Jean Martin of Fraserburgh All members of the RSCDS will recognise the strathspey, Jean Martin of Aberdeen. Jean was RSCDS Chairman from 2002 until 2004 and has been Society President since 2016. Although she has lived in Aberdeen for most of her life, Jean was born and brought up in Fraserburgh, 40 miles north. She studied English at Aberdeen University and after teacher training, taught at Inverurie Academy. In this interview with Jimmie Hill, she talks about her life, dancing, and the RSCDS.
Did you dance at school? Yes, I did the usual ballet and tap, neither of which was quite me! But then I went to Bobby Watson’s Highland class in Fraserburgh. He came from Aberdeen once a week and that was really my introduction to Scottish dancing. In school our teachers taught Scottish country dancing in the winter from time to time and I continued while at university. I danced with the Queens Cross Dancers, the Aberdeen Branch and a group of dancers from the Branch, known as the Rubislaw Dancers.
You must have taken part in the Aberdeen Festival when you were at school? Yes, I remember dancing in my Girl Guide uniform with my lanyard and whistle bouncing about. We never took it too seriously. It was fun, just as it is to this day. I think the success of the Scottish Festivals depends on the number of teachers out in the schools who themselves dance. It’s certainly true in Aberdeen. That’s why we have hundreds of children taking part every year. I have trained quite a few schoolteachers to teach country dancing and it is very rewarding to see them bring teams to compete. I think living up here in the North East, where it can be pretty cold and dark from October to March, you need an indoor pursuit! Getting schoolteachers dancing is the key to getting their classes dancing.
were all together in one big class in the Younger Hall, taught by Miss Milligan. She had quite a good sense of humour, but you did what you were told. She wasn’t really a frosty sort of person. I remember the year she taught Book 23, which means it was 1967. I was dancing with my friend, Alastair Reid. The dance was The Auld Alliance. The first 16 bars use alternately right and left hand. She stopped the class and announced, “There’s someone holding on with the wrong hand, so we’ll repeat the last 8 bars.” After those 8 bars, she stopped the music again, “Mr Reid, your OTHER left hand!” I think that is where the phrase comes from! And of course, this was my partner and me. We were totally embarrassed, but everybody was laughing.
Did you do your teaching certificates at St Andrews? I did both in Aberdeen. Lesley Martin, no relation, was the tutor. Jean Milligan was my examiner for both certificates. I will never forget my Preliminary Certificate. I had not got very far into my lesson when Miss Milligan announced, “Miss Campbell, that will do. Thank you very much.” I was nonplussed, but I got the message that I had to leave the room. She probably recognised that I was a teacher by profession, and she had seen enough to pass me, but it was quite off-putting. It was quite a worrying wait until I got the letter!
What was dancing like in the north east in the swinging 60s? We went to a country dance class during the week, but we jived too. Country dances tended to be on Friday evenings, so we were free to do other types of dancing on Saturday nights. In those days we didn’t have mobile phones or social media, so the only way to meet people was to take part in some organised activity. I think the North East has always been a more traditional part of the country. As you get north of Perth, I think cultural traditions are more valued.
You lived for a while in Swaziland. Yes, we moved out there a month after Iain and I got married. It’s now called the Kingdom of eSwatini. We were there for just over two years while Iain was on secondment from the School of Agriculture here in Aberdeen to the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the UN. We were in Mbabane where there were other foreigners, including quite a lot of Scots, and there was a country dance class which I ended up teaching. I was also persuaded to take an after-school class in SCD in the school where I taught. I remember we had very poor equipment. The few vinyl records we had were very scratchy, so I asked Nan Main if she would produce a tape for me and she sent it out. It is now in the Society Archive, so anyone can now hear her playing.
Can you tell us a bit more about Nan Main?
Miss Milligan’s Pupils
When did you start going to St Andrews? It was the Aberdeen pianist Nan Main who persuaded me to go for the first time. At St Andrews I was one of Miss Milligan’s ‘young team’ in the mid 1960s. Up to that point the Thursday night demonstration team had always been members of the teaching staff or PE teachers. It was Miss Adams who suggested to Miss Milligan that she should have some of the young people, and since then it has mostly been a team made up of participants, and not staff. At that time the very advanced dancers and the teachers
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Her married name was Mrs Ernest Allen. She was a small unassuming lady. She played for a lot of classes in Aberdeen and was one of Jean Milligan’s favourites at Summer School. She used to play for the whole month. Nan had trained in Dalcroze Eurhythmics in London. She composed as well as playing. Her tunes were very popular at the time, especially with other pianists because at that time Summer School musicians were all pianists. Her tunes don’t fit the accordion in the same way. She was particularly good at composing second tunes – tunes that were appropriate to complement the customary tune. Many of her tunes are in the Aberdeen City Archives. She wrote a couple of tunes to complement The Frisky and they are just right. Her brother was a percussionist and the two of them used to play for social dances once a month. Provost Skene’s House is one of her best strathspeys.
