I previously told you about the Adventure Playground. Another
of the places visited by our small group of performers was
the Hospital. It was nearly always children’s wards
that were visited. The only time I went on one of these trips
was to play to the Spastic Children. I find it hard to describe
the situation or the emotions this visit created. Can you
imagine sitting in front of a group of small children with
twisted arms, legs or bodies and trying to sing “Puff
the Magic Dragon”? The kids would want to play the guitar
so you would let them strum the strings with their twisted
little hands and arms while you fingered the chords. I am
afraid that I often had to lie to these children by telling
them that my tears were caused by a bit of dirt getting in
my eye. I only went there once as I found the experience too
heartrending.
About this time, Rita and I got married. We spent our honeymoon
in Whitley Bay and looked up some of my old compatriots from
the skiffle days. On returning to normal we moved into our
own home in Partick, home of the famous Partick Thistle Soccer
team (don’t try to tell me you haven’t heard of
them). We now had time to start learning some songs we could
do together. Our first live performance as a duo took place
at the Glasgow Folk Centre in the New Performers Section.
We were billed as “Rab and Rita”. I can’t
really remember how well we did that night but I am quite
sure we sang our three or four songs with more tremolo in
our voices than usual. One of the first songs that Rita and
I sang together was “The Shoemaker” which we learned
from Archie Fisher. We still enjoy doing this lovely duet.
At that time I only played guitar with a pick. Having heard
some of the top fingerpicking guitarist play at the club I
decided that I would like to be able to play like that. My
teacher was Hamish Imlach. Hamish was a great friend and used
to visit our house. He was a really good guitar player. His
teaching method was to show you a type of Fingerpicking rhythm
and then get you to come back and see him when you had it
off pat. I would return home from work each day and get out
my guitar and practice this one little part endlessly ( and
I really mean endlessly). I would stop at bedtime. When Rita
started climbing up the walls and was heard to mention divorce,
we had only been married about three weeks, I felt that maybe
I was progressing enough to shorten my practice spells.
When I had mastered some of the basic techniques Rita and
I began to visit some of the local clubs more frequently.
We played places like the Dumbuck Hotel, Paisley Folk Club,
Wishaw Club, The Bothy at Springboig and many other Clubs
and venues I can’t remember.
I was asked to run the Friday night sessions at The Glasgow
Folk Centre. These were generally a ‘Come All Ye’
session with occasional guest artists. The deal was: I paid
a rental fee for the use of the club and paid the bouncer.
I also had to pay for any guest artists. After that the rest
was mine!
I agreed to do it. My system evolved to be that I took the
profits from selling soft drinks, tea, coffee and biscuits.
There was a few quid to be made from this as NO alcoholic
beverages were allowed in the club. After paying what was
due, the rest went to paying for some of the better known
acts from at home and abroad.
It seemed a good system but turned out not to be just as
straight forward and easy as I first thought.
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