosh, Seafield, Ravenscraig, Fleming, Logie, Baird and Bell,

03:17 Claverhouse, Sunak, Starmer, Mundell, Dr Findlay, Parahandy, Yarrow, Fairfield and Ferranty,

03:29 Sporty Prince, Cheerley, the silvery Tay, Torness, Corpach and Doonray, Ireland Marys

03:39 and Mrs Max, tie ups, trident, bedroom tax, the big gun, Stow Game, Frankie Boyle, the

03:50 barmit formula, North Sea Oil, Maxton, Gallagher, Maclean, a hundred thousand sterving wains,

04:00 the daily record, Scotland's winner, and so the lines grow longer, thinner.

04:10 New road extensions, Skype, buy schemes, McDonalds, pound worlds, blues and greens that haen a

04:18 place, only side o Ireland, islands now, nae langer islands, old Reekie, Festival and Fringe,

04:27 a dartha trawlers on the minch, and families in Port and Toon, with less than nocht to

04:35 go around, sit dowf before the foreign telly, ignoring rumbling, hoff-tint bellies.

04:46 Rip up the postcards, the tea towels and placemats, red out the biscuit tins, flambé the scones,

04:54 burst open, break doon, and demolish the waz, the yets and the tours, and braw, fantoosh,

05:02 haws, o the moulder, ancestral, old pile, wee cry, home.

05:11 We're canny, no canny, we're aye and we're aye, we're Scottish, no British, we're world

05:22 and we're aye.

05:26 The bullet o hope, fired into a box, the bomb o our future, explodes in a cross.

05:36 [BLANK_AUDIO]