Interview with Sinclair Barbour Jimmie Hill interviews Sinclair Barbour, hill sheep farmer and well known as the teacher and inspiration of Thornhill Scottish Country Dancers, one of the most successful groups of young dancers. Thornhill is a small village not far from Dumfries.
Sinclair Barbour (on the left) with the Thornhill Dancers. Finding you wasn’t easy Sinclair! Have you always lived here? I’ve lived up this glen all my life apart from four years at university. My family has always farmed here. When I left school I wasn’t too keen on living somewhere as remote as this! And presumably you went to the local school? Yes, I went to primary school in the village of Penpont, where I did country dancing, and then on to Wallace Hall Academy in Thornhill, the secondary school for the area. I did some country dancing there with Bill Clement, one of the teachers. I did more dancing at Edinburgh University in the New Scotland group, taught by Bob Grant. So the group here was started by Bill? Yes, and he used to take the group abroad. I got involved when he asked me to go to France and also to the Far East. When Bill wanted to give up teaching the group in 1988, he asked me to take over. Bill was a teacher at Wallace Hall and when you went into his class, his first question was, “Can you dance?” If you said yes, you were in his team! Bill was very good at encouraging
16
www.rscds.org
boys to dance. He did a wee bit of Highland as well as country dancing. He thought if you got boys dancing, the girls would come anyway. If you’ve only got girls, it’s very difficult for a boy to go along! Bill advised me to start the boys off on their own with the Argyll Broadswords. They don’t feel bad about their footwork if the girls aren’t there – then start the girls a few weeks later.
Your group is famous for its trips abroad. Yes, and that has really taken off in the past 10 years. When we first went to the Far East, we had one piper and four couples dancing The Reel of the 51st, Monymusk and other straightforward repertoire dances. The more we’ve been going to foreign festivals, the more demands have changed. They want to be entertained much more. Some want a modern choreographed performance that last 30 minutes without a break. They even want some singing. So what is your repertoire? We dance a lot of the MacNab dances and Hugh Foss’s dances. Hugh Foss lived not too far away from here in Glendarroch House, which was built by one of my great great grandfathers! I find if I use complicated
dances, I keep their attention. If the dances are too easy, the young ones get fed up. We do a couple of male dances, American Tribute and Perth Assembly. I learned them from Pam Dignan at St Andrews. I try to mix some of the Highland dances into a medley. One we do with three sets is Muirland Willie, Wind on Loch Fyne and Royal Salute, opening up into a V-shape.
And what do you use for music on the trips? We now go abroad with a three-piece band. At the moment we’re using the young accordionist, Robert Menzies, who’s at RSAMD in Glasgow. The band are all young and they fit in really well with the young dancers. What age are your youngest dancers? I don’t take them till they are about 11 or 12 – when they start secondary school. I have a class for 1st year to 3rd year. After that they go into the adult class – when they’re about 15 or 16. How do you sell it to the 1st years? I really don’t have to. Because it’s such a small area, they’ve all got a relative or know someone who’s been in the group, or they
